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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8903-8.txt b/8903-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f1c844 --- /dev/null +++ b/8903-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9511 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June +1858, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #8903] +Release Date: September, 2005 +First Posted: August 22, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JUNE 1858 *** + + + + +Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +American Tract Society, The +Ann Potter's Lesson +Asirvadam the Brahmin +Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The +Autocrat's Landlady, A Visit to the +Autocrat, The, gives a Breakfast to the Public + +Birds of the Garden and Orchard, The +Birds of the Pasture and Forest, The +Bulls and Bears +Bundle of Irish Pennants, A + +Catacombs of Rome, The +Catacombs of Rome, Note to the +Chesuncook +Colin Clout and the Faėry Queen +Crawford and Sculpture + +Daphnaļdes, +Denslow Palace, The +Dot and Line Alphabet, The + +Eloquence +Evening with the Telegraph-Wires, An + +Farming Life in New England +Faustus, Doctor, The German Popular Legend of + +Gaucho, The +Great Event of the Century, The + +Her Grace, the Drummer's Daughter +Hour before Dawn, The + +Ideal Tendency, The +Illinois in Spring-time + +Jefferson, Thomas + +Kinloch Estate, The + +Language of the Sea, The +Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von +Letter-Writing +Loo Loo + +Mademoiselle's Campaigns +Metempsychosis +Minister's Wooing, The +Miss Wimple's Hoop + +New World, The, and the New Man + +Obituary +Old Well, The +Our Talks with Uncle John + +Perilous Bivouac, A +Physical Courage +Pintal +Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The +President's Prophecy of Peace, The +Prisoner of War, A +Punch + +Railway-Engineering in the United States +Rambles in Aquidneck +Romance of a Glove, The + +Salons de Paris, Les +Sample of Consistency, A +Singing-Birds and their Songs, The +Songs of the Sea +Subjective of it, The +Suggestions + +Three of Us + +Water-Lilies +What are we going to make? +Whirligig of Time, The + +Youth + + +POETRY + +All's Well + +Beatrice +Birth-Mark, The +"Bringing our Sheaves with us" + +Cantatrice, La +Cup, The + +Dead House, The +Discoverer of the North Cape, The + +Evening Melody, An + +Fifty and Fifteen + +House that was just like its Neighbors, The + +Jolly Mariner, The + +Keats, the Poet + +Last Look, The + +Marais du Cygne, Le +My Children +Myrtle Flowers + +Nature and the Philosopher +November +November.--April + +Shipwreck +Skater, The +Spirits in Prison +Swan-Song of Parson Avery, The + +Telegraph, The +To ----- +Trustee's Lament, The + +Waldeinsamkeit +"Washing of the Feet," The, on Holy Thursday, in St. Peter's +What a Wretched Woman said to me +Work and Rest + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + +American Cyclopedia, The New +Annual Obituary Notices, by N. Crosby +Aquarium, The, by P. H. Gosse + +Belle Brittan on a Tour +Bigelow, Jacob, Brief Expositions of Rational Medicine by +Black's Atlas of North America + +Chapman's American Drawing-Book +Church and Congregation, The, by C. A. Bartel +Crosby's Annual Obituary, for 1857 +Curiosities of Literature, by Disraeli +Cyclopedia of Drawing, The, by W. E. Worthen +Cyclopaedia, The New American + +Dana's Household Book of Poetry +Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature +Drawing-Book, The American, by J.G. Chapman +Drawing, The Cyclopedia of + +Ewbank, Thomas, Thoughts on Matter and Force by +Exiles of Florida, The, by J. E. Giddings + +Fitch, John, Westcott's Life of + +Giddings, Joshua R., The Exiles of Florida by +Goadby, Henry, A Text-Book of Animal and Vegetable Physiology by +Gray's Botanical Series + +Household Book of Poetry, by C. A. Dana + +Inductive Sciences, History of the, by Whewell + +Journey due North, A, by G. A. Sala + +Kingsley, Charles, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers by + +Library of Old Authors +Life beneath the Waters + +New Priest in Conception Bay, The + +Pascal, Études sur, par M. Victor Cousin +Pellico, Silvio, Lettres de +Physiology, Animal and Vegetable, by Henry Goadby +Poe's Poetical Works + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his Time, with other Papers, by C. Kingsley +Rational Medicine, Brief Expositions of, by Jacob Bigelow +Robertson, Rev. F. W., Sermons by + +Sea-Shore, Common Objects of the, by J. G. Wood +Stephenson, George, Smiles's Life of +Summer Time in the Country + +Thoughts on Matter and Force, by Thomas Ewbank + +Vocabularies, A Volume of, by T. Wright + +Webster, John, Dramatic Works of +Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences +Wright, Thomas, A Volume of Vocabularies by + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +VOL. II.--JUNE, 1858.--NO. VIII. + + + + +CHESUNCOOK. + + +At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I left Boston in the steamer for +Bangor by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,--warmer, +probably, on the water than on the land,--and the sea was as smooth +as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went +singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock. We passed a +vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the islands, and some +of us thought that she was the "rapt ship" which ran + + "on her side so low + That she drank water, and her keel ploughed air," + +not considering that there was no wind, and that she was under bare +poles. Now we have left the islands behind and are off Nahant. We +behold those features which the discoverers saw, apparently unchanged. +Now we see the Cape Ann lights, and now pass near a small +village-like fleet of mackerel fishers at anchor, probably off +Gloucester. They salute us with a shout from their low decks; but I +understand their "Good evening", to mean, "Don't run against me, Sir." +From the wonders of the deep we go below to get deeper sleep. And +then the absurdity of being waked up in the night by a man who wants +the job of blacking your boots! It is more inevitable than +seasickness, and may have something to do with it. It is like the +ducking you get on crossing the line the first time. I trusted that +these old customs were abolished. They might with the same propriety +insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that +somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, +he wanted to know what they had done to them,--they had spoiled them,-- +he never put that stuff on them; and the boot-black narrowly escaped +paying damages. + +Anxious to get out of the whale's belly, I rose early, and joined +some old salts, who were smoking by a dim light on a sheltered part +of the deck. We were just getting into the river. They knew all +about it, of course. I was proud to find that I had stood the voyage +so well, and was not in the least digested. We brushed up and +watched the first signs of dawn through an open port; but the day +seemed to hang fire. We inquired the time; none of my companions had +a chronometer. At length an African prince rushed by, observing, +"Twelve o'clock, gentlemen!" and blew out the light. It was moon-rise. +So I slunk down into the monster's bowels again. + +The first land we make is Manheigan Island, before dawn, and next St. +George's Islands, seeing two or three lights. Whitehead, with its +bare rocks and funereal bell, is interesting. Next I remember that +the Camden Hills attracted my eyes, and afterward the hills about +Frankfort. We reached Bangor about noon. + +When I arrived, my companion that was to be had gone up river, and +engaged an Indian, Joe Aitteon, a son of the Governor, to go with us +to Chesuncook Lake. Joe had conducted two white men a-moose-hunting +in the same direction the year before. He arrived by cars at Bangor +that evening, with his canoe and a companion, Sabattis Solomon, who +was going to leave Bangor the following Monday with Joe's father, by +way of the Penobscot, and join Joe in moose-hunting at Chesuncook, +when we had done with him. They took supper at my friend's house and +lodged in his barn, saying that they should fare worse than that in +the woods. They only made Watch bark a little, when they came to the +door in the night for water, for he does not like Indians. + +The next morning Joe and his canoe were put on board the stage for +Moosehead Lake, sixty and odd miles distant, an hour before we +started in an open wagon. We carried hard bread, pork, smoked beef, +tea, sugar, etc., seemingly enough for a regiment; the sight of +which brought together reminded me by what ignoble means we had +maintained our ground hitherto. We went by the Avenue Road, which is +quite straight and very good, north-westward toward Moosehead Lake, +through more than a dozen flourishing towns, with almost every one +its academy,--not one of which, however, is on my General Atlas, +published, alas! in 1824; so much are they before the age, or I +behind it! The earth must have been considerably lighter to the +shoulders of General Atlas then. + +It rained all this day and till the middle of the next forenoon, +concealing the landscape almost entirely; but we had hardly got out +of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the +sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive +evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the +sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy. He who rides and keeps the +beaten track studies the fences chiefly. Near Bangor, the fence-posts, +on account of the frost's heaving them in the clayey soil, were not +planted in the ground, but were mortised into a transverse horizontal +beam lying on the surface. Afterwards, the prevailing fences were +log ones, with sometimes a Virginia fence, or else rails slanted +over crossed stakes,--and these zigzagged or played leap-frog all +the way to the lake, keeping just ahead of us. After getting out of +the Penobscot Valley, the country was unexpectedly level, or +consisted of very even and equal swells, for twenty or thirty miles, +never rising above the general level, but affording, it is said, a +very good prospect in clear weather, with frequent views of Katadin,-- +straight roads and long hills. The houses were far apart, commonly +small and of one story, but framed. There was very little land under +cultivation, yet the forest did not often border the road. The stumps +were frequently as high as one's head, showing the depth of the snows. +The white hay-caps, drawn over small stacks of beans or corn in the +fields, on account of the rain, were a novel sight to me. We saw +large flocks of pigeons, and several times came within a rod or two +of partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in one journey +out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty partridges from his +buggy. The mountain-ash was now very handsome, as also the +wayfarer's-tree or hobble-bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed +with red. The Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the +prevailing weed all the way to the lake,--the road-side in many +places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as +with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. There were also +whole fields full of ferns, now rusty and withering, which in older +countries are commonly confined to wet ground. There were very few +flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It chanced +that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for fifty miles, though +they were so abundant then in Massachusetts,--except in one place +one or two of the aster acuminatus,--and no golden-rods till within +twenty miles of Monson, where I saw a three-ribbed one. There were +many late buttercups, however, and the two fire-weeds, erechthites +and epilobium, commonly where there had been a burning, and at last +the pearly everlasting. I noticed occasionally very long troughs +which supplied the road with water, and my companion said that three +dollars annually were granted by the State to one man in each +school-district, who provided and maintained a suitable water-trough +by the road-side, for the use of travellers,--a piece of +intelligence as refreshing to me as the water itself. That +legislature did not sit in vain. It was an Oriental act, which made +me wish that I was still farther down East,--another Maine law, +which I hope we may get in Massachusetts. That State is banishing +bar-rooms from its highways, and conducting the mountain-springs +thither. + +The country was first decidedly mountainous in Garland, Sangerville, +and onwards, twenty-five or thirty miles from Bangor. At Sangerville, +where we stopped at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the +landlord told us that he had found a wilderness where we found him. +At a fork in the road between Abbot and Monson, about twenty miles +from Moosehead Lake, I saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of +moose-horns, spreading four or five feet, with the word "Monson" +painted on one blade, and the name of some other town on the other. +They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with +deers' horns, in front entries; but, after the experience which I +shall relate, I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing +a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached Monson, +fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the lake, after dark. + +At four o'clock the next morning, in the dark, and still in the rain, +we pursued our journey. Close to the academy in this town they have +erected a sort of gallows for the pupils to practise on. I thought +that they might as well hang at once all who need to go through such +exercises in so new a country, where there is nothing to hinder +their living an outdoor life. Better omit Blair, and take the air. +The country about the south end of the lake is quite mountainous, +and the road began to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, +it is calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In many +places the road was in that condition called _repaired_, having just +been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the +shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, +like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to +keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare +sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,--a vast +hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern +hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, +though he did not remember the driver. He said that he had taken +care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two before, at +the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was not in as good condition +as then. Every man to his trade. I am not acquainted with a single +horse in the world, not even the one that kicked me. + +Already we had thought that we saw Moosehead Lake from a hill-top, +where an extensive fog filled the distant lowlands, but we were +mistaken. It was not till we were within a mile or two of its south +end that we got our first view of it,--a suitably wild-looking +sheet of water, sprinkled with small low islands, which were covered +with shaggy spruce and other wild wood,--seen over the infant port +of Greenville, with mountains on each side and far in the north, and +a steamer's smoke-pipe rising above a roof. A pair of moose-horns +ornamented a corner of the public-house where we left our horse, and +a few rods distant lay the small steamer Moosehead, Captain King. +There was no village, and no summer road any farther in this +direction,--but a winter road, that is, one passable only when deep +snow covers its inequalities, from Greenville up the east side of the +lake to Lily Bay, about twelve miles. + +I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden all the way on the +outside of the stage the day before, in the rain, giving way to +ladies, and was well wetted. As it still rained, he asked if we were +going to "put it through." He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four +years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a +broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and +more turned-up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the +description of his race. Beside his under-clothing, he wore a red +flannel shirt, woollen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary +dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the +Penobscot Indian. When, afterward, he had occasion to take off his +shoes and stockings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He +had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared to identify +himself with that class. He was the only one of the party who +possessed an India-rubber jacket. The top strip or edge of his canoe +was worn nearly through by friction on the stage. + +At eight o'clock, the steamer with her bell and whistle, scaring the +moose, summoned us on board. She was a well-appointed little boat, +commanded by a gentlemanly captain, with patent life-seats, and +metallic life-boat, and dinner on board, if you wish. She is chiefly +used by lumberers for the transportation of themselves, their boats, +and supplies, but also by hunters and tourists. There was another +steamer, named Amphitrite, laid up close by; but, apparently, her +name was not more trite than her hull. There were also two or three +large sail-boats in port. These beginnings of commerce on a lake in +the wilderness are very interesting,--these larger white birds that +come to keep company with the gulls. There were but few passengers, +and not one female among them: a St. Francis Indian, with his canoe +and moose-hides, two explorers for lumber, three men who landed at +Sandbar Island, and a gentleman who lives on Deer Island, eleven +miles up the lake, and owns also Sugar Island, between which and the +former the steamer runs; these, I think, were all beside ourselves. +In the saloon was some kind of musical instrument, cherubim or +seraphim, to soothe the angry waves; and there, very properly, was +tacked up the map of the public lands of Maine and Massachusetts, a +copy of which I had in my pocket. + +The heavy rain confining us to the saloon awhile, I discoursed with +the proprietor of Sugar Island on the condition of the world in Old +Testament times. But at length, leaving this subject as fresh as we +found it, he told me that he had lived about this lake twenty or +thirty years, and yet had not been to the head of it for twenty-one +years. He faces the other way. The explorers had a fine new birch on +board, larger than ours, in which they had come up the Piscataquis +from Howland, and they had had several messes of trout already. They +were going to the neighborhood of Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes, or +the head-waters of the St. John, and offered to keep us company as +far as we went. The lake to-day was rougher than I found the ocean, +either going or returning, and Joe remarked that it would swamp his +birch. Off Lily Bay it is a dozen miles wide, but it is much broken +by islands. The scenery is not merely wild, but varied and +interesting; mountains were seen, farther or nearer, on all sides +but the north-west, their summits now lost in the clouds; but Mount +Kineo is the principal feature of the lake, and more exclusively +belongs to it. After leaving Greenville, at the foot, which is the +nucleus of a town some eight or ten years old, you see but three or +four houses for the whole length of the lake, or about forty miles, +three of them the public-houses at which the steamer is advertised +to stop, and the shore is an unbroken wilderness. The prevailing +wood seemed to be spruce, fir, birch, and rock-maple. You could +easily distinguish the hard wood from the soft, or "black growth," +as it is called, at a great distance,--the former being smooth, +round-topped, and light green, with a bowery and cultivated look. + +Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a peninsula with a narrow +neck, about midway the lake on the east side. The celebrated +precipice is on the east or land side of this, and is so high and +perpendicular that you can jump from the top many hundred feet into +the water which makes up behind the point. A man on board told us +that an anchor had been sunk ninety fathoms at its base before +reaching bottom! Probably it will be discovered ere long that some +Indian maiden jumped off it for love once, for true love never could +have found a path more to its mind. We passed quite close to the +rock here, since it is a very bold shore, and I observed marks of a +rise of four or five feet on it. The St. Francis Indian expected to +take in his boy here, but he was not at the landing. The father's +sharp eyes, however, detected a canoe with his boy in it far away +under the mountain, though no one else could see it. "Where is the +canoe?" asked the captain, "I don't see it"; but he held on +nevertheless, and by and by it hove in sight. + +We reached the head of the lake about noon. The weather had in the +mean while cleared up, though the mountains were still capped with +clouds. Seen from this point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied +mountains ranging with it north-easterly, presented a very strong +family likeness, as if all cast in one mould. The steamer here +approached a long pier projecting from the northern wilderness and +built of some of its logs,--and whistled, where not a cabin nor a +mortal was to be seen. The shore was quite low, with flat rocks on it, +overhung with black ash, arbor-vitae, etc., which at first looked as +if they did not care a whistle for us. There was not a single cabman +to cry "Coach!" or inveigle us to the United States Hotel. At length +a Mr. Hinckley, who has a camp at the other end of the "carry," +appeared with a truck drawn by an ox and a horse over a rude +log-railway through the woods. The next thing was to get our canoe +and effects over the carry from this lake, one of the heads of the +Kennebec, into the Penobscot River. This railway from the lake to +the river occupied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide +and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked across while +our baggage was drawn behind. My companion went ahead to be ready +for partridges, while I followed, looking at the plants. + +This was an interesting botanical locality for one coming from the +South to commence with; for many plants which are rather rare, and +one or two which are not found at all, in the eastern part of +Massachusetts, grew abundantly between the rails,--as Labrador tea, +kalmia glauca, Canada blueberry, (which was still in fruit, and a +second time in bloom,) Clintonia and Linnęa Borealis, which last a +lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium, +large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula, +diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, and +many others which were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the +lake and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive look there. +The spruce and fir trees crowded to the track on each side to +welcome us, the arbor-vitę with its changing leaves prompted us to +make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. +Sometimes an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with its +rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than our trees +in the most favorable positions. You did not expect to find such +_spruce_ trees in the wild woods, but they evidently attend to +their toilets each morning even there. Through such a front-yard did +we enter that wilderness. + +There was a very slight rise above the lake,--the country appearing +like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual +descent to the Penobscot, which I was surprised to find here a large +stream, from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to east, +or at right angles with the lake, and not more than two and a half +miles from it. The distance is nearly twice too great on the Map of +the Public Lands, and on Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream +is placed too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be nine +hundred and sixty feet above high water in Portland harbor. It is +higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers consider the Penobscot, +where we struck it, twenty-five feet lower than Moosehead,--though +eight miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water +can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a good deal +between here and Chesuncook. The carry-man called this about one +hundred and forty miles above Bangor by the river, or two hundred +from the ocean, and fifty-five miles below Hilton's on the Canada +road, the first clearing above, which is four and a half miles from +the source of the Penobscot. + +At the north end of the carry, in the midst of a clearing of sixty +acres or more, there was a log camp of the usual construction, with +something more like a house adjoining, for the accommodation of the +carryman's family and passing lumberers. The bed of withered +fir-twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty. There was +also a store-house on the bank of the river, containing pork, flour, +iron, bateaux, and birches, locked up. + +We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out to be tea, +and to pitch canoes, for which purpose a large iron pot lay +permanently on the bank. This we did in company with the explorers. +Both Indians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for this +purpose,--that is, for the pitching, not the dinner. Joe took a +small brand from the fire and blew the heat and flame against the +pitch on his birch, and so melted and spread it. Sometimes he put +his mouth over the suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted +air; and at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on +crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly watched his +motions, and listened attentively to his observations, for we had +employed an Indian mainly that I might have an opportunity to study +his ways. I heard him swear once mildly, during this operation, +about his knife being as dull as a hoe,--an accomplishment which he +owed to his intercourse with the whites; and he remarked, "We ought +to have some tea before we start; we shall be hungry before we kill +that moose." + +At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot. Our birch was +nineteen and a half feet long by two and a half at the widest part, +and fourteen inches deep within, both ends alike, and painted green, +which Joe thought affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, +was a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much larger, +though probably not much longer. This carried us three with our +baggage, weighing in all between five hundred and fifty and six +hundred pounds. We had two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, +one of them of bird's-eye maple. Joe placed birch bark on the bottom +for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints against the cross-bars +to protect our backs, while he himself sat upon a cross-bar in the +stern. The baggage occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. +We also paddled by turns in the bows, now sitting with our legs +extended, now sitting upon our legs, and now rising upon our knees; +but I found none of these positions endurable, and was reminded of +the complaints of the old Jesuit missionaries of the torture they +endured from long confinement in constrained positions in canoes, in +their long voyages from Quebec to the Huron country; but afterwards I +sat on the cross-bars, or stood up, and experienced no inconvenience. + +It was dead water for a couple of miles. The river had been raised +about two feet by the rain, and lumberers were hoping for a flood +sufficient to bring down the logs that were left in the spring. Its +banks were seven or eight feet high, and densely covered with white +and black spruce,--which, I think, must be the commonest trees +thereabouts,--fir, arbor-vitę, canoe, yellow, and black birch, rock, +mountain, and a few red maples, beech, black and mountain ash, the +large-toothed aspen, many civil-looking elms, now imbrowned, along +the stream, and at first a few hemlocks also. We had not gone far +before I was startled by seeing what I thought was an Indian +encampment, covered with a red flag, on the bank, and exclaimed, +"Camp!" to my comrades. I was slow to discover that it was a red +maple changed by the frost. The immediate shores were also densely +covered with the speckled alder, red osier, shrubby willows or +sallows, and the like. There were a few yellow-lily-pads still left, +half drowned, along the sides, and sometimes a white one. Many fresh +tracks of moose were visible where the water was shallow, and on the +shore, and the lily-stems were freshly bitten off by them. + +After paddling about two miles, we parted company with the explorers, +and turned up Lobster Stream, which comes in on the right, from the +south-east. This was six or eight rods wide, and appeared to run +nearly parallel with the Penobscot. Joe said that it was so called +from small fresh-water lobsters found in it. It is the Matahumkeag of +the maps. My companion wished to look for moose signs, and intended, +if it proved worth the while, to camp up that way, since the Indian +advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up +this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. +The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were +now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, +the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and +chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee +_kecunnilessu_ in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling +of what possibly was never spelt before, but I pronounced after him +till he said it would do. We passed close to a woodcock, which stood +perfectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if sick. +This, Joe said, they called _nipsquecohossus_. The kingfisher was +_skuscumonsuck_; bear was _wassus_; Indian Devil, _lunxus_; the +mountain-ash, _upahsis_. This was very abundant and beautiful. +Moose-tracks were not so fresh along this stream, except in a small +creek about a mile up it, where a large log had lodged in the spring, +marked "W-cross-girdle-crow-foot." We saw a pair of moose-horns on +the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said +there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed +their heads more than once in their lives. + +After ascending about a mile and a half, to within a short distance +of Lobster Lake, we returned to the Penobscot. Just below the mouth +of the Lobster we found quick water, and the river expanded to +twenty or thirty rods in width. The moose-tracks were quite numerous +and fresh here. We noticed in a great many places narrow and +well-trodden paths by which they had come down to the river, and +where they had slid on the steep and clayey bank. Their tracks were +either close to the edge of the stream, those of the calves +distinguishable from the others, or in shallow water; the holes +made by their feet in the soft bottom being visible for a long time. +They were particularly numerous where there was a small bay, or +_pokelogan_, as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or +separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, +wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten +the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, +where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, +Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then +asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes +had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my +companion obtained it. I now began to notice the bright red berries +of the tree-cranberry, which grows eight or ten feet high, mingled +with the alders and cornel along the shore. There was less hard wood +than at first. + +After proceeding a mile and three quarters below the mouth of the +Lobster, we reached, about sundown, a small island at the head of +what Joe called the Moosehorn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which +he was going to hunt that night, coming in about three miles below), +and on the upper end of this we decided to camp. On a point at the +lower end lay the carcass of a moose killed a month or more before. +We concluded merely to prepare our camp, and leave our baggage here, +that all might be ready when we returned from moose-hunting. Though +I had not come a-hunting, and felt some compunctions about +accompanying the hunters, I wished to see a moose near at hand, and +was not sorry to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went as +reporter or chaplain to the hunters,--and the chaplain has been +known to carry a gun himself. After clearing a small space amid the +dense spruce and fir trees, we covered the damp ground with a +shingling of fir-twigs, and, while Joe was preparing his birch-horn +and pitching his canoe,--for this had to be done whenever we stopped +long enough to build a fire, and was the principal labor which he +took upon himself at such times,--we collected fuel for the night, +large wet and rotting logs, which had lodged at the head of the +island, for our hatchet was too small for effective chopping; but we +did not kindle a fire, lest the moose should smell it. Joe set up a +couple of forked stakes, and prepared half a dozen poles, ready to +cast one of our blankets over in case it rained in the night, which +precaution, however, was omitted the next night. We also plucked the +ducks which had been killed for breakfast. + +While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, +from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a +woodchopper's axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude. We are +wont to liken many sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the +stroke of an axe because they resemble each other under those +circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear there. When we +told Joe of this, he exclaimed, "By George, I'll bet that was moose! +They make a noise like that." These sounds affected us strangely, +and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably +had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and +wildness. + +At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was a dead-water for +three miles, or as far as the Moosehorn; Joe telling us that we must +be very silent, and he himself making no noise with his paddle, +while he urged the canoe along with effective impulses. It was a +still night, and suitable for this purpose,--for if there is wind, +the moose will smell you,--and Joe was very confident that he should +get some. The harvest moon had just risen, and its level rays began +to light up the forest on our right, while we glided downward in the +shade on the same side, against the little breeze that was stirring. +The lofty spiring tops of the spruce and fir were very black against +the sky, and more distinct than by day, close bordering this broad +avenue on each side; and the beauty of the scene, as the moon rose +above the forest, it would not be easy to describe. A bat flew over +our heads, and we heard a few faint notes of birds from time to time, +perhaps the myrtle-bird for one, or the sudden plunge of a musquash, +or saw one crossing the stream before us, or heard the sound of a +rill emptying in, swollen by the recent rain. About a mile below the +island, when the solitude seemed to be growing more complete every +moment, we suddenly saw the light and heard the crackling of a fire +on the bank, and discovered the camp of the two explorers; they +standing before it in their red shirts, and talking aloud of the +adventures and profits of the day. They were just then speaking of a +bargain, in which, as I understood, somebody had cleared twenty-five +dollars. We glided by without speaking, close under the bank, within +a couple of rods of them; and Joe, taking his horn, imitated the +call of the moose, till we suggested that they might fire on us. +This was the last we saw of them, and we never knew whether they +detected or suspected us. + +I have often wished since that I was with them. They search for +timber over a given section, climbing hills and often high trees to +look off,--explore the streams by which it is to be driven, and the +like,--spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a +hundred miles or more from any town,--roaming about, and sleeping on +the ground where night overtakes them,--depending chiefly on the +provisions they carry with them, though they do not decline what game +they come across,--and then in the fall they return and make report +to their employers, determining the number of teams that will be +required the following winter. Experienced men get three or four +dollars a day for this work. It is a solitary and adventurous life, +and comes nearest to that of the trapper of the West, perhaps. They +work ever with a gun as well as an axe, let their beards grow, and +live without neighbors, not on an open plain, but far within a +wilderness. + +This discovery accounted for the sounds which we had heard, and +destroyed the prospect of seeing moose yet awhile. At length, when +we had left the explorers far behind, Joe laid down his paddle, drew +forth his birch horn,--a straight one, about fifteen inches long and +three or four wide at the mouth, tied round with strips of the same +bark,--and standing up, imitated the call of the moose,--_ugh-ugh-ugh_, +or _oo-oo-oo-oo_, and then a prolonged _oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_, and +listened attentively for several minutes. We asked him what kind of +noise he expected to hear. He said, that, if a moose heard it, he +guessed we should find out; we should hear him coming half a mile off; +he would come close to, perhaps into, the water, and my companion +must wait till he got fair sight, and then aim just behind the +shoulder. + +The moose venture out to the riverside to feed and drink at night. +Earlier in the season the hunters do not use a horn to call them out, +but steal upon them as they are feeding along the sides of the stream, +and often the first notice they have of one is the sound of the +water dropping from its muzzle. An Indian whom I heard imitate the +voice of the moose, and also that of the caribou and the deer, using +a much longer horn than Joe's, told me that the first could be heard +eight or ten miles, sometimes; it was a loud sort of bellowing sound, +clearer and more sonorous than the lowing of cattle,--the caribou's +a sort of snort,--and the small deer's like that of a lamb. + +At length we turned up the Moosehorn, where the Indians at the carry +had told us that they killed a moose the night before. This is a +very meandering stream, only a rod or two in width, but +comparatively deep, coming in on the right, fitly enough named +Moosehorn, whether from its windings or its inhabitants. It was +bordered here and there by narrow meadows between the stream and the +endless forest, affording favorable places for the moose to feed, +and to call them out on. We proceeded half a mile up this, as +through a narrow winding canal, where the tall, dark spruce and firs +and arbor-vitae towered on both sides in the moonlight, forming a +perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the spires of a +Venice in the forest. In two places stood a small stack of hay on +the bank, ready for the lumberer's use in the winter, looking +strange enough there. We thought of the day when this might be a +brook winding through smooth-shaven meadows on some gentleman's +grounds; and seen by moonlight then, excepting the forest that now +hems it in, how little changed it would appear! + +Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the canoe close by +some favorable point of meadow for them to come out on, but listened +in vain to hear one come rushing through the woods, and concluded +that they had been hunted too much thereabouts. We saw many times +what to our imaginations looked like a gigantic moose, with his +horns peering from out the forest-edge; but we saw the forest only, +and not its inhabitants, that night. So at last we turned about. +There was now a little fog on the water, though it was a fine, clear +night above. There were very few sounds to break the stillness of +the forest. Several times we heard the hooting of a great horned-owl, +as at home, and told Joe that he would call out the moose for him, +for he made a sound considerably like the horn,--but Joe answered, +that the moose had heard that sound a thousand times, and knew better; +and oftener still we were startled by the plunge of a musquash. Once, +when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard +come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad +aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as +if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like +forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the +damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had +heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,-- +"Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in +the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as +if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but +worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a +boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. +If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with +the dews of the night on them are heavier than by day. + +Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kindled our fire and +went to bed. Each of us had a blanket, in which he lay on the +fir-twigs, with his extremities toward the fire, but nothing over his +head. It was worth the while to lie down in a country where you +could afford such great fires; that was one whole side, and the +bright side, of our world. We had first rolled up a large log some +eighteen inches through and ten feet long, for a back-log, to last +all night, and then piled on the trees to the height of three or +four feet, no matter how green or damp. In fact, we burned as much +wood that night as would, with economy and an air-tight stove, last +a poor family in one of our cities all winter. It was very agreeable, +as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire +kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries +used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, +they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since the creation, +unless by earthquakes. It is surprising with what impunity and +comfort one who has always lain in a warm bed in a close apartment, +and studiously avoided drafts of air, can lie down on the ground +without a shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, +in a frosty autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and even come +soon to enjoy and value the fresh air. + +I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks through the +firs, and sometimes their descent in half-extinguished cinders on my +blanket. They were as interesting as fireworks, going up in endless +successive crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager serpentine +course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops before they +went out. We do not suspect how much our chimneys have concealed; +and now air-tight stoves have come to conceal all the rest. In the +course of the night, I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on +the fire, making my companions curl up their legs. + +When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, September 17,) there was +considerable frost whitening the leaves. We heard the sound of the +chickadee, and a few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the +water about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of our +domains before the dew was off, and found that the ground-hemlock, +or American yew, was the prevailing undershrub. We breakfasted on tea, +hard bread, and ducks. + +Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled down the stream +again, and were soon past the mouth of the Moosehorn. These twenty +miles of the Penobscot, between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are +comparatively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but from time to +time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or gravel-beds, where you +can wade across. There is no expanse of water, and no break in the +forest, and the meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are no +hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant +mountains seen in a few places. The banks are from six to ten feet +high, but once or twice rise gently to higher ground. In many places +the forest on the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light +through from some alder-swamp or meadow behind. The conspicuous +berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore were the red osier, +with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush, mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, +choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. +Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of +the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked +very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the +shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, +that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native +river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to +the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands, +as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was too late for flowers, +except a few asters, golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed +the slight frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up, amid +the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers or hunters had +passed a night,--and sometimes steps cut in the muddy or clayey bank +in front of it. + +We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small stream called +Ragmuff, which came in from the west, about two miles below the +Moosehorn. Here were the ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small +space, which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was now +densely overgrown with the red cherry and raspberries. While we were +trying for trout, Joe, Indian-like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on +his own errands, and when we were ready to start was far beyond call. +So we were compelled to make a fire and get our dinner here, not to +lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps +purple finches,) and myrtle-birds in their summer dress, hopped +within six or eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled +the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the lisping notes +which I had heard in the forest. They suggested that the few small +birds found in the wilderness are on more familiar terms with the +lumberman and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with the +farmer. I have since found the Canada jay, and partridges, both the +black and the common, equally tame there, as if they had not yet +learned to mistrust man entirely. The chickadee, which is at home +alike in the primitive woods and in our wood-lots, still retains its +confidence in the towns to a remarkable degree. + +Joe at length returned, after an hour and a half, and said that he +had been two miles up the stream exploring, and had seen a moose, but, +not having the gun, he did not get him. We made no complaint, but +concluded to look out for Joe the next time. However, this may have +been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to complain of him +afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear +him whistling "O Susanna," and several other such airs, while his +paddle urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His common word +was "Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on one side only, giving the +birch an impulse by using the side as a fulcrum. I asked him how +the ribs were fastened to the side rails. He answered, "I don't know, +I never noticed." Talking with him about subsisting wholly on what +the woods yielded, game, fish, berries, etc., I suggested that his +ancestors did so; but he answered, that he had been brought up in +such a way that he could not do it. "Yes," said he, "that's the way +they got a living, like wild fellows, wild as bears. By George! I +shan't go into the woods without provision,--hard bread, pork, etc." +He had brought on a barrel of hard bread and stored it at the carry +for his hunting. However, though he was a Governor's son, he had not +learned to read. + +At one place below this, on the east side, where the bank was higher +and drier than usual, rising gently from the shore to a slight +elevation, some one had felled the trees over twenty or thirty acres, +and left them drying in order to burn. This was the only preparation +for a house between the Moosehead carry and Chesuncook, but there +was no hut nor inhabitants there yet. The pioneer thus selects a +site for his house, which will, perhaps, prove the germ of a town. + +My eyes were all the while on the trees, distinguishing between the +black and white spruce and the fir. You paddle along in a narrow +canal through an endless forest, and the vision I have in my mind's +eye, still, is of the small dark and sharp tops of tall fir and +spruce trees, and pagoda-like arbor-vitęs, crowded together on each +side, with various hard woods intermixed. Some of the arbor-vitęs +were at least sixty feet high. The hard woods, occasionally +occurring exclusively, were less wild to my eye. I fancied them +ornamental grounds, with farm-houses in the rear. The canoe and +yellow birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman; but the +spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian. The soft engravings +which adorn the annuals give no idea of a stream in such a wilderness +as this. The rough sketches in Jackson's Reports on the Geology of +Maine answer much better. At one place we saw a small grove of +slender sapling white-pines, the only collection of pines that I saw +on this voyage. Here and there, however, was a full-grown, tall, and +slender, but defective one, what lumbermen call a _kouchus_ tree, +which they ascertain with their axes, or by the knots. I did not +learn whether this word was Indian or English. It reminded me of the +Greek [Greek: kogchae], a conch or shell, and I amused myself with +fancying that it might signify the dead sound which the trees yield +when struck. All the rest of the pines had been driven off. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +LA CANTATRICE. + + By day, at a high oak desk I stand, + And trace in a ledger line by line; + But at five o'clock yon dial's hand + Opens the cage wherein I pine; + And as faintly the stroke from the belfry peals + Down through the thunder of hoofs and wheels, + I wonder if ever a monarch feels + Such royal joy as mine! + + Beatrice is dressed and her carriage waits; + I know she has heard that signal-chime; + And my strong heart leaps and palpitates, + As lightly the winding stair I climb + To her fragrant room, where the winter's gloom + Is changed by the heliotrope's perfume, + And the curtained sunset's crimson bloom, + To love's own summer prime. + + She meets me there, so strangely fair + That my soul aches with a happy pain;-- + A pressure, a touch of her true lips, such + As a seraph might give and take again; + A hurried whisper, "Adieu! adieu! + They wait for me while I stay for you!" + And a parting smile of her blue eyes through + The glimmering carriage-pane. + + Then thoughts of the past come crowding fast + On a blissful track of love and sighs;-- + Oh, well I toiled, and these poor hands soiled, + That her song might bloom in Italian skies!-- + The pains and fears of those lonely years, + The nights of longing and hope and tears,-- + Her heart's sweet debt, and the long arrears + Of love in those faithful eyes! + + O night! be friendly to her and me!-- + To box and pit and gallery swarm + The expectant throngs;--I am there to see;-- + And now she is bending her radiant form + To the clapping crowd;--I am thrilled and proud; + My dim eyes look through a misty cloud, + And my joy mounts up on the plaudits loud, + Like a sea-bird on a storm! + + She has waved her hand; the noisy rush + Of applause sinks down; and silverly + Her voice glides forth on the quivering hush, + Like the white-robed moon on a tremulous sea! + And wherever her shining influence calls, + I swing on the billow that swells and falls,-- + I know no more,--till the very walls + Seem shouting with jubilee! + + Oh, little she cares for the fop who airs + His glove and glass, or the gay array + Of fans and perfumes, of jewels and plumes, + Where wealth and pleasure have met to pay + Their nightly homage to her sweet song; + But over the bravas clear and strong, + Over all the flaunting and fluttering throng, + She smiles my soul away! + + Why am I happy? why am I proud? + Oh, can it be true she is all my own?-- + I make my way through the ignorant crowd; + I know, I know where my love hath flown. + Again we meet; I am here at her feet, + And with kindling kisses and promises sweet, + Her glowing, victorious lips repeat + That they sing for me alone! + + + + +GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNITZ. + +The philosophic import of this illustrious name, having suffered +temporary eclipse from the Critical Philosophy, with its swift +succession of transcendental dynasties,--the _Wissenschaftslehre_, +the _Naturphilosophie_, and the _Encyclopädie_,--has recently +emerged into clear and respectful recognition, if not into broad and +effulgent repute. In divers quarters, of late, the attention of the +learned has reverted to the splendid optimist, whose adventurous +intellect left nothing unexplored and almost nothing unexplained. +Biographers and critics have discussed his theories,--some in the +interest of philosophy, and some in the interest of religion,--some +in the spirit of discipleship, and some in the spirit of opposition,-- +but all with consenting and admiring attestation of the vast +erudition and intellectual prowess and unsurpassed capacity [1] +of the man. + +[Footnote 1: The author of a notice of Leibnitz, more clever than +profound, in four numbers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1852, +distinguishes between capacity and faculty. He gives his subject +credit for the former, but denies his claim to the latter of these +attributes. As if any manifestation of mind were more deserving of +that title than the power of intellectual concentration, to which +nothing that came within its focus was insoluble.] + +A collection of all the works appertaining to Leibnitz, with all his +own writings, would make a respectable library. We have no room for +the titles of all, even of the more recent of these publications. We +content ourselves with naming the Biography, by G. G. Guhrauer, the +best that has yet appeared, called forth by the celebration, in 1846, +of the ducentesimal birthday of Leibnitz,--the latest edition of his +Philosophical Works, by Professor Erdmann of Halle--the publication +of his Correspondence with Arnauld, by Herr Grotefend, and of that +with the Landgrave Ernst von Hessen Rheinfels, by Chr. von Rommel,-- +of his Historical Works, by the librarian Pertz of Berlin,--of the +Mathematical, by Gerhardt,--Ludwig Jeuerbach's elaborate dissertation, +"Darstellung, Entwickelung und Kritik der Leibnitzischen Philosophie,"-- +Zimmermann's "Leibnitz u. Herbart's Monadologie,"--Schelling's +"Leibnitz als Denker,"--Hartenstein's "De Materiae apud Leibnit. +Notione,"--and Adolph Helferich's "Spinoza u. Leibnitz: oder Das +Wesen des Idealismus u. des Realismus." To these we must add, as +one of the most valuable contributions to Leibnitian literature, +M. Foucher de Careil's recent publication of certain MSS. of Leibnitz, +found in the library at Hanover, containing strictures on Spinoza, +(which the editor takes the liberty to call "Refutation Inédite de +Spinoza,")--"Sentiment de Worcester et de Locke sur les Idées,"-- +"Correspondance avec Foucher, Bayle et Fontenelle,"--"Reflexions sur +l'Art de connaītre les Homines,"--"Fragmens Divers," etc. [2], +accompanied by valuable introductory and critical essays. + +[Footnote 2: A second collection, by the same hand, appeared in 1857, +with the title, _Nouvelles Lettres et Opuscules Inédits de Leibnitz_. +Précédés d'une Introduction. Par A. Foucher de Careil. Paris. 1857.] + +M. de Careil complains that France has done so little for the memory +of a man "qui lui a fait l'honneur d'écrire les deux tiers de ses +oeuvres en Franēais." England does not owe him the same obligations, +and England has done far less than France,--in fact, nothing to +illustrate the memory of Leibnitz; not so much as an English +translation of his works, or an English edition of them, in these +two centuries. Nor have M. de Careil's countrymen in times past +shared all his enthusiasm for the genial Saxon. The barren +Psychology of Locke obtained a currency in France, in the last +century, which the friendly Realism of his great contemporary could +never boast. Raspe, the first who edited the "Nouveaux Essais," +takes to himself no small credit for liberality in so doing, and +hopes, by rendering equal justice to Leibnitz and to Locke, to +conciliate those "who, with the former, think that their wisdom is +the sure measure of omnipotence," [3] and those who "believe, with +the latter, that the human mind is to the rays of the primal Truth +what a night-bird is to the sun." [4] + +[Footnote 3: + "Stimai gią che 'I mio saper misura + Certa fosse e infallibile di quanto + Puņ far l'alto Fattor della natura." + Tasso, _Gerus_, xiv. 45.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Augel notturno al sole + E nostra mente a' rai del primo Vero." + _Ib_. 46.] + +Voltaire pronounced him "le savant le plus universel de l'Europe," +but characterized his metaphysical labors with the somewhat +equivocal compliment of "metaphysicien assez délié pour vouloir +réconcilier la théologie avec la métaphysique." [5] + +[Footnote 5: "On sait que Voltaire n'aimait pas Leibnitz. +J'imagine que c'est le chrétien qu'il détestait en lui." + --Ch. Waddington.] + +Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebrities, has produced no +other who fulfils so completely the type of the _Gelehrte_,--a type +which differs from that of the _savant_ and from that of the scholar, +but includes them both. Feuerbach calls him "the personified thirst +for Knowledge"; Frederic the Great pronounced him an "Academy of +Sciences"; and Fontenelle said of him, that "he saw the end of things, +or that they had no end." It was an age of intellectual adventure +into which Leibnitz was born,--fit sequel and heir to the age of +maritime adventure which preceded it. We please ourselves with +fancied analogies between the two epochs and the nature of their +discoveries. In the latter movement, as in the former, Italy took +the lead. The martyr Giordano Bruno was the brave Columbus of modern +thought,--the first who broke loose from the trammels of mediaeval +ecclesiastical tradition, and reported a new world beyond the watery +waste of scholasticism. Campanella may represent the Vespucci of the +new enterprise; Lord Bacon its Sebastian Cabot,--the "Novum Organum" +being the Newfoundland of modern experimental science. Des Cartes +was the Cortés, or shall we rather say the Ponce de Leon, of +scientific discovery, who, failing to find what he sought,--the +Principle of Life, (the Fountain of Eternal Youth,)--yet found +enough to render his name immortal and to make mankind his debtor. +Spinoza is the spiritual Magalhaens, who, emerging from the straits +of Judaism, beheld + + "Another ocean's breast immense, unknown." + +Of modern thinkers he was + + "----the first + That ever burst + Into that silent sea." + +He discovered the Pacific of philosophy,--that theory of the sole +Divine Substance, the All-One, which Goethe in early life found so +pacifying to his troubled spirit, and which, vague and barren as it +proves on nearer acquaintance, induces at first, above all other +systems, a sense of repose in illimitable vastness and immutable +necessity. + +But the Vasco de Gama of his day was Leibnitz. His triumphant +optimism rounded the Cape of theological Good Hope. He gave the +chief impulse to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted, as he +was, with Western thought, he revived the forgotten interest in the +Old and Eastern World, and brought the ends of the earth together. +Circumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he touched, he +appeared as discoverer, as conqueror, as lawgiver. In mathematics, +he discovered or invented the Differential Calculus,--the logic of +transcendental analysis, the infallible method of astronomy, without +which it could never have compassed the large conclusions of the +"Mecanique Celeste." In his "Protogaea," published in 1693, he laid +the foundation of the science of Geology. From his observations, as +Superintendent of the Hartz Mines, and those which he made in his +subsequent travels through Austria and Italy,--from an examination +of the layers, in different localities, of the earth's crust, he +deduced the first theory, in the geological sense, which has ever +been propounded, of the earth's formation. Orthodox Lutheran as he +was, he braved the theological prejudices which then, even more than +now, affronted scientific inquiry in that direction. "First among men," +says Flourens, "he demonstrated the two agencies which successively +have formed and reformed the globe,--fire and water." In the region +of metaphysical inquiry, he propounded a new and original theory of +Substance, and gave to philosophy the Monad, the Law of Continuity, +the Preėstablished Harmony, and the Best Possible World. + +Born at Leipzig, in 1646,--left fatherless at the age of six years,-- +by the care of a pious mother and competent guardians, young +Leibnitz enjoyed such means of education as Germany afforded at that +time, but declares himself, for the most part, self-taught [6]. + +[Footnote 6: "Duo, ihi profuere mirifice, (quae tamen alioqui ambigna, +et pluribus noxia esse solent,) primum quod fere essem [Greek: +autodidaktos], alterum quod quaererem nova in unaquaque scientia." + --LEIBNIT. _Opera Philosoph_. Erdmann. p. 162.] + +So genius must always be, for want of any external stimulus equal to +its own impulse. No normal training could keep pace with his +abnormal growth. No school discipline could supply the fuel +necessary to feed the consuming fire of that ravenous intellect. +Grammars, manuals, compends,--all the apparatus of the classes,-- +were only oil to its flame. The Master of the Nicolai-Schule in +Leipzig, his first instructor, was a steady practitioner of the +Martinet order. The pupils were ranged in classes corresponding to +their civil ages,--their studies graduated according to the +baptismal register. It was not a question of faculty or proficiency, +how a lad should be classed and what he should read, but of calendar +years. As if a shoemaker should fit his last to the age instead of +the foot. Such an age, such a study. Gottfried is a genius, and Hans +is a dunce; but Gottfried and Hans were both born in 1646; +consequently, now, in 1654, they are both equally fit for the +Smaller Catechism. Leibnitz was ready for Latin long before the time +allotted to that study in the Nicolai-Schule, but the system was +inexorable. All access to books cut off by rigorous proscription. +But the thirst for knowledge is not easily stifled, and genius, like +love, "will find out his way." + +He chanced, in a corner of the house, to light on an odd volume of +Livy, left there by some student boarder. What could Livy do for a +child of eight years, with no previous knowledge of Latin, and no +lexicon to interpret between them? For most children, nothing. Not +one in a thousand would have dreamed of seriously grappling with +such a mystery. But the brave Patavinian took pity on our little one +and yielded something to childish importunity. The quaint old copy +was garnished, according to a fashion of the time, with rude +wood-cuts, having explanatory legends underneath. The young +philologer tugged at these until he had mastered one or two words. +Then the book was thrown by in despair as impracticable to further +investigation. Then, after one or two weeks had elapsed, for want of +other employment, it was taken up again, and a little more progress +made. And so by degrees, in the course of a year, a considerable +knowledge of Latin had been achieved. But when, in the Nicolai order, +the time for this study arrived, so far from being pleased to find +his instructions anticipated, or welcoming such promise of future +greatness,--so far from rejoicing in his pupil's proficiency, the +pedagogue chafed at the insult offered to his system by this empiric +antepast. He was like one who suddenly discovers that he is telling +an old story where he thought to surprise with a novelty; or like +one who undertakes to fill a lamp, which, being (unknown to him) +already full, runs over, and his oil is spilled. It was "oleum +perdidit" in another sense than the scholastic one. Complaint was +made to the guardians of the orphan Gottfried of these illicit +visits to the tree of knowledge. Severe prohibitory measures were +recommended, which, however, judicious counsel from another quarter +happily averted. + +At the age of eleven, Leibnitz records, that he made, on one occasion, +three hundred Latin verses without elision between breakfast and +dinner. A hundred hexameters, or fifty distichs, in a day, is +generally considered a fair _pensum_ for a boy of sixteen at a +German gymnasium. + +At the age of seventeen, he produced, as an academic exercise, on +taking the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, his celebrated treatise +on the Principle of Individuality, "De Principle Individui," the +most extraordinary performance ever achieved by a youth of that age,-- +remarkable for its erudition, especially its intimate knowledge of +the writings of the Schoolmen, and equally remarkable for its +vigorous grasp of thought and its subtile analysis. In this essay +Leibnitz discovered the bent of his mind and prefigured his future +philosophy, in the choice of his theme, and in his vivid appreciation +and strenuous positing of the individual as the fundamental +principle of ontology. He takes Nominalistic ground in relation to +the old controversy of Nominalist and Realist, siding with Abelard +and Roscellin and Occam, and against St. Thomas and Duns Scotus. The +principle of individuation, he maintains, is the entire entity of +the individual, and not mere limitation of the universal, whether by +"Existence" or by "_Haecceity_." [7] John and Thomas are individuals +by virtue of their integral humanity, and not by fractional limitation +of humanity. Dobbin is an actual positive horse (_Entitas tota_). +Not a negation, by limitation, of universal equiety (_Negatio_). +Not an individuation, by actual existence, of a non-existent but +essential and universal horse (_Existentia_). Nor yet a horse +only by limitation of kind,--a horse minus Dick and Bessie and the +brown mare, etc. (_Haecceitas_). But an individual horse, +simply by virtue of his equine nature. Only so far as he is an actual +complete horse, is he an individual at all. (_Per quod quid est, +per id unum numero est_.) His individuality is nothing superadded +to his equiety. (_Unum supra ens nihil addit reale_.) Neither +is it anything subtracted therefrom. (_Negatio non potest producere +accidentia individualia_.) In fine, there is and can be no horse +but actual individual horses. (_Essentia et existentia non possunt +separari_.) + +[Footnote 7: "Aut enim principium individuationis ponitur _entitas +tota_, (1) aut non tota. Non totam aut negatio exprimit, (2) aut +aliquid positivum. Positivum aut pars physica est, essentiam +terminaus, _existentia_, (3) aut metaphysica, speciem terminans, +_haec ceitas_. (4)... Pono igitur: omne individuum sua tota +entitate individuatur." + --_De Princ. Indiv_. 3 et 4.] + +This was the doctrine of the Nominalists, as it was of Aristotle +before them. It was the doctrine of the Reformers, except, if we +remember rightly, of Huss. The University of Leipzig was founded +upon it. It is the current doctrine of the present day, and +harmonizes well with the current Materialism. Not that Nominalism in +itself, and as Leibnitz held it, is necessarily materialistic, but +Realism is essentially antimaterialistic. The Realists held with +Plato,--but not in his name, for they, too, claimed to be +Aristotelian, and preėminently so,--that the ideal must precede the +actual. So far they were right. This was their strong point. Their +error lay in claiming for the ideal an objective reality, an +independent being. Conceptualism was only another statement of +Nominalism, or, at most, a question of the relation of language to +thought. It cannot be regarded as a third issue in this controversy,-- +a controversy in which more time was consumed, says John of Salisbury, +"than the Caesars required to make themselves masters of the world," +and in which the combatants, having spent at last their whole stock +of dialectic ammunition, resorted to carnal weapons, passing suddenly, +by a very illogical _metabasis_, from "universals" to particulars. +Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singular fortune, a pagan +philosopher, introduced into Western Europe by Mohammedans, became +the supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristotle was the +Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther found this authority in his way +and disposed of it in short order, devoting Aristotle without +ceremony to the Devil, as "a damned mischief-making heathen." But +Leibnitz, whose large discourse looked before as well as after, +reinstated not only Aristotle, but Plato, and others of the Greek +philosophers, in their former repute;--"Car ces anciens," he said, +"étaient plus solides qu'on ne croit." He was the first to turn the +tide of popular opinion in their favor. + +Not without a struggle was he brought to side with the Nominalists. +Musing, when a boy, in the Rosenthal, near Leipzig, he debated long +with himself,--"Whether he would give up the Substantial Forms of +the Schoolmen." Strange matter for boyish deliberation! Yes, good +youth, by all means, give them up! They have had their day. They +served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Christendom in times of +ecclesiastical thraldom, when learning knew no other vocation. But +the age into which you are born has its own problems, of nearer +interest and more commanding import. The measuring-reed of science +is to be laid to the heavens, the solar system is to be weighed in a +balance; the age of logical quiddities has passed, the age of +mathematical quantities has come. Give them up! You will soon have +enough to do to take care of your own. What with Dynamics and +Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Monads and Majesties, +Concilium Ęgyptiacum and Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, +there will be scant room in that busy brain for Substantial Forms. +Let them sleep, dust to dust, with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the +bones of Aquinas! + +The "De Principio Individui" was the last treatise of any note in +the sense and style of the old scholastic philosophy. It was also +one of the last blows aimed at scholasticism, which, long undermined +by the Saxon Reformation, received its _coup de grace_ a century +later from the pen of an English wit. "Cornelius," says the author +of "Martinus Scriblerus," told Martin that a shoulder of mutton was +an individual; which Crambe denied, for he had seen it cut into +commons. 'That's true,' quoth the Tutor, 'but you never saw it cut +into shoulders of mutton.' 'If it could be,' quoth Crambe, 'it would +be the loveliest individual of the University.' When he was told +that a _substance_ was that which is subject to _accidents_: 'Then +soldiers,' quoth Crambe, 'are the most substantial people in the +world.' Neither would he allow it to be a good definition of accident, +that it could be present or absent without the destruction of the +subject, since there are a great many accidents that destroy the +subject, as burning does a house and death a man. But as to that, +Cornelius informed him that there was a _natural_ death and a +_logical_ death; and that though a man after his natural death was +incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep his +stall among the logical predicaments.... + +Crambe regretted extremely that _Substantial Forms_, a race of +harmless beings which had lasted for many years and had afforded a +comfortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should now be +hunted down like so many wolves, without the possibility of retreat. +He considered that it had gone much harder with them than with the +_Essences_, which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries' +shops, where some of them had been advanced into the degree of +_Quintessences_. He thought there should be a retreat for poor +_substantial forms_ amongst the gentlemen-ushers at court; and that +there were, indeed, substantial forms, such as forms of prayer and +forms of government, without which the things themselves could never +long subsist.... + +Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons +which logic had put in their hands. Here Martin and Crambe used to +engage like any prizefighters. And as prize-fighters will agree to +lay aside a buckler, or some such defensive weapon, so Crambe would +agree not to use _simpliciter_ and _secundum quid_, if Martin would +part with _materialiter_ and _formaliter_. But it was found, that, +without the defensive armor of these distinctions, the arguments cut +so deep that they fetched blood at every stroke. Their theses were +picked out of Suarez, Thomas Aquinas, and other learned writers on +those subjects.... One, particularly, remains undecided to this day,-- +'An praeter _esse_ reale actualis essentiae sit alind _esse_ +necessarium quo res actualiter existat?' In English thus: 'Whether, +besides the real being of actual being, there be any other being +necessary to cause a thing to be?' [8] + +[Footnote 8: Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. Chap. VII.] + +Arrived at maturity, Leibnitz rose at once to classic eminence. He +became a conspicuous figure, he became a commanding power, not only +in the intellectual world, of which he constituted himself the centre, +but in part also of the civil. It lay in the nature of his genius to +prove all things, and it lay in his temperament to seek _rapport_ +with all sorts of men. He was infinitely related;--not an individual +of note in his day but was linked with him by some common interest +or some polemic grapple; not a _savant_ or statesman with whom +Leibnitz did not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of +communication. Europe was reticulated with the meshes of his +correspondence. "Never," says Voltaire, "was intercourse among +philosophers more universal; _Leibnitz servait ą l'animer_." He +writes now to Spinoza at the Hague, to suggest new methods of +manufacturing lenses,--now to Magliabecchi at Florence, urging, in +elegant Latin verses, the publication of his bibliographical +discoveries,--and now to Grimaldi, Jesuit missionary in China, to +communicate his researches in Chinese philosophy. He hoped by means +of the latter to operate on the Emperor Cham-Hi with the _Dyadik_; [9] +and even suggested said _Dyadik_ as a key to the cipher of the book +"Ye Kim," supposed to contain the sacred mysteries of Fo. He +addresses Louis XIV., now on the subject of a military expedition to +Egypt, (a magnificent idea, which it needed a Napoleon to realize,) +now on the best method of promoting and conserving scientific +knowledge. He corresponds with the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, +with Bossuet, and with Madame Brinon on the Union of the Catholic +and Protestant Churches, and with Privy-Counsellor von Spanheim on +the Union of the Lutheran and Reformed,--with Pčre Des Bosses on +Transubstantiation, and with Samuel Clarke on Time and Space,--with +Remond de Montmort on Plato, and with Franke on Popular Education,-- +with the Queen of Prussia (his pupil) on Free-will and Predestination, +and with the Electress Sophia, her mother, (in her eighty-fourth year,) +on English Politics,--with the cabinet of Peter the Great on the +Slavonic and Oriental Languages, and with that of the German Emperor +on the claims of George Lewis to the honors of the Electorate,--and +finally, with all the _savans_ of Europe on all possible scientific +questions. + +[Footnote 9: A species of binary arithmetic, invented by Leibnitz, +in which the only figures employed are 0 and 1.--See KORTHOLT'S +_G.C. Leibnitii Epistolae ad Divarsos_, Letter XVIII.] + +[Transcriber's note: without this notation and its underlying logic, +the development of modern computers would have not been practical.] + +Of this world-wide correspondence a portion related to the sore +subject of his litigated claim to originality in the discovery of +the Differential Calculus,--a matter in which Leibnitz felt himself +grievously wronged, and complained with justice of the treatment he +received at the hands of his contemporaries. The controversy between +him and Newton, respecting this hateful topic, would never have +originated with either of these illustrious men, had it depended on +them alone to vindicate their respective claims. Officious and +ill-advised friends of the English philosopher, partly from misguided +zeal and partly from levelled malice, preferred on his behalf a +charge of plagiarism against the German, which Newton was not likely +to have urged for himself. "The new Calculus, which Europe lauds, is +nothing less," they suggested, "than your fluxionary method, which +Mr. Leibnitz has pirated, anticipating its tardy publication by the +genuine author. Why suffer your laurels to be wrested from you by a +stranger?" Thereupon arose the notorious _Commercium Epistolicum_, +in which Wallis, Fatio de Duillier, Collins, and Keill were +perversely active. Melancholy monument of literary and national +jealousy! Weary record of a vain strife! Ideas are no man's property. +As well pretend to ownership of light, or set up a claim to private +estate in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit blows where it lists. Truth +inspires whom it finds. He who knows best to conspire with it has it. +Both philosophers swerved from their native simplicity and nobleness +of soul. Both sinned and were sinned against. Leibnitz did unhandsome +things, but he was sorely tried. His heart told him that the right +of the quarrel was on his side, and the general stupidity would not +see it. The general malice, rejoicing in aspersion of a noble name, +would not see it. The Royal Society would not see it,--nor France, +until long after Leibnitz's death. Sir David Brewster's account of +the matter, according to the German authorities, Gerhardt, Guhrauer, +and others, is one-sided, and sins by _suppressio veri_, ignoring +important documents, particularly Leibnitz's letter to Oldenburg, +August 27, 1676. Gerhardt has published Leibnitz's own history of +the Calculus as a counter-statement. [10] But even from Brewster's +account, as we remember it, (we have it not by us at this writing.) +there is no more reason to doubt that Leibnitz's discovery was +independent of Newton's than that Newton's was independent of +Leibnitz's. The two discoveries, in fact, are not identical; the end +and application are the same, but origin and process differ, and the +German method has long superseded the English. The question in debate +has been settled by supreme authority. Leibnitz has been tried by his +peers. Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and Biot have honorably +acquitted him of plagiarism, and reinstated him in his rights as true +discoverer of the Differential Calculus. + +[Footnote 10: Historia et Oriffo Calculi Differenttalis, a G. G. +LEIBNITIO conscripts.] + +[Transcriber's note: this controversy rages in academia to this day.] + +The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one +predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: +polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger +in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but +the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite another +kind. He was more actor than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at +the instigation of others, or to meet some pressing demand of the +time. Besides occupying himself with mechanical inventions, some of +which (in particular, his improvement of Pascal's Calculating Machine) +were quite famous in their day,--besides his project of a universal +language, and his labors to bring about a union of the churches,-- +besides undertaking the revision of the laws of the German Empire, +superintending the Hanoverian mines, experimenting in the culture of +silk, directing the medical profession, laboring in the promotion of +popular education, establishing academies of science, superintending +royal libraries, ransacking the archives of Germany and Italy to +find documents for his history of the House of Brunswick, a work of +immense research [11],--besides these, and a multitude of similar and +dissimilar avocations, he was deep in politics, German and European, +and was occupied all his life long with political negotiations. He was +a courtier, he was a _diplomat_, was consulted on all difficult +matters of international policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at +Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial +governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult +commissions,--matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and +appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man +would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety +of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary +brain. And to these were added private studies not less multifarious. +"I am distracted beyond all account," he writes to Vincent Placcius. +"I am making extracts from archives, inspecting ancient documents, +hunting up unpublished manuscripts; all this to illustrate the +history of Brunswick. Letters in great number I receive and write. +Then I have so many discoveries in mathematics, so many speculations +in philosophy, so many other literary observations, which I am +desirous of preserving, that I am often at a loss what to take hold +of first, and can fairly sympathize in that saying of Ovid, 'I am +straitened by my abundance.' [12]" + +[Footnote 11: _Annals Imperii Occidents Brunsvicensis_. Leibnitz +succeeded in discovering at Modena the lost traces of that +connection between the lines of Brunswick and Esto which had been +surmised, but not proved.] + +[Footnote 12: "Quam mirifice sim distractus dici non potest. Varia ex +archivis eruo, antiquas chartns inspicio, manuscripta inedita +conquiro. Ex hic lucem dare conor Brunsvicensi historię. Magno +numero litteras et accipio et dimitto. Habeo vero tam multa nova in +mathematicis, tot cogitationes in philosophicis, tot alias +literarias observationes, quas vellem non perire, ut sępe inter +agenda anceps hęream et prope illud Ovidianum sentiam: _Iniopem me +copia facit_."] + +His diplomatic services are less known at present than his literary +labors, but were not less esteemed in his own day. When Louis XIV., +in 1688, declared war against the German Empire, on the pretence +that the Emperor was meditating an invasion of France, Leibnitz drew +up the imperial manifesto, which repelled the charge and triumphantly +exposed the hollowness of Louis's cause. Another document, prepared +by him at the solicitation, it is supposed, of several of the courts +of Europe, advocating the claims of Charles of Austria to the vacant +throne of Spain, in opposition to the grandson of Louis, and setting +forth the injurious consequences of the policy of the French monarch, +was hailed by his contemporaries as a masterpiece of historical +learning and political wisdom. By his powerful advocacy of the cause +of the Elector of Brandenburg he may be said to have aided the birth +of the kingdom of Prussia, whose existence dates with the +commencement of the last century. In the service of that kingdom he +wrote and published important state-papers; among them, one relating +to a point of contested right to which recent events have given +fresh significance: "Traité: Sommaire du Droit de Frédéric I. Roi de +Prusse ą la Souveraineté de Neufchātel et de Vallengin en Suisse." + +In Vienna, as at Berlin, the services of Leibnitz were subsidized by +the State. By the Peace of Utrecht, the house of Habsburg had been +defeated in its claims to the Spanish throne, and the foreign and +internal affairs of the Austrian government were involved in many +perplexities, which, it was hoped, the philosopher's counsel might +help to untangle. He was often present at the private meetings of +the cabinet, and received from the Emperor the honorable distinction +of Kaiserlicher Hofrath, in addition to that, which had previously +been awarded to him, of Baron of the Empire. The highest post in the +gift of government was open to him, on condition of renouncing his +Protestant faith, which, notwithstanding his tolerant feeling toward +the Roman Church, and the splendid compensations which awaited such +a convertite, he could never be prevailed upon to do. + +A natural, but very remarkable consequence of this manifold activity +and lifelong absorption in public affairs was the failure of so +great a thinker to produce a single systematic and elaborate work +containing a complete and detailed exposition of his philosophical, +and especially his ontological views. For such an exposition +Leibnitz could find at no period of his life the requisite time and +scope. In the vast multitude of his productions there is no complete +philosophic work. The most arduous of his literary labors are +historical compilations, made in the service of the State. Such were +the "History of the House of Brunswick," already mentioned, the +"Accessiones Historię," the "Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium +Illustrationi inservientes," and the "Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus";-- +works involving an incredible amount of labor and research, but +adding little to his posthumous fame. His philosophical studies, +after entering the Hanoverian service, which he did in his thirtieth +year, were pursued, as he tells his correspondent Placcius, by +stealth,--that is, at odd moments snatched from official duties and +the cares of state. Accordingly, his metaphysical works have all a +fragmentary character. Instead of systematic treatises, they are +loose papers, contributions to journals and magazines, or sketches +prepared for the use of friends. They are all occasional productions, +elicited by some external cause, not prompted by inward necessity. +The "Nouveaux Essais," his most considerable work in that department, +originated in comments on Locke, and was not published until after +his death. The "Monadology" is a series of propositions drawn up for +the use of Prince Eugene, and was never intended to be made public. +And, probably, the "Théodicée" would never have seen the light +except for his cultivated and loved pupil, the Queen of Prussia, for +whose instruction it was designed. + +It is a curious fact, and a good illustration of the state of +letters in Germany at that time, that Leibnitz wrote so little-- +almost nothing of importance--in his native tongue. In Erdmann's +edition of his philosophical works there are only two short essays +in German; the rest are all Latin or French. He had it in +contemplation at one time to establish a philosophical journal in +Berlin, but doubts, in his letter to M. La Croye on the subject, in +what language it should be conducted: "Il y a quelque tems que j'ay +pensé ą un journal de Savans qu'on pourroit publier ą Berlin, mais +je suis un peu en doute sur la langue ... Mais soit qu'on prit le +Latin ou le Franēois," [13] etc. It seems never to have occurred to him +that such a journal might be published in German. That language was +then, and for a long time after, regarded by educated Germans very much +as the Russian is regarded at the present day, as the language of vulgar +life, unsuited to learned or polite intercourse. Frederic the Great, +a century later, thought as meanly of its adaptation to literary +purposes as did the contemporaries of Leibnitz. When Gellert, at his +request, repeated to him one of his fables, he expressed his +surprise that anything so clever could be produced in German. It may +be said in apology for this neglect of their native tongue, that the +German scholars of that age would have had a very inadequate audience, +had their communications been confined to that language. Leibnitz +craved and deserved a wider sphere for his thoughts than the use of +the German could give him. It ought, however, to be remembered to +his credit, that, as language in general was one among the +numberless topics he investigated, so the German in particular +engaged at one time his special attention. It was made the subject +of a disquisition, which suggested to the Berlin Academy, in the +next century, the method adopted by that body for the culture and +improvement of the national speech. In this writing, as in all his +German compositions, he manifested a complete command of the language, +and imparted to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncommon in +his day. The German of Leibnitz is less antiquated at this moment +than the English of his contemporary, Locke. + +[Footnote 13: KORTHOLT. _Epistolae ad Diversos_, Vol. I.] + + + +LEIBNITZ'S PHILOSOPHY. + +The interest to us in this extraordinary man--who died at Hanover, +1716, in the midst of his labors and projects--turns mainly on his +speculative philosophy. It was only as an incidental pursuit that he +occupied himself with metaphysic; yet no philosopher since Aristotle-- +with whom, though claiming to be more Platonic than Aristotelian, he +has much in common--has furnished more luminous hints to the +elucidation of metaphysical problems. The problems he attempted were +those which concern the most inscrutable, but, to the genuine +metaphysician, most fascinating of all topics, the nature of +substance, matter and spirit, absolute being,--in a word, +_Ontology_. This department of metaphysic, the most interesting, +and, _agonistically_ [14], the most important branch of that study, +has been deliberately, purposely, and, with one or two exceptions, +uniformly avoided by the English metaphysicians so-called, with +Locke at their head, and equally by their Scottish successors, until +the recent "Institutes" of the witty Professor of St. Andrew's. +Locke's "Essay concerning the Human Understanding," a century and +a half ago, diverted the English mind from metaphysic proper into +what is commonly called Psychology, but ought, of right, to be termed +_Noölogy_, or "Philosophy of the Human Mind," as Dugald Stewart +entitled his treatise. This is the study which has usually taken the +place of metaphysic at Cambridge and other colleges,--the science that +professes to show "how ideas enter the mind"; which, considering the +rareness of the occurrence with the mass of mankind, we cannot +regard as a very practical inquiry. We well remember our +disappointment, when, at the usual stage in the college curriculum, +we were promised "metaphysics" and were set to grind in Stewart's +profitless mill, where so few problems of either practical or +theoretical importance are brought to the hopper, and where, in fact, +the object is rather to show how the upper mill-stone revolves upon +the nether, (reflection upon sensation,) and how the grist is +conveyed to the feeder, than to realize actual metaphysical flour. + +[Footnote 14: That is, as a discipline of the faculties,--the chief +benefit to be derived from any kind of metaphysical study.] + +Locke's reason for repudiating ontology is the alleged impossibility +of arriving at truth in that pursuit,--"of finding satisfaction in +a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concern us, whilst +we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of being." [15] +Unfortunately, however, as Kant has shown, the results of noölogical +inquiry are just as questionable as those of ontology, whilst the +topics on which it is employed are of far inferior moment. If, as +Locke intimates, we can know nothing of being without first +analyzing the understanding, it is equally sure that we can know +nothing of the understanding except in union with and in action on +being. And excepting his own fundamental position concerning the +sensuous origin of our ideas,--to which few, since Kant, will assent,-- +there is hardly a theorem, in all the writings of this school, of +prime and vital significance. The school is tartly, but aptly, +characterized by Professor Ferrier: "Would people inquire directly +into the laws of thought and of knowledge by merely looking to +knowledge or to thought itself, without attending to what is known +or what is thought of? Psychology usually goes to work in this +abstract fashion; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,--as +hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits of old were +wont to typify any particularly fruitless undertaking,--namely, the +operation of milking a he-goat into a sieve. No milk comes, in the +first place, and even that the sieve will not retain! There is a loss +of nothing twice over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no +milk in the first place; and, in the second place, he loses it, +like the man holding the sieve.... Our Scottish philosophy, in +particular, has presented a spectacle of this description. Reid +obtained no result, owing to the abstract nature of his inquiry, and +the nothingness of his system has escaped through all the sieves of +his successors." [16] + +[Footnote 15: _Essay_, Book I. Chap. 1, Sect. 7.] + +[Footnote 16: _Institutes of Metaphysic_, p. 301.] + +Leibnitz's metaphysical speculations are scattered through a wide +variety of writings, many of which are letters to his contemporaries. +These Professor Erdmann has incorporated in his edition of the +Philosophical Works. Beside these we may mention, as particularly +deserving of notice, the "Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et +Ideis", the "Systeme Nouveau de la Nature", "De Primę Philosophię +Emendatione et de Notione Substantię", "Reflexions sur l'Essai de +l'Entendement humain", "De Rerum Originatione Radicali", "De ipsa +Natura", "Considerations sur la Doctrine d'un Esprit universel", +"Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement humain", "Considerations sur le +Principe de Vie". To these we must add the "Théodicée" (though more +theological than metaphysical) and the "Monadologie", the most +compact philosophical treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note, +that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and accidental way he +did, he not only wrote with unexampled clearness on matters the most +abstruse, but never, that we are aware, in all the variety of his +communications, extending over so many years, contradicted himself. +No philosopher is more intelligible, none more consequent. + +In philosophy, Leibnitz was a _Realist_. We use that term in the +modern, not in the scholastic sense. In the scholastic sense, as we +have seen, he was not a Realist, but, from childhood up, a Nominalist. +But the Realism of the schools has less affinity with the Realism +than with the Idealism of the present day. + +His opinions must be studied in connection with those of his +contemporaries. + +Des Cartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz, the four most +distinguished philosophers of the seventeenth century, represent +four widely different and cardinal tendencies in philosophy: Dualism, +Idealism, Sensualism, and Realism. + +Des Cartes perceived the incompatibility of the two primary +qualities of being, thought and extension, as attributes of one and +the same (created) substance. He therefore postulated two (created) +substances,--one characterized by thought without extension, the +other by extension without thought. These two are so alien and so +incongruous, that neither can influence the other, or determine the +other, or any way relate with the other, except by direct mediation +of Deity. (The doctrine of Occasional Causes.) This is Dualism,-- +that sharp and rigorous antithesis of mind and matter, which Des +Cartes, if he did not originate it, was the first to develop into +philosophic significance, and which ever since has been the +prevailing ontology of the Western world. So deeply has the thought +of that master mind inwrought itself into the very consciousness of +humanity! + +Spinoza saw, that, if God alone can bring mind and matter together +and effect a relation between them, it follows that mind and matter, +or their attributes, however contrary, do meet in Deity; and if so, +what need of three distinct natures? What need of two substances +beside God, as subjects of these attributes? Retain the middle term +and drop the extremes and you have the Spinozan doctrine of one +(uncreated) substance, combining the attributes of thought and +extension. This is Pantheism, or _objective_ idealism, as +distinguished from the _subjective_ idealism of Fichte. Strange, +that the stigma of atheism should have been affixed to a system +whose very starting-point is Deity and whose great characteristic is +the _ignoration_ of everything but Deity, insomuch that the pure and +devout Novalis pronounced the author a God-drunken man, and +Spinozism a surfeit of Deity. [17] + +[Footnote 17: Let us not be misunderstood. Pantheism is not Theism, and +the one substance of Spinoza is very unlike the one God of theology; +but neither is the doctrine Atheism in any legitimate sense.] + +Naturally enough, the charge of atheism comes from the unbelieving +Bayle, whose omnivorous mind, like the anaconda, assisted its +enormous deglutition with a poisonous saliva of its own, and whose +negative temper makes the "Dictionnaire Historique" more _Morgue_ +than _Valhalla_. + +Locke, who combined in a strange union strong religious faith with +philosophic unbelief, turned aside, as we have seen, from the +questions which had occupied his predecessors; knew little and cared +less about substance and accident, matter and spirit; but set +himself to investigate the nature of the organ itself by which truth +is apprehended. In this investigation he began by emptying the mind +of all native elements of knowledge. He repudiated any supposed +dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored +to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal +experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which +it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; +the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by +Condillac, [18] in the next century. But the same method may lead, as +in the case of Berkeley, to immaterialism, falsely called idealism. +Or it may lead, as in the case of Helveticus, to materialism. Locke +himself would probably have landed in materialism, had he followed +freely the bent of his own thought, without the restraints of a +cautious temper, and respect for the common and traditional opinion +of his time. The "Essay" discovers an unmistakable leaning in that +direction; as where the author supposes, "We shall never be able to +know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible +for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, +to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter +fitly disposed a power to perceive and think;... it being, in respect +of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive +that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, +than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty +of thinking, since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what +sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, +which cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure +and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that +the first thinking eternal Being should, if he pleased, give to +certain systems of created, senseless matter, put together as he +thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought." With +such notions of the nature of thought, as a kind of mechanical +contrivance, that can be conferred outright by an arbitrary act of +Deity, and attached to one nature as well as another, it is evident +that Locke could have had no idea of spirit as conceived by +metaphysicians,--or no belief in that idea, if conceived. And with +such conceptions of Deity and Divine operations, as consisting in +absolute power dissociated from absolute reason, one would not be +surprised to find him asserting, that God, if he pleased, might make +two and two to be one, instead of four,--that mathematical laws are +arbitrary determinations of the Supreme Will,--that a thing is true +only as God wills it to be so,--in fine, that there is no such thing +as absolute truth. The resort to "Omnipotency" in such matters is +more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, +instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination--"[Greek: Doz +d' etelevto Bonlae]"--is a maxim which settles all difficulties. +But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with this +universal solvent at hand? + +[Footnote 18: _Essai sur l'Origine du Connaissances humaines_. Book +IV. Chap. 3, Sect. 6.] + +The "contradiction" which Locke could not see was clearly seen and +keenly felt by Leibnitz. The arbitrary will of God, to him, was no +solution. He believed in necessary truths independent of the Supreme +Will; in other words, he believed that the Supreme Will is but the +organ of the Supreme Reason: "Il ne faut point s'imaginer, que les +vérités éternelles, étant dépendantes de Dieu, sont arbitragés et +dépendent de sa volonté." He felt, with Des Cartes, the incompatibility +of thought with extension, considered as an immanent quality of +substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific propensity which +distinguishes the higher order of philosophic minds. Dualism was an +offence to him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza in his +vivid sense of individuality, of personality. The pantheistic idea +of a single, sole being, of which all other beings are mere +modalities, was also and equally an offence to him. He saw well the +illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a universe as Spinoza dreamed. +He saw it to be a vain imagination, a dream-world, "without form and +void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The philosophy of Leibnitz +is equally remote from that of Des Cartes on the one hand, and from +that of Spinoza on the other. He diverges from the former on the +question of substance, which Des Cartes conceived as consisting of +two kinds, one active (thinking) and one passive (extended), but +which Leibnitz conceives to be all and only active. He explodes +Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of matter and spirit by +positing extension as a continuous act instead of a passive mode, +substance as an active force instead of an inert mass,--matter as +substance appearing, communicating,--as the necessary band and +relation of spirits among themselves. [19] + +[Footnote 19: The following passages may serve as illustrations of +these positions:-- + +"Materia habet de so actum entitativum."--_De Princip. Indiv_. +Coroll. I. + +"Dicam interim notionem virium seu virtutis, (quam Germani vocant +_Kraft_, Galli, _la force_,) cui ego explicandae peculiarem +Dynamices scientiam destinavi, plurimum lucis afferre ad veram +notionem substantiae intelligendam."--_De Primae Philosoph. Emendat, +et de Notione Substantiae_. + +"Corpus ergo est agens extensum; dici poterit esse substantiam +extensam, modo teneatur omnem substantiam _agere, at omne agens +substantiam_ appellari." "Patebit non tantum mentes, sed etiam +substantiae omnes in loco, non nisi per _operationem_ esse."-- +_De Vera Method. Phil. et Theol_. + +"Extensionem concipere ut absolutum ex eo forte oritur quod spatium +concipimus per modum substantiae"--_Ad Des Bosses Ep_. XXIX. + +"Car l'étendue ne signifie qu'une répétition ou multiplicité continuée +de ce qui est répandu."--_Extrait d'une Lettre_, etc. + +"Et l'on peut dire que Pétunduc est en quelque faēon ą l'espace +comme la durée est au tems."--_Exam. des Principes de Malebranche_. + +"La nature de la substance consistant ą mon avis dans cette tendance +réglée de laquelle les phénomčnes naissent par ordre."--_Lettre ą +M. Bayle_. + +"Car rien n'a mieux marqué la substance que la puissance d'agir."-- +_Réponse aux Objections du P. Lami_. + +"S'il n'y avait que des esprits, ils seraient sans la liaison +nécessaire, sans l'ordre des tems et des lieux."--_Theod_. Sect. 120.] + +He parts company with Spinoza on the question of individuality. +Substance is homogeneous; but substances, or beings, are infinite. +Spinoza looked upon the universe and saw in it the undivided +background on which the objects of human consciousness are painted +as momentary pictures. Leibnitz looked and saw that background, like +the background of one of Raphael's Madonnas, instinct with +individual life, and swarming with intelligences which look out from +every point of space. Leibnitz's universe is composed of Monads, +that is, units, individual substances, or entities, having neither +extension, parts, nor figure, and, of course, indivisible. These are +"the veritable atoms of nature, the elements of things." + +The Monad is unformed and imperishable; it has no natural end or +beginning. It could begin to be only by creation; it can cease to be +only by annihilation. It cannot be affected from without or changed +in its interior by any other creature. Still, it must have qualities, +without which it would not be an entity. And monads must differ one +from another, or there would be no changes in our experience; since +all that takes place in compound bodies is derived from the simples +which compose them. Moreover, the monad, though uninfluenced from +without, is changing continually; the change proceeds from an +internal principle. Every monad is subject to a multitude of +affections and relations, although without parts. This shifting state, +which represents multitude in unity, is nothing else than what we +call _Perception_, which must be carefully distinguished from +_Apperception_, or consciousness. And the action of the internal +principle which causes change in the monad, or a passing from one +perception to another, is _Appetition_. The desire does not always +attain to the perception to which it tends, but it always effects +something, and causes a change of perceptions. + +Leibnitz differs from Locke in maintaining that perception is +inexplicable and inconceivable on mechanical principles. It is +always the act of a simple substance, never of a compound. And +"in simple substances there is nothing but perceptions and their +changes." [20] + +[Footnote 20: _Menadol_. 17.] + +He differs from Locke, furthermore, on the question of the origin of +ideas. This question, he says, "is not a preliminary one in +philosophy, and one must have made great progress to be able to +grapple successfully with it."--"Meanwhile, I think I may say, that +our ideas, even those of sensible objects, _viennent de nōtre propre +fond_... I am by no means for the _tabula rasa_ of Aristotle; on the +contrary, there is to me something rational (_quelque chose de solide_) +in what Plato called _reminiscence_. Nay, more than that, we have +not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts, but we have also a +_presentiment_ of all our thoughts." [21] + +[Footnote 21: _Reflexions sur l'Essai de l'Entendement humain_.] + +Mr. Lewes, in his "Biographical History of Philosophy," speaks of +the essay from which these words are quoted, as written in "a +somewhat supercilious tone." We are unable to detect any such +feature in it. That trait was wholly foreign from Leibnitz's nature. +"Car je suis des plus dociles," he says of himself, in this same +essay. He was the most tolerant of philosophers. "Je ne méprise +presque rien."--"Nemo est ingenio minus quam ego censorio."-- +"Mirum dictu: probo pleraque quae lego."--"Non admodum refutationes +quaerere aut legere soleo." + +To return to the monads. Each monad, according to Leibnitz, is, +properly speaking, a soul, inasmuch as each is endowed with +perception. But in order to distinguish those which have only +perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will +call the latter _souls_, the former _monads_ or _entelechies_. [22] + +[Footnote 22: _Entelechy_ ([Greek: entelechia]) is an Aristotelian term, +signifying activity, or more properly perhaps, self action. Leibnitz +understands by it something complete in itself ([Greek: echon to +enteles]). Mr. Butler, in his _History of Ancient Philosophy_, +lately reprinted in this country, translates it "act." _Function_, we +think would be a better rendering. (See W. Archer Butler's _Lectures_, +Last Series, Lect. 2.) Aristotle uses the word as a definition of the +soul. "The soul," he says, "is the first entelechy of an active body."] + +The naked monad, he says, has perceptions without relief, or +"enhanced flavor"; it is in a state of stupor. Death, he thinks, may +produce this state for a time in animals. The monads completely fill +the world; there is never and nowhere a void, and never complete +inanimateness and inertness. The universe is a _plenum_ of souls. +Wherever we behold an organic whole, (_unum per se_,) there monads +are grouped around a central monad to which they are subordinate, +and which they are constrained to serve so long as that connection +lasts. Masses of inorganic matter are aggregations of monads without +a regent, or sentient soul (_unum per accidens_). There can be no +monad without matter, that is, without society, and no soul without +a body. Not only the human soul is indestructible and immortal, but +also the animal soul. There is no generation out of nothing, and no +absolute death. Birth is expansion, development, growth; and death +is contraction, envelopment, decrease. The monads which are destined +to become human souls have existed from the beginning in organic +matter, but only as sentient or animal souls, without reason. They +remain in this condition until the generation of the human beings to +which they belong, and then develope themselves into rational souls. +The different organs and members of the body are also relatively +souls which collect around them a number of monads for a specific +purpose, and so on _ad infinitum_. Matter is not only infinitely +divisible, but infinitely divided. All matter (so called) is living +and active. "Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of +plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, +each member of each animal, each drop of their humors, is in turn +another such garden or pond." [23] + +[Footnote 23: _Monadol._ 67.] + +The connection between monads, consequently the connection between +soul and body, is not composition, but an organic relation,--in some +sort, a spontaneous relation. The soul forms its own body, and +moulds it to its purpose. This hypothesis was afterward embraced and +developed as a physiological principle by Stahl. As all the atoms in +one body are organically related, so all the beings in the universe +are organically related to each other and to the All. One creature, +or one organ of a creature, being given, there is given with it the +world's history from the beginning to the end. _All bodies are +strictly fluid; the universe is in flux_. + +The principle of continuity answers the same purpose in Leibnitz's +system that the single substance does in Spinoza's. It vindicates +the essential unity of all being. Yet the two conceptions are +immeasurably different, and constitute an immeasurable difference +between the two systems, considered in their practical and moral +bearings, as well as their ontological aspects. Spinoza [24] +starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-One, from which +there is no logical deduction of the individual. And in Spinoza's +system the individual does not exist except as a modality. But the +existence of the individual is one of the primordial truths of the +human mind, the foremost fact of consciousness. With this, therefore, +Leibnitz begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the Absolute +and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he begins, in pantheism; the moral +result of his system, Godward, is fatalism,--manward, indifferentism +and negation of moral good and evil. Leibnitz ends in theism; the +moral result of his system, Godward, is optimism,--manward, liberty, +personal responsibility, moral obligation. + +[Footnote 24: See Helferich's _Spinoza, und Leibnitz_, p. 76.] + +He demonstrates the being of God by the necessity of a sufficient +reason to account for the series of things. Each finite thing +requires an antecedent or contingent cause. But the supposition of +an endless sequence of contingent causes, or finite things, is absurd; +the series must have had a beginning, and that beginning cannot have +been a contingent cause or finite thing. "The final reason of things +must be found in a necessary substance in which the detail of +changes exists eminently, (_ne soit qu'éminemment_,) as in its source; +and this is what we call God." [25] + +[Footnote 25: _Monadol_. 38.] + +The idea of God is of such a nature, that the being corresponding to +it, if possible, must be actual. We have the idea; it involves no +bounds, no negation, consequently no contradiction. It is the idea +of a possible, therefore of an actual. + +"God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Substance of +which all the creatures, or original monads, are the products, and +_are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations from moment +to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature_, of whose +existence limitation is an essential condition." [26] + +[Footnote 26: Ib. 47.] + +The philosophic theologian and the Christianizing philosopher will +rejoice to find in this proposition a point of reconciliation between +the extramundane God of pure theism and the cardinal principle of +Spinozism, the immanence of Deity in creation,--a principle as dear +to the philosophic mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to +the theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-existent unit, +divine in itself, but with no Divinity behind it. That of Leibnitz +is an endless series of units from a self-existent and divine source. +The one is an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood. + +The doctrine of the _Preėstablished Harmony_, so intimately and +universally associated with the name of Leibnitz, has found little +favor with his critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach calls +it his weak side, and thinks that Leibnitz's philosophy, else so +profound, was here, as in other instances, overshadowed by the +popular creed; that he accommodated himself to theology, as a highly +cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his superiority, +accommodates himself to a lady in his conversation with her, +translating his ideas into her language, and even paraphrasing them. +From this view of Leibnitz, as implying insincerity, we utterly +dissent. [27] + +[Footnote 27: See, in connection with this point, two admirable essays +by Lessing,--the one entitled _Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment_, the +other _Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the +Trinity_. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's _Defensio +Trinitatis_. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has +expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and +vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.] + +The author of the "Théodicée" was not more interested in philosophy +than he was in theology. His thoughts and his purpose did equal +justice to both. The deepest wish of his heart was to reconcile them, +not by formal treaty, but in loving and condign union. We do not, +however, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the doctrine +in question; and we quite agree with Feuerbach that the phrase +_préétablie_ does not express a metaphysical determination. +It is one thing to say, that God, by an arbitrary decree from +everlasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every motion in the +world of matter that each volition of a rational agent finds in the +constant procession of physical forces a concurrent event by which it +is executed, but which would have taken place without his volition, +just as the mail-coach takes our letter, if we have one, but goes +all the same, when we do not write,--this is the gross, exoteric +view,--and a very different thing it is to say, that the monads +composing the human system and the universe of things are so related, +adjusted, accommodated to each other, and to the whole, each being a +representative of all the rest and a mirror of the universe, that each +feels all that passes in the rest, and all conspire in every act, [28] +more or less effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the prime +agent. This is Leibnitz's idea of preėstablished harmony, which, +perhaps, would be better expressed by the term "necessary consent." +"In the ideas of God, each monad has a right to demand that God, in +regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have +regard to it; for since a created monad can have no physical +influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that +one can be dependent on another."--"The soul follows its own laws +and the body follows its own, and they meet in virtue of the +preėstablished harmony which exists between all substances, as +representatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according to +the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc. Bodies act according to +the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. And the two +kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, +harmonize with each other." [29] + +[Footnote 28: In this connection, Leibnitz quotes the remarkable +saying of Hippocrates, [_Greek: Sumpnoia panta_]. The universe +breathes together, conspires.--_Monadal_. 61.] + +[Footnote 29: _Monadol_. 78, 79.] + +The Preėstablished Harmony, then, is to be regarded as the +philosophic statement of a fact, and not as a theory concerning the +cause of the fact. But, like all philosophic and adequate statements, +it answers the purpose of a theory, and clears up many difficulties. +It is the best solution we know of the old contradiction of +free-will and fate,--individual liberty and a necessary world. This +antithesis disappears in the light of the Leibnitian philosophy, +which resolves freedom and necessity into different points of +view and different stages of development. The principle of the +Preėstablished Harmony was designed by Leibnitz to meet the +difficulty, started by Des Cartes, of explaining the conformity between +the perceptions of the mind and the corresponding affections of the +body, since mind and matter, in his view, could have no connection +with, or influence on each other. The Cartesians explained this +correspondence by the theory of _occasional causes_, that is, by +the intervention of the Deity, who was supposed by his arbitrary will to +have decreed a certain perception or sensation in the mind to go +with a certain affection of the body, with which, however, it had no +real connection. "Car il" (that is, M. Bayle) "est persuadé avec les +Cartésiens modernes, que les idées des qualités sensibles que Dieu +donne, selon eux, ą l'āme, ą l'occasion des mouvemens du corps, +n'ont rien qui représente ces mouvemens, ou qui leur ressemble; de +sorte qu'il étoit purement arbitraire que Dieu nous donnāt les idées +de la chaleur, du froid, de la lumičre et autres que nous +expérimentons, ou qu'il nous en donnāt de tout-autres ą cette mźme +occasion." [30] + +[Footnote 30: _Théodicée_. Partie II. 340.] + +If the body was exposed to the flame, there was no more reason, +according to this theory, why the soul should be conscious of pain +than of pleasure, except that God had so ordained. Such a supposition +was shocking to our philosopher, who could tolerate no arbitrariness +in God and no gap or discrepancy in nature, and who, therefore, +sought to explain, by the nature of the soul itself and its kindred +monads, the correspondence for which so violent an hypothesis was +embraced by the Cartesians. + +We have left ourselves no room to speak as we would of Leibnitz as +theosopher. It was in this character that he obtained, in the last +century, his widest fame. The work by which he is most commonly known, +by which alone he is known to many, is the "Théodicée,"--an attempt +to vindicate the goodness of God against the cavils of unbelievers. +He was one of the first to apply to this end the cardinal principle +of the Lutheran Reformation,--the liberty of reason. He was one of +the first to treat unbelief, from the side of religion, as an error +of judgment, not as rebellion against rightful authority. The latter +was and is the Romanist view. The former is the Protestant theory, +but was not then, and is not always now, the Protestant practice. +Theology then was not concerned to vindicate the reason or the +goodness of God. It gloried in his physical strength by which he +would finally crush dissenters from orthodoxy. Leibnitz knew no +authority independent of Reason, and no God but the Supreme Reason +directing Almighty Good-will. The philosophic conclusion justly +deducible from this view of God, let cavillers say what they will, +is Optimism. Accordingly, Optimism, or the doctrine of the best +possible world, is the theory of the "Théodicée." Our limits will +not permit us to analyze the argument of this remarkable work. Bunsen +says, "It necessarily failed because it was a not quite honest +compound of speculation and divinity." [31] + +[Footnote 31: _Outlines of the Philos. of Univ. Hist_. Vol. I. Chap. 6.] + +Few at the present day will pretend to be entirely satisfied with +its reasoning, but all who are familiar with it know it to be a +treasury of wise and profound thoughts and of noble sentiments and +aspirations. Bonnet, the naturalist, called it his "Manual of +Christian Philosophy"; and Fontenelle, in his eulogy, speaks +enthusiastically of its luminous and sublime views, of its reasonings, +in which the mind of the geometer is always apparent, of its perfect +fairness toward those whom it controverts, and its rich store of +anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was _not_ familiar with +it, and who, as might be expected, strangely misconceives and +misrepresents the author, is compelled to echo the general sentiment. +He pronounces it a work in which are combined together in an +extraordinary degree "the acuteness of the logician, the imagination +of the poet, and the _impenetrable yet sublime darkness_ of the +metaphysical theologian." The Italics are ours. Our reason for +doubting Stewart's familiarity with the "Théodicée," and with +Leibnitz in general, is derived in part from these phrases. We do +not believe that any sincere student of Leibnitz has found him dark +and impenetrable. Be it a merit or a fault, this predicate is +inapplicable. Never was metaphysician more explicit and more +intelligible. Had he been disposed to mysticize and to shroud +himself in "impenetrable darkness," he would have found it difficult +to indulge that propensity in French. Thanks to the strict régime +and happy limitations of that idiom, the French is not a language in +which philosophy can hide itself. It is a tight-fitting coat, which +shows the exact form, or want of form, of the thought it clothes, +without pad or fold to simulate fulness or to veil defects. It was a +Frenchman, we are aware, who discovered that "the use of language is +to conceal thought"; but that use, so far as French is concerned, +has been hitherto monopolized by diplomacy. + +Another reason for questioning Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz +is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to +ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is +strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. +Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of +Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which he +uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism." [32] + +[Footnote 32: _General View of the Prog. of Metaph. Eth. and Polit. +Phil_. Boston: 1822. p. 75.] + +Now it happens that "the zeal of Leibnitz" was exerted in precisely +the opposite direction. A considerable section of the "Théodicée" +(34-75) is occupied with the illustration and defence of the Freedom +of the Will. It was a doctrine on which he laid great stress, and +which forms an essential part of his system; [33] in proof of which, +let one declaration stand for many: "Je suis d'opinion que notre +volonté n'est pas seulement exempte de la contrainte, mais encore +de la nécessité." How far he succeeded in establishing that doctrine +in accordance with the rest of his system is another question. +That he believed it and taught it is a fact of which there can be +no more doubt with those who have studied his writings, than there +is that he wrote the works ascribed to him. But the freedom of will +maintained by Leibnitz was not indeterminism. It was not the +indifference of the tongue of the balance between equal weights, +or that of the ass between equal bundles of hay. Such an +equilibrium he declares impossible. "Cet équilibre en tout sens +est impossible." Buridan's imaginary case of the ass is a fiction +"qui ne sauroit avoir lieu dans l'univers." [34] + +[Footnote 33: "Numquam Leibnitio in mentem venisse libertatem velle +evertere, in qua defendenda quam maxime fuit occupatus, omnia scripta, +precipue autem Theodicęa ejus, clamitant."--KORTHOLT, Vol. IV. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 34: Leibnitz seems to have been of the same mind with +Dante:-- + + "Intra duo cibi distanti e moventi + D' un modo, prima si morria di fame + Che liber' uomo l'un recasse a' denti." + _Parad_, iv. 1.] + +The will is always determined by motives, but not necessarily +constrained by them. This is his doctrine, emphatically stated and +zealously maintained. We doubt if any philosopher, equally profound +and equally sincere, will ever find room in his conclusions for a +greater measure of moral liberty than the "Théodicée" has conceded +to man. "In respect to this matter," says Arthur Schopenhauer, +"the great thinkers of all times are agreed and decided, just as +surely as the mass of mankind will never see and comprehend the +great truth, that the practical operation of liberty is not to be +sought in single acts, but in the being and nature of man." [35] + +[Footnote 35: _Ueber den Willen in der Natur_. FRANKFURT A.M. 1854. +p. 22.] + +Leibnitz's construction of the idea of a possible liberty consistent +with the preėstablished order of the universe is substantially that +of Schelling in his celebrated essay on this subject. We must not +dwell upon it, but hasten to conclude our imperfect sketch. + +The ground-idea of the "Théodicée" is expressed in the phrase, +"Best-possible world." Evil is a necessary condition of finite being, +but the end of creation is the realization of the greatest possible +perfection within the limits of the finite. The existing universe is +one of innumerable possible universes, each of which, if actualized, +would have had a different measure of good and evil. The present, +rather than any other, was made actual, as presenting to Divine +Intelligence the smallest measure of evil and the greatest amount of +good. This idea is happily embodied in the closing apologue, designed +to supplement one of Laurentius Valla, a writer of the fifteenth +century. Theodorus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that god +has permitted to Sextus the evil will which was destined to bring so +much misery on himself and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter +Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to lie down in the temple of +Pallas, and is there visited with a dream. The vision takes him to +the Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all possible +worlds. He examines one plan after another; in each the same Sextus +plays a different part and experiences a different fate. The plans +improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon one whose +superior excellence enchants him with delight. After revelling awhile +in the contemplation of this perfect world, he is told that this is +the actual world in which he lives. But in this the crime of Sextus +is a necessary constituent; it could not be what it is as a whole, +were it other than it is in its single parts. + +Whatever may be thought of Leibnitz's success in demonstrating his +favorite doctrine, the theory of Optimism commends itself to piety +and reason as that view of human and divine things which most +redounds to the glory of God and best expresses the hope of man,--as +the noblest and _therefore_ the truest theory of Divine rule and +human destiny. + +We recall at this moment but one English writer of supreme mark who +has held and promulged, in its fullest extent, the theory of Optimism. +That one is a poet. The "Essay on Man," with one or two exceptions, +might almost pass for a paraphrase of the "Théodicée"; and Pope, +with characteristic vigor, has concentrated the meaning of that +treatise in one word, which is none the less true, in the sense +intended, because of its possible perversion,--"Whatever is, is right." + + * * * * * + + + + +LOO LOO. + +A FEW SCENES FROM A TRUE HISTORY. [Concluded.] + + +SCENE IV. + +They had lived thus nearly a year, when, one day as they were riding +on horseback, Alfred saw Mr. Grossman approaching. "Drop your veil," +he said, quickly, to his companion; for he could not bear to have +that Satyr even look upon his hidden flower. The cotton-broker +noticed the action, but silently touched his hat, and passed with a +significant smile on his uncomely countenance. A few days afterward, +when Alfred had gone to his business in the city, Loo Loo strolled +to her favorite recess on the hill-side, and, lounging on the rustic +seat, began to read the second volume of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She +was so deeply interested in the adventures of the noble Pole, that +she forgot herself and all her surroundings. Masses of glossy dark +hair fell over the delicate hand that supported her head; her +morning-gown, of pink French muslin, fell apart, and revealed a +white embroidered skirt, from beneath which obtruded one small foot, +in an open-work silk stocking; the slipper having fallen to the +ground. Thus absorbed, she took no note of time, and might have +remained until summoned to dinner, had not a slight rustling +disturbed her. She looked up, and saw a coarse face peering at her +between the pine boughs, with a most disgusting expression. She at +once recognized the man they had met during their ride; and starting +to her feet, she ran like a deer before the hunter. It was not till +she came near the house, that she was aware of having left her +slipper. A servant was sent for it, but returned, saying it was not +to be found. She mourned over the loss, for the little pink kid +slippers, embroidered with silver, were a birth-day present from +Alfred. As soon as he returned, she told him the adventure, and went +with him to search the arbor of pines. The incident troubled him +greatly. "What a noxious serpent, to come crawling into our Eden!" +he exclaimed. "Never come here alone again, dearest; and never go +far from the house, unless Madame is with you." + +Her circle of enjoyments was already small, excluded as she was from +society by her anomalous position, and educated far above the caste +in which the tyranny of law and custom so absurdly placed her. But +it is one of the blessed laws of compensation, that the human soul +cannot miss that to which it has never been accustomed. Madame's +motherly care, and Alfred's unvarying tenderness, sufficed her +cravings for affection; and for amusement, she took refuge in books, +flowers, birds, and those changes of natural scenery for which her +lover had such quickness of eye. It was a privation to give up her +solitary rambles in the grounds, her inspection of birds' nests, and +her readings in that pleasant alcove of pines. But she more than +acquiesced in Alfred's prohibition. She said at once, that she would +rather be a prisoner within the house all her days than ever see +that odious face again. + +Mr. Noble encountered the cotton-broker, in the way of business, a +few days afterward; but his aversion to the unclean conversation of +the man induced him to conceal his vexation under the veil of common +courtesy. He knew what sort of remarks any remonstrance would elicit, +and he shrank from subjecting Loo Loo's name to such pollution. For a +short time, this prudent reserve shielded him from the attacks he +dreaded. But Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the +sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously +intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered +slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, +"I reckon you have seen this before, Mr. Noble." + +Alfred felt an impulse to seize him by the throat, and strangle him +on the spot. But why should he make a scene with such a man, and +thus drag Loo Loo's name into painful notoriety? The old _roué_ was +evidently trying to foment a quarrel with him. Thoroughly animal in +every department of his nature, he was boastful of brute courage, +and prided himself upon having killed several men in duels. Alfred +conjectured his line of policy, and resolved to frustrate it. He +therefore coolly replied, "I have seen such slippers; they are very +pretty"; and turned away, as if the subject were indifferent to him. + +"Coward!" muttered Grossman, as he left the counting-house. Mr. Noble +did not hear him; and if he had, it would not have altered his course. +He could see nothing enviable in the reputation of being ever ready +for brawls, and a dead-shot in duels; and he knew that his life was +too important to the friendless Loo Loo to be thus foolishly risked +for the gratification of a villain. This incident renewed his old +feelings of remorse for the false position in which he had placed the +young orphan, who trusted him so entirely. To his generous nature, +the wrong seemed all the greater because the object was so +unconscious of it. "It is I who have subjected her to the insolence +of this vile man," he said within himself. "But I will repair the +wrong. Innocent, confiding soul that she is, I will protect her. The +sanction of marriage shall shield her from such affronts." + +Alas for poor human nature! He was sincere in these resolutions, but +he was not quite strong enough to face the prejudices of the society +in which he lived. Their sneers would have fallen harmless. They +could not take from him a single thing he really valued. But he had +not learned to understand that the dreaded power of public opinion +is purely fabulous, when unsustained by the voice of conscience. So +he fell into the old snare of moral compromise. He thought the best +he could do, under the circumstances, was to hasten the period of +his departure for the North, to marry Loo Loo in Philadelphia, and +remove to some part of the country where her private history would +remain unknown. + +To make money for this purpose, he had more and more extended +his speculations, and they had uniformly proved profitable. If +Mr. Grossman's offensive conduct had not forced upon him a painful +consciousness of his position with regard to the object of his +devoted affection, he would have liked to remain in Mobile a few +years longer, and accumulate more; but, as it was, he determined to +remove as soon as he could arrange his affairs satisfactorily. He +set about this in good earnest. But, alas! the great pecuniary crash +of 1837 was at hand. By every mail came news of failures where he +expected payments. The wealth, which seemed so certain a fact a few +months before, where had it vanished? It had floated away, like a +prismatic bubble on the breeze. He saw that his ruin was inevitable. +All he owned in the world would not cancel his debts. And now he +recalled the horrible recollection that Loo Loo was a part of his +property. Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not +manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare. In the +fulness of his prosperity and happiness, he did not comprehend the +risk he was running by delay. He rarely thought of the fact that she +was legally his slave; and when it did occur to him, it was always +accompanied with the recollection that the laws of Alabama did not +allow him to emancipate her without sending her away from the State. +But this never troubled him, because there was always present with +him that vision of going to the North and making her his wife. So +time slipped away, without his taking any precautions on the subject; +and now it was too late. Immersed in debt as he was, the law did not +allow him to dispose of anything without consent of creditors; and he +owed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Grossman. Oh, agony! sharp agony! + +There was a meeting of the creditors. Mr. Noble rendered an account +of all his property, in which he was compelled to include Loo Loo; +but for her he offered to give a note for fifteen hundred dollars, +with good endorsement, payable with interest in a year. It was known +that his attachment to the orphan he had educated amounted almost to +infatuation; and his proverbial integrity inspired so much respect, +that the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not +incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the +proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl +should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant +condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between +them was very different from the merely convenient connections which +were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and modest, and so +sensitive by nature, that exposure to public sale would nearly kill +her. The selfish creditor remained inexorable. The very fact that +this delicate flower had been so carefully sheltered from the mud +and dust of the wayside rendered her a more desirable prize. He +coolly declared, that ever since he had seen her in the arbor, he +had been determined to have her; and now that fortune had put the +chance in his power, no money should induce him to relinquish it. + +The sale was inevitable; and the only remaining hope was that some +friend might be induced to buy her. There was a gentleman in the +city whom I will call Frank Helper. He was a Kentuckian by birth, +kind and open-hearted,--a slave-holder by habit, not by nature. Warm +feelings of regard had long existed between him and Mr. Noble; and to +him the broken merchant applied for advice in this torturing +emergency. Though Mr. Helper was possessed of but moderate wealth, +he had originally agreed to endorse his friend's note for fifteen +hundred dollars; and he now promised to empower some one to expend +three thousand dollars in the purchase of Loo Loo. + +"It is not likely that we shall be obliged to pay so much," said he. +"Bad debts are pouring in upon Grossman, and he hasn't a mint of +money to spare just now, however big he may talk. We will begin with +offering fifteen hundred dollars; and she will probably be bid off +for two thousand." + +"Bid off! O my God!" exclaimed the wretched man. He bowed his head +upon his outstretched arms, and the table beneath him shook with his +convulsive sobs. His friend was unprepared for such an overwhelming +outburst of emotion. He did not understand, no one but Alfred +himself _could_ understand, the peculiarity of the ties that bound +him to that dear orphan. Recovering from this unwonted mood, he +inquired whether there was no possible way of avoiding a sale. + +"I am sorry to say there is no way, my friend," replied Mr. Helper. +"The laws invest this man with power over you; and there is nothing +left for us but to undermine his projects. It is a hazardous business, +as you well know. _You_ must not appear in it; neither can I; for I +am known to be your intimate friend. But trust the whole affair to me, +and I think I can bring it to a successful issue." + +The hardest thing of all was to apprise the poor girl of her +situation. She had never thought of herself as a slave; and what a +terrible awakening was this from her dream of happy security! Alfred +deemed it most kind and wise to tell her of it himself; but he +dreaded it worse than death. He expected she would swoon; he even +feared it might kill her. But love made her stronger than he thought. +When, after much cautious circumlocution, he arrived at the crisis +of the story, she pressed her hand hard upon her forehead, and +seemed stupefied. Then she threw herself into his arms, and they wept, +wept, wept, till their heads seemed cracking with the agony. + +"Oh, the avenging Nemesis!" exclaimed Alfred, at last. "I have +deserved all this. It is all my own fault. I ought to have carried +you away from these wicked laws. I ought to have married you. Truest, +most affectionate of friends, how cruelly I have treated you! you, +who put the welfare of your life so confidingly into my hands!" + +She rose up from his bosom, and, looking him lovingly in the face, +replied,-- + +"Never say that, dear Alfred! Never have such a thought again! You +have been the best and kindest friend that woman ever had. If +_I_ forgot that I was a slave, is it strange that _you_ should +forget it? But, Alfred, I will never be the slave of any other man,-- +never! I will never be put on the auction-stand. I will die first." + +"Nay, dearest, you must make no rash resolutions," he replied. +"I have friends who promise to save you, and restore us to each other. +The form of sale is unavoidable. So, for my sake, consent to the +temporary humiliation. Will you, darling?" + +He had never before seen such an expression in her face. Her eyes +flashed, her nostrils dilated, and she drew her breath like one in +the agonies of death. Then pressing his hand with a nervous grasp, +she answered,-- + +"For _your_ sake, dear Alfred, I will." + +From that time, she maintained outward calmness, while in his +presence; and her inward uneasiness was indicated only by a fondness +more clinging than ever. Whenever she parted from him, she kept him +lingering, and lingering, on the threshold. She followed him to the +road; she kissed her hand to him till he was out of sight; and then +her tears flowed unrestrained. Her mind was filled with the idea +that she should be carried away from the home of her childhood, as +she had been by the rough Mr. Jackson,--that she should become the +slave of that bad man, and never, never see Alfred again. "But I can +die," she often said to herself; and she revolved in her mind +various means of suicide, in case the worst should happen. + +Madame Labassé did not desert her in her misfortunes. She held +frequent consultations with Mr. Helper and his friends, and +continually brought messages to keep up her spirits. A dozen times a +day, she repeated,-- + +"Tout sera bien arrangé. Soyez tranquille, ma chčre! Soyez tranquille!" + +At last the dreaded day arrived. Mr. Helper had persuaded Alfred to +appear to yield to necessity, and keep completely out of sight. He +consented, because Loo Loo had said she could not go through with +the scene, if he were present; and, moreover, he was afraid to trust +his own nerves and temper. They conveyed her to the auction-room, +where she stood trembling among a group of slaves of all ages and +all colors, from iron-black to the lightest brown. She wore her +simplest dress, without ornament of any kind. When they placed her +on the stand, she held her veil down, with a close, nervous grasp. + +"Come, show us your face," said the auctioneer. "Folks don't like to +buy a pig in a poke, you know." + +Seeing that she stood perfectly still, with her head lowered upon +her breast, he untied the bonnet, pulled it off rudely, and held up +her face to public view. There was a murmur of applause. + +"Show your teeth," said the auctioneer. But she only compressed her +mouth more firmly. After trying in vain to coax her, he exclaimed,-- + +"Never mind, gentlemen. She's got a string of pearls inside them +coral lips of hern. I can swear to that, for I've seen 'em. No use +tryin' to trot her out. She's a leetle set up, ye see, with bein' +made much of. Look at her, gentlemen! Who can blame her for bein' a +bit proud? She's a fust-rate fancy-article. Who bids?" + +Before he had time to repeat the question, Mr. Grossman said, in a +loud voice, "Fifteen hundred dollars." + +This was rather a damper upon Mr. Helper's agent, who bid sixteen +hundred. + +A voice from the crowd called out, "Eighteen hundred." + +"Two thousand," shouted Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand two hundred," said another voice. + +"Two thousand five hundred," exclaimed Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand eight hundred," said the incognito agent. + +The prize was now completely given up to the two competitors; and +the agent, excited by the contest, went beyond his orders, until he +bid as high as four thousand two hundred dollars. + +"Four thousand five hundred," screamed the cotton-broker. + +There was no use in contending with him. He was evidently willing to +stake all his fortune upon victory. + +"Going! Going! Going!" repeated the auctioneer, slowly. There was a +brief pause, during which every pulsation in Loo Loo's body seemed +to stop. Then she heard the horrible words, "Gone, for four thousand +five hundred dollars! Gone to Mr. Grossman!" + +They led her to a bench at the other end of the room. She sat there, +still as a marble statue, and almost as pale. The sudden cessation +of excited hope had so stunned her, that she could not think. +Everything seemed dark and reeling round her. In a few minutes, +Mr. Grossman was at her side. + +"Come, my beauty," said he. "The carriage is at the door. If you +behave yourself, you shall be treated like a queen. Come, my love!" + +He attempted to take her hand, but his touch roused her from her +lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow +in the face that made him stagger,--so powerful was it, in the +vehemence of her disgust and anger. + +His coaxing tones changed instantly. + +"We don't allow niggers to put on such airs," he said. "I'm your +master. You've got to live with me; and you may as well make up your +mind to it first as last." + +He glowered at her savagely for a moment; and drawing from his pocket +an embroidered slipper, he added,-- + +"Ever since I picked up this pretty thing, I've been determined to +have you. I expected to be obliged to wait till Noble got tired of +you, and wanted to take up with another wench; but I've had better +luck than I expected." + +At the sight of that gift of Alfred's in his hated hand, at the +sound of those coarse words, so different from _his_ respectful +tenderness, her pride broke down, and tears welled forth. Looking up +in his stern face, she said, in tones of the deepest pathos,-- + +"Oh, Sir, have pity on a poor, unfortunate girl! Don't persecute me!" + +"Persecute you?" he replied. "No, indeed, my charmer! If you'll be +kind to me, I'll treat you like a princess." + +He tried to look loving, but the expression was utterly revolting. +Twelve years of unbridled sensuality had rendered his countenance +even more disgusting than it was when he shocked Alfred's youthful +soul by his talk about "Duncan's handsome wench." + +"Come, my beauty," he continued, persuasively, "I'm glad to see you +in a better temper. Come with me, and behave yourself." + +She curled her lip scornfully, and repeated,-- + +"I will never live with you! Never!" + +"We'll see about that, my wench," said he. "I may as well take you +down a peg, first as last. If you'd rather be in the calaboose with +niggers than to ride in a carriage with me, you may try it, and see +how you like it. I reckon you'll be glad to come to my terms, before +long." + +He beckoned to two police-officers, and said, "Take this wench into +custody, and keep her on bread and water, till I give further orders." + +The jail to which Loo Loo was conveyed was a wretched place. The +walls were dingy, the floor covered with puddles of tobacco-juice, +the air almost suffocating with the smell of pent-up tobacco-smoke, +unwashed negroes, and dirty garments. She had never seen any place so +loathsome. Mr. Jackson's log-house was a palace in comparison. The +prison was crowded with colored people of all complexions, and +almost every form of human vice and misery was huddled together +there with the poor victims of misfortune. Thieves, murderers, and +shameless girls, decked out with tawdry bits of finery, were mixed +up with modest-looking, heart-broken wives, and mothers mourning for +the children that had been torn from their arms in the recent sale. +Some were laughing, and singing lewd songs. Others sat still, with +tears trickling down their sable cheeks. Here and there the fierce +expression of some intelligent young man indicated a volcano of +revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily +upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the +level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were +roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, +"By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotch _her_ here?" +"She be white lady ob quality, _she_ be." + +The tenderly-nurtured daughter of the wealthy planter remained in +this miserable place two days. The jailer, touched by her beauty and +extreme dejection, offered her better food than had been prescribed +in his orders. She thanked him, but said she could not eat. When he +invited her to occupy, for the night, a small room apart from the +herd of prisoners, she accepted the offer with gratitude. But she +could not sleep, and she dared not undress. In the morning, the +jailer, afraid of being detected in these acts of indulgence, told +her, apologetically, that he was obliged to request her to return to +the common apartment. + +Having recovered somewhat from the stunning effects of the blow that +had fallen on her, she began to take more notice of her companions. +A gang of slaves, just sold, was in keeping there, till it suited +the trader's convenience to take them to New Orleans; and the +parting scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never +forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have +been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? +What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and +prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten +years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day +before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her +from that vile man's power. + +She was roused from her reverie by the entrance of a white gentleman, +whom she had never seen before. He came to inspect the trader's gang +of slaves, to see if any one among them would suit him for a +house-servant; and before long, he agreed to purchase a +bright-looking mulatto lad. He stopped before Loo Loo, and said, +"Are you a good sempstress?" + +"She's not for sale," answered the jailer. "She belongs to Mr. +Grossman, who put her here for disobedience." The man smiled, as he +spoke, and Loo Loo blushed crimson. + +"Ho, ho," rejoined the stranger. "I'm sorry for that. I should like +to buy her, if I could." + +He sauntered round the room, and took from his pocket oranges and +candy, which he distributed among the black picaninnies tumbling +over each other on the dirty floor. Coming round again to the place +where she sat, he put an orange on her lap, and said, in low tones, +"When they are not looking at you, remove the peel"; and, touching +his finger to his lip, significantly, he turned away to talk with +the jailer. + +As soon as he was gone, she asked permission to go, for a few minutes, +to the room she had occupied during the night. There she examined +the orange, and found that half of the skin had been removed unbroken, +a thin paper inserted, and the peel replaced. On the scrap of paper +was written: "When your master comes, appear to be submissive, and +go with him. Plead weariness, and gain time. You will be rescued. +Destroy this, and don't seem more cheerful than you have been." Under +this was written, in Madame Labassé's hand, "Soyez tranquille, ma chčre." + +Unaccustomed to act a part, she found it difficult to appear so sad +as she had been before the reception of the note. But she did her +best, and the jailer observed no change. + +Late in the afternoon, Mr. Grossman made his appearance. "Well, my +beauty," said he, "are you tired of the calaboose? Don't you think +you should like my house rather better?" + +She yawned listlessly, and, without looking up, answered, "I am very +tired of staying here." + +"I thought so," rejoined her master, with a chuckling laugh. +"I reckoned I should bring you to terms. So you've made up your mind +not to be cruel to a poor fellow so desperately in love with you,-- +haven't you?" + +She made no answer, and he continued: "You're ready to go home with +me,--are you?" + +"Yes, Sir," she replied, faintly. + +"Well, then, look up in my face, and let me have a peep at those +devilish handsome eyes." + +He chucked her under the chin, and raised her blushing face. She +wanted to push him from her, he was so hateful; but she remembered +the mysterious orange, and looked him in the eye, with passive +obedience. Overjoyed at his success, he paid the jailer his fee, +drew her arm within his, and hurried to the carriage. + +How many humiliations were crowded into that short ride! How she +shrank from the touch of his soft, swabby hand! How she loathed the +gloating looks of the old Satyr! But she remembered the orange, and +endured it all stoically. + +Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber +elegantly furnished. + +"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will +keep my word." + +He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying, +"I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if +you will please to grant it." + +"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything +reasonable." + +She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison; +and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow." + +"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It +grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to +convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent. +But you must reward me with a kiss before I go." + +This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of +exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much +ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her +manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly +tired; indeed I am!" + +He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again +urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up +some refreshments for you, before you sleep." + +He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she +heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! +With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and +washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one +no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly +bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame. + +In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face, +entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade. + +"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly. + +"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind, +motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus' +breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I +hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come. +Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de +sake ob yer friends." + +Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you +know I _have_ any friends?" + +"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows +nottin'." + +The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She +felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had +excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but +it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet. + +"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said. + +"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly. + +"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant. + +"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply. + +Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered, +"Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers." +She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was +wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye +pleasant dreams." + +Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo +eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words: +"Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked. +Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word. +Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labassé had added, "Ne craigner +rien, ma chčre." + +Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her +cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she +sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the +apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs, +tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and +lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The +tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of +pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds, +and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were +embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as +the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated +with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass +illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet +before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson +velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and +repeated to herself: + + "He bought me somewhat high; + Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy." + +She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with +patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. +What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master +should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the +windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank +within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out +and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable. +She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud +snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so +near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the +door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They +passed out together,--the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the +door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs, +through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen +with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled +away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the +gentlemen alighted and handed the women out. + +"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, Frank +Helper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant." + +"And Alfred,--Mr. Noble, I mean,--where is he?" asked Loo Loo. + +"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now." + +The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on +their way to the North by an express-train. + +It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured +from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until +he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in +ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended +to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been +endangered, had not Madame Labassé brought cheering messages, from +time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and +success nearly certain. + +When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had +escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars +for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any +one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an +indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant +from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any +connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the +exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, +for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. +He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of +Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England +opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not +understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse +than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, +and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious +wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. +But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was +compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before +leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston, +Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were +posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled; +but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had +travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers +reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to +Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case +the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote: +"I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this +you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter +likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in +charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my +affairs." + +After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained +the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the +rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly +sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling +in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of +whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a +slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo. +Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs, +opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both +her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans. +Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment, +and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last +remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman +who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, +according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and +Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him +before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said +the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. +I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of +Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to +return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing +would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own +protection. + + + +SCENE V. + +Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible, +eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started, +Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome +slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your +reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under +these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake +of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight +hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her." + +The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first," +he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging +over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending +ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee." + +Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and +cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by +reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their +marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an +article of property, according to American law, they did not venture +to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a +commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and +embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals +through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness +of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the +slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries +of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above +the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to +feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall +not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help +_you_, who have done so much for _me_! And Alfred, dear, I want to +give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying +to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and +sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to +be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have. +Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn +thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice +saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be +grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my +good Alfred." + +They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter +from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co. +had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction, +and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance +of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid +sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property, +until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend. + +Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree, +Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk, +and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization +unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had +imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof +from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New +Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of +fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend." +As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who +had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants +in Northern hotels. Madame Labassé was invited to spend the remainder +of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being +unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms. + +Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her +appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her +out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble. +She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had +a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the +financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret, +locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the +youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful +mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a +gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little +white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her. +Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and +presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes +moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up +in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me." + + + + +LETTER-WRITING. + +A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is +constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties +to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but +never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of +fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,--unless, in a word, +real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in +which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other +circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom +his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own +communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He +will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at +him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long +while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a +fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery, +and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,--adding, +that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence. +If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and +affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed +with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty +of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is +nothing to say. + +That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an +unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone +through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown. + +I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in +Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds +me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and +really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week. +New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and +mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their +interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth +little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed +to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday. + +Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar +conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of +mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary +conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with +you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has +forgotten what her _bon mot_ was, and has another, every whit as good, +upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber; +you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as +is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the +night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can +be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the +friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not +answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The +bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate +upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve +them up unseasonably. + +For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself +back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when +he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a +limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will +keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be +shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the +post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even +they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what +they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which +it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or +European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose +want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and +his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an +answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; +to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and +truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its +own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of +pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless +drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed +time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment +of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular +weakness, have gilded,--"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it +with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its +questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis +for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order; +but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and +contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the +writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse +of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct +one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party. + +Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger +postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic +of interest is always with them, and the _billet-doux_, after having +been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the +post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night +of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written +next week as well, since next week they two will stand in +substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet +sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks +she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are +constant changes, delicate tones of color, each + + 'Shade so finely touched love's sense must + seize it.' + +The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again. +Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never +must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence +between our natures." + +But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these +fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from +those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first +moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may +supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would +Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for +another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the +Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the +distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of +us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish +young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to +attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed. +Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who +could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who +would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the +postmen, for fear of the next discharge? + +In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps, +be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers, +school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy, +day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in +the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A +"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence, +is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number, +invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted +company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of +the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as +naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to +stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but +conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most +pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into +words. + +To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through +the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which +people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily +applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters +should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one +feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend, +although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as +absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him +who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making +the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last +word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a +correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the +larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue. +When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who +is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to +open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to +previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or +be protracted for a week or a month. + +Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my +eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, +baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, +born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed +by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in +an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like +the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor, +or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's +distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects +each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of +this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might +be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and +complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits +of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door. + +The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one +feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and +temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of +disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned +hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured +her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are +now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has +nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has +he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it +cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to +decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or +speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already +surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's +epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present, +and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he +would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table. +He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and +flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone, +with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large +hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet, +instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had +something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly +sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for +love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But +"LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well. + +I should not dare to describe the productions of my female +correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them +contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger +proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque +description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. +They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater +task to read them. + +My "fair readers"--as the snobs who write for magazines call women-- +have not, I trust, misapprehended my meaning and lost patience with +me. I would not be understood as expressing a preference for one +description of letters over another. Every person to his tastes and +his talents. But a letter, which does not represent the writer's +real mood, reflect what is uppermost in his or her mind, deal with +things and thoughts rather than with words, and express, if not +strengthen, the peculiar ties between the person writing and the +person written to,--a letter which is not genuine,--is no letter, +but a sham and a lie. A real letter, on the other hand, whatever its +topic, cannot fail to be worth reading. Great thoughts, profound +speculations, matters of experience, bits of observation, delicate +fancies, romantic sentiments, humorous criticisms on people and +things, funny stories, dreams of the future, memories of the past, +pictures of the present, the merest gossip, the veriest trifling, +everything, nothing, may form the theme, if naturally spoken of, not +hunted up to fill out a page. + +No reason for modifying my conclusions occurs to me. It may be said, +that, after all, a poor letter is better than none, because advices +from distant friends are always welcome. But would not a glance at +the well-known handwriting supply this want as fully as the perusal +of a lengthy epistle, written with the hand, but not with the heart? +Does not our chagrin at finding so little of our friends in their +letters more than counterbalance our gratification that they have +been (presumably) kind and thoughtful enough to write? Would we not +gladly give four of their ordinary letters for one of their best? +But the instant they strike off the shackles of regular +correspondence, and despatch letters only when they feel inclined, +replies only while they are fresh, and formulas at other times, if +need be, we have our wish; the miles between our friends and +ourselves shorten, they are really with us now and then, and we take +solid pleasure in chatting with them. + +Am I told, that, until these ideas find general acceptance, it is +dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to +go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a +stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they +would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of +what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the +consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. +The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular +voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence of +character or of conduct, the fewer one has of them, the better. + +Such suggestions as have been thrown out are too obvious to have +escaped any one who has given the subject a moment's thought. But +who has time for that? People live too fast, in these days, to pay +such attention as should be paid to those who are more valuable as +individuals than as parts of the great world. The good offices of +friendship, which are the fulfilment of the highest social duties, +are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of +those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom +and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the +ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and +vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for +the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and +good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion +habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, neglect their +observance. + +I know men, distinguished in the walks of literature, famed for a +beautiful style of composition, who do not write a tolerable letter +nor answer a note of invitation with propriety. Their sentences are +slipshod, their punctuation and spelling beyond criticism, and their +manuscript repulsive. A lady, to whose politeness such an answer is +given, has a right to feel offended, and may very properly ask +whether she be not entitled to as choice language as the promiscuous +crowd which the "distinguished gentleman" addresses from pulpit or +desk. + +How the distinguished gentleman would open his eyes at the question! +He is sure that what he sent her was well enough for a letter. As +though a letter, especially a letter to a lady, should not be as +perfect in its kind as a lecture or sermon in its kind! as though +one's duties toward an individual were less stringent than one's +duties toward an audience! Would the distinguished gentleman be +willing to probe his soul in search of the true reason for the +difference in his treatment of the two? Is he sure that it is not an +outgrowth from a certain "mountainous me," which seeks approbation +more ardently from the one source than from the other? + +There are those who indite elegant notes to comparative strangers, +but, probably upon the principle that familiarity breeds or should +breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate +friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the +numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but +neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their +husbands' houses. + +Pericles, according to Walter Savage Landor, once wrote to Aspasia +as follows:-- + +"We should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in +little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of +our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I +think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly +letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. +Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes +in its efforts to please." + +The London Pericles, the Athenian gentleman,--and there are a few +such as he still extant,--writes to his nearest and dearest friend +none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say +stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. +He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. +He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to +the preparation of a speech. We may feel sure, that, unless he acted +counter to his own maxims, he never wrote a line more or a line less +than he felt an impulse to write, and that he had no "regular +correspondents." + +It is not every one that can write such letters as are in that +delightful book of Walter Savage Landor, or as charmed the friends +of Charles Lamb, the poet Gray, and a few famous women, first, and +the world afterwards. It is not every one who can, with the utmost +and wisest painstaking, produce a thoroughly excellent letter. The +power to do that is original and not to be acquired. The charm of it +will not, cannot, disclose its secret. Like the charm of the finest +manners, of the best conversation, of an exquisite style, of an +admirable character, it is felt rather than perceived. But every +person, who will be simply true to his or her nature, can write a +letter that will be very welcome to a friend, because it will be +expressive of the character which that friend esteems and loves. The +bunch of flowers, hastily put together by her who gathered them, +speaks as plainly of affection, although not in so delicate tones, +as the most tastefully-arranged bouquet. But who desires to be +presented with a nosegay of artificial flowers? Who can abide dead +blossoms or violent discords of color? Freshness, sweetness, and an +approach to harmony, that shall bring to mind the living, growing +plants, and the bountiful Nature from whose embrace flowers are born, +the acceptable gift must have. + +To attempt a closer definition of a good letter than has been given +would be a fruitless, as well as difficult task. "Complete +letter-writers" are chiefly useful for the formulas--notes of +invitation, answers to them, and the like--which they contain, and +for their lessons in punctuation, spelling, and criticism. Their +efforts to instruct upon other points are and must be worse than +useless, because their precepts cramp without inspiring. A few good +examples are more valuable, but a little practice is worth them all. +Letter-writing is, after all, a _pas seul_, as it were; the novice +has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or +to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he +must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and +his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must +be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, +roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his +letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if +not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times and +places and ceremonial retards this process of growth and advance, +which is slow enough, at best. + +But, although most correspondence is, from want of truthfulness, +thoughtfulness, life, good judgment, and good breeding, very +unsatisfactory, it cannot be denied that many good letters are +written every day. Between lovers, parents and children, real and +hearty friends, they pass. Young men on the threshold of life, while +discussing together the grave questions then encountered, write them. +Women, before their time to love and to be loved has come, or after +it is passed,--women, who, disappointed in the great hope of every +woman's life, turn to one another for support and shelter,--are +sending them by every post. Mr. De Quincey somewhere says, that in +the letters of English women, almost alone, survive the pure and racy +idioms of the language; and the German Wolf is said to have asserted, +that in corresponding with his betrothed he learnt the mysteries of +style. + +Such letters as these are worth one's reading, because the utterance +is genuine and genial. The writers feel and express in every line an +interest in what they are writing, and do not recognize the +conventional rules which obtain where people rely less upon +inspirations from within than upon fixed general maxims for their +guidance. As in the drawing-room the gentleman or lady behaves +naturally, and not according to the dancing-master, so in their +correspondence the best-bred people act from nature, and not from +instruction. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. [Continued.] + + Novit etiam pictura tacens in parietibus loqni. + +ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA. + + +IV. + +Christian art began in the catacombs. Under ground, by the feeble +light of lanterns, upon the ceilings of crypts, or in the +semicircular spaces left above some of the more conspicuous graves, +the first Christian pictures were painted. Imperfect in design, +exhibiting often the influence of pagan models, often displaying +haste of performance and poverty of means, confined for the most part +within a limited circle of ideas, and now faded in color, changed by +damp, broken by rude treatment, sometimes blackened by the smoke of +lamps,--they still give abundant evidence of the feeling and the +spirit which animated those who painted them, a feeling and spirit +which unhappily have too seldom found expression in the so-called +religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a +purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to +be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,-- +although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic +skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest +arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and +their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early +Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so +much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy, +as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons, +easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give +consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial. +"The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,-- +restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high +spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting." + +With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these +mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is +impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the +Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It +was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second +century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which +have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries +were probably executed before Christianity had become the +established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in +painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of +simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the +native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying +embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff +conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle. + +In the pictures of the most interesting period, that is, of the +second and third centuries, there is no attempt at literal +portraiture or historic accuracy. They were to be understood only by +those who had the key to them in their minds, and they mostly +arranged themselves in four broad classes. 1st. Representations of +personages or scenes from the Old Testament regarded as types of +those of the New. 2d. Literal or symbolic representations of +personages or scenes from the New Testament. 3d. Miscellaneous +figures, chiefly those of persons in the attitude of prayer. 4th. +Ornamental designs, often copied from pagan examples, and sometimes +with a symbolic meaning attached to them. + +It is a noteworthy and affecting circumstance, that, among the +immense number of the pictures in the catacombs which may be +ascribed to the first three centuries, scarcely one has been found +of a painful or sad character. The sufferings of the Saviour, his +passion and his death, and the martyrdoms of the saints, had not +become, as in after days, the main subjects of the religious Art of +Italy. On the contrary, all the early paintings are distinguished by +the cheerful and trustful nature of the impressions they were +intended to convey. In the midst of external depression, uncertainty +of fortune and of life, often in the midst of persecution, the Roman +Christians dwelt not on this world, but looked forward to the +fulfilment of the promises of their Lord. Their imaginations did not +need the stimulus of painted sufferings; suffering was before their +eyes too often in its most vivid reality; they had learned to regard +it as belonging only to earth, and to look upon it as the gateway to +heaven. They did not turn for consolation to the sorrows of their +Lord, but to his words of comfort, to his miracles, and to his +resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the +one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a +greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The +figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type +that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, +is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the +commonest scenes chosen for representation from the story of the New +Testament. Nor is this strange. The assurance of immortality was to +the world of heathen converts the central fact of Christianity, from +which all the other truths of religion emanated, like rays. It gave +a new and infinitely deeper meaning than it before possessed to all +human experience; and in its universal comprehensiveness, it taught +the great and new lessons of the equality of men before God, and of +the brotherhood of man in the broad promise of eternal life. For us, +brought up in familiarity with Christian truth, surrounded by the +accumulated and constant, though often unrecognized influences of +the Christian faith upon all our modes of thought and feeling, the +imagination itself being more or less completely under their control,-- +for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of +the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he +revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were +constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly +temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad +tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of +example and devotion,--faith in Christ and in his teachings must, +among the sincere, have been always connected with a sense of wonder +and of joy at the change wrought in their views of life and of +eternity. Their thoughts dwelt naturally upon the resurrection of +their Lord, as the greatest of the miracles which were the seal of +his divine commission, and as the type of the rising of the +followers of Him who brought life and immortality to light. + +The troubles and contentions in the early Church, the disputes +between the Jew and the Gentile convert, the excesses of spiritual +excitement, the extravagances of fanciful belief, of which the +Epistles themselves furnish abundant evidence, ceased to all +appearance at the door of the catacombs. Within them there is +nothing to recall the divisions of the faithful; but, on the contrary, +the paintings on the walls almost universally relate to the simplest +and most undisputed truths. It was fitting that among these the +types of the Resurrection should hold a first place. + +But the spiritual needs of life were not to be supplied by the +promises and hopes of immortality alone. There were wants which +craved immediate support, weaknesses that needed present aid, +sufferings that cried for present comfort, and sins for which +repentance sought the assurance of direct forgiveness. And thus +another of the most often-repeated of the pictures in the catacombs +is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No +emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been +found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian +paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with +peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, +it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting +suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed to +desecration or insult from them; and under emblems of this kind, +whose inner meaning was hidden to all but themselves, the first +Christians were often forced to conceal the expression of their faith. +This figure recalled to them many of the sacred words and most +solemn teachings of their Lord: "I am the Good Shepherd; the good +shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Often the good shepherd was +represented as bearing the sheep upon his shoulders; and the picture +addressed itself with touching and effective simplicity to him whom +fear of persecution or the force of worldly temptations had led away. +When one of his sheep is lost, doth not the shepherd go after it +until he find it? "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his +shoulders, rejoicing." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of +God over one sinner that repenteth." How often, before this picture, +has some saddened soul uttered the words of the Psalm: "I have gone +astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy +commandments"! And as if to afford still more direct assurance of the +patience and long-suffering tenderness of the Lord, the Good +Shepherd is sometimes represented in the catacombs as bearing, not a +sheep, but a goat upon his shoulders. It was as if to declare that +his forgiveness and his love knew no limit, but were waiting to +receive and to embrace even those who had turned farthest from him. +In a picture of very early date in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the +Good Shepherd stands between a goat and a sheep, "as a shepherd +divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his +right hand and the goats on his left." But in this picture the order +is reversed,--the goat is on his right hand and the sheep on his left. +It was the strongest type that could be given of the mercy of God. +Sometimes the Good Shepherd is represented, not bearing the sheep on +his shoulders, but leaning on his crook, and with a pipe in his hands, +while his flock stand in various attitudes around him. Here again +the reference to Scripture is plain: "He calleth his own sheep by +name, and leadeth them out;... and the sheep follow him, for they +know his voice." Thus, under various forms and with various meanings, +full of spiritual significance, and suggesting the most invigorating +and consoling thoughts, the Good Shepherd appears oftener than any +other single figure on the vaults and the walls of the catacombs. It +is impossible to look at these paintings, poor in execution and in +external expression as they are, without experiencing some sense, +faint it may be, of the force with which they must have appealed to +the hearts and consciences of those who first looked upon them. It +is as if the inmost thoughts and deepest feeling of the Christians of +those early times had become dimly visible upon the walls of their +graves. The effect is undoubtedly increased by the manner in which +these paintings are seen, by the unsteady light of wax tapers, in +the solitude of long-deserted passages and chapels. In such a place +the dullest imagination is roused, troop on troop of associations +and memories pass in review before it, and the fading colors and +faint outlines of the paintings possess more power over it than the +glow of Titian's canvas, or the firm outline of Michel Angelo's +frescoes. + +Another symbol of the Saviour which is frequently found in the works +of the first three centuries, and which soon afterwards seems to +have fallen almost entirely into disuse, is that of the Fish. It is +not derived, like that of the Good Shepherd, immediately from the +words of Scripture; though its use undoubtedly recalled several +familiar narratives. It seems to have been early associated with the +well-known Greek formula, [Greek: iaesous christos theon uios sotaer], +Jesus Christ the Saviour Son of God, arranged acrostically, so that +the first letters of its words formed the word [Greek: ichthus], fish. +The first association that its use would suggest was that of +Christ's call to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me, and I will make you +fishers of men,"--and thus we find, among the early Christian writers, +the name of "little fish," _pisciculi_, applied to the Christian +disciples of their times. But it would serve also to bring to memory +the miracle that the multitude had witnessed, of the multiplication +of the fishes; and it would recall that last solemn and tender +farewell meeting between the Apostles and their Lord on the shore of +the Sea of Tiberias, in the early morning, when their nets were +filled with fish,--and "Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and +giveth them, and fish likewise." And with this association was +connected, as we learn from the pictures in the catacombs, a still +deeper symbolic meaning, in which it represented the body of our +Lord as given to his apostles at the Last Supper. In the Cemetery of +Callixtus, very near the recently discovered crypt of Pope Cornelius, +are two square sepulchral chambers, adorned with pictures of an +early date. Those of the first chamber have almost utterly perished, +but on the wall of the second may be seen the image of a fish +swimming in the water, and bearing on his back a basket filled with +loaves of the peculiar shape and color used by the Jews as an +offering of the first fruits to their priests; beneath the bread +appears a vessel which shows a red color, like a cup filled with wine. +"As soon as I saw this picture," says the Cavaliere de Rossi, in his +account of the discovery, "the words of St. Jerome came to my mind,-- +'None is richer than he who bears the body of the Lord in an osier +basket and his blood in a glass.'" + +In the same cemetery, very near the crypt of St. Cecilia, there is a +passage wider than common, upon whose side is a series of sepulchral +cells of similar form, and ornamented with similar pictures. In one +of them a table is represented, with four baskets of bread on the +ground, on one side, and three on the other, while upon it three +loaves and a fish are lying. In another of the chambers is a picture +of a single loaf and of a fish upon a plate lying on a table, at one +side of which a man stands with his hands stretched out towards it, +while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It +seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures +the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for +his followers,--a service which has rarely been celebrated under +circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken +in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting +memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were +partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels +of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the +days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for +his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice +was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him +at the table in the upper chamber. [1] + +[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract, +_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_, +expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and +simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic +doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he +considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical +symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least +doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and +the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that +have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their +original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the +date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative +unimportance.] + +There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a +symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture, +but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his +lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his +strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction +of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and +some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind +revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered +indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of +the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of +Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long +period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen +prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs +took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven, +as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that +should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan +eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient +poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the +music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and +compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in +the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow +him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the +lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell, +and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen +story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and +beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths. + +A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which +was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the +man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words, +"Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs, +according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects +that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained +by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They +understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning, +"Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward +to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely +congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in +many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist +writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the +doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called +the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay +stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," +and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated +power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the +painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the +narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting +assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but +there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any +reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures +themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to +contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent +the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet +and bearing his bed. [2] + +[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes +is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance +"represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both +knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not +seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It +is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before +accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the +possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one +figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act +of giving absolution expressed?] + +Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the +life of Moses,--his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord, +his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of +the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first +and the last are most common, and the truths which they were +intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was +regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation, +of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to +Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the +promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land +of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be +seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through +faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage. +Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou +standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard +the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the +Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance. +Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and +the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we +may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in +connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised +even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it +should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says +that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of +Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but +of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another +instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the +thought of immortality with the presence of death. + +So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth +abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the +living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ," +said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary +interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as +typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this +miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures +in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing +dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one +of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of +this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a +similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands +of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a +curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now +current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and +fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in +his hands,--emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being +the Vicegerent of Christ,--and on the bottom of a glass vessel of +late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of +the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not +of Moses, but of Peter,--for the Church had by this time advanced +far in its assumptions. + +The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the +walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet +appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the +great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth, +lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series; +but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted, +according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing +of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has +already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of +the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd, +(which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to +represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may +perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to +come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to +deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief +those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither, +so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and +wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter +dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows +as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was +one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the +long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were +enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the +Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon +those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new +commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with +rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth. +It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not +Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more +than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their +right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some, +at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may +have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more +subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic +meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later +fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations +of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell, +the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education +often led them. + +Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear +a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the +Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel +in the lions' den,--the other that of the Three Children of Israel +in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of +deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will +deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of +prayer,--the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with +arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached +to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They +were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them, +figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture +is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of +these figures with names inscribed above them,--as, for instance, +"HILARA IN PACE." + +Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old +Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the +middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with +the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the +type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the +midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider +signification, it was the type of the world saved through the +revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St. +Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that +is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even +baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." +Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more +literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes, +perhaps, by still other types. + +Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which +the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later +masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham, +in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the +Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a +common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling, +of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated +symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their +typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the +catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition +to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the +miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated, +with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight +to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new +picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is +continually receiving interesting additions. + +There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the +combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are +generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a +different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the +central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller +compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with +Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his +sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault +are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling +are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely +ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on +heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful +character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers, +crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed +more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and +other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church +delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in +the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on +their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put +these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual +significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner +meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus, +the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of +triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the +joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit, +and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the +emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor +of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the +anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol +of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for +the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life; +the lamb, of the Saviour himself. + +Many of these symbols were, it is plain, derived from the Scripture, +but many also had a heathen origin, and were adopted by the +Christians with a new or an additional significance. It was not +strange that this should be so, for many associations still bound +the Christians of the early centuries to the things they had turned +away from. Thus, the horse is frequently found upon the funeral vases +and marbles of the ancients; the peacock, the bird of Juno, was the +emblem of the apotheosis of the Roman empresses; the palm and the +crown had long been in use; and the funeral genii of the heathen +Romans were in some sort the type of the later Christian angels. But +although this adoption of ancient symbols is to be noticed, it is +also to be observed that there is in the Christian cemeteries on the +whole a remarkable absence of heathen imagery,--less by far than +might have been expected in the works of those surrounded by heathen +modes of thought and expression. The influence of Christianity, +however, so changed the current of ideas, and so affected the +feelings of those whom it called to new life, that heathenism became +to them, as it were, a dead letter, devoid of all that could rouse +the fancy, or affect the inner thought. A great gulf was fixed +between them and it,--a gulf which for three centuries, at least, +charity alone could bridge over. It was not till near the fourth +century that heathenism began, to any marked extent, to modify the +character and to corrupt the purity of Christianity. + +And with this is connected one of the most important historic facts +with regard to the Art of the catacombs. In no one of the pictures +of the earlier centuries is support or corroboration to be found of +the distinctive dogmas and peculiar claims of the Roman Church. We +have already spoken of the pictures that have been supposed to have +symbolic reference to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the +Eucharist, and have shown how little they require such an +interpretation. The exaltation of St. Peter above the other Apostles +is utterly unknown in the works of the first three centuries; in +instances in which he is represented, it is as the companion of St. +Paul. The Virgin never appears as the subject of any special +reverence. Sometimes, as in pictures of the Magi bringing their gifts, +she is seen with the child Jesus upon her lap. No attempt to +represent the Trinity (an irreverence which did not become familiar +till centuries later) exists in the catacombs, and no sign of the +existence of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be met with in them, +unless in works of a very late period. Of the doctrines of Purgatory +and Hell, of Indulgences, of Absolution, no trace is to be found. Of +the worship of the saints there are few signs before the fourth +century,--and it was not until after this period that figures of the +saints, such as those spoken of heretofore, in the account of the +crypt of St. Cecilia, became a common adornment of the sepulchral +walls. The use of the _nimbus_, or glory round the head, was not +introduced into Christian Art before the end of the fourth century. +It was borrowed from Paganism, and was adopted, with many other +ideas and forms of representation, from the same source, after +Romanism had taken the place of Paganism as the religion of the +Western Empire. The faith of the catacombs of the first three +centuries was Christianity, not Romanism. + +In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought +outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. +Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the +spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of +expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The +Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its +lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the +personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having +passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the +crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and +the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and +bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles, +beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of +feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works +disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves +were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom +they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves +hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr +became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or +_retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most +precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from +its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts +utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two +men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and +if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the +dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the +showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is +listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on +another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less +abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head +bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has +turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this +parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its +now rifled and forlorn graves. + +But the Art of the catacombs, after its first age, was not confined +to painting. Many sculptured sarcophagi have been found within the +crypts, and in the crypts of the churches connected with the +cemeteries. Here was again the adoption of an ancient custom; and in +many instances, indeed, the ancient sarcophagi themselves were +employed for modern bodies, and the old heathens turned out for the +new Christians. Others were obviously the work of heathen artists +employed for Christian service; and others exhibit, even more +plainly than the later paintings, some of the special doctrines of +the Church. The whole character of this sculpture deserves fuller +investigation than we can give to it here. The collection of these +first Christian works in marble that has recently been made in the +Lateran Museum affords opportunity for its careful study,--a study +interesting not only in an artistic, but in an historic and +doctrinal point of view. + +The single undoubted Christian statue of early date that has come +down to us is that of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, which was +found in 1551, near the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, it +was much mutilated, and has been greatly restored; but it is still +of uncommon interest, not only from its excellent qualities as a +work of Art, but also from the engraving upon its side of a list of +the works of the Saint, and of a double paschal cycle. This, too, is +now in the Christian Museum at the Lateran. + +Another branch of early Christian Art, which deserves more attention +than it has yet received, is that of the mosaics of the catacombs. +Their character is widely different from that of those with which a +few centuries afterwards the popes splendidly adorned their favorite +churches. But we must leave mosaics, gems, lamps, and all the lesser +articles of ornament and of common household use that have been +found in the graves, and which bring one often into strange +familiarity with the ways and near sympathy with the feelings of +those who occupied the now empty cells. Most of these trifles seem +to have been buried with the dead as the memorials of a love that +longed to reach beyond death with the expressions of its constancy +and its grief. Among them have been found the toys of little children,-- +their jointed ivory dolls, their rattles, their little rings, and +bells,--full, even now, of the sweet sounds of long-ago household +joys, and of the tender recollections of household sorrows. In +looking at them, one is reminded of the constant recurrence of the +figure of the Good Shepherd bearing his lamb, painted upon the walls +of these ancient chapels and crypts. + +It was thus that the dawn of Christian Art lighted up the darkness +of the catacombs. While the Roman nobles were decorating their +villas and summer-houses with gay figures, scenes from the ancient +stories, and representations of licentious fancies,--while the +emperors were paving the halls of their great baths with mosaic +portraits of the famous prize-fighters and gladiators,--the +Christians were painting the walls of their obscure cemeteries with +imagery which expressed the new lessons of their faith, and which +was the type and the beginning of the most beautiful works that the +human imagination has conceived, and the promise of still more +beautiful works yet to be created for the delight and help of the +world. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +BEATRICE + + How was I worthy so divine a loss, + Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? + Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, + Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns? + + And when she came, how earned I such a gift? + Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, + The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, + The hourly mercy of a woman's soul? + + Ah, did we know to give her all her right, + What wonders even in our poor clay were done! + It is not Woman leaves us to our night, + It is our earth that grovels from her sun. + + Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes + We whirl too oft from her who still shines on + To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes + Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. + + Still must this body starve our souls with shade; + But when Death makes us what we were before, + Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, + And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor. + + + + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. + + "The sense of the world is short,-- + Long and various the report,-- + To love and be beloved: + Men and gods have not outlearned it; + And how oft soe'er they've turned it, + 'Tis not to be improved!"--EMERSON. + + +Mr. Vane and Mr. Payne both were eagerly describing to me their +arrangements for an excursion to the Lake. I did not doubt it would +be charming, but neither of these two gentlemen would be endurable +on such a drive, and each was determined to ask me first. I stood +pushing apart the crushed flowers of my bouquet, in which all the +gardener's art vindicated itself by making the airy grace of Nature +into a flat, unmeaning mosaic. + +In the next room the passionate melancholy of a waltz was mocked and +travestied by the frantic and ungrateful whirl that only Americans +are capable of executing; the music lived alone in upper air; of men +and dancing it was all unaware; the involved cadences rolled away +over the lawn, shook the dew-drooped roses on their stems, and went +upward into the boundless moonlight to its home. Through all, Messrs. +Vane and Payne harangued me about the splendid bowling-alley at the +Lake, the mountain-strawberries, the boats, the gravel-walks! At +last it became amusing to see how skilfully they each evaded and +extinguished the other; it was a game of chess, and he was to be +victor who should first ask me; if one verged upon the question, the +other quickly interposed some delightful circumstance about the +excursion, and called upon the first to corroborate his testimony; +neither, in Alexander's place, would have done anything but assure +the other that the Gordian knot was very peculiarly tied, and quite +tight. + +Presently Harry Tempest stood by my side. I became aware that he had +heard the discussion. He took my bouquet from my hand, and stood +smelling it, while my two acquaintance went on. I was getting +troubled and annoyed; Mr. Tempest's presence was not composing. I +played with my fan nervously; at length I dropped it. Harry Tempest +picked it up, and, as I stooped, our eyes met; he gave me the fan, +and, turning from Messrs. Vane and Payne, said, very coolly,-- + +"The Lake is really a charming place; I think, Miss Willing, you +would find a carriage an easier mode of conveyance, so far, than +your pony; shall I bring one for you? or do you still prefer to ride?" + +This was so quietly done, that it seemed to me really a settled +affair of some standing that I was to go to the Lake with Mr. Tempest. +Mr. Vane sauntered off to join the waltzers; Mr. Payne suddenly +perceived Professor Rust at his elbow and began to talk chemistry. I +said, as calmly as I had been asked,-- + +"I will send you word some time tomorrow; I cannot tell just now." + +Here some of my friends came to say good night; my duties as hostess +drew me toward the door; Harry Tempest returned my bouquet and +whispered, or rather said in that tone of society that only the +person addressed can hear,-- + +"Clara! let it be a drive!" + +My head bent forward as he spoke, for I could not look at him; when +I raised it, he was gone. + +The music still soared and floated on through the windows into the +moonlight; one by one the older part of my guests left me; only a +few of the gayest and youngest still persevered in that indefatigable +waltz, the oval room looking as if a score of bubbles were playing +hop and skip,--for in the crinoline expansions the gentlemen's black +pen-and-ink outlines were all lost. At length even these went; the +music died; its soul went up with a long, broken cry; its body was +put piecemeal into several green bags, shouldered by stout Germans, +and carried quite out of sight. The servants gathered and set away +such things as were most needful to be arranged, put out the lights, +locked the doors and windows, and went to bed. Mrs. Reading, my good +housekeeper, begged me to go up stairs. + +"You look so tired, Miss Clara!" + +"So I am, Delia!" said I. "I will rest. Go to bed you, and I shall +come presently." + +I heard her heavy steps ascend the stairs; I heard the door of her +room close, creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the +coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. +I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I +needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous +question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found +in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, +was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out +upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked eyes and fat +cheeks had eyed me a thousand times when Elsie's arm was clasped +over my neck, and with her head upon my shoulder we lay and laughed, +when we should have been dressing, at those Chinese chintz curtains. +Elsie was gone; if she had been here, I had been at once counselled. +Rest there, dead Past!--I could not go to my bedroom. + +The green-house opened from the large parlor by a sash-door. At this +season of the year the glazed roof and sides were withdrawn or +lowered, but at night the lower sashes were drawn up and fastened, +lest incursive cats or dogs should destroy my flowers. The great +Newfoundland that was our guard slept on the floor here, since it +was the weakest spot for any ill-meaning visitors to enter at. + +I drew the long skirt of my lace dress up over my hair, and quietly +went into the green-house. The lawn and its black firs tempted me, +but there was moonlight on the lawn, and moonlight I cannot bear; it +burns my head more fiercely than any noon sun; it scorches my eyelids; +it exhausts and fevers me; it excites my brain, and now I looked for +calm. This the odor of the flowers and their pure expression +promised me. A tall, thick-leaved camellia stood half-way down the +border, and before it was a garden-chair. The moonlight shed no ray +there, but through the sashes above streamed cool and fair over the +blooms that clung to the wall and adorned the parterres and vases; +for this house was set after a fashion of my own, a winter-garden +under glass; no stages filled the centre. It was laid out with no +stiff rule, but here and there in urns of stone, or in pyramidal +stands, gorgeous or fragrant plants ran at their own wild will, while +over all the wall and along the woodwork of the roof trailed +passion-flowers, roses, honeysuckles, fragrant clematis, ivy, and +those tropic vines whose long dead names belie their fervid +luxuriance and fantastic growth; great trees of lemon and orange +interspaced the vines in shallow niches of their own, and the languid +drooping tresses of a golden acacia flung themselves over and across +the deep glittering mass of a broad-leaved myrtle. + +As I sat down in the chair, Pan reared his dusky length from his mat, +and came for a recognition. It was wont to be something more +positive than caresses; but to-night neither sweet biscuit nor +savory bit of confectionery appeared in the hand that welcomed him; +yet he was as loving as ever, and, with a grim sense of protection, +flung himself at my feet, drew a long breath, and slept. I dared not +yet think; I rested my head against the chair, and breathed in the +odor of the flowers: the delicate scent of tea-roses; the Southern +perfume, fiery and sweet, like Greek wine, of profuse heliotropes,--a +perfume that gives you thirst, and longing, and regret. I turned my +head toward the orange-trees; Southern, also, but sensuous and tropic, +was the breath of those thick white stars,--a tasted odor. Not so +the cool air that came to me from a diamond-shaped bed of Parma +violets, kept back so long from bloom that I might have a succession +of them; these were the last, and their perfume told it, for it was +at once a caress and a sigh. I breathed the gale of sweetness till +every nerve rested and every pulse was tranquil as the air without. + +I heard a little stir. I looked up. A stately calla, that reared one +marble cup from its gracious cool leaves, was bending earthward with +a slow and voluntary motion; from the cup glided a fair woman's shape; +snowy, sandalled feet shone from under the long robe; hair of +crisped gold crowned the Greek features. It was Hypatia. A little +shiver crept through a white tea-rose beside the calla; its delicate +leaves fluttered to the ground; a slight figure, a sweet, sad face, +with melancholy blue eyes and fair brown hair, parted the petals. La +Valličre! She gazed in my eyes. + +"Poor little child!" said she. "Have you a treatise against love, +Hypatia?" + +The Greek of Egypt smiled and looked at me also. "I have discovered +that the steps of the gods are upon wool," answered she; "if love +had a beginning to sight, should not we also foresee its end?" + +"And when one foresees the end, one dies," murmured La Valličre. + +"Bah!" exclaimed Marguerite of Valois, from the heart of a rose-red +camellia,--"not at all, my dear; one gets a new lover!" + +"Or the new lover gets you," said a dulcet tone, tipped with satire, +from the red lips of Mary of Scotland,--lips that were just now the +petals of a crimson carnation. + +"Philosophy hath a less troubled sea wherein to ride than the stormy +fluctuance of mortal passion; Plato is diviner than Ovid," said a +puritanic, piping voice from a coif that was fashioned out of the +white camellia-blooms behind my chair, and circled the prim beauty +of Lady Jane Grey. + +"Are you a woman, or one of the Sphinx's children?" said a stormy, +thrilling, imperious accent, from the wild purple and scarlet flower +of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous +Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and +slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,--sallow, thin, but more +graceful than any bending bough of the desert acacia, and with eyes +like midnight, deep, glowing, flashing, melting into dew, as she +looked at the sedate lady of England. + +"You do not know love!" resumed she. "It is one draught,--a jewel +fused in nectar; drink the pearl and bring the asp!" + +Her words brought beauty; the sallow face burnt with living scarlet +on lip and cheek; the tiny pearl-grains of teeth flashed across the +swarth shade above her curving, passionate mouth; the wide nostrils +expanded; the great eyes flamed under her low brow and glittering +coils of black hair. + +"Poor Octavia!" whispered La Valličre. Lady Jane Grey took up her +breviary and read. + +"After all, you died!" said Hypatia. + +"I lived!" retorted Cleopatra. + +"Lived and loved," said a dreamy tone from the hundred leaves of a +spotless La Marque rose; and the steady, "unhasting, unresting" soul +of Thekla looked out from that centreless flower, in true German +guise of brown braided tresses, deep blue eyes like forget-me-nots, +sedate lips, and a straight nose. + +"I have lived, and loved, and cut bread and butter," solemnly +pronounced a mountain-daisy, assuming the broad features of a +fräulein. + +Cleopatra used an Egyptian oath. Lady Jane Grey put down her breviary +and took up Plato. Marguerite of Valois laughed outright. Hypatia +put a green leaf over Charlotte, with the air of a high-priestess, +and extinguished her. + +"Who does not love cannot lose," mused La Valličre. + +"Who does not love neither has nor gains," said Hypatia. "The dilemma +hath two sides, and both gain and loss are problematic. It is the +ideal of love that enthralls us, not the real." + +"Hush! you white-faced Greek! It was not an ideal; it was Mark Antony. +By Isis! does a dream fight, and swear, and kiss?" + +"The Navarrese did; and France dreamed he was my master,--not I!" +laughed Marguerite. + +"This is most weak stuff for goodly and noble women to foster," +grimly uttered a flame-colored hawk's-bill tulip, that directly +assumed a ruff and an aquiline nose. + +Mary of Scotland passed her hand about her fair throat. "Where is +Leicester's ring?" said she. + +The Queen did not hear, but went on. "Truly, you make as if it was +the intent of women to be trodden under foot of men. She that +ruleth herself shall rule both princes and nobles, I wot. Yet I had +done well to marry. Love or no love, I would the house of Hanover +had waged war with one of mine own blood; I hate those fair, fat +Guelphs!" + +"Love hath sometimes the thorn alone, the rose being blasted in bud," +uttered a sweet and sonorous voice with a little nasal accent, out +of the myrtle-boughs that starred with bloom her hair, and swept the +hem of her green dress. + +"Sweet soul, wast thou not, then, sated upon sonnets?" said Mary of +Scotland, in a stage aside. + +"Do not the laurels overgrow the thorn?" said La Valličre, with a +wistful, inquiring smile. + +Laura looked away. "They are very green at Avignon," said she. + +Out of two primroses, side by side, Stella and Vanessa put forth +pale and anxious faces, with eyes tear-dimmed. + +"Love does not feed on laurels," said Stella; "they are fruitless." + +"That the clergy should be celibate is mine own desire," broke in +Queen Elizabeth. "Shall every curly fool's-pate of a girl be turning +after an anointed bishop? I will have this thing ended, certes! and +that with speed." + +Vanessa was too deep in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. +"I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and +veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto age and +learning." + +"Ciel!" muttered Marguerite; "is it, then, that in this miserable +England one cherishes a grand passion for one's grandfather?" + +The heliotrope-clusters melted into a face of plastic contour, rich +full lips, soft interfused outlines, intense purple eyes, and heavy +waving hair, dark indeed, but harmonized curiously with the narrow +gold fillet that bound it. "It is no pain to die for love," said the +low, deep voice, with an echo of rolling gerunds in the tone. + +"That depends on how sharp the dagger is," returned Mary of Scotland. +"If the axe had been dull"---- + +From the heart of a red rose Juliet looked out; the golden centre +crowned her head with yellow tresses; her tender hazel eyes were +calm with intact passion; her mouth was scarlet with fresh kisses, +and full of consciousness and repose. "Harder it is to live for love," +said she; "hardest of all to have ever lived without it." + +"How much do you all help the matter?" said a practical Yankee voice +from a pink hollyhock. "If the infinite relations of life assert +themselves in marriage, and the infinite I merges its individuality +in the personality of another, the superincumbent need of a passional +relation passes without question. What the soul of the seeker asks +from itself and the universe is, whether the ultimate principle of +existent life is passional or philosophic." + +"Your dialectic is wanting in purity of expression," calmly said +Hypatia; "the tongue of Olympus suits gods and their ministers only." + +"Plato hath no question of the matter in hand," observed Lady Jane +Grey, with a tone of finishing the subject. + +"I know nothing of your questions and philosophies," scornfully +stormed Cleopatra. "Fire seeks fire, and clay, clay. Isis send me +Antony, and every philosopher in Alexandria may go drown in the Nile! +Shall I blind my eyes with scrolls of papyrus when there is a goodly +Roman to be looked upon?" + +From the deep blue petals of a double English violet came a delicate +face, pale, serene, sad, but exceeding tender. "Love liveth when the +lover dies," said Lady Rachel Russell. "I have well loved my lord in +the prison; shall I cease to affect him when he is become one of the +court above?" + +"You are cautious of speech, Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. +"Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you has +carried cap and bell." + +They all turned toward the hawk's-bill tulip; it was not there. + +"Gone to Kenilworth," demurely sneered Mary of Scotland. + +A pond-lily, floating in a tiny tank, opened its clasped petals; and +with one bare pearly foot upon the green island of leaves, and the +other touching the edge of the marble basin, clothed with a rippling, +lustrous, golden garment of hair, that rolled downward in glittering +masses to her slight ankles, and half hid the wide, innocent, blue +eyes and infantile, smiling lips, Eve said, "I was made for Adam," +and slipped silently again into the closing flower. + +"But we have changed all that!" answered Marguerite, tossing her +jewel-clasped curls. + +"They whom the saints call upon to do battle for king and country +have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear +voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and +flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless +lips of a woman. + +"There have been cloistered nuns," timidly breathed La Valličre. + +"There is a monk's-hood in that parterre without," said Marguerite. + +The white clematis shivered. It was a veiled shape in long robes, +that hid face and figure, who clung to the wall and whispered, +"Paraclete!" + +"There are tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of +Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint +outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red +roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine +streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially +obscured, that ran, "Utque talis Rosa nulli alteri plantę adhęreret"---- + +"But the girl there is no saint; I think, rather, she is of mine own +land," said a purple passion-flower, that hid itself under a black +mantilla, and glowed with dark beauty. The Spanish face bent over me +with ardent eyes and lips of sympathetic passion, and murmured, +"Do not fear! Pedro was faithful unto and after death; there are some +men"---- + +Pan growled! I rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me +in very extempore costume, holding a night-lamp:-- + +"Goodness me, Miss Clara!" said she, "I never was more scared. I +happened to wake up, and I thought I see your west window open +across the corner; so I roused up to go and see if you was sick; and +you wasn't in bed, nor your frock anywhere. I was frighted to pieces; +but when I come down and found the greenhouse door open, I went in +just for a chance, and, lo and behold! here you are, sound asleep in +the chair, and Pan a-lying close onto that beautiful black lace frock! +Do get up, Miss Clara! you'll be sick to-morrow, sure as the world!" + +I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla +breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and +perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant. + +"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?" + +Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed. + +"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a +pretty good feller; but seein' things was as they was, if I'd had +means and knowed what I know now, I shouldn't never have married him." + +"May-be you'd have married somebody else, though," suggested I. + +"Like enough, Miss Clara; girls are unaccountable perverse when they +get in love. But do get up and go to bed. A'n't you goin' to the +Lake to-morrow?" + +That put my speculation to flight. Up I rose and meekly followed +Delia to my room; this time she staid to see me fairly disrobed. But +I had had sleep enough. I was also quiet; I could think. The future +lay at my feet, to be planned and patterned at my will; or so I +thought. I had not permitted myself to think much about Harry Tempest, +from an instinctive feeling of danger; I did not know then that + + "En songeant qu'il faut oublier + On s'en souvient!" + +I was young, rich, beautiful, independent; I came and went as I would, +without question, and did my own pleasure. If I married, all this +power must be given up; possibly I and my husband would tire of each +other,--and then what remained but fixed and incurable disgust and +pain? I thought over my strange dream. Cleopatra, the enchantress, +and the scorn of men: that was not love, it was simple passion of +the lowest grade. Lady Jane Grey: she was only proper. Marguerite de +Valois: profligate. Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. +Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Paetus dying, she could not +love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side +of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they +satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the +distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the +half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before +the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly +resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no +opportunity to speak to me alone. But I slept too long; it was noon +before I woke, and I had sent no message about my preference of the +pony, as I promised, to Mr. Tempest. I had only time to breakfast +and dress. At three o'clock he came,--with his carriage, of course. +So I rode to the Lake! + +It's all very well to make up one's mind to say a certain thing; it +is better if you say it; but, somehow or other,--I really was +ashamed afterward,--I forgot all my good reasons. I found I had taken +a great deal of pains to no purpose. In short, after due time, I +married Harry Tempest; and though it is some time since that happened, +I am still much of Eve's opinion,-- + + "I WAS MADE FOR ADAM." + + * * * * * + + + + +CRAWFORD AND SCULPTURE. + +There is as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, +the palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the +versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste +severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. +The simplicity, directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace +of Sculpture have analogies in literature and character: the terse +despatch of a brave soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, +some proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic lines, that have become +household words, puritanic consistency, silent fortitude, are but so +many vigorous outlines, and impress us by virtue of the same +colorless intensity as a masterpiece of the statuary. How +sculpturesque is Dante, even in metaphor, as when he writes,-- + + "Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa; + Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, + A guisa di leon quando si posa." + +Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints are covered +with snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and mountain are clearly +defined by the universal whiteness. Death, in its pale, still, fixed +image,--always solemn, sometimes beautiful,--would have inspired +primeval humanity to mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. Even +New Zealanders elaborately carve their war-clubs; and from the +"graven images" prohibited by the Decalogue as objects of worship, +through the mysterious granite effigies of ancient Egypt, the brutal +anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and gilded figures on a +ship's prow,--whether emblems of rude ingenuity, tasteless caprice, +retrospective sentiment, or embodiments of the highest physical and +mental culture, as in the Greek statues,--there is no art whose +origin is more instructive and progress more historically significant. +The vases of Etruria are the best evidence of her degree of +civilization; the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood ware redeem the +economical art of England; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the +Roman Capitol are the most venerable local insignia; the carvings of +Gibbons, in old English manor-houses, outrival all the luxurious +charms of modern upholstery; Phidias is a more familiar element in +Grecian history than Pericles; the moral energy of the old Italian +republics is more impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the +bold and vigorous creations of Michel Angelo than in the political +annals of Macchiavelli; and it is the massive, uncouth sculptures, +half-buried in sylvan vegetation, which mythically transmit the +ancient people of Central America. + +We confess a faith in, and a love for, the "testimony of the rocks,"-- +not only as interpreted by the sagacious Scotchman, as he excavated +the "old red sandstone," but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, +and power by the hand of man through all generations. We love to +catch a glimpse of these silent memorials of our race, whether as +Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with summer foliage in a garden, or +as Heroes gleaming with startling distinctness in the moonlit +city-square; as the similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the +halls of nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone +effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm without the +respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim, with the +enamored gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the asp had done its work,-- + + "She looks like sleep, + As she would catch another Antony + In her _strong toil of grace_." + +Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture,--partly because of an +inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its +greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its +awe-inspiring influence in "the monumental caves of death," as +described by Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that "all arts +address themselves to the sensibility and imagination"; and no one +thus alive to the appeal of sculpture will marvel that the +infuriated mob spared the statues of the Tuileries at the bloody +climax of the French Revolution,--that a "love of the antique" knit +in bonds of life-long friendship Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani,-- +that among the most salient of childhood's memories should be +Memnon's image and the Colossus of Rhodes,--that an imaginative girl +of exalted temperament died of love for the Apollo Belvidere,--and +that Carrara should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have +peopled earth with grace. + +To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing tableaux than a +gifted sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!--standing +erect by the mass of clay,--with graduated touch, moulding into +delicate undulations or expressive lines the inert mass,--now +stepping back to see the effect,--now bending forward, almost +lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a thin layer,--and so, +hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action, each perception +active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual approximation, under +patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap of +earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. When such a man +departs from the world, after having thus labored in love and with +integrity so as to bequeathe memorable and cherished trophies of +this beautiful art,--when he dies in his prime, his character as a +man endeared by the ties of friendship, and his fame as an artist +made precious by the bond of a common nativity, we feel that the art +he loved and illustrated and the fame he won and honored demand a +coincident discussion. + +Thomas Crawford was born in New York, March 22, 1813, and died in +London, October 16, 1857. His lineage, school education, and early +facilities indicate no remarkable means or motive for artistic +development; they were such as belong to the average positions of +the American citizen; although a bit of romance, which highly amused +the young sculptor, was the visit of a noble Irish lady to his studio, +who ardently demonstrated their common descent from an ancient house. +At first contented to experiment as a juvenile draughtsman, to gaze +into the windows of print-shops, to collect what he could obtain in +the shape of casts, to carve flowers, leaves, and monumental designs +in the marble-yard of Launitz,--then adventuring in wood sculptures +and portraits, until the encouragement of Thorwaldsen, the nude +models of the French Academy at Rome, and copies from the +Demosthenes and other antiques in the Vatican disciplined his eye +and touch,--thus by a healthful, rigorous process attaining the +manual skill and the mature judgment which equipped him to venture +wisely in the realm of original conception,--there was a thoroughness +and a progressive application in his whole initiatory course, +prophetic, to those versed in the history of Art, of the ultimate +and secure success so legitimately earned. + +If Rome yields the choicest test, in modern times, of individual +endowment in sculpture, by virtue of her unequalled treasures and +select proficients in Art,--Munich affords the second ordeal in +Europe, because of the cultivated taste and superior foundries for +which that capital is renowned; and it is remarkable that both the +great statues there cast from Crawford's models by Müller inspired +those impromptu festivals which give expression to German enthusiasm. +The advent of the Beethoven statue was celebrated by the adequate +performance, under the auspices of both court and artists, of that +peerless composer's grandest music. When, on the evening of his +arrival, Crawford went to see, for the first time, his Washington in +bronze, he was surprised at the dusky precincts of the vast arena; +suddenly torches flashed illumination on the magnificent horse and +rider, and simultaneously burst forth from a hundred voices a song +of triumph and jubilee: thus the delighted Germans congratulated +their gifted brother, and hailed the sublime work,--to them typical +at once of American freedom, patriotism, and genius. The king warmly +recognized the original merits and consummate effect of the work; +the artists would suffer no inferior hands to pack and despatch it to +the sea-side; peasants greeted its triumphal progress;--the people +of Richmond were emulous to share the task of conveying it from the +quay to the Capitol hill; mute admiration, followed by ecstatic +cheers, hailed its unveiling, and the most gracious native eloquence +inaugurated its erection. + +Descriptions of works of Art, especially of statues, are +proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, +to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, +intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing +Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious +labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;--we +might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the +concentration of his thoughtful brow, and the loving serenity of his +expression,--a kind of embodied musical self-absorption, yet an +accurate portrait of the man in his inspired mood; so might he have +stood when gathering into his serene consciousness the pastoral +melodies of Nature, on a summer evening, to be incorporated into +immortal combinations of harmonious sound;--we might descant upon +the union of majesty and spirit in the figure of Washington and the +vital truth of action in the horse, the air of command and of +rectitude, the martial vigor and grace, so instantly felt by the +popular heart, and so critically praised by the adept in statuary +cognizant of the difficulties to be overcome and the impression to +be absolutely evolved from such a work, in order to make it at once +true to Nature and to character;--we might repeat the declaration, +that no figure, ancient or modern, so entirely illustrates the +classic definition of oratory, as consisting in action, as the +statue of Patrick Henry, which seems instinct with that memorable +utterance, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The inventive +felicity of the design for one of the pediments of the Capitol might +be unfolded as a vivid historic poem; and it requires no imagination +to show that Jefferson looks the author of the Declaration of +Independence. The union of original expression and skill in statuary +and of ingenious constructiveness in monumental designs, which +Crawford exhibited, may be regarded as a peculiar excellence and a +rare distinction. + +Much has been said and written of the limits of sculpture; but it is +the sphere, rather than the art itself, which is thus bounded; and +one of its most glorious distinctions, like that of the human form +and face, which are its highest subject, is the vast possible +variety within what seems, at first thought, to be so narrow a field. +That the same number and kind of limbs and features should, under the +plastic touch of genius, have given birth to so many and totally +diverse forms, memorable for ages and endeared to humanity, is in +itself an infinite marvel, which vindicates, as a beautiful wonder, +the statuary's art from the more Protean rivalry of pictorial skill. +If we call to mind even a few of the sculptured creations which are +"a joy forever," even to retrospection,--haunting by their pure +individuality the temple of memory, permanently enshrined in +heartfelt admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and +woman, significant in history, powerful in expression, or +irresistible in grace,--we feel what a world of varied interest is +hinted by the very name of Sculpture. Through it the most just and +clear idea of Grecian culture is revealed to the many. The solemn +mystery of Egyptian and the grand scale of Assyrian civilization are +best attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies the land +of the Pyramids and all its associations, mythological, scientific, +natural, and sacred,--its reverence for the dead, and its dim and +portentous traditions! and what a reflex of Nineveh's palmy days are +the winged lions exhumed by Layard! What more authentic tokens of +Mediaeval piety and patience exist than the elaborate and grotesque +carvings of Albert Dürer's day? The colossal Brahma in the temple of +Elephanta, near Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic superstition. +And can an illustration of the revival of Art, in the fifteenth +century, so exuberant, aspiring, and sublime, be imagined, to +surpass the Day and Night, the Moses, and other statues of Angelo?-- +But such general inferences are less impressive than the personal +experience of every European traveller with the least passion for +the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is there any sphere of +observation and enjoyment to such a one, more prolific of individual +suggestions than this so-called limited art? From the soulful glow +of expression in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the +womanly contours, so exquisite, in the armless figure of the Venus +de Milo,--from the aerial posture of John of Bologna's Mercury, to +the inimitable and firm dignity in the attitude of Aristides in the +Museum of Naples,--from the delicate lines which teach how grace can +chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the +embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici +Chapel,--from the stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all +bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning +gesture, to the _abandon_ gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing +Faun,--from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding +frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written forever the inhumanities +of ancient civilization, to the triumphant beauty and firm, light, +enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's Ariadne,--from the unutterable joy +of Cupid and Psyche's embrace, to the grand authority of Moses,--how +many separate phases of human emotion "live in stone"! What greater +contrast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge of facts and in our +consciousness of sentiment, can be exemplified, than those so +distinctly, memorably, and gracefully moulded in the apostolic +figures of Thorwaldsen, the Hero and Leander of Steinhaüser, the +lovely funereal monument, inspired by gratitude, which Rauch reared +to Louise of Prussia, Chantrey's Sleeping Children, Canova's Lions +in St. Peter's, the bas-reliefs of Ghiberti on the Baptistery doors +at Florence, and Gibson's Horses of the Sun? + +Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a pleasant +afternoon, along the Zurich road, to the old General's garden, where +stands the colossal lion designed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the +brave renown of the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the royal +family of France during the massacre of the Revolution? Carved from +the massive sandstone, the majestic animal, with the fatal spear in +his side, yet loyal in his vigil over the royal shield, is a grand +image of fidelity unto death. The stillness, the isolation, the +vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the clear mirror of the basin, +into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting the vast proportions +of the enormous lion, the veteran Swiss, who acts as _cicerone_, the +adjacent chapel with its altar-cloth wrought by one of the fair +descendants of the Bourbon king and queen for whom these victims +perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Nature and Art, +convey a unique impression, in absolute contrast with such white +effigies, for instance, as in the dusky precincts of Santa Croce +droop over the sepulchre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar +in the Mercato Nuevo of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness of that +sweet scion of the English nobility, moulded by Chantrey in all the +soft and lithe grace of childhood, holding a contented dove to her +bosom. + +Even as the subject of taste, independently of historical diversities, +sculpture presents every degree of the meretricious, the grotesque, +and the beautiful,--more emphatically, because more palpably, than +is observable in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an +immortal precedent; the Medięval carvings embody the rude Teutonic +truthfulness; where Canova provoked comparison with the antique, as +in the Perseus and Venus, his more gross ideal is painfully evident. +How artificial seems Bernini in contrast with Angelo! How minutely +expressive are the terra-cotta images of Spain! What a climax of +absurdity teases the eye in the monstrosities in stone which draw +travellers in Sicily to the eccentric nobleman's villa, near Palermo! +Who does not shrink from the French allegory and horrible melodrama +of Roubillac's monument to Miss Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey? +How like Horace Walpole to dote on Ann Conway's canine groups! We +actually feel sleepy, as we examine the little black marble Somnus +of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the first sight of the +Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in the presence of Nymphs, Graces, +and the Goddess of Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of genius, they +seem the ethereal types of that + + ----"common clay ta'en from the common earth, + Moulded by God and tempered by the tears + Of angels to the perfect form of woman." + +Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is +tranquillity,--a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe +chastens admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we +echo the poet's sentiment,-- + + "I do feel a mighty calmness creep + Over my heart, which can no longer borrow + Its hues from chance or change,--those children of to-morrow." + +It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate, +death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial +as commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like +those in St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked +beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venerable +associations of a Medięval tomb; while marble figures, typifying +Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding over the lineaments of the +illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral decorations, the most apt +and impressive. We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on +an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in which the brave +young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the scene and +story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form +of a recumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of the old +city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown forever +the gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In +Cathedral and Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the +sequestered parish church or the rural cemetery, what image so +accords with the sad reality and the serene hope of humanity, as the +adequate marble personification on sarcophagus and beneath shrine, +in mausoleum or on turf-mound? + + "His palms infolded on his breast, + There is no other thought express'd + But long disquiet merged in rest." + +In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so +readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is +in the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and +expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities +we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of +diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it +is the statues of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic +charm of her history; abstractly, we regard them with the poet:-- + + "Their gods? what were their gods? + There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules, + Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker + Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns + At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode + Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell + Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief; + Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best; + And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers; + Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer, + Sat in the circle of his starry power + And frowned 'I will!' to all." + +Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,--but calm, +fair, strong, and immortal. "They seem," wrote Hazlitt, "to have no +sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless +excellence they appear sufficient to themselves." + +In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the +most glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by +torchlight endears even these poor traditional deities forever. + + On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow, + Auroras beam, + The steeds of Neptune through the waters go, + Or Sibyls dream. + + As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved + Illusions wild, + Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved + And Juno smiled. + + Aerial Mercuries in bronze upspring, + Dianas fly, + And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling + Without a sigh. + +To this variety in unity, this wealth of antique genius, Crawford +brought the keen relish of an observant and the aptitude of a +creative mind. His taste in Art was eminently catholic; he loved the +fables and the personages of Greece because of this very diversity +of character,--the freedom to delineate human instincts and passions +under a mythological guise,--just as Keats prized the same themes as +giving broad range to his fanciful muse. A list of our prolific +sculptor's works is found to include the entire circle of subjects +and styles appropriate to his art--first, the usual classic themes, +of which his first remarkable achievement was the Orpheus; then a +series of Christian or religious illustrations, from Adam and Saul +to Christ at the Well of Samaria; next, individual portraits; a +series of domestic figures, such as the "Children in the Wood," or +"Truant Boys"; and, finally, what may be termed national statuary, +of which Beethoven and Washington are eminent exemplars. Like +Thorwaldsen, Crawford excelled in _basso-rilievo_, and was a +remarkable pictorial sculptor. Having made early and intense +studies of the antique, he as carefully observed Nature; few +statuaries have more keenly noted the action of childhood or +equestrian feats, so that the limbs and movement of the sweetest of +human and the noblest of brute creatures were critically known to him. +In sculpture, we believe that a great secret of the highest success +lies in an intuitive eclecticism, whereby the faultless graces of the +antique are combined with just observation of Nature. Without +correct imitative facility, a sculptor wanders from the truth and +the fact of visible things; without ideality, he makes but a +mechanical transcript; without invention, he but repeats +conventional traits. The desirable medium, the effective principle, +has been well defined by the author of "Scenes and Thoughts in Europe":-- +"Art does not merely copy Nature; it _coöperates_ with her, it makes +palpable her finest essence, it reveals the spiritual source of the +corporeal by the perfection of its incarnations." That Crawford +invariably kept himself to "the height of this great argument" it +were presumptuous to assert; but that he constantly approached such +an ideal, and that he sometimes seized its vital principle, the +varied and expressive forms yet conserved in his studio at Rome +emphatically attest. He had obtained command of the vocabulary of +his art; in expressing it, like all men who strive largely, he was +unequal. Some of his creations are far more felicitous than others; +he sometimes worked too fast, and sometimes undertook what did not +greatly inspire him; but when we reflect on the limited period of his +artist-life, on the intrepid advancement of its incipient stages +under the pressure of narrow means and comparative solitude, on the +extraordinary progress, the culminating force, the numerous trophies, +and the acknowledged triumphs of a life of labors, so patiently +achieved, and suddenly cut off in mid career,--we cannot but +recognize a consummate artist and the grandest promise yet +vouchsafed to the cause of national Art. + +Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good a judge of +sculpture as the best academician or anatomist. It is this direct +appeal, this elemental simplicity, which constitutes the great +distinction and charm of the art. There is nothing evasive and +mysterious; in dealing with form and expression through features and +attitude, average observation is a reliable test. The same English +poet was right in declaring that the Greek sculptors did not find +their inspiration in the dissecting-room; yet upon no subject has +criticism displayed greater insight on the one hand and pedantry on +the other, than in the discussion of these very _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of +antiquity. While Michel Angelo, who was at Rome when the Laocoön was +discovered, hailed it as "the wonder of Art," and scholars +identified the group with a famous one described by Pliny, Canova +thought that the right arm of the father was not in its right +position, and the other restorations in the work have all been +objected to. Goethe recognized a profound sagacity in the artist: +"If," he wrote, "we try to place the bite in some different position, +the whole action is changed, and we find it impossible to conceive +one more fitting; the situation of the bite renders necessary the +whole action of the limbs";--and another critic says, "In the group +of the Laocoön, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to +show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." +In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth +to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American +back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked why the +figures were seated in a row on a dry-goods box, and declared that +the serpent was not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the +child's, without breaking its vertebrae. So disgusted was Titian with +the critical pedantry elicited by this group, that, in ridicule +thereof, he painted a caricature,--three monkeys writhing in the +folds of a little snake. + +Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against which Byron, +while contemplating the Venus de Medici, utters so eloquent an +invective, sculpture is a grand, serene, and intelligible art,--more +so than architecture and painting,--and, as such, justly consecrated +to the heroic and the beautiful in man and history. It is predominantly +commemorative. How the old cities of Europe are peopled to +the imagination, as well as the eye, by the statues of their +traditional rulers or illustrious children, keeping, as it were, a +warning sign, or a sublime vigil, silent, yet expressive, in the +heart of busy life and through the lapse of ages! We could never +pass Duke Cosmo's imposing effigy in the old square of Florence +without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of the +Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local +association,--nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, +with hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars +in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of +Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with +infamy. There was always a gleam of poetry,--however sad,--on the +most foggy day, in the glimpse afforded from our window, in +Trafalgar Square, of that patient horseman, Charles the Martyr. How +alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by moonlight, in Rome, as we +passed his plashing fountain! And those German poets,--Goethe, +Schiller, and Jean Paul,--what to modern eyes were Frankfort, +Stuttgart, and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms? The +most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of the Bourbon +dynasty was that inspired by Jeanne d'Arc, graceful in her marble +sleep, as sculptured by Marie d'Orléans; and the most impressive +token of Napoleon's downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image +intended for the square of Leghorn, but thrown permanently on the +sculptor's hands by the waning of his proud star. The statue of Heber, +to Christian vision, hallows Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini +breathes of the months of artistic suspense, inspiration, and +experiment, so graphically described in that clever egotist's memoirs. +One feels like blessing the grief-bowed figures at the tomb of +Princess Charlotte, so truly do their attitudes express our sympathy +with the love and the sorrow her name excites. Would not Sterne have +felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau of the Widow +Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially embodied by Ball Hughes? What more +spirited symbol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the +gilded horses of St. Mark's? How natural was Michel Angelo's +exclamation, "March!" as he gazed on Donatello's San Giorgio, in the +Church of San Michele,--one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, +complete armor, and the foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the +challenge, or a knight listening for the charge! Tenerani's +"Descent from the Cross," in the Torlonia Chapel, outlives in +remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that financial house. The +outlines of Flaxman, essentially statuesque, seem alone adequate to +illustrate to the eye the great Mediaeval poet, whose verse seems +often cut from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How grandly +sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement's tomb! + +It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these permanent +trophies of the sculptor's art may now be mingled our national fame. +Twenty years ago, the address in Murray's Guide-Book,--_Crawford, an +American Sculptor, Piazza Barberini_,--would have been unique; now +that name is enrolled on the list of the world's benefactors in the +patrimony of Art. Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel, +gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture and architecture +not destined soon to pass away; no more eloquent and original +advocate of the beautiful and the true in the higher social economies +has blest our day; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the poetry +of form; his essays are a valuable legacy of philosophic thought. +The Greek Slave of Powers was invariably surrounded by visitors at +the London World's Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Palmer has +sent forth from his isolated studio at Albany a series of ideal busts, +of a pure type of original and exquisite beauty. Others might be +named who have honorably illustrated an American claim to +distinction in an art eminently republican in its perpetuation of +national worth and the identity of its highest achievements with +social progress. + +Facility of execution and prolific invention were the essential +traits of Crawford's genius. For some years his studio has been one +of the shrines of travellers at Rome, because of the number and +variety as well as excellence of its trophies. The idea has been +suggested, and it is one we hope to see realized, that this complete +series of casts should be permanently conserved in such a temple as +Copenhagen reared to the memory of her great sculptor. It was on +account of this facility and fecundity that Crawford advocated +plaster as an occasional substitute for bronze and marble, where +elaborate compositions were proposed. He felt capable of achieving +so much, his mind teemed with so many panoramic and single +conceptions,--historical, allegorical, ideal, and illustrative of +standard literature or classical fable,--that only time and expense +presented obstacles to unlimited invention. Perhaps no one can +conceive this peculiar creativeness of his fancy and aptitude of hand, +who has not had occasion to talk with Crawford of some projected +monument or statue. No sooner was he possessed of the idea to be +embodied, the person or occasion to be commemorated, than he +instantly conceived a plan and drew a model, invariably possessing +some felicitous thought or significant arrangement. His sketch-book +was quite as suggestive of genius as his studio. The "Sketch of a +Statue to crown the Dome of the United States Capitol"--a photograph +of which is before us as we write, dated two years ago--is an +instance in point. A more grand figure, original and symbolic, +graceful and sublime, in attitude, aspect, drapery, accessories, and +expression, or one more appropriate, cannot be imagined; and yet it +is only one of hundreds of national designs, more or less mature, +which that fertile brain, patriotic heart, and cunning hand devised. +We are justified in regarding the appropriation by the State of +Virginia, for a monument to Washington by such a man, as an epoch in +the history of national Art. Crawford hailed it as would a confident +explorer the ship destined to convey him to untracked regions, the +ambitious soldier tidings of the coming foe, or any brave aspirant a +long-sought opportunity. It is one of the drawbacks to elaborate +achievement in sculpture, that the materials and the processes of +the art require large pecuniary facilities. To plan and execute a +great national monument, under a government commission, was +precisely the occasion for which Crawford had long waited. Happening +to read the proposals in a journal, while on a visit to this country, +he repaired immediately to Richmond, submitted his views, and soon +received the appointment. + +The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is +always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of +men have we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One +lovely evening in spring, we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse +of a beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation +of its own, and the afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue +of her loved and lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of +death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner +did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and +filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands, +and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in +contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. +"How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside, +with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity +of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the standard +of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of +beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the lips of +a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is the cognizance this +noble art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would +unfold by the hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty, +organization and use,--tracing therein a profound law and an +illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than +Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon receptions;--his white hair, kindly +smile, urbane manners, and unpretending simplicity gave an added +charm to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art,-- +reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in which +Humboldt cultivates science, and Sismondi history. Nor less +indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we +have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the +problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured +reproduction; or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the +treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. During Crawford's last +visit to America, we accompanied him to examine a portrait of +Washington by Wright. It boasts no elegance of arrangement or +refinement of execution; at a glance it was evident that the artist +had but a limited sense of beauty and lacked imagination; but, on +the other hand, he possessed what, for a sculptor's object,--namely, +facts of form and feature,--is more important,--conscience. +Crawford declared this was the only portrait of Washington which +literally represented his costume; having recently examined the +uniform, sword, etc., he was enabled to identify the strands of the +epaulette, the number of buttons, and even the peculiar seal and +watch-key. A man so faithful to details, so devoted to authenticity, +Crawford argued, was reliable in more essential things. He remarked, +that one of his own greatest difficulties in the equestrian statue +had been to reconcile the shortness of the neck in Stuart's portrait +and Houdon's statue (the body of which was not taken from life) with +the stature of Washington,--there being an anatomical incongruity +therein. "I had determined," he continued, "to follow what the laws +of Nature and all precedent indicate as the right proportion,-- +otherwise it would be impossible to make a graceful and impressive +statue; but in this picture, bearing such remarkable evidence of +authenticity, I find the correct distance between chin and breast." + +American travellers in Italy will sometimes be repelled by a certain +narrowness in the critical estimate of modern sculptors; though of +all arts sculpture demands and justifies the most liberal eclecticism. +Thus, a broad line of demarcation has been arbitrarily drawn between +high finish and prolific invention, originality and superficial skill; +as if these merits could not be united, or were incompatible with +each other,--and that, invariably, works of "outward skill elaborate" +are "of inward less exact." A Boston critic denominates Powers +"a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in +his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is +unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such +subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso +charming creations,--in attitude and feature true to the moment and +the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their +popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his +portrait busts and statues are, in many instances, unrivalled for +character as well as execution. A letter to one of his friends lies +before us, in which he responds to an amicable remonstrance at his +apparent slowness of achievement. The reasoning is so cogent, the +principle asserted of such wide application, and the artistic +conscience so nobly evident, that we venture to quote a passage. + +"It is said, that works designed to adorn buildings need not be done +with much care, being only architectural sculptures. This is quite a +modern idea. The Greeks did not entertain it, as is proved by those +gems which Lord Elgin sawed away from the walls of the Parthenon. I +cannot admit that a noble art should ever be prostituted to purposes +of mere show. They do not make rough columns, coarse and uneven +friezes, jagged mouldings, etc., for buildings. These are always +highly finished. Are figures in marble less important? But speed, +speed, is the order of the day,--'quick and cheap' is the cry; and +if I prefer to linger behind and take pains with the little I do, +there are some now, and there will be more hereafter, to approve it. +I cannot consent to model statues at the rate of three in six months, +and a clear conscience will reward me for not having yielded to the +temptation of making money at the sacrifice of my artistic reputation. +Art is, or should be, poetry, in its various forms,--no matter what +it is written upon,--parchment, paper, canvas, or marble. Milton +employed his daughter to write his 'Paradise Lost,' not to compose it; +her hand was moved by his soul; she was his modelling-tool,--nothing +more. But to employ another to model for you, and go away from him, +is not analogous. He then composes for you; modelling is composition. +And whom did Shakspeare get to do this for him? Whom did Gray employ +to arrange in words that immortal wreath set with diamond thoughts +which he has thrown upon a country churchyard? Whom did Michel +Angelo get to model his Moses? How many young men did Ghiberti employ +during the forty years he was engaged upon the Gates of Paradise? I +cannot yield my convictions of what is proper in Art. I will do my +work as well as I know how, and necessity compels me to demand ample +payment for it." + +We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic philosopher has not +analyzed the vital relation of the arts to each other and given a +popular exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the +antique has long been an acknowledged initiation for the limner, and +Campbell, in his terse description of the histrionic art, says that +therein "verse ceases to be airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb." +How much of their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe +to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean +adopted the "dying fall" of General Abercrombie's figure in St. +Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the memorable scenes and +votaries of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor's art,-- +as, for instance, the last act of "Don Giovanni," wherein the +expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in connection +with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare has +availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting +scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the +"Winter's Tale,"-- + + "Her natural posture! + Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed, + Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she + In thy not chiding: for she was as tender + As infancy and grace." + +Garrick imitated to the life, in "Abel Drugger," a vacant stare +peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was +a devotee of the chisel and adorned Chatsworth with free-stone +Sea-Nymphs. + +Crawford's interest in portrait-busts was secondary, owing to his +inventive ardor; the study he bestowed upon the lineaments of +Washington, however, gave a zest and a special insight to his +endeavor to represent his head in marble, and, accordingly, this +specimen of his ability, which arrived in this country after his +decease, is remarkable for its expressive, original, and finished +character. For ourselves, in view of the great historical value, +comparative authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of +this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm. +The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard +to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the +Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal +development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are +best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has +spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and +distinctness of impression associate most of our illustrious moderns +with their sculptured features: the ironical grimace of Voltaire is +perpetuated by Houdon's bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of +Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's countenance is familiar through +the elaborate chisel of Roubillac; Nollekens moulded Sterne's +delicate and unimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and Chantrey the +lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed the rude but +conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare preserved at +Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is +Albert Dürer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of Alexander +Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of him +by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for +Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in +marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never +more convinced of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of +"counterfeit presentment" than when exploring the Bacioechi _palazzo_ +at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, lighted from above, +and draped as well as carpeted with purple, stood on a simple +pedestal the bust of Napoleon's sister, thus enshrined after death +by her husband. The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated +head against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent emphatic +individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a holy place, where +communion with the departed, so spiritually represented by the +exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our +countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible +excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of +detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and with these, in many cases, +the highest characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute +artistic value, independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck +or Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achievements in this +regard are memorable, and fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty +and meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as +wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which +so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as +the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument +in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the +more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks +melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb? + + "The lips, as Cumae's cavern close, + The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, + The rigid front, almost morose, + But for the patient hope within, + Declare a life whose course hath been + Unsullied still, though still severe, + Which, through the wavering days of sin, + Kept itself icy chaste and clear." + +National characters become, as it were, household gods through the +sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon +seem as appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the +heads of Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images +of Scipio Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in +London. + +There is no phase of modern life so legitimate in its enjoyment and +so pleasing to contemplate as the life of the true artist. Endowed +with a faculty and inspired by a love for creative beauty, work is +to him at once a high vocation and a generous instinct. Imagine the +peace and the progress of those years at Rome when Crawford toiled +day after day in his studio,--at first without encouragement and for +bread, then in a more confident spirit and with some definite triumph, +and at last crowned with domestic happiness and artistic renown,--his +mind filled with ideal tasks more and more grand in their scope, and +the coming years devoted in prospect to the realization of his +noblest aspirations. From early morning to twilight, with rare and +brief interruptions, he thus designed, modelled, chiselled, +superintended, every day adding something permanent to his trophies. +This self-consecration was entire, and in his view indispensable. Few +and simple were the recreative interludes: a reunion of +brother-artists or fellow-countrymen and their families,--an +occasional journey, almost invariably with a professional intent,--a +summer holiday or a winter festival; but, methodical in pastime as +in work, his family and his books were his cherished resources. +Often so weary at night that he returned home only to recline on a +couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable +volume provided by his vigilant companion,--the best energies of his +mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art. +This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or +dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much; +but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of +character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human +experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine of many a +dreamer, the haunt of countless inefficient enthusiasts. But there, +as elsewhere, will must intensify thought, action control imagination, +or both are fruitless. Those melancholy ruins, those grand temples +of religion, the immortal forms and hues that glorify palace and +chapel, square, mausoleum, and Vatican, the dreamy murmur of +fountains, the aroma of violets and pine-trees, the pensive relics +of imperial sway, the sublime desolation of the Campagna, the mystery +of Nature and Art, when both are hallowed by time, the social zest +of an original brotherhood like the artists, the freedom and +loveliness, the ravishment of spring and the soft radiance of sunset, +all that there captivates soul and sense, must be resisted as well +as enjoyed;--self-control, self-respect, self-dedication are as +needful as susceptibility, or these peerless local charms will only +enchant to betray the artist. Crawford carried to Rome the ardor of +an Irish temperament and the vigor of an American character. +Hundreds have passed through a like ordeal of privation, ungenial +because conventional work, and slow approach to the goal of +recognized power and remunerated sacrifice; but few have emerged +from the shadow to the sunshine, by such manly steps and patient, +cheerful trust. It was not the voice of complaint that first +attracted towards him intelligent sympathy,--it was brave achievement; +and from the day when a remittance from Boston enabled him to put +his Orpheus in marble, to the day when, attended by his devoted +sister, he paid the last visit to his crowded studio, and looked, +with quivering eyelids, but firm heart, on the silent but eloquent +offspring of his brain and hand, the Artist in him was coincident +with the Man,--clear, unswerving, productive, the sphere extending, +the significance multiplying, and the mastery becoming more and more +complete through resolute practice, vivid intuition, and candid +search for truth. + +In the fifteenth century, and earlier, the lives of artists were +adventurous; political relations gave scope to incident; and Michel +Angelo, Salvator Rosa, and Benvenuto Cellini furnish almost as many +anecdotes as memorials of genius. In modern times, however, +vicissitude has chiefly diversified the uniform and tranquil +existence of the artist; his struggles with fortune, and not his +relations to public events, have given external interest to his +biography. It is the mental rather than the outward life which is +fraught with significance to the painter and sculptor; consciousness +more than experience affords salient points in his career. How the +executive are trained to embody the creative powers, through what +struggles dexterity is attained, and by what reflection and earnest +musing and observant patience and blest intuitions original +achievements glimmer upon the fancy, grow mature by thought, correct +through the study of Nature, and are finally realized in action,-- +these and such as these inward revelations constitute the actual +life of the artist. The mere events of Crawford's existence are +neither marvellous nor varied; his early love of imitative pastime, +his fixed purpose, his resort to stone-cutting as the nearest +available expedient for the gratification of that instinct to copy +and create form which so decidedly marks an aptitude for sculpture, +his visit to Rome, the self-denial and the lonely toil of his +novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and +his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise +enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity. +Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to +these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his +professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost +as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel +therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal +interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as +the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of +his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, he +long occupied an isolated position. The qualities of the man,--his +patient industry,--the new and unexpected superiority in different +branches of his art, so constantly exhibited,--the loyal, generous, +and frank spirit of his domestic and social life,--the freedom, the +faith, and the assiduity that endeared him to so large and +distinguished a circle, were individual claims often noted by +foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his +country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now +cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a +musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with +sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of +fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every +nation of Europe was represented, and the most illustrious of living +English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to +his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently +contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of +his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as +insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of +its victims,--by no violent epidemic, like those which have again +and again devastated the cities of Europe,--by no illusive decline, +whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations, +and which, in that soft clime, has peopled with the dust of +strangers the cemetery which the pyramid of Cestius overshadows and +the heart of Shelley consecrates,--by none of these familiar gates +of death did Crawford pass on; but, in the meridian of his powers +and his fame, in the climax of his artistic career, in the noontide +of his most genial activity, a corrosive tumor on the inner side of +the orbit of the eye encroached month by month, week by week, hour +by hour, upon the sources of life. Medical skill freed the brain +from its deadly pressure, but could not divert its organic affinity. +The mind's integrity was thus preserved intact; consciousness and +self-possession lent their dignity to waning strength; but the alert +muscles were relaxed; the busy hands folded in prayer; what Michel +Angelo uttered in his eighty-sixth Crawford was called upon to echo +in his forty-fifth year:-- + + "Wellnigh the voyage now is overpast, + And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude, + Draws nigh that common haven where at last, + Of every action, be it evil or good, + Must due account be rendered. Well I know + How vain will then appear that favored art, + Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart; + For all is vain that man desires below." + +The cheerful voice was often hushed by pain; but conjugal and +sisterly love kept vigil, a long, a bitter year, by that couch of +suffering in the heart of multitudinous Paris and London; hundreds +of sympathizing friends, in both hemispheres, listened and prayed +and hoped through a dreary twelvemonth. With the ripe autumn closed +the quiet struggle; and "in the bleak December" the mortal remains +were followed from the temple where his youth worshipped, to the +snow-clad knoll at Greenwood; garlands and tears, the ritual and the +requiem, eulogy and elegy, consecrated the final scene. By a singular +coincidence, the news of his decease reached the United States +simultaneously with the arrival of the ship in James River with the +colossal bronze statue of Washington, his crowning achievement. + +One would imagine, from the eagerness and intensity exhibited by +Crawford, that he anticipated a brief career. Work seemed as +essential to his comfort as rest is to less determined natures. He +was a thorough believer in the moral necessity of absolute +allegiance to his sphere; and differed from his brother-artists +chiefly in the decisive manner in which he kept aloof from extrinsic +and incidental influences. If Art ever made labor delectable, it was +so with him. He seemed to go through with the ordinary processes of +life with but a half consciousness thereof,--save where his personal +affections were concerned. One of the first works for which he +expressed a sympathetic admiration was Thorwaldsen's "Triumph of +Alexander,"--one of the most elaborate and suggestive of modern +friezes. He early contemplated an entire series of illustrations of +Ovid. He alternated, with infinite relish, between the extreme phases +of his art,--a delicate Peri and a majestic Colossus, an extensive +array of basso rilievo figures, a sublime ideal of manhood and an +exquisite image of infancy. His alacrity of temper was co-equal with +his steadiness of purpose; and the cheerfulness of an active mind, +sanguine temperament, and great nervous energy did not abandon him, +even in the state of forced passivity so intolerable to such habitude; +for hilarious words and, once or twice, the old ringing laugh +startled the fond watchers of his declining hours. The events of his +life are but a few expressive outlines; his works embody his most +real experience; and the thoughts and feelings, the observation and +the sentiment, not therein moulded or sketched, happily found +adequate record in the ample and ingenuous letters he wrote to his +beloved sister, from the time of his first arrival in Europe to that +of his last arrival in America,--embracing a period of twenty-two +years. Each work he conceived and executed, each process of study, +the impressions he gained and the convictions at which he arrived in +relation to ancient and modern art,--each journey, achievement, plan, +opinion,--what he saw, and imagined, and hoped, and did,--was +frankly and fondly noted; and the time may come when these epistles, +inspired by love and dictated by intelligent sympathy and insight, +will be compiled into a priceless memorial of artist-life. + + + + +ASIRVADAM THE BRAHMIN. + +Who put together the machinery of the great Indian revolt, and set +it going? Who stirred up the sleeping tiger in the Sepoy's heart, +and struck Christendom aghast with the dire devilries of Meerut and +Cawnpore? + +Asirvadam the Brahmin! + +Asirvadam is nimble with mace or cue; at the billiard-table, it is +hinted, he can distinguish a kiss from a carom; at the sideboard +(and here, if I were Mr. Charles Reade, I would whisper, in small +type) he confounds not cocktails with cobblers; when, being in trade, +he would sell you saltpetre, he tries you with flax-seed; when he +would buy indigo, he offers you indigo at a sacrifice. Yet, in +Asirvadam, if any quality is more noticeable than the sleek +respectability of the Baboo, it is the jealous orthodoxy of the +Brahmin. If he knows in what presence to step out of his slippers, +and when to pick them up again with his toes, in jaunty dandyisms of +etiquette, he also makes the most of his insolent order and its +patent of privilege, and wears the rue of his triple cord with a +demure and dignified difference. High, low, or jack, it is always +"the game" with him; and the game is--Asirvadam the Brahmin,--free +tricks and Brahmins' rights,--Asirvadam for his caste, and +everything for Asirvadam. + +The natural history of our astute and accomplished friend is worth a +page or two. And first, as to his color. Asirvadam comes from the +northern provinces, and calls the snow-turbaned Himalayas cousin; +consequently his complexion is the brightest among Brahmins. By some +who are uninitiated in the chemical mysteries of our metropolitan +milk-trade, it has been likened to chocolate and cream, with plenty +of cream; but the comparison depends, for the idea it conveys, so +much on the taste of the ethnological inquirer, as to the proportion +of cream, and still so much more, as in the case of Mr. Weller's +weal pies, on the reputation of "the lady as makes it," that it will +hardly serve the requirements of a severe scientific statement. +Copper-color has an excess of red, and sepia is too brown; the tarry +tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even +that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, +and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits +of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time +being. The flipper of your legitimate shiver-my-timbery old salt, +whose most amiable office is piping all hands to witness punishment, +has long since acquired the hue of a seven-years' meerschaum; while +the dandy cockswain of a forty-gun frigate lying off the navy-yard, +who brings the third cutter ship-shapely alongside with a pretty +girl in the stern-sheets, lends her--the pretty girl--a hand at the +gangway, that has been softened by fastidious applications of +solvent slush to the tint of a long envelope "on public service." +"Law sheep," when we come to the binding of books, is too sallow for +this simile; a little volume of "Familiar Quotations," in limp calf, +(Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855,) might answer,--if the cover of the +January number of the "Atlantic Monthly" were not exactly the thing. + +Simplicity, convenience, decorum, and picturesqueness distinguish +the costume of Asirvadam the Brahmin. Three yards of yard-wide fine +cotton cloth envelope his loins, in such a manner, that, while one +end hangs in graceful folds in front, the other falls in a fine +distraction behind. Over this, a robe of muslin, or silk, or pińa +cloth--the latter in peculiar favor, by reason of its superior purity, +for high-caste wear--covers his neck, breast, and arms, and descends +nearly to his ankles. Asirvadam borrowed this garment from the +Mussulman; but he fastens it on the left side, which the follower of +the Prophet never does, and surmounts it with an ample and elegant +waistband, beside the broad Romanesque mantle that he tosses over +his shoulder with such a senatorial air. His turban, also, is an +innovation,--not proper to the Brahmin,--pure and simple, but, like +the robe, adopted from the Moorish wardrobe, for a more imposing +appearance in Sahib society. It is formed of a very narrow strip, +fifteen or twenty yards long, of fine stuff, moulded to the orthodox +shape and size by wrapping it, while wet, on a wooden block; having +been hardened in the sun, it is worn like a hat. As for his feet, +Asirvadam, uncompromising in externals, disdains to pollute them +with the touch of leather. Shameless fellows, Brahmins though they be, +of the sect of Vishnu, go about, without a blush, in thonged sandals, +made of abominable skins; but Asirvadam, strict as a Gooroo when the +eyes of his caste are on him, is immaculate in wooden clogs. + +In ornaments, his taste, though somewhat grotesque, is by no means +lavish. A sort of stud or button, composed of a solitary ruby, in +the upper rim of the cartilage of either ear,--a chain of gold, +curiously wrought, and intertwined with a string of small pearls, +around his neck,--a massive bangle of plain gold on his arm,--a +richly jewelled ring on his thumb, and others, broad and shield-like, +on his toes,--complete his outfit in these vanities. + +As often as Asirvadam honors us with his morning visit of business +or ceremony, a slight yellow line, drawn horizontally between his +eyebrows, with a paste composed of ground sandal-wood, denotes that +he has purified himself externally and internally, by bathing and +prayers. To omit this, even by the most unavoidable chance to appear +in public without it, were to incur a grave public scandal; only +excepting the reason of mourning, when, by an expressive Oriental +figure, the absence of the caste-mark is accepted for the token of a +profound and absorbing sorrow, which takes no thought even for the +customary forms of decency. The disciple of Siva crossbars his +forehead with ashes of cow-dung or ashes of the dead; the sectary of +Vishnu adorns his with a sort of trident, composed of a central +perpendicular line in red, and two oblique lines, white or yellow. +But the true Brahmin knows no Siva or Vishnu, no sectarian +distinctions or preferences; Indra has set no seal upon his brow, nor +Krishna, nor Devendra. For, ignoring celestial personalities, it is +the Trimurti that he grandly adores,--Creation, Preservation, +Destruction triune,--one body with three heads; and the right line +alone, or _pottu_, the mystic circle, describes the sublime +simplicity of his soul's aspiration. + +When Asirvadam was but seven years old, he was invested with the +triple cord, by a grotesque, and in most respects absurd, extravagant, +and expensive ceremony, called the _Upanayana_, or Introduction to +the Sciences, because none but Brahmins are freely admitted to their +mysteries. This triple cord consists of three thick strands of cotton, +each composed of several finer threads; these three strands, +representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, are not twisted together, but +hang separately, from the left shoulder to the right hip. The +preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest +hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies. +Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card +and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great +cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions +from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of +priests and masters of ceremonies. + +It is a noticeable fact in the natural history of the always +insolent Asirvadam, that, unlike Shatriya, the warrior, Vaishya, the +cultivator, or Soodra, the laborer, he is not born into the full +enjoyment of his honors, but, on the contrary, is scarcely of more +consideration than a Pariah, until by the Upanayana he has been +admitted to his birthright. Yet, once decorated with the ennobling +badge of his order, our friend became from that moment something +superior, something exclusive, something supercilious, arrogant, +exacting,--Asirvadam, the high Brahmin,--a creature of wide strides +without awkwardness, towering airs without bombast, Sanscrit +quotations without pedantry, florid phraseology without hyperbole, +allegorical illustrations and proverbial points without +sententiousness, fanciful flights without affectation, and formal +strains of compliment without offensive adulation. + +When Asirvadam meets Asirvadam in the way, compliments pass: each +touches his forehead with his right hand, and murmurs twice the +auspicious name of Rama. But the passing Vaishya or Soodra elevates +reverently his joined palms above his head, and, stepping out of his +slippers, salutes the descendant of the Seven Holy Penitents with +_namaskaram_, the pious obeisance. _Andam arya_! "Hail, exalted +Lord!" he cries; and the exalted lord, extending the pure lilies of +his hands lordliwise, as one who condescends to accept an humble +offering, mutters the mysterious benediction which only Gooroos and +high Brahmins may bestow,--_Asirvadam_! + +The low-caste slave who may be admitted to the distinguished +presence of our friend, to implore indulgence, or to supplicate +pardon for an offence, must thrice touch the ground, or the honored +feet, with both his hands, which immediately he lays upon his +forehead; and there are occasions of peculiar humiliation which +require the profound prostration of the _sashtangam_, or abasement of +the eight members, wherein the suppliant extends himself face +downward on the earth, with palms joined above his head. + +If Asirvadam--having concluded a visit in which he has deferentially +reminded me of the peculiar privilege I enjoy in being admitted to +social converse with so select a being--is about to withdraw the +light of his presence, he retires backward, with many humbly gracious +salaams. If, on the other hand, I have had the honor to be his +distinguished guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking +my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, +that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, +so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares +me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from +mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, +who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to +Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning or the end of +that. + +When Asirvadam crosses my threshold, he leaves his slippers at the +door. I am flattered by the act into a self-appreciative complacency, +until I discover that he thereby simply puts me on a level with his +cow. When he converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and +gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his +hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding, +forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one, +the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,--forgetting that he +is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from +his palanquin,--to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons +the broad highway,--the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted +of men, and adored of himself,--Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +"They, the Brahmin Asirvadam, to him, Phaldasana, who is obedient, +who is true, who has every faithful quality, who knows how to serve +with cheerfulness, to submit in silence, who by the excellent +services he renders the Brahmins has become like unto the stone +Chintamani, the bringer of good, who by the number and variety and +acceptableness of his gifts shall attain, without further trials, to +the paradise of Indra: _Asirvadam_! + +"The year Vikarj, the tenth of the month Phalguna: we are at Benares +in good health; bring us word of thine. It shall be thy privilege to +make sashtangam at the feet--which are the true lilies of Nilufar-- +of us the Lord Brahmin, who are endowed with all the virtues and all +the sciences, who are great as Mount Meru, to whom belongs +illustrious knowledge of the four Vedas, the splendor of whose +beneficence is as the noon-flood of the sun, who are renowned +throughout the fourteen worlds, whom the fourteen worlds admire. + +"Having received with both hands that which we have abased ourself +by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head, +thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful +alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict +letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened +to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our +presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed, +thine eyes cast down,--thou who art as though thou wert not,--until +we shall vouchsafe to perceive thee. And when thou hast obtained our +leave, then, and not sooner, shalt thou make sashtangam at our +blessed feet, which are the pure flowers of Nilufar, and with many +lowly kisses shalt lay down before them thy unworthy offering,--ten +rupees, as thou knowest,--more, if thou art wise,--less, if thou +darest. + +"This is all we have to say to thee. _Asirvadam_!" + +In the epistolary style of Asirvadam the Brahmin we are at a loss +which to admire most,--the flowers or the force, the modesty or the +magnificence. + +Among the cloistral cells of the women's quarter, which surround the +inner court of Asirvadam's domestic establishment, is a dark and +narrow chamber which is the domain of woman's rights. It is called +"the Room of Anger," because, when the wife of the bosom has been +tempted by inveigling box-wallahs with a love of a pink coortee, or +a pair of chased bangles, "such darlings, and so cheap," and has +conceived a longing for the same, her way is, without a word +beforehand, to go shut herself up in the Room of Anger, and pout and +sulk till she gets them; and seeing that the wife of the bosom is +also the pure concocter of the Brahminical curry and server of the +Brahminical rice, that she is the goddess of the sacred kitchen and +high-priestess of pots and pans, it is easy to see that her success +is certain. Poor little brown fool! that twelve feet square of +curious custom is all, of the world-wide realm of beauty and caprice, +that she can call her own. + +When the enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the +lover's presents,--the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the +loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the +fruits,--the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal +lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of +his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not +eat,--she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, +nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, +she does not dream,--she feeds. + +Around her neck a strange ornament of gold, having engraved upon it +the likeness of Lakshmee, is suspended by a consecrated string of +one hundred and eight threads of extreme fineness, dyed yellow with +saffron. This is the Tahli, the wife's badge,--"Asirvadam the Brahmin, +his chattel." They brought it to her on a silver salver garnished +with flowers, she sitting with her betrothed on a great cushion; and +ten Brahmins, holding around the happy pair a screen of silk, +invoked for them the favor of the three divine couples,--Brahma with +Sarawastee, Vishnu with Lakshmee, Siva with Paravatee. Then they +offered incense, to the Tahli, and a sacrifice of fire, and they +blessed it with many mantras, or holy texts; and as the bride turned +her to the east, and fixed her inmost thought on the "Great Mountain +of the North," Asirvadam the Brahmin clasped his collar on her neck, +never to be loosened till he, dying, shall leave her to be burned, +or spurned. + +No man, when he meets Asirvadam the Brahmin, presumes to ask, +"How is the little brown fool today?" No man, when he visits him, +ventures to inquire if she is at home; it is not the etiquette. +Should the little brown fool, having a mind of her own, and being +resolved not to endure this any longer, suddenly make Asirvadam +ridiculous some day, the etiquette is to hush it up among their +friends. + +As Raja, the warrior, sprang from the right arm of Brahma, and +Vaishya, the cultivator, from his belly, and Soodra, the laborer, +from his feet,--so Asirvadam the Brahmin was conceived in the head +and brought forth from the mouth of the Creator; and he is above the +others by so much as the head is above arms, belly, and feet; he is +wiser than the others, inasmuch as he has lain among the thoughts of +the god, has played with his inventions, and made excursions through +the universe with his speech. Therefore, if it be true, as some say, +that Asirvadam is an ant-hill of lies, he is also a snake's-nest of +wisdom, and a beehive of ingenuity. Let him be respected, for his +rights are plain. + +It is his right to be taught the Vedas and the mantras, all the +tongues of India, and the sciences; to marry a child-wife, no matter +how old he may be,--or a score of wives, if he be a Kooleen Brahmin, +so that he may drive a lively business in the way of dowries; to +peruse the books of magic, and perform the awful sacrifice of the +Yajna; to receive presents without limit, levy taxes without law, +and beg with insolence. + +It is his duty to study diligently; to conform rigorously to the +rules of his caste; to honor and obey his superiors without question +or hesitation; to insult his inferiors, for the magnifying of his +office; to get him a wife without loss of time, and a male child by +all means. During his religious minority he is expected to bathe and +sacrifice twice a day, to abstain from adorning his forehead or his +breast with sandal, to wear no flowers in his hair, to chew no betel, +to regard himself in no mirrors. + +Under Hindoo law, which is his own law, Asirvadam the Brahmin pays no +taxes, tolls, or duties; corporal punishment can in no case be +inflicted upon him; if he is detected in defalcation or the taking +of bribes, partial restitution is the worst penalty that can befall +him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite +his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe, +is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a +monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is +as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your +portion with Karta, the Fox, as the good Abbé Dubois relates. + +"Karta, Karta!" screamed an Ape, one day, when he saw a fox feeding +on a rotten carcass, "thou must, in a former life, have committed +some dreadful crime, to be doomed to a new state in which thou +feedest on such garbage." + +"Alas!" replied the Fox, "I am not punished more severely than I +deserve. I was once a man, and then I promised something to a Brahmin, +which I never gave him. That is the true cause of my being +regenerated in this shape. Some good works, which I did have, won for +me the indulgence of remembering what I was in my former state, and +the cause for which I have been degraded into this." + +Asirvadam has choice of a hundred callings, as various in dignity +and profit as they are numerous. Under native rule he makes a good +cooly, because the officers of the revenue are forbidden to search a +Brahmin's baggage, or anything that he carries. He is an expeditious +messenger, for no man may stop him; and he can travel cheaply for +whom there is free entertainment on every road. "For the belly one +will play many tricks"; and Asirvadam, in financial straits, may +teach dancing to nautch-girls; or he may play the mountebank or the +conjurer, and with a stock of mantras and charms proceed to the +curing of murrain in cattle, pip in chickens, and short-windedness +in old women,--at the same time telling fortunes, calculating +nativities, finding lost treasure, advising as to journeys and +speculations, and crossing out crosses in love for any pretty dear +who will cross the poor Brahmin's palm with a rupee. He may engage +in commercial pursuits; and in that case, his bulling and bearing at +the opium-sales will put Wall Street to the blush. He may turn his +attention to the healing art; and allopathically, homoeopathically, +hydropathically, electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck +through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of +charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the +army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the +shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making +mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, +fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, +he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,--sleekest of lackeys, most +servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of +hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most +versatile of adventurers, most inventive of charlatans, most +restless of schemers, most insidious of jesuits, most treacherous of +confidants, falsest of friends, hardest of masters, most arrogant of +patrons, cruelest of tyrants, most patient of haters, most +insatiable of avengers, most gluttonous of ravishers, most infernal +of devils,--pleasantest of fellows. + +Superlatively dainty as to his fopperies of orthodoxy, Asirvadam is +continually dying of Pariah roses in aromatic pains of caste. If in +his goings and comings one of the "lilies of Nilufar" should chance +to stumble upon a bit of bone or rag, a fragment of a dish, or a +leaf from which some one has eaten,--should his sacred raiment be +polluted by the touch of a dog or a Pariah,--he is ready to faint, +and only a bath can revive him. He may not touch his sandals with +his hand, nor repose in a strange seat, but is provided with a mat, +a carpet, or an antelope's skin, to serve him for a cushion in the +houses of his friends. With a kid glove you may put his +respectability in peril, and with your patent-leather pumps affright +his soul within him. To him a pocket-handkerchief is a sore offence, +and a tooth-pick monstrous. All the Vedas could not save the Giaour +who "chews"; nor burnt brandy, though the Seven Penitents distilled +it, purify the mouth that a tooth-brush has polluted. Beware how you +offer him a wafered letter; and when you present him with a copy of +your travels, let it be bound in cloth. + +He has the Mantalini idiosyncrasy as to dem'd unpleasant bodies; and +when he hears that his mother is dead, he straight-way jumps into a +bath with his clothes on. Many mantras and much holy-water, together +with incense of sandal-wood, and other perfumery, regardless of +expense, can alone relieve his premises of the deadness of his wife. + +For a Soodra even to look upon the earthen vessels wherein his rice +is boiled implies the necessity of a summary smash of the infected +crockery; and his kitchen is his holy of holies. When he eats, the +company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent +thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a +complexity of dangers;--a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might +have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have +turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and +impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his +repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous +duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the +heaven of his mouth. When he would quench his thirst, he disdains to +apply the earth-born beaker to his lips, but lets the water fall +into his solemn swallow from on high,--a pleasant feat to see, and +one which, like a whirling dervis, diverts you by its agility, while +it impresses you by its devotion. + +It is easy to perceive, that, if our friend Asirvadam were not one +of the "Young Bengal" lights who do not fash themselves with trifles, +his orthodox sensibilities would be subjected to so many and gross +affronts from the indiscriminate contacts of a mixed community, that +he would shortly be compelled to take refuge in one of those +Arcadias of the triple cord, called _Agragramas_, where pure +Brahmins are met in all the exclusiveness of high caste, and where +the more a man rubs against his neighbor the more he is sanctified. +True, the Soodras have an irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at +the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra +when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are +saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers. + +There was once a foolish Brahmin, to whom a rich and charitable +merchant presented two pieces of cloth, the finest that had ever +been seen in the Agragrama. He showed them to the other Brahmins, +who all congratulated him on so fortunate an acquisition; they told +him it was the reward of some deed that he had done in a previous +life. Before putting them on, he washed them, according to custom, +in order to purify them from the pollution of the weaver's touch, +and hung them up to dry, with the ends fastened to two branches of a +tree. Presently a dog, happening to pass that way, ran under them, +and the Brahmin could not decide whether the unclean beast was tall +enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who +were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to +settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him. +Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog, +he crawled under the precious cloths. + +"Did I touch it?" + +"No!" cried all the children; and his soul was filled with joy. + +But the next moment the terrible conviction took possession of his +mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing +under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement +must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He +called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his +breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then +resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth, +and conscientiously, and anxiously, wagged. + +"A touch! a touch!" cried all the children, and the Brahmin groaned, +for he knew that his beautiful raiment was ruined. Thrice he wagged, +and thrice the children cried, "A touch! a touch!" + +So the strict Brahmin leaped to his feet, in a frightful rage, and, +tearing the precious cloth from the tree, rent it in a hundred shreds, +while he cursed the abominable dog and the master that owned him. +And the children admired and were edified, and they whispered among +themselves,-- + +"Now, surely, it behooveth us to take heed to our ways, for our +father is particular." + +Moral: And the Brahmin winked. + +The Samaradana is an institution for which our friend Asirvadam +entertains peculiar veneration. This is simply an abundant feast of +Brahminical good things, to which the "fat and greasy citizens" of +the caste are bidden by some zealous or manoeuvring Soodra,--on +occasion of the dedication of a temple, perhaps, or in a season of +drought, or when a malign constellation is to be averted, or to +celebrate the birth or marriage of some exalted personage. From all +the country round about, the Brahmins flock to the feasting, singing +Sanscrit hymns and obscene songs, and shouting, _Hara! hara! Govinda!_ +The low fellow who has the honor to entertain so select a company is +not suffered to seat himself in the midst of his guests, much less +to partake of the viands he has been permitted to provide; but in +consideration of his "deed of exalted merit," and his expensive +appreciation of the beauties and advantages of high-caste society, +as expressed in all the delicacies of the season, he may come, when +the last course has been discussed, and, prostrating himself in the +sashtangam posture, receive the unanimous asirvadam of the company. + +If, in taking leave of his august guests, he should also signify his +sense of the honor they have done him, by presenting each with a +piece of cloth or a sum of money, he is assured that he is altogether +superior in mind and person to the gods, and that, if he is wise, he +will not neglect to remind his friends of his munificence by another +exhibition of it within a reasonable time. + +In the creed of Asirvadam the Brahmin, the drinker of strong drink +is a Pariah, and the eater of cow's flesh is damned already. If, then, +he can tell a cocktail from a cobbler, and scientifically +discriminate between a julep and a gin-sling, it must be because the +Vedas are unclasped to him; for in the Vedas all things are taught. +It is of Asirvadam's father that the story is told, how, when a fire +broke out in his house once, and all the pious neighbors ran to +rescue his effects, the first articles saved were a tub of pickled +pork and a jar of arrack. But this, also, no doubt, is the malicious +invention of some satirical rogue of a Soodra. Asirvadam, as is well +known, recoils with horror from the abomination of eating aught that +has once lived and moved and had a being; but if, remembering that, +you should seek to fill his soul with consternation by inviting him +to inspect a fig under a microscope, he would quietly advise you to +break your nasty glass and "go it blind." + +But there is one custom which Asirvadam the Brahmin observes in +common with the Pariah, and that is the solemn ceremonial of Death. +When his time comes, he dies, is burned, and presently forgotten; +and it is a consolation for his ever having been at all, that some +one is sure to be the richer and happier and freer for his ceasing +to be. True, he may assume new earthly conditions, may pass into +other vexatious shapes of life; but the change must ever be for the +better in respect of the interests of those who have suffered by the +powers and capabilities of the shape which he relinquishes. He may +become a snake; but then he is easily scotched, or fooled out of his +fangs with a cunning charmer's tom-tom;--he may pass into the foul +feathers of an indiscriminately gluttonous adjutant-bird; but some +day a bone will choke him;--his soul may creep under the mangy skin +of a Pariah dog, and be kicked out of compounds by scullions; he may +be condemned to the abominable offices of a crow at the burning +ghauts, a jackal by the wells of Thuggee, or a rat in sewers; but he +can never again be such a nuisance, such a sore offence to the minds +and hearts of men, as when he was Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +Fortunate indeed will he be, if the low, deep curses of all whom he +has oppressed, betrayed, insulted, shall not have availed against +him in his last hour. "Mayest thou never have a friend to lay thee +on the ground when thou diest!"--no imprecation so fierce, so fell, +as that; even Asirvadam the Brahmin abates his cruel greed, when +some poor Soodra client, bled of his last anna, thinks of his sick +wife, and the darling cow that must be sold at last, and grows +desperate. "Mayest thou have no wife to sprinkle the spot with +cow-dung where thy corpse shall lie, and to spread the unspotted +cloth; nor any cow, her horns tipped with rings of brass, and her +neck garlanded with flowers, to lead thee, holding by her tail, +through pleasant paths to the land of Yama! May no Purohita come to +strew thy bier with the holy herb, nor any next of kin be near to +whisper the last mantra!" + +Horrid Soodra! But though thy words make the soul of Asirvadam shiver, +they are but the voice of a dog, after all, and nothing can come of +them. Asirvadam the Brahmin has raised up lusty boys to himself, as +every good Brahmin should; and they shall bind together his thumbs +and his great toes, and lay him on the ground, when his hour is come,-- +lest the bed or the mat cling to his ghost, whithersoever it go, and +torment it eternally. His wife shall spread beneath him a cloth that +the hands of Kooleen Brahmins have woven. Lilies of Nilufar shall +garland the neck of the happy cow that is to lead him safely beyond +the fiery river, and the rings shall be golden wherewith her horns +are tipped. A mighty concourse of clients shall follow him to the +place of burning,--to "Rudra, the place of tears,"--whither ten +Kooleen Brahmins will bear him; and as often as they set down the +bier to feed the dead with a morsel of moistened rice, other +Brahmins shall sing his wisdom and his virtues, and celebrate his +meritorious deeds. When his funeral pyre is lighted, his sons, and +his sons' sons, and his daughters' husbands, and his nephews, shall +beat their breasts and rend the air with lamentations; and when his +body has been consumed, his ashes shall be given to the Ganges,--all +save a certain portion, which shall be made into a paste with milk, +and moulded into an image; and the image shall be set up in his house, +that the Brahmins and all his people may offer sacrifices before it. + +On the tenth day, his wife shall adorn her forehead with a scarlet +emblem, blacken the edges of her eyelids with soorma, deck her hair +with scarlet flowers, her neck and bosom with sandal, stain her face, +arms, and legs with turmeric, and array her in her choicest robes +and all her jewels, and follow her eldest son, in full procession, +to the tank hard by the "land of Rudra." And the heir shall take +three little stones, that were planted there in a row by the +Purohitas, and, going down into the water as deep as his neck, shall +turn his face to the sun and say, "Until this day these three stones +have stood for my father, that is dead. Henceforth let him cease to +be a carcass; let him enter into the joys of Swarga, the paradise of +Devendra, to be blessed with all conceivable blessings so long as +the waters of Ganges shall continue to flow;--so shall the dead +Brahmin not prowl through the universe, afflicting with evil tricks +stars, men, and trees; so shall he be laid." + +But who shall lay the quick Asirvadam, than whom there walks not a +sprite more cunning, more malign? + +Ever since the Solitaries, odious by their black arts to princes and +people, were slain or driven out,--fifteen centuries and more,-- +Asirvadam the Brahmin has been selfish, wicked, and mischievously +busy,--corrupting the hearts, bewildering the minds, betraying the +hopes, exhausting the moral and physical strength of the Hindoos. He +has taught them the foolish tumult of the Hooly, the fanatical +ferocities of the Yajna, the unwhisperable obscenities of the Saktis, +the fierce and ruinous extravagances of the Doorga Pooja, the +mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of +the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious +debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of +Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,--all the +fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral +epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or a Cawnpore. + +Of the outrageous insolence of the Seven Penitents he omits nothing +but their sincerity; of the enlightened simplicity of the anchoret +philosophers he retains nothing but their selfishness; of the +intellectual influence of the Gooroo pontiffs he covets nothing but +their dissimulation. He has taught his gaping disciples that a +skilfully compounded and plausibly administered lie is a goodly thing,-- +except it be told against the cause of a Brahmin, in which case no +oxyhydrogeneralities of earthly combustion can afford an idea of the +particular hotness of the hell devised for such a liar. He has +solemnly impressed them with the mysterious sacredness of the Ganges, +and its manifold virtues of a supernatural order; to swear falsely +by its waters, he says, is a crime for which Indra the Dreadful has +provided an eternity of excruciations,--except the false oath be +taken in the interest of a Brahmin, in which case the perjurer may +confidently expect a posthumous good time. For the rich to extort +money from the poor, says Asirvadam, is an affront to the Gooroos +and the Gods, which must be punished by forfeiture to the Brahmins +of the whole sum extorted, the poor client to pay an additional +charge for the trouble his protectors have incurred; the same when +fines are recovered; and in cases of enforced payment of debts, +three-fourths of the sum collected are swallowed up in costs. Being +a Brahmin, to pay a bribe is a foolish act; to receive one--a +necessary circumstance, perhaps. Not being a Brahmin, to offer or +accept a bribe is a disgraceful transaction, requiring that both +parties shall be made an example of;--the bribe is forfeited to the +Brahmins, and the poorer party fined; if the fine exceed his means, +the richer party to pay the excess. + +As the Brahminical interpretation of an oath is not always clear to +prisoners and witnesses of other castes, it is usual to illustrate +the definition to the obtuser or more scrupulous unfortunates by the +old-fashioned machinery of ordeals: such as compelling the +conscientious or obdurate inquirer to promenade without sandals over +burning coals; or to grasp, and hold for a time, a bar of red-hot +iron; or to plunge the hands into boiling oil, and keep them there +for several minutes. The party receiving these illustrations and +practical definitions of the Brahminical nature of an oath, without +discomfort or scar, is frankly adjudged innocent and reasonable. + +Another pretty trick of ordeal, which borrows its more striking +features from the department of natural history, is that in which +the prisoner or witness is required to grope about for a trinket or +small coin in a basket or jar already occupied by a lively cobra. +Should the groper not be bitten, our courtly friend, Asirvadam, is +satisfied there has been some mistake here, and gallantly begs the +gentleman's pardon. To force the subject to swallow water, cup by cup, +until it burst from mouth and nose, is also a very neat ordeal, but +requiring practice. + +Formerly, Asirvadam the Brahmin "farmed" the offences of his district;-- +that is, he paid a certain sum to government for the right to try, +and to punish, all the high crimes and misdemeanors that should be +committed in his "section" for a year. Of course, fines were his +favorite penalties; and although most of the time, expenses for +meddlers and perjurers being heavy, the office did not pay more than +a fair living profit, there would now and then come a year when, +rice being scarce and opium cheap, with the aid of a little extra +exasperation, he cut it pretty fat. "Take it year in and year out," +said Asirvadam the Brahmin, "a fellow couldn't complain." + +Asirvadam the Brahmin is among the Sepoys. He sits by the well of +Barrackpore, a comrade on either side, and talks, as only he can +talk to whom no books are sealed. To one, a rigid statue of thrilled +attention, he speaks of the time when Arab horsemen first made +flashing forays down upon Mooltan; he tells of Mahmoud's mace, that +clove the idol of Somnath, and of the gold and gems that burst from +the treacherous wood, as water from the smitten rock in the +wilderness; he tells of Timour, and Baber the Founder, and the long +imperial procession of the Great Moguls,--of Humayoon, and Akbar, +and Shah Jehan, and Aurengzebe,--of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan,-- +of Moorish splendor and the Prophet's sway; and the swarthy Mussulman +stiffens in lip-parted listening. + +To the other, a fiery enthusiast, fretting for the acted moral of a +tale he knows too well, he whispers of British blasphemy and +insolence,--of Brahmins insulted, and gods derided,--of Vedas +violated, and the sacred Sanscrit defiled by the tongues of +Kaffirs,--of Pariahs taught and honored,--of high and low castes +indiscriminately mingled, an obscene herd, in schools and regiments,-- +of glorious institutions, old as Mount Meru, boldly overthrown,--of +suttee suppressed, and infanticide abated,--of widows re-married, +and the dowries of the brides of Brahmins limited,--of high-caste +students handling dead bodies, and Soodra beggars drinking from +Brahminical wells,--of the triple cord broken in twain, and +Brahminee bulls slain in the streets, and cartridges greased with the +fat of cows, and Christian converts indemnified, and property not +confiscated for loss of caste,--and a frightful falling off in the +benighting business generally; and the fierce Rajpoot grinds his +white teeth, while Asirvadam the Brahmin plots, and plots, and plots. + +Incline your ears, my brothers, and I will sing you softly, and low, +a song to make Moor and Rajpoot bite, with their very hearts: + +"Bring Soma to the adorable Indra, the lord of all, the lord of +wealth, the lord of heaven, the perpetual lord, the lord of men, the +lord of earth, the lord of horses, the lord of cattle, the lord of +water!" + +"Offer adoration to Indra, the overcomer, the destroyer, the +munificent, the invincible, the all-endowing, the creator, the +all-adorable, the sustainer, the unassailable, the ever-victorious!" + +"I proclaim the mighty exploits of that Indra who is ever victorious, +the benefactor of man, the overthrower of man, the caster-down, the +warrior, who is gratified by our libations, the grantor of desires, +the subduer of enemies, the refuge of the people!" + +"Unequalled in liberality, the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, +profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of +prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, +Indra has given birth to the light of the morning!" + +"Indra, bestow upon us most excellent treasures, the reputation of +ability, prosperity, increase of wealth, security of person, +sweetness of speech, and auspiciousness of days!" + +"Offer worship quickly to Indra; recite hymns; let the outpoured +drops exhilarate him; pay adoration to his superior strength!" + +"When, Indra, thou harnessest thy horses, there is no such +charioteer as thou; none is equal to thee in strength; none, +howsoever well horsed, has overtaken thee!" + +"He, who alone bestows wealth upon the man who offers him oblations, +is the undisputed sovereign: Indra, ho!" + +"When will he trample with his foot upon the man who offers no +oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our +praises? Indra, ho!" + +"Indra grants formidable strength to him who worships him, having +libations prepared: Indra, ho!" + +The song that was chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the +maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the +well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and +mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red +knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene. + +When Asirvadam the Brahmin conjured the wild demon of revolt to light +the horrid torch and bare the greedy blade, he tore a chapter from +the Book of Menu:-- + +"Let no man, engaged in combat, smite his foe with concealed weapons, +nor with arrows mischievously barbed, nor with poisoned arrows, nor +with darts blazing with fire." + +"Nor let him strike his enemy alighted on the ground; nor an +effeminate man, nor one who sues for life with closed palms, nor one +whose hair is loose, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am +thy captive.'" + +"Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one +who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, +but no combatant, nor one who is fighting with another man." + +"Calling to mind the duty of honorable men, let him never slay one +who has broken his weapon, nor one who is afflicted, nor one who +has been grievously wounded, nor one who is terrified, nor one who +turns his back." + +But Asirvadam the Brahmin, like the Thug of seven victims, has +tasted the sugar of blood, sweeter upon his tongue than to the lips +of an eager babe the pearl-tipped nipple of its mother. Henceforth +he must slay, slay, slay, mutilate and ravish, burn and slay, in the +name of the queen of horrors.--Karlee, ho! + +Now what shall be done with our dangerous friend? Shall he be blown +from the mouths of guns? or transported to the heart-breaking +Andamans? or lashed to his own churruck-posts, and flayed with cats +by stout drummers? or handcuffed with Pariahs in chain-gangs, to +work on his knees in foul sewers? or choked to death with raw +beefsteaks and the warm blood of cows? or swinged by stout Irish +wenches with bridle-ends? or smitten on the mouth with kid gloves by +English ladies, his turban trampled under foot by every Feringhee +brat in Bengal?--Wanted, a poetical putter-down for Asirvadam the +Brahmin. + +"Devotion is not in the ragged garment, nor in the staff, nor in +ashes, nor in the shaven head, nor in the sounding of horns. + +"Numerous Mahomets there have been and multitudes of Brahmas, Vishnus, +and Sivas; + +"Thousands of seers and prophets, and tens of thousands of saints +and holy men: + +"But the chief of lords is the one Lord, the true name of God!" + + * * * * * + + + + +WHAT ARE WE GOING TO MAKE? + +It would be easy to collect a library of lamentations over the +mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many +people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do +nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest +detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would +have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree +to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, +they think, argues degeneracy from the good old times of abstract +philosophy and spiritual dogmatism. But what do we better know of +the Infinite Spirit than that he is an infinite mechanic? Whence do +we get worthier or sublimer conceptions of him than from the +machinery with which he works? Are we ourselves less godlike +building mills than sitting in pews?--less in the image of our Maker, +endeavoring to subdue matter than endeavoring to ignore its existence? +Without questioning that the moral nature within us is superior to +the mechanical, we think it quite susceptible of proof that the +moral condition of the world depends on the mechanical, and that it +has advanced and will advance at equal pace with the progress of +machinery. To prove this, or anything else, however, is by no means +the purpose of this article, but only to take the general reader +around a little among mechanical people and ideas, to see what lies +ahead. + +"Papa, what are you going to make?" was doubtless the question of +Tubal-Cain's little boy, when he saw his ingenious father hammering +a red-hot iron, with a stone for a hammer, and another for an anvil. +Little boys have often since asked the same question in blacksmiths' +shops, and we now have shops in which the largest boys may well ask +it. It might be answered in a general way, that the smiths or smiters, +black and white, were and are going to make what our Maker left +unmade in making the human race. The lower animals were all sent +into the world in appropriate, finished, and well-fitting costume, +provided with direct and effective means of subsistence and defence. +The eagle had his imperial plumage, beak, and talons; the elephant +his leathern roundabout and travelling trunk, with its convenient +air-pump; and the beaver, at once a carpenter and a mason, had his +month full of chisels and his tail a trowel. The _bipes implumis_, on +the contrary, was hatched nude, without even the embryo of a +pin-feather. There was nothing for him but the recondite capabilities +of his two talented, but talonless hands, and a large brain almost +without instinct. Nothing was ready-made, only the means of making. +He was brought into the infinite world a finite deity, an +infinitesimal creator,--the first being of that class, to our +knowledge. His most urgent business as a creator was to make tools +for himself, and especially for the purpose of supplying his own +pitiful destitution of feathers. From the aprons of fig-leaves, +stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has +made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other +animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, +lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and +birds-of-paradise; and it only remains that what can be done shall +be done more extensively,--we do not mean for the individual, but +for the masses. Man has created not only tools, but servants,-- +animals all but alive. We may soon say that he has created great +bodies politic and bodies corporate, with heads, hands, feet, claws, +tails, lungs, digestive organs, and perhaps other viscera. What is +remarkable, having at first failed to furnish them with nerves, he +has lately supplied that deficiency,--a token that he will supply +some others. + +Let not the reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not +preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine +with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good +city of Lynn,--where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in +making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be +either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that +human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more +than the rudest semblance of that self-directing vitality which +characterizes the most servile of God-created machinery. The human +mechanic must be content, if he can approach as near to the creation +of life as the painter and sculptor have done. The soul of the +man-made horse-power is primarily the horse, and secondarily the +small boy who stands by to "cut him up" occasionally. Maelzel +created excellent chess-players, with the exception of intelligence, +which he was obliged to borrow of the original Creator and conceal +in a closet under the table. + +But let us not undervalue ourselves--which would, in fact, be to +undervalue our Creator--for such shortcomings. Though into our iron +horse's skull or cab we have to put one or two living men to supply +its deficiency of understanding, it is nevertheless a recognizable +animal, of a very grand and somewhat novel type. Its respiratory, +digestive, and muscular systems are respectable; and in the nature +and articulation of its organs of motion it is clearly original. The +wheel, typical of eternity, is nowhere to be found among living +organisms, unless we take the brilliant vision of Ezekiel in a +literal sense. The idea of attributing life or spirit to wheels, +organs by their nature detached or discontinuous from the living +creatures of which they were parts, was worthy of a prophet or poet; +but to no such prophetic vision were the first wheelwrights indebted +for their conception of so great an improvement upon animal +locomotion. For if they had not made chariots before Noah's flood, +they certainly had done it before Pharaoh's smaller affair in the +Red Sea. On that occasion, the chariot-wheels of the Egyptians were +taken off; but this does not seem to have produced effects so +decisive as would result from a similar disorganization in Broadway +or Washington Street; for the charioteers still "drave them heavily." +Hence we may infer that the wheels were of rude workmanship, making +the chariots little less liable to the infirmity of friction than +those Western vehicles called mud-boats, used to navigate semi-fluid +regions which pass on the map for _terra firma_. + +Yet, notwithstanding the rudeness of the primitive chariot, made of +two or three sticks and two rings cut from a hollow tree, it was the +germ of human inventions, and embosomed the world's destiny. It was +the most original as well as the most godlike of human thoughts. The +ship may have been copied from the nautilus, or from the embarked +squirrel trimming his tail to the breeze; or it may have been +blundered upon by the savage mounted on a drift-log, accidentally +making a sail of his sheepskin cloak while extending his arms to +keep his balance. But the cart cannot be regarded either as a +plagiarism from Nature, or the fruit of accident. The inventor must +have unlocked Nature's private closet with the key of mathematical +principle, and carried off the wheel and axle, the only mechanical +power she had not used in her physical creation, as patent to our +senses. Of course, she meant it should be stolen. She had, it is true, +made a show of punishing her little Prometheus for running off with +her match-box and setting things on fire, but she must have felt +proud of the theft. In well-regulated families children are not +allowed to play with fire, though the passion to do it is looked on +as a favorable mental indication. When the good dame saw that her +infant _chef-d'oeuvre_ had got hold of her reserved mechanical +element, the wheel, she foresaw his use of the stolen fire would be +something more than child's play. The cart, whether two-wheeled, or, +as our Hibernian friends will have it, one-wheeled, was an infinite +success, an invention of unlimited capabilities. Yet the inventor +obtained no record. Neither his name nor his model is to be found in +any patent-office. + +The tool-making animal, having obtained this marvellous means of +multiplying, or rather treasuring and applying, mechanical force, +went on at least some thousands of years before waking up to its +grand significance. Among the nations that first obtained excellence +in textile fabrics, very little use has ever been made of the wheel. +The spinning-girl of Dacca, who twists, and for ages has twisted, a +pound of cotton into a thread two hundred and fifty miles long, +beating Manchester by ninety miles, has no wheel, unless you so call +a ball of clay, of the size of a pea, stuck fast on one end of her +spindle, by means of which she twists it between her thumb and +finger. But this wonderful mechanical feat costs her many months of +labor, to say nothing of previous training; while the Manchester +factory-girl, aided by the multiplying power of the wheel, easily +makes as much yarn, though not quite so fine, in a day. If it were +an object to rival the tenuity of the finest India muslin, machinery +could easily accomplish it. But that spider-web fabric is carried so +nearly to transparency, that the Emperor Aurengzebe is said to have +reproved his daughter for the indelicacy of her costume while she +wore seven thicknesses of it. She might have worn twelve hundred +yards without burdening herself with more than a pound weight; what +she did wear did not, probably, weigh two ounces. The Chinese and +Japanese have spinning-wheels hardly equal to those brought over by +our pilgrim fathers in the Mayflower. But they have also, what +Western civilization has not, praying-wheels. In Japan the +praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it +is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a +mill. The Japanese, however, have mills for hulling rice, turned by +very respectable water-wheels. The Egyptians and Greeks had +water-wheels, and in fact understood all the mechanical powers. +Archimedes, all the world knows, astounded the Romans by mechanical +combinations which showered rocks on the besiegers of Syracuse, and +boasted he could make a projectile of the world itself, if he could +only find a standing-place outside of it. + +The present civilization of Europe very properly began with the clock, +a machine which a monk, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, was supposed +to have borrowed from Satan, though he was probably indebted for it +to the Saracens. For nearly nine hundred years after his day, the +best ingenuity of Italian, German, Swiss, French, and English +mechanics was devoted to perfecting this noble creation, and it +became at last a part of the civilized man, a sort of additional or +supplementary sense. The savage may well be excused for mistaking +the watch for a living creature. It could not serve us better, if it +were. True, it does not perform its function by its own force, but by +a stock of extraneous force which is from time to time put into a +little store-house called a spring. Neither does the living creature +perform its functions by any other force than that which is developed +by the chemical action within it, or the _quasi_ combustion of its +food. Its will does but direct the application of its mechanical +power. It creates none. You may weigh the animal and all the food it +is to consume, and thence calculate the utmost ounce of work, of a +given kind, which it can thereafter perform. It may do less, but +cannot do more. Having consumed all of its food and part of itself, +it dies. Its chemical organs have oxydated or burned up all the +combustibles submitted to them, thus developing a definite amount of +heat, a part of which, at the dictation of the will, by the +mechanism of nerves and muscles, has been converted into mechanical +motion. When the chemical function ceases, for the want of materials +to act upon, the development of heat ceases. There is no more either +to be converted into motion or to maintain the temperature of the +body; and self-consumption having already taken the place of +self-repair, there is no article left but the _articulus mortis_. + +But of all the force or motion produced by, or rather passing through, +a living animal, or any other organism, none is ever, so far as we +know, annihilated. The motion which has apparently ceased or been +destroyed has in reality passed into heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, or other effect,--itself, perhaps, nothing but motion, to +keep on, in one form or another, indefinitely. The fuel which we put +into the stomach of the horse, of iron or of flesh, first by its +oxydation raises heat, a part of which it is the function of the +individual to convert into motion, to be expended on friction and +resistance, or, in other words, to be reconverted into heat. What +becomes of this heat, then? If the fuel were to be replaced or +deoxydated, the heat that originally came from the oxydation would be +precisely reabsorbed. But this heat of itself cannot overcome the +stronger affinity which now chains the fuel to the oxygen. It must +go forward, not backward, about its business, forever and ever. It +may pass, but not cease. The sharp-eyed Faraday has been following +far away this Proteus, with a strong suspicion that it changes at +last into gravity, in which shape it returns straight to the sun, +carrying down with it, probably, those flinty showers of meteors +which, striking fire in the atmosphere of the prime luminary, +replenish its overflowing fountain of life. But we are not aware +that he has yet discovered the anastomosis of this conversion, or +quite established the fact. We are therefore not yet quite ready to +resolve the universe of physical forces into the similitude of the +mythical mill-stream, which, flowing round a little hill, came back +and fed its own pond. Nevertheless, we believe the physicists have +pretty generally agreed to assume as a law of Nature what they call +the conservation of force, the principle we have been endeavoring to +explain. + +Under the lead of this law, theory, or assumption, discoveries have +been made that deeply and practically interest the most abject +mortal who anywhere swings a hoe or shoulders a hod, as well as the +lords of the land. For example, it has been ascertained that heat is +converted into motion, or motion into heat, according to a fixed or +constant ratio or equivalent. To be more particular, the heat which +will raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree of +Fahrenheit's scale, when converted into mechanical motion, is +equivalent to the force which a weight of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds would exert by falling one foot. This is a +wonderfully small quantity of heat to balance so heavy a blow, but +the careful experiments of Mr. Joule of Manchester, the discoverer, +confirmed by Regnault, Thomson, Rankine, Clausius, Mayer, Rennie, +and others, have, we believe, satisfied scientific men that it is +not far from the correct measure. Were the same, or a far less +amount of heat, concentrated on a minute chip of steel struck off by +collision with a flint, it would be visible to the eye as a spark, +and show us how motion is converted into light as well as heat. + +It is not our vocation to dive into the infinities, either upward or +downward, in search, on the one hand, of the ultimate atoms of the +rarest ether, by whose vibrations the luminous waves run through +space at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute, or, +on the other, of the nebulous systems, worlds in the gristle, so far +off that the light just now arriving from them tells only how they +looked two hundred thousand years ago. All we have to say is, that, +if we do not now absolutely know, we do reasonably suspect, that heat +and light are mere mechanical motions, alike in nature and +interconvertible in fact. The luminiference seems to behave itself, +not like infinitely small bullets projected from Sharpe's rifles of +proportionately small bore, as was once supposed, but rather after +the manner of the sound-waves, which we know travel through the air +from the sonorous body to the ear. They have also a resemblance, not +so close, to the waves which run in all directions along the surface +of a pond of water from the point where a stone falls into it. These +three classes of waves, differing so immensely in magnitude and +velocity, all agree in this,--that it is the wave that travels, and +not the fluid or medium. The rapidity of the luminous wave is about +nine hundred million times that of the sound-wave; hence we may +suppose that the ether in which it moves is about as many times +rarer or lighter than air, and the retina of the eye which it +impresses as many times more delicate and sensitive than the drum of +the ear. It can hardly be unreasonable to suppose that a fluid so +rare as this luminiferous ether will readily interflow the particles +of all other matter, gaseous, liquid, or solid, and that in such +abundance that its vibrations or agitations may be propagated through +them. Yet even the rarest gases must considerably obstruct and +modify the vibratory waves, while liquids and solids, according to +their density and structural arrangement of atoms, must do it far +more. The luminiferous ether, in which all systems are immersed, +kept hereabout in an incessant quiver through its complete and +perhaps three-fold gamut of vibrations by the sun, strikes the aėrial +ocean of the earth about an average of five hundred million millions +of blows per second, for each of the seven colors, or luminous notes, +not to speak of the achromatic vibrations, whose effects are other +than vision or visionary. The aėrial ocean is such open-work, that +these infinitesimal billows are not much, though somewhat, broken by +it; but when they reach the terraqueous globe itself, they dash into +foam which goes whirling and eddying down into solids and liquids, +among their wild caverns of ultra-microscopic littleness, and this +foam or whirl-storm of ethereal substance is heat, if we are not +much mistaken. According to its intensity, it expands by its own mere +motion all grosser material. + +The quantity of this ethereal foam, yeast, whirlwind, hubbub, or +whatever else you please to call it, which is got up or given up by +the combustion of three pounds of good bituminous coal, according to +Mr. Joule's experiments, is more than equivalent to a day's labor +of a powerful horse. With our best stationary steam-engines, at +present, we get a day's horse-power from not less than twenty-four +pounds of coal. At this rate, the whole supply of mineral coal in +the world, as it may be roughly estimated, is equivalent only to the +labor of one thousand millions of horses for fifteen hundred years. +With the average performance of our present engines, it would +support that amount of horse-power for only one thousand years. But +could we obtain the full mechanical duty of the fuel by our engines, +it would be equal to the work of a thousand millions of horses for +sixteen thousand years, or of about fifteen times as many men for +the same time. This would materially postpone the exhaustion of the +coal, at which one so naturally shudders,--to say nothing of the +saving of having to dig but one eighth as much of the mineral to +produce the same effect. Hence some of the interest that attaches to +this discovery of Mr. Joule, which has given a new impulse to the +labor of inventors in pushing the steam-engine towards perfection. + +But if the whole available mechanical power, laid in store in the +coal mines, in addition to all the unimproved wind and water power, +should seem to any one insufficient to work out this world's manifest +destiny, the doctrine of the essential unity or conservation of +force is not exhausted of consolation. All the coal of which we have +spoken is but the result of the action of sun-light in past ages, +decomposing carbonic acid in the vegetative process. The combustion +of the carbon reproduces a force exactly equivalent to that of the +sun-light which was absorbed or consumed in its vegetative separation. +Supposing the whole estimated stock of coal in the world to be +consumed at once, it would cover the entire globe with a stratum of +carbonic acid about seventy-two feet deep. And if all the energy of +sun-light which this globe receives or encounters in a year were to +be devoted to its decomposition, according to Pouillet's estimate of +the strength of sunshine,--and he probably knows, if any one does,-- +deducting all that would be wasted on rock or water, there would be +enough to complete the task in a year or two. A marvellous growth of +forest, that would be! But the coal is not to be burned up at once. +When we get our steam-engines in motion to the amount of two or +three thousand millions of horse-power, and are running off the coal +at the rate of one tenth of one per cent per annum, the simple and +inevitable consequence will be that the wood will be growing enough +faster to keep good the general stock of fuel. Doubtless the forests +are now limited in their growth and stunted from their ante-Saurian +stature, not so much for want of soil, moisture, or sunshine as for +want of carbonic acid in the air, to be decomposed by the foliage, +the great deposition of coal in the primitive periods having +exhausted the supply. Our present havoc of wood only changes the +locality of wood-lots, and our present consumption of coal, rapid +enough to exhaust the entire supply in about seventy-seven thousand +years, is sure to increase the aggregate cordage of the forests. By +the time we have brought our locomotive steam-cultivators to such +perfection as to plough up and pulverize the great central deserts, +we may see trees flourish where it would have been useless to plant +the seed before we had converted so much of the earth's entrails +into smoke. + +There was a time, before we had harnessed the powers of Nature to +found, forge, spin, weave, print, and drudge for us generally, that +in every civilized country the strong-headed men used their +strong-handed brethren as machines. Only he could be very knowing who +owned many scribes, or he very rich who owned many hewers of wood +and drawers of water. With our prodigious development of mechanical +inventions, iron and coal, our mighty steam-driven machinery for +making machines, the time for chattelizing men, or depending mainly +on animal power of any sort for the production of wealth, has passed +by. Abrogate the golden rule, if you will, and establish the creed +of caste,--let the strongest of human races have full license to +enslave the weakest, and let it have the pick of soil and staples,-- +still, if you do not abolish the ground rules of arithmetic, and the +fact that a pound of carbon costs less than a pound of corn, and must +cost less for at least a thousand years to come, chattelism of man +will cease in another generation, and the next century will not dawn +on a human slave. At present, a pound of carbon does not cost so +much as a pound of corn in any part of the United States, and in no +place visited by steam-transportation does it cost one fifth as much. +We are already able to get as much work out of a pound of carbon as +can be got from a pound of corn fed to the faithfullest slave in the +world. Mr. Joule has shown us that there is really in a pound of +carbon more than twice as much work as there is in a pound of corn. +The human corn-consuming machine comes nearer getting the whole +mechanical duty or equivalent out of his fuel than our present +steam-engine does, but the former is all he ever will be, while the +latter is an infant and growing. + +We shall doubtless soon see engines that will get the work of two +slaves out of the coal that just balances one slave's food in the +scales. Our iron-boned, coal-eating slave, with the advantage of +that peculiar and almost infinitely applicable mechanical element, +the wheel, may be made to go anywhere and do any sort of work, and, +as we have seen, he will do it for one tenth of the cost of any +brute or human slave. + +But will not our artificial slave be more liable to insurrection? +Everybody admits that he already accomplishes incalculable drudgery +in the huge mill, on the ocean, and on the iron highway. But almost +everybody looks upon him as a sleeping volcano, which must sooner or +later flare up into irresistible wrath and do frightful mischief. +Underwriters shake their prudent heads at him. Coroners' inquests, +sitting solemnly over his frequent desolations, find only that some +of his ways are past finding out. Can such a creature be +domesticated so as to serve profitably and comfortably on by-roads +as well as high-roads, on farms, in gardens, in kitchens, in mines, +in private workshops, in all sorts of places where steady, +uncomplaining toil is wanted? Can we ever trust him as we trust +ourselves, or our humble friends, the horse and the ox? The law of +the conservation of force, now so nearly developed, will perhaps +throw some light on this inquiry. + +Boiler explosions have a sort of family resemblance to the freaks of +lightning or the thunderbolt. Indeed, so striking is the similarity, +that people have been prone to think, that, previously to an +explosion, the steam in the boiler must have become in some +inexplicable way charged with electricity like a thunder-cloud, and +that the discharge must have occasioned the catastrophe. It is +needless to say to those who understand a Leyden jar, that nothing +of the sort takes place. The friction of the watery globules, carried +along by the steam in blowing off, is found to disturb the +electrical equilibrium, as any other friction does; but the +circumstances in the case of a boiler are always so favorable to its +restoration, that an electrical thunderbolt cannot possibly be +raised there that would damage a gnat. Yet a boiler explosion may, +after all, depend on the same immediate cause as the mechanical +effect which is frequently noticed after an electrical discharge in a +thunder-storm. Let us hypothetically analyze what takes place in a +thunder-storm. For the sake of illustration, and nothing more, we +will suppose the existence, throughout all otherwise void space, of +three interflowing ethers, the atoms of each of which are, in regard +to each other, repellant, negative, or the reverse of ponderable, +and that these ethers differ in a series by vast intervals as to +size and distance of atoms, that each neither repels nor attracts +the other, that only the rarest is everywhere, and that the denser +ones, while self-repellant, have affinities, more or less, which +draw them from the interplanetary spaces towards the ponderable +masses. Let the rarest of these ethers be that whose vibrations +cause the phenomena of light,--the next denser that which, either by +vibration or translatory motion, causes the electrical phenomena,-- +and the most dense of the three that which by its motions, of +whatever sort, causes the phenomena of heat. The solar impulse +propagated through the luminiferous ether towards any mass encounters +in its neighborhood the electrical and calorific ethers, and sets +them into motions which may be communicated from one to the other, +but which are communicated to ponderable matter, or result in +mechanical action, only or chiefly by the impulse of the denser or +calorific ether. When the sun shines on land and water, as we have +already said, there is a violent ethereal commotion in the +interstices of the superficial matter, which we will now suppose to +be that of the calorific ether; and by virtue of this motion, +together with whatever affinities this ether may be supposed to have +for ponderable matter, we may account for evaporation, and the +production of those vast aėrial currents by which the evaporated +water is diffused. In the production of aėrial currents, heat is +converted into force, and hence vapor is converted into watery +globules mechanically suspended on clouds, which, by their friction, +sweep the electrical ether into excessive condensation in the great +Leyden-jar arrangement of the sky. Whatever it may be that gives +relief to this condensation, the relief itself consists in motion, +either translatory or vibratory, of the electrical ether or ethers. +As this motion, if it be such, often takes place through gases, +liquids, and solids, without any sensible mechanical effect, and at +other times is contemporary with phenomena of intense heat, we may, +till otherwise informed, suppose, that, whenever it produces a +mechanical effect, it is by so impinging on the calorific ether as +to produce the motion of heat, which is instantly thereafter +converted into mechanical force. It is not so much the greatness of +the amount of this mechanical force which gives it its peculiar +destructiveness, as the inequality of its strain; not so much the +quantity of matter projected, as the velocity of the blow. One may +have his brains blown out by a bullet of air as well as one of lead, +if the air only blows hard enough and to one point. Whatever its +material, the edge of the thunder-axe is almost infinitely sharp, +and its blow is as destructive as it is timeless. But it is always +heat, not electrical discharge, which only sometimes causes heat, +that strikes the blow. + +Now in the case of a steam-boiler, when the water, having been +reduced too low, is allowed suddenly to foam up on the overheated +crown-sheet of the furnace, there must be just that sudden or +instantaneous conversion of heat into force which may take place +when the current of the electrical discharge passes through the +gnarled fibres of an oak. The boiler and the oak are blown to shivers +in equally quick time. The only difference seems to be, that in one +case electricity stood immediately, in point of time, behind the heat, +and in the other it stood away back beyond the crocodiles, playing +its _rōle_ more genially in the growth of the monster forests whose +remains we are now digging from the bowels of the earth as coal. In +the normal action of a steam-boiler, the steam-generating surfaces +being all under water, however unequally the fire may act in +different localities, the water, by its rapid circulation, if not by +its heat-absorbing power, diffuses the heat and constantly equalizes +the strain resulting from its conversion into mechanical force. The +increase of pressure takes place gradually and evenly, and may +easily be kept far within safe limits. It is quite otherwise when +the conductivity of the boiler-plate is not aided and controlled by +the distributiveness of the water, as it is not whenever the plate +is in contact with the fire on one side without being also in contact +with the water on the other. Everybody knows that boilers explode +under such circumstances, but everybody does not know why. + +A cylinder of plate-iron will withstand a gradually applied, evenly +distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, +acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or +establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the +sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be +nothing very serious in itself,--no more so than a rent produced by +the hydraulic press,--if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of +a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not take instant +advantage of it to enlarge the breach and blow the whole structure +to fragments, or, in other words, if it did not permit nearly the +whole of the accumulated heat in the boiler to be at once converted +into mechanical motion. For example, a boiler whose ordinary working +pressure is one hundred pounds to the square inch, which may give an +aggregate on the whole surface of five millions of pounds, would not +give way, perhaps, if that pressure were gradually and evenly +increased to thirty millions. But if the water is allowed to get so +low that some part of the plate exposed to the fire is no longer +covered with it, that part will directly become far hotter than the +water or the mass of the steam,--dry steam having no more power to +carry away the excess of heat than so much air. After that, when the +water rises again, the first wave or wallop that strikes the +overheated plate absorbs the excess of heat, and its conversion into +steam of higher pressure than that already existing is so sudden +that it may be regarded as instantaneous. It is to be remembered +that for every pound of water raised one degree, or heat to that +amount absorbed in generating steam, a force of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds is created. In this case a new or additional +force is created, which, acting in all directions from one point, +first takes effect on the line which joins that point with the +nearest opposite point in the wall of the boiler. If it is not like +smiting with the edge of a ponderous battle-axe, it is at least as +dangerous as a cannon ball shot along that line. If the local heat +so suddenly absorbed be but enough to raise ten pounds of water ten +degrees, it is equivalent to the force acquired by seventy-seven +thousand two hundred pounds falling through a foot, or of a +cannon-ball of one hundred pounds flying at the rate of more than a +mile per second. If by any miracle the boiler should stand this +shock or series of shocks, the pressure becomes equalized, and the +overheated plate having parted with its excess of heat, safety is +restored. But if cohesion is anywhere overcome by the sudden blow, +the wild horses stampede in all directions. The boiler, minus the +water and boiler-head perhaps, goes through ceiling, roof, and brick +walls, as if they were cobwebs, and, surrounded with fragments of +men and things, is seen descending like a comet through the +neighboring air. + +To get rid of this liability to have a Thor-hammer or thunderbolt +generated in the stomach of a steam-engine, at any moment when the +vigilance of the engineer happens to be at fault, something is going +to be done. No safety-valve or fusible plug is adequate. The boiler +cannot be all safety-valve. The trouble is, the hammer is not more +likely to strike the first of its terrible series of blows on the +valve than anywhere else. A safety-valve, in good order, is a +sovereign precaution against the excess of an equally distributed +strain, but it is not an adequate protection against a shock or +unequal strain. The old-fashioned gaugecocks, which are by no means +to be dispensed with, reveal the state of the water in the boiler to +the watchful engineer about as surely as the stethoscope reveals to +the doctor the condition of his patient's lungs. A surer and more +convenient indication is the tubular glass gauge, on the fountain +principle, which in its best form is both trustworthy and durable. +No well-informed proprietor suffers his boiler to be without one; +but it is not a cure for carelessness. It is only a window for the +vigilant eye to look through, not the eye itself. Steam-boilers will +have to be constructed so that when the subsidence of the water +fails to check itself by enlarging the supply, it shall, before the +point of danger is reached, infallibly check the combustion, let off +the steam, and blow a whistle or ring a bell, which the proprietor +may, if he pleases, regard as the official death-knell of the +careless engineer. Human vigilance must not be superseded, but +fortified,--as in the case of the watchman watched by the tell-tale +clock. The steam-creature must be so constituted as to refuse to +work itself down to the zone where alone unequal strains are possible; +it must cry out in horror and strike work. Mechanically the solution +of the problem is easy, and the enhancement in cost of construction +will be nothing, compared to the risk of loss from these explosions. +With this guard against the deficiency of water, steam-power will +become the safest, as it is the most manageable, of all forces that +have hitherto been subsidized by the civilized man. + +But there is one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great +injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical +way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy or +the laws of dietetics. + +Our creature has no regular meals, especially if he is one of the +fast kind; but a grimy nurse stands by, and, opening his mouth every +few minutes, crams in a few spoonfuls of the black pudding. The +natural consequence is more or less indigestion and inequality of +strength. We have not yet taken full advantage of the laws of +combustion, or adapted our apparatus to the peculiarities of the +best and cheapest fuel. Nature manages more wisely in her machinery. +Combustion, the union of fuel with oxygen, ceases for want of air as +well as for want of fuel. In the case of fuels compounded of carbon +and hydrogen, if the air be withheld when the mass is in rapid +combustion, the heat will cause a portion of the fuel to pass off by +distillation, unconsumed, and this portion will be lost. But from +the best anthracite, which is nearly pure carbon concentrated, if +oxygen be entirely excluded, not much can distil away with any +degree of heat. The combustion of this fuel, therefore, admits of +very easy and economical regulation, by simply regulating the supply +of air. When the air is admitted at all, it should be admitted above +as well as below the fuel, so that the carbonic oxyde that is +generated in the mass may be burned, or converted into carbonic acid, +over the top. Why, then, should not the iron horse, before leaving +his stable, take a meal of anthracite sufficient to last him fifty +or one hundred miles? Let him swallow a ton at once, if he need it. +Before starting, let the temperature of the mass in the furnace be +got up to the point where the combustion will go on with sufficient +rapidity for the required speed by simply supplying air, which +should also be fed as hot as possible. This done, the engineer +throughout the trip will have perfect control of his force by means +of the steam-blast and air-openings. There will be no smoke nuisance, +the combustion being complete so far as it takes place at all. +There will be no need of loading the furnace with firebrick to +equalize the heat,--the mass of incandescent fuel serving that +purpose; and no waste or inequality will occur from opening the door +to throw in a cold collation. + +What are we going to make? First, we are going to finish up, and +carry out into all desirable species, our great idea of an iron slave, +the illustrious Man Friday of our modern civilization. Whether we +put water, air, or ether into his aorta, as the medium of converting +heat into force, we shall at last have a safe subject, available for +all sorts of drudgery, that will do the work of a man without eating +more than half as much weight of coal as a man eats of bread and meat. +Next, carrying into all departments of human industry, in its +perfect development, this new creature, which has already, as a mere +infant, made so stupendous a change in some of them, we shall make +the human millions all masters, from being nearly all slaves. We +shall make both idleness and poverty nearly impossible. Human labor, +as a general thing, is a positive pleasure only when the hand and +brain work in concert. Hence, the more you increase well-devised and +efficient machinery, which requires and rewards intelligent +oversight and skilful direction, the more you increase the love of +labor. We have already manufacturing communities so well supplied +with tasks for brains and hands, that everybody works, or would do +so but for Circe and her seductive hollow-ware. We are beginning to +push machinery into agriculture, where it will have still greater +scope. With the means we now have, in the enormously increased +production of iron, our almost omnipresent and omnipotent +machine-shops, our railroads leading everywhere, another century, or +perhaps half of it, will see every arable rood of the earth and +every rood that can be made arable, ploughed, sowed, and the crops +harvested by iron horses, iron oxen, or iron men, under the free and +intelligent supervision of people who know how to feed, drive, doctor, +and make the most of them. + +One island, which would hardly be missed from the map of the world, +so small that its rivers all fall into the sea mere brooks, with not +more than one-thirteenth as much coal as we have in the United States, +and perhaps not one-hundredth as much iron ore, by the use of +steam-driven machinery produces as much iron and perhaps weaves as +much cloth yearly as all the rest of the world. If it does not the +latter, it would do it, if it could find enough of the raw material +and paying customers. But agriculture, which supplies the raw +material, though it is the first and most universal form of human +labor, lags behind the world's present manufacturing power. One cause +of the late, and perhaps of the previous commercial revulsion, was +this disproportion. The more rapid enlargement of manufacturing +industry, multiplied in power by its machinery, caused the raw +material to rise in price and the manufactured article to fall, till +the operations could not be supported from the profits at the same +time that contracts were fulfilled with capitalists. Manufactures +must pause till agriculture overtakes. Steam-machinery applied to +agriculture is the only thing that can correct this disproportion, +and this is what we are going to make. The world is not to be much +longer dependent for its cotton on the compulsory labor of the Dark +Ages, nor for its flax and corn on blistered free hands or +overworked cattle. The laborer, in either section of our country, +will be transformed into an ingenious gentleman or lady, comfortably +mounted on a migratory steam-cultivator to direct its gigantic +energies,--or, at least, occasionally so occupied. Under this system, +it must be plain enough, to all persons prophetically inclined, that +the Northern valleys will greatly multiply their products, while the +Southern cotton-fields will whiten with heavier crops than human +chattelism ever produced, and the mountains of both latitudes, now +hardly notched with civilization, will roll down the wool of sheep +in clouds. + +Finally, with important and fruitful mechanical ideas which the +world did not have twenty years ago, with machinery which no one +could have believed possible one hundred years ago, and which has, +since that time, quintupled the power of every free laborer in +Christendom, we are going to make man what his Creator designed him +to be,--always and everywhere a sub-creator. By the press we are +making the knowledge of the past the knowledge of the present, the +knowledge of one the knowledge of all. By the telegraph the senses +of sight and hearing are to be extended around the globe. If we do +not make ships to navigate the air, for ourselves, our wives, and +our little ones, it will not be because we cannot, but because, being +lords of land and sea, with power to traverse either with all +desirable speed, we are too wise to waste force either in beating +the air for buoyancy, battling with gravity like birds, on the one +hand, or in paddling huge balloons against the wind, on the other. +The steam-driven wheel leaves us no occasion to envy even that +ubiquitous denizen of the universe, the flying-fish. We have in it +the most economical means of self-transportation, as well as of +mechanical production. It only remains to make the most of it. This, +to be sure, will not be achieved without infinite labor and +innumerable failures. The mechanical genius of the race is like the +polypus anxiously stretching its tentacles in every direction, and +though frustrated thousands of times, it grasps something at last. + +One of the most significant structures in the world, by the way, is +the United States Patent Office at Washington. No other building in +that novel city means a hundredth part as much, or shows so clearly +what the world's most cunning thoughts and hands are chiefly engaged +with. Not that the Patent Office contains so many miracles of +mechanical success; rather the contrary. Take a just appraisal of +its treasures, and you will regard it rather as the chief tomb in the +Pčre la Chaise of human hopes. What multitudes of long-nursed and +dearly-cherished inventions there repose in a common grave, useful +only as warnings to future inventors! One great moral of the survey +is, that inventive talent is shamefully wasted among us, for want of +proper scientific direction and suitable encouragement. The mind +that comprehends general principles in all their relations, and sees +what needs to be done and what is possible and profitable to be done, +is of necessity not the one to arrange in detail the means of doing. +The man of science and the mechanical inventor are distinct persons, +speaking of either in his best estate; and the maximum success of +machinery depends on their acting together with a better +understanding than they have hitherto had. It were less difficult +than invidious to point to living examples of the want of +cooperation and co-appreciation between our knowing and our doing men; +but, for the sake of illustrating our idea, we will run the risk of +quoting a minute from the proceedings of one of our scientific +societies, premising that we know nothing more of the parties than +we learn from the minute itself,--to wit, that one is, or was, an +ingenious mechanic, and the other a promoter of science. + +"Dr. Patterson gave an account of an automaton speaking-machine +which Mr. Franklin Peale and himself had recently inspected. The +machine was made to resemble as nearly as possible, in every respect, +the human vocal organs; and was susceptible of varied movements by +means of keys. Dr. Patterson was much struck by the distinctness with +which the figure could enunciate various letters and words. The +difficult combination _three_ was well pronounced,--the _th_ less +perfectly, but astonishingly well. It also enumerated diphthongs, +and numerous difficult combinations of sounds. Sixteen keys were +sufficient to produce all the sounds. In enunciating the simple +sounds, the movements of the mouth could be seen. The parts were +made of gum elastic. The figure was made to say, with a peculiar +intonation, but surprising distinctness, 'Mr. Patterson, I am glad to +see you.' It sang, 'God save Victoria,' and 'Hail Columbia,'--the +words and air combined. Dr. Patterson had determined to visit the +maker of the machine, Mr. Faber, in private, in order to obtain +further interesting information; but, on the following day, Dr. P. +was distressed to learn, that, in a fit of excitement, he had +destroyed every particle of a figure which had taken him seventeen +years to construct." + +It is quite probable that the world lost very little by the +destruction of this curious figure, whatever the nature or cause of +the "excitement" that led to it. All we have to say is, that it does +lose much, when the genius that can create such things is not set +upon the right tasks, and encouraged to success by the "high +consideration" of scientific men, who alone of all the world can +appreciate the difficulties it has to contend with. It is by setting +the right mechanical problems before the men who can make dumb matter +talk, that we are to bring about the resurrection of the black Titan +who has lain buried under the mountains for thousands of millenniums, +and constitute him the efficient sub-gardener of the world's Paradise +Regained. + + + * * * * * + + + + +SHIPWRECK + + We who by shipwreck only find the shores + Of divine wisdom can but kneel at first, + Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, + That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, + The shock and sustenance of solid earth: + Inland afar we see what temples gleam + Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, + And we conjecture shining shapes therein; + Yet for a space 'tis good to wonder here + Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + + [Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the + end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at + once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh + verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your + audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people + can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off + without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into + the saddle again, at every parenthesis.] + +----The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had +fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street. +It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable +exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayley. +When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face, +and complained that he had been "made sport of." By sympathizing +questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him "old daddy," +and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed. + +This incident led me to make some observations at table the next +morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this +record. + +----The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I +learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of +Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were +usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native +town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a +"Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, +and the following dialogue ensued. + +_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, did you know there was g-on-to +be a race to-morrah? + +_Myself_. No. Who's g-on-to run, 'n'wher's't g-on-to be? + +_The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico and Doctor Williams, round the brim +o' your hat. + +These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at +that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, +the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, +I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to +make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress +ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. + +A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, +is never itself again afterwards. + +It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary. + +Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is +always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, +suggestive of a wet brush. + +The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing +its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of +"respectability." + +----The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very +pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French, +except the word for potatoes,--_pummies de tare_.--_Ultimum moriens_, +I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With +this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I +saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the +white one in his hand. + +----I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor +for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think +and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many +respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this +time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing, and therefore +I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a +word or two about my friends. + +The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful +and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small +technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and +though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand +airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting +on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet I +am sure he has a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its +cultivators. + +But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other day.-- +My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, because I +keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into +the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your +customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them +off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher +a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, +the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew +all this very well when he advised every literary man to have a +profession. + +----Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with +the other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of +intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have +found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other +amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my +carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest +possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to +tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work +immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, +and got so interested in it, that, when we were set loose, I +"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished. + +There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and +others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my +winter's work is over, and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn +to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life than +he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says,-- +yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he can sing +least. + +Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed, sometimes,-- +said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst songs fall below +my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to others who +have told me so, that they ought to be _all best_,--if not in actual +execution, at least in plan and motive. I am grateful--he continued-- +for all such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have his most +serious efforts praised, and the highest aspect of his nature get the +most sunshine. + +Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change +their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing +their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant by +complementary colors? You know the effect, too, that the prolonged +impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your +eyes after looking steadily at a _red_ object, you see a _green_ +image. + +It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking at +one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or truth, +when they turn away, the _complementary_ aspect of the same object +stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. Shall +they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not? + +When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite largeness +of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote +the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, +I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from +time to time, and come down from its noblest condition,--never, of +course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, +but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise +themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the +bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble +friends in the basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet +and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple adornments, but befitting the +station of those who wear them--show themselves to the crowd, who +think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs +know that they are cheap and perishable? + +----I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or +other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you +what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me, +one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ. Life +turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come +under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my +_adagio_ movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play us so +always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, +the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. How +easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must be no end of +just such melodies in him,--I will open the poor machine for you one +moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note marks where a spur of +steel has been driven in. It is easy to grind out the song, but to +plant these bristling points which make it was the painful task of +time. + +I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no +larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them +piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect. +The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their +turn! + +So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest songs, +and after it a gay _chanson_, and then a string of epigrams. All true,-- +he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the corolla spread, +and another with its disk half opened, and the third with the +heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two showing its tip +through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of the poet's soul,-- +he told me. + +----What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the +souls of poets most fully? + +Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus. +Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark, and +a fern will not flower anywhere. + +What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's corolla?-- +I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am afraid; or at +least they shine on a good many that never come to anything. + +Who are _they_?--said the schoolmistress. + +Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his +best reward. + +The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I +really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have +pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, +but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true +poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,--to a +woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, +so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.-- +Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,--what color +would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed +whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's praises! I should +have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- + + "Lilies without; roses within!" + +But then,--he added,--we all think, _if_ so and so, we should have +been this or that, as you were saying, the other day, in those +rhymes of yours. + +----I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but +of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in +soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and +sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own hands +the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts the +over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. + +There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. +[Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please to tell us +about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are +blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,-- +_negative_ or _washed_ blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to +become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with +golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,-- +_positive_ or _stained_ blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as +unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike a +snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a +sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline +fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her +quick, glittering glances. + +Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, +and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of +moonlight genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of +nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to +those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. +Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with melancholy. +There is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of +compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact that +some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest songs are the +growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for the rougher +duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or +of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, sweet natures, +born to weakness, and mostly dying before their time,--one cannot +help thinking that the human race dies out singing, like the swan in +the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hōtel Dieu, +at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by a key in his throat, which he +had swallowed when delirious in consequence of a fall,)--this poor +fellow was a very good example of the poet by excess of sensibility. +I found, the other day, that some of my literary friends had never +heard of him, though I suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know +the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed +in the great hospital of Paris. + + "Au banquet de la vie, infortuné convive, + J'apparus un jour, et je meurs; + Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, oł lentement j'arrive, + Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." + + At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, + One day I pass, then disappear; + I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest + No friend shall come to shed a tear. + +You remember the same thing in other words somewhere in Kirke +White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these +sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world +will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have loved! +how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes +grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner and thinner, +until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, +they drop it and pass onward. + +----Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them +up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the +hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. + +Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; +they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only +makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, +seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence +at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so +long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. + +If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the +dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring +through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, +uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow +up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us +sometimes for silence and rest!--that this dreadful mechanism, +unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral +figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can +wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?-- +that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters +beneath?--that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to +utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is +shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that +building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where +neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which +a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. +There is nothing for it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling +of its wheels, but to spring against the stone wall and silence them +with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,-- +and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise +as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and +serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of +a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid +automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would +the world give for the discovery? + +----From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place +and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they call +John. + +You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will +maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot stop, +but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at +the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. They clap +on the breaks by means of opium; they change the maddening monotony +of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It is because the brain +is locked up and we cannot touch its movement directly, that we +thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice by which they may +reach the interior, and so alter its rate of going for a while, and +at last spoil the machine. + +Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work +independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who +follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of +keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their +reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the mechanical +appliances to help them govern their intellects. + +----He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded +to by name. + +Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of +inebriating fluids?--said the divinity-student. + +If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,-- +I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are +the things that some foolish people call _dangerous_ subjects,--as if +these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea-worm +burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more +mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal +with these obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of +them, and no bigger than a horse-hair, is to get a piece of silk +round their _heads_, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only +break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the +person that has the misfortune of harboring one of them. Whence it +is plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head +lies. + +Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of +intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For you +may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has not a +head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain virtue, I +was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. I +have heard an immense number of moral physicians lay down the +treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority of them would +always insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all body +and tail. So I have found a very common result of their method to be +that the string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature was +broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The truth +is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make +the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on +behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the +influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is. For the +arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that +the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The way to argue down a vice +is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions, +when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its +case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then +meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel +did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him +with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape. +If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to +deal with him. + +That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear. +Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with religious +excitement,--oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said she was so +easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents have +been made tipsy by a beef-steak. + +There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation, which, in +themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be +considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When +the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the +cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging +spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused, or +the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment when +the whole human zoöphyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is +ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution box,--it would +be hard to say that a man was at that very time, worse, or less to +be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits +about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic virtues don't wash; +but until the water takes their colors out, the tints are very much +like those of the true celestial stuff. + +[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to +report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine +these records to commit to their candor.] + +A _person_ at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady +drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I +restrained myself, and answered thus:-- + +Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to the +product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the +vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne, +"the foaming wine of Eastern France," is rum. Hock, which our friend, +the Poet, speaks of as: + + "The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, + Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," + +is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the +first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address +myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, almost in +abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise +both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into +which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and +sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I +thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober. + +Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by +drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before +they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no +doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost irresistible +hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but oftenest of all +a _punishment_. + +Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and +sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,-- +ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control +of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their +owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we +have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or +ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it is +simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or +aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, +and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings +into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled +being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no chance +to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught the +lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an +_ad valorem_ scale for them,--and all of us. + +But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more +prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,--the +reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine +frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once explained +to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great picture. The +creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only +put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that +blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of +creative genius is allied to _reverie_, or dreaming. If mind and +body were both healthy, and had food enough and fair play, I doubt +whether any men would be more temperate than the imaginative classes. +But body and mind often flag,--perhaps they are ill-made to begin +with, underfed with bread or ideas, over-worked, or abused in some +way. The automatic action, by which genius wrought its wonders, fails. +There is only one thing which can rouse the machine; not will,--that +cannot reach it; nothing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the +wheels awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The +dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, because their mode +of action can be imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning +ones are safe, because they imply continued voluntary effort. + +I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on a +man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and +fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious +parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is +already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that +he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to +stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face +which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy +there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude +of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in +their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to +labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination of +the seeds of intemperance. + +Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,--no +steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,-- +he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the +maelstrom. + +----I wonder if you know the _terrible smile_? [The young fellow +whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the +sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word +_smile_. The company was curious to know what I meant.] + +There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you +than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth, +which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and +thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about +themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of +self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, +which are betrayed by the cowardly behavior of the eye and the +tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate +beings. + +----Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the +divinity-student. + +Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or +other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't +think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have known a +number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing conveys +the idea of _underbreeding_ more than this self-betraying smile. Yet +I think this peculiar habit, as well as that of _meaningless blushing_, +may be fallen into by very good people who meet often, or sit +opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's face is infinitely +removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I think +Titian understood the look of a gentleman as well as anybody that +ever lived. The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his hand, +in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have seen that collection, +will remind you of what I mean. + +----Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I +cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if +they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one meets +one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same manifestation. +The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence of the +_platysma myoides_, which is called the _risorius Santorini_. + +----Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above. + +The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's +laughing-muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were born +with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am +uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you +of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they +are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally +recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet +three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. + +----There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar +to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are +some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't +understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature +and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the +right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female +countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the +sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the +person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any +unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient +apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an +appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may +inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how +morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest +demonstration of this kind. When a _lady_ walks the streets, she +leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well +enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces +framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a +right to see them. + +----When we observe how the same features and style of person and +character descend from generation to generation, we can believe that +some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. Little +snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us--before they +are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in +the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the age of --2 or +--3 months. + +----My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This +remark excited a burst of hilarity, which I did not allow to +interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the +great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-turtles +mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested +several odd analogies enough. + +There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the +_ovarian eggs_ of the next generation's or century's civilization. +These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet; +some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But +as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and +these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are not +good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian +eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the minds of +others. One must be in the _habit_ of talking with such persons to +get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their development is +necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, which +must be long and closely studied. But these are the men to talk with. +No fresh truth ever gets into a book. + +"----A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow",--said one of the company. + +I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my +friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its +materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and +been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one +mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be +milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something +which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man +instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in +print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it +lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his +intellect. + +----Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of +thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of thought, +who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and the +retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in the +popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to separate +them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of +opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few +generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of +its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of +it or even with it; the world calls him hard names probably; but if +you would find the man of the future, you must look into the folds +of his cerebral convolutions. + +[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as +if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed +his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few +corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and +witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as the old +gentleman opposite says.] + +----Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about. + +SPRING HAS COME. + _Intra Muros_. + + The sunbeams, lost for half a year, + Slant through my pane their morning rays; + For dry Northwesters cold and clear, + The East blows in its thin blue haze. + + And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, + Then close against the sheltering wall + The tulip's horn of dusky green, + The peony's dark unfolding ball. + + The golden-chaliced crocus burns; + The long narcissus-blades appear; + The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, + And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. + + The willow's whistling lashes, wrung + By the wild winds of gusty March, + With sallow leaflets lightly strung, + Are swaying by the tufted larch. + + The elms have robed their slender spray + With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; + Wide o'er the clasping arch of day + Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + + --See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, + That flames in glory for an hour,-- + Behold it withering,--then look up,-- + How meek the forest-monarch's flower!-- + + When wake the violets, Winter dies; + When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; + When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, + "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + + The windows blush with fresh bouquets, + Cut with the May-dew on their lips; + The radish all its bloom displays, + Pink; as Aurora's finger-tips. + + Nor less the flood of light that showers + On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- + The walks are gay as bridal bowers + With rows of many-petalled maids. + + The scarlet shell-fish click and clash + In the blue barrow where they slide; + The horseman, proud of streak and splash, + Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + + Here comes the dealer's awkward string, + With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- + Rough colts, with careless country-swing, + In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + --Wild filly from the mountain-side, + Doomed to the close and chafing thills, + Lend me thy long, untiring stride + To seek with thee thy western hills! + + I hear the whispering voice of Spring, + The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, + Like some poor bird with prisoned wing + That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + + Oh for one spot of living green,-- + One little spot where leaves can grow,-- + To love unblamed, to walk unseen, + To dream above, to sleep below! + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PRESIDENT'S PROPHECY OF PEACE. + +There was joy in the national palace on the eve of May-day. The +heart of the Chief of Thirty Millions was full of gladness. It was a +high holiday at the capital of the nation. Jubilant processions +crowded the streets. The boom of cannon told to the heavens that some +great event, full of glory and of blessing, was just happily born +into the history of the world. Strains of triumphant music at once +expressed and stirred afresh the rapture which the new fruition of a +deferred and doubting hope had kindled in myriad breasts. Rejoicing +multitudes swarmed before the palace gate, and with congratulatory +shouts compelled the presence of the Nation's Head. He stood before +them proud and happy, and answered to the transports of their joy +with a responsive sympathy. He rejoiced in the prospect of the peace +and prosperity with which the occasion of this jubilee was to cheer +and bless the land in all its borders. His chosen friends and +counsellors surrounded him and echoed his prophecies of good. A +kindred homage was next paid to the virtuous artificers of the +new-wrought blessing, without whose shaping hands it would have +perished before the sight, or taken some dreadful form of mischief +and of horror. Their words of cheer and exultation, too, swelled the +surging tide of patriotic emotion till it overflowed again. Thus with +the thunder of artillery, with the animating sound of drum and +trumpet, with the more persuasive music of impassioned words, with +shoutings and with revelry, these jocund compeers, from the highest +to the lowest, mingled into one by the alchemy of a common joy, +chased the hours of that memorable night and gave strange welcome to +the morn of May. + +What great happiness had just befallen, which should thus transport +with joy the chief magistrate of a mighty nation, and send an +answering pulse of rapture through all the veins of his capital? The +armies of the Republic had surely just returned in triumph from some +dubious battle joined with a barbarian invader who threatened to +trample all her cherished rights, and the institutions which are +their safeguard, under his iron heel. Perhaps the Angel of Mercy had +at length set again the seals upon some wide-wasting pestilence +which had long been walking in darkness, with Terror going before +her and Death following after. Or was it the desolating course of +Famine that had been stayed, as it swept, gaunt and hungry, over the +land, and consumed its inhabitants from off its face? Peradventure, +the prayers of holy men had prevailed, and the heavens which had +been as brass were melted, and the earth which had been but ashes +revived again, a living altar, crowned afresh with flowers, and +prophetic of the thank-offerings of harvests. Or it might be that a +great discoverer had added a new world to the domain of human +happiness, by some invention which should lighten the toils and +multiply the innocent satisfactions of mankind. Or had virtue and +intelligence won some signal victory over barbarism and ignorance, +and blessed with liberty and knowledge regions long abandoned to +despotism and to darkness? These had been, indeed, occasions on +which the chief ruler of a great people might fitly lead the anthem +of a nation's thanksgiving. + +But the joy which thus overflowed the hearts of President and people +at the metropolis of our politics, and which has sprinkled with its +cordial drops kindred spirits scattered far and wide over the land, +welled up from no wholesome sources such as these. It was no +deliverance from barbarous enemies, from pestilential disease, from +meagre famine, that moved those raptures,--no joy at ignorance +dissipated, barbarism dispelled, or tyranny put down. The "peace" +and the "prosperity," the prophecy of which was so sweet to the +souls that took sweet counsel together on that night, were of a kind +which only souls tuned to such unison and so subtly trained could +fully comprehend and rightly estimate. This gentle peace, thus +joyfully presaged, is to be won by the submission of an inchoate +State to a form of government subjecting its inhabitants to +institutions abhorrent to their souls and fatal to their prosperity, +forced upon them at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of +the revolver by hordes of sordid barbarians from a hostile soil, +their natural and necessary enemies. And the sweet harbinger of this +blessed peace, the halcyon which broods over the stormy waves and +tells of the calm at hand, is a bribe so cunningly devised that its +contrivers firmly believe it will buy up the souls of these +much-injured men, and reconcile them to the shame and infamy of +trading away their lights and their honor as the boot of a dirty +bargain in the land-market. And the "prosperity" which is to wait +upon this happy "peace" glows with a like golden promise. It is a +prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North +Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the +Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the +intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever +follows after the footsteps of Slavery,--a prosperity which is to +blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish +the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, +if the joy of the President and his directors is to be made full. +Such is the message of peace and good-will which thrilled with +prophetic raptures the hearts which flowed together on that happy +night, and such the blessed prospects which made the air of +Washington vocal with the ecstasies of triumph. + +The history of the world is full enough of illustrations of +"the Art of making a Great Kingdom a Small One." The art of +degrading the imperial idea of a true republic from its just +preeminence among the polities of mankind, of quenching the +principles of eternal right which are the star-points of its divine +crown, of trailing the shining whiteness of its robes in the dust, +and making it an object of contempt rather than of adoration, has +never been taught more emphatically than in the examples furnished +by our own later annals. If Mr. Buchanan and his predecessor had set +themselves to work, of good set purpose, to bring republican +institutions into derision, and to prove that the American +experiment was a dead failure, they could not have proceeded more +cunningly with their task. Their aim has been, as it has seemed, to +give the lie to all the principles on which it has been assumed that +these institutions rest, and to show that their real object is to +subject the many to the government of the few, as the manner is of +the nations round about. The thin veil of decent falsehood, under +which the caution of earlier time had decorously hid this fact, has +been torn aside by the rude intrepidity of assurance which +long-continued success had fostered. The problem to be solved being +to prove the chief axiom of our political science, that the people +have a right to self-government and to the choice of their own +institutions, to be a lie, it is worked out in the presence of an +admiring world, after this fashion. + +The old Ordinance--which set limits to Slavery, and which, as it +preceded the Constitution, should in honor and equity be taken as a +condition precedent to it, and the later pledge of the South, that +this contract should be sacredly kept on the other side of a certain +parallel of latitude, having both been infamously violated for the +sake of extending the domain of Slavery into regions solemnly +dedicated to Liberty, the entire energies of the General Government +and of the political party it represented were put forth to +crystallize this double lie into the institutions of Kansas, and +thus take it out of the category of theory and reduce it into that +of fact. The reluctance of the inhabitants of the young Territory +went for nothing, and provision was soon effectually made to +overcome their resistance. Every form of terrorism, to which tyrants +all alike instinctively resort to disarm resistance to their will, +was launched at the property, the lives, and the happiness of the +defenceless settlers. Hordes of barbarians, as we have said before, +from every part of the Southern hive, but especially from the savage +tribes of the bordering Missouri, poured themselves over the devoted +land. Murder, arson, robbery, every outrage that could be offered to +man or woman, waited on their footsteps and stalked abroad with them +in their forays against Freedom. When the first steps were to be +taken towards the organization of a government, they precipitated +themselves upon the Territory in fiercer numbers. They made +themselves masters of the polling-places; they drove away by +violence and threats the peaceable inhabitants and lawful voters, +and by open force and unblushing fraud elected themselves or their +creatures the lawgivers of the commonwealth about to be created. So +outrageous were the crimes of these miscreants at this and +subsequent periods, that even the very creatures of Pierce and +Buchanan, chosen especially for their supposed fitness to assist in +these villanies, turned away, one after another, sickened at the +sight of them, and forfeited forever the favor of their masters by +shrinking from an unqualified and unhesitating obedience. + +The Constitution, contrived by the wretches thus nefariously clothed +in the stolen sovereignty of the true inhabitants of Kansas, of +course made Slavery an integral part of the institutions of the State. +A code of laws was enacted absolutely without parallel in the history +of the world for insolent trampling down of rights and for bloody +cruelty of penalties,--laws so abominable as even to call down upon +them, from his place in the Senate, the emphatic condemnation of so +veteran a soldier in the service of Slavery as General Cass, now +Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of State. These Territorial laws, thus +infamously vile, thus made in defiance of the well-known will of the +great majority of the people of Kansas, Mr. Pierce hastened to +recognize as the authentic expression of the mind of the people there, +and exerted all the moral and all the physical force of the +government to maintain them in their authority. Since that magistrate +was kicked aside as no longer available for the uses of Slavery, +because of the very infamy he had won in its service, Mr. Buchanan, +unlessoned by his fate, has adopted his views and carried out his +policy. + +We do not propose to follow this march of shameful events step by +step, nor to speak of them in their exact chronological order, nor +yet to specify to which of these magistrates the credit of any one +of them belongs, inasmuch as the philosophy and method of the policy +of the one and the other are absolutely identical. We have space +only to glance at unquestionable facts, and to trace them to their +necessary motives. To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and +the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons +of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to +what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no +more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of +China. When the actual inhabitants of the Territory had met in +Convention and framed a Constitution excluding Slavery, and had +adopted it, and the legislature authorized by it met, its members +were dispersed by national soldiers, detailed to compel submission +to the behests of the Slavemastery of the Government and of the +nation. These troops have been kept on foot ever since, to intimidate +the people, to assist as special police in the arrest and detention +of political prisoners charged with crimes against the Usurpation, +and to sustain the Federal governors and judges in carrying out +their instructions for the Subjugation of the majority by legal +chicane or by military violence. + +Such was the genesis of the Lecompton Constitution, and such the +nursing it had received at the hands of the paternal government at +Washington. In due course of time it was presented to Congress as +the charter under which the people of Kansas asked to receive the +concession of their right of State government; and the scene of war +was forthwith transferred from those distant fields to the chambers +of national legislation, under the immediate eye of the chief of the +state. This high officer soon dispelled any delusive doubts which, +for the purpose of securing his election, he had permitted to be +ventilated during the late Presidential campaign, that he would at +least see fair play in the struggle between Slavery and Freedom in +Kansas. With indecent zeal and unscrupulous partisanship, he +concentrated all the energies of his administration, and employed +the whole force of the influence and the patronage of the nation, to +obtain the indorsement by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, and +thus to compel the people of Kansas to pass under the yoke of their +Slaveholding invaders. The true origin and character of that vile +fabrication had been made plain to every eye that was willing to see, +and the abhorrence in which it was held by nearly the entire +population of the Territory put beyond question by more than one +trial vote. Yet it was embraced as the test measure of the +Administration to prove the unbroken fealty of the President to the +Power which is mightier than he. Victory was reckoned upon in advance, +as certain and easy. A servile, or rather a commanding majority in +the Senate,--nearly half of that body being of the class that rules +the rulers,--was ready to do whatever dirty and detestable work was +demanded of them. A majority of more than thirty in the House, +elected as supporters of the Administration, seemed to make success +there also an inevitable necessity. But by reason of the vastly +larger proportion of members from the Free States in that body, and +their greater nearness to their constituents, these reasonable +expectations were disappointed. Men who had taken service in the +Democratic ranks, and had been faithful unto that day, refused to +obey the word of command when it took this tone and was informed +with this purpose. And for a season the plague was stayed, and +sanguine hearts trusted that it was stayed forever. + +We are willing to believe that the bulk of the Democrats in both +Houses of Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and +cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was +demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed +to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, +and of which their party had always professed to be the special +defence and guard. But the mantle of our charity is not wide enough +to cover up the base treachery of those men who, acknowledging and +demonstrating the right, devised or consented to the villany which +was to crush or to cripple it. That the final shape which the +Lecompton juggle took was an invention of the enemy, cunningly +contrived to win by indirection what was too dangerous to be +attempted by open violence, is a conclusion from which no candid +mind can escape, after a full consideration of the case. The +defection of so large a body of Northern Democrats from the side of +the Slaveholding Directory was doubtless a significant and startling +fact, suggestive of dangerous insubordination on the part of allies +who had ever been found sure and steadfast in every jeopardy of +Slavery. And it made a resort to guile necessary to carry the point +which it was not prudent to press to the extremity of force. The +Slaveholders are not fastidious as to the means by which they reach +their end. Though they might have preferred to hew their way to their +design with a high hand, and to put down all opposition by bought or +bullied majorities, backed by the strong arm of the nation, yet they +never refuse to compromise and palter when the path to success lies +through stratagems or frauds. The skill in this instance, as in all +others, by which they propose to win everything under the show of +yielding somewhat, is worthy of Machiavel or of Lucifer, and is far +above the capacity of the paltry Northern tool who is permitted to +enjoy the infamy of the invention which he was employed to utter. +The Slaveholders, like other despots, do their dirty work by proxy, +and scorn the wretched instruments they use, and then fling from +them in disgust. + +The Lecompton cheat having been defeated in the House after it had +received the indorsement of the Senate, the two coordinates were at +issue, and it seemed for a brief time to have met with the fate it +merited. But cunning and treachery combined to put it into the hands +of a Committee of Conference to be manipulated afresh, and, if +possible, moulded into a shape that might give Democratic recusants +an excuse for treason to the North and submission to the Power that +demanded it. And the invention was worthy of the diabolical sagacity +and ingenuity which have always marked the politics of Slavery. The +maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to +men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the +hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, +was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And +to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens +them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. +They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or +dissent as to the Constitution held over their heads. Their enemies +know too well what its fate would be, if offered, pure and simple, +to their acceptance or refusal. They are only to say whether or not +they will accept five million acres of land that Congress +munificently offers them for the construction of their railways. If +they say, "Yes, thank you," to this simple question, the Chief +Conjurer of the nation, the great Medicine Man of our tribe, the +Head Magician of our Egypt, will only have to say, "Presto pass," +and they will find themselves a Slave State in the glorious Union, +under a solemn contract, struck by this same act, to endure Slavery +for six years to come. If they say, "No, we won't," the door of the +Union is shut in their faces, and they are told to wait without in +all the bleakness of Territorial dependency, subject to the laws now +afflicting them, with a satrap sent down from Washington to rule over +them, and with Lecomptes and Catos to decree justice for them, until +swindling tools of the Administration shall be instructed to allow +the presence of a sufficient population to entitle a State to a +Representative. + +If they consent to be erected into a Slave State by accepting the +bribe, they will come into the Union by a puff of Presidential breath, +though having only forty thousand inhabitants, with two Senators and +a Representative, and all the advantages incident to Federal +connection and patronage. Should they reject it, they will be left, +it may be, to years of Territorial annoyance, and the annoyance of a +Slave Territory, too, till Government officials shall discover their +numbers to amount to near a hundred thousand, and possibly to much +more, after the next census has newly apportioned the House. With +Slavery, they have proffered to them broad lands to help cover their +wide expanse with an iron reticulation of railways, developing their +resources and multiplying their material prosperity, at the slight +cost of their consistency and their honor. Without it, they may have +to stand shivering at the gate of the Union, blasted by the +"cold shade" of our American aristocracy, and far removed from the +genial sunshine of national favor and bounty. Truly did Senator +Wilson say that Congress approached Kansas at once with a bribe and +a threat. Never was the devilish cunning of Slaveholding politics +more strikingly illustrated than by the insidious vileness of this +proposition. It had been bad enough, surely, had we been called upon +to rejoice, as over a great triumph of the right, at the concession +to Kansas of the sovereignty of settling her own institutions in her +own way, had such been granted. Nothing could be more simple and +natural, in a case of conflicting assertions and opposite beliefs as +to the state of opinion there, than to remit the decision of the +doubt to a fresh vote. Had any other interest than that in human +beings been involved, such a disposition of the whole matter would +have excited neither remark nor opposition. Nothing, perhaps, could +exemplify the control Slavery has obtained over the affairs of the +country more strongly than the power it has had to hinder this +simple remedy of an alleged wrong or error,--and this, by procuring +the defection of sordid Northern Representatives from what they +confessed to be the right, to this corrupt evasion,--an evasion +designed to fit the people of Kansas for servitude by tempting them +to sacrifice their self-respect and their honor. Let these +miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before +popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight +into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for +the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the +people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it +would have been humiliating enough to have had to exult over it as a +victory of Freedom. With what depth of shame, then, should we +contemplate the compassing of their end by the Slavocrats, through +the venal surrender of the rights so long and so manfully asserted, +for so paltry a temptation! + +But we do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. +We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse +to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will +reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their +reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their +circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the +post of honor they have sought in the great fight for freedom and +maintained so long and so well, disappointing and throwing into +confusion the distant allies who have stood behind them in their most +evil hours, for all the lands that President and Congress have to +give. It is, indeed, a momentous crisis for them, and we have faith +to believe that they will not be wanting to its demands. The eyes of +the lovers of liberty everywhere are earnestly watching to see how +they will come out from the ordeal by fire and by gold to which they +are subjected. What Boston was in 1775, and Paris in 1789, is Kansas +now,--the field on which a great battle for the right is to be fought. +Honor or infamy attends the issue of her action in the dilemma in +which the crafty malice of her enemies has placed her. If she agree +to take the dirty acres which are proffered to her as the price of +her integrity, she consents to take the yoke of Slavery upon her +neck and not even to attempt to shake herself free from it for six +years to come. We know that shuffling Democrats, and even +temporizing Republicans, represent that the people, after accepting +the Lecompton Constitution, can forthwith summon a Convention and +substitute another scheme of government in its stead. But this could +be initiated only by a breach of the promise they would have just +pledged, and could be carried through only by a revolution. Such a +course would be a direct violation of the philosophy of +Constitutional Government, which assumes as its fundamental axiom, +that Constitutions can be altered only in the way and according to +the conditions prescribed in themselves. Such a proceeding would be +a _coup d'état_, not as flagitious certainly as that of Bonaparte, +but to the full as revolutionary and illegal. And we may be sure +that the arm of the United States Government would not be shortened +so that it should not interpose and hinder such a defiance of itself +and the Power whose instrument it is. With servile and corrupt +judges at its beck and a majority in Congress within its purchase, +the occasion and means of such an interference would be readily +devised and supplied. + +We believe that this line of policy would lead to an armed collision +with the General Government. It is for the oppressed inhabitants of +any country to say when their wrongs have reached the height which +justifies the drawing of the civil sword. We have neither the right +nor the disposition to advise the people of Kansas in a matter so +emphatically their own. But there is another way of coming to this +arbitrament,--inevitable, if they deviate a hair's-breadth from the +strict line of law,--should they deem there is no other remedy for +their wrongs. The admirable Constitution just framed at Leavenworth, +one well worthy of a free people that has been tried as with fire, +will be adopted before these lines are before the public eye. Let +them reject the Buchanan-English swindle, put their heel on the +Lecompton fraud, set up the Leavenworth Constitution, and erect a +State government under it in defiance of the Territorial Usurpation, +and they will soon find themselves face to face with the tyranny at +Washington. But is there not reason to hope that firmness and +patience may yet win the battle for freedom without resorting to so +serious an alternative? Is it indeed inevitable that Kansas must +remain out of the pale of the Union, under the oppression of the +Territorial laws, until the hirelings of the Government shall have +determined that slaves enough have been poured in to decide the +complexion of the new State, and shall authorize her to ask for +admission? We are told that the joy at Washington and elsewhere over +this "settlement" of the Kansas difficulty was because it was taken +out of Congress, and "Agitation" at an end. But what is to hinder +its being brought into Congress again?--and whose fault will it be, +if Agitation do not survive and grow mightier unto the victory? If +the present Congress can shut its doors against this intruder, its +power dies with itself, and it greatly lies with the people of Kansas +to make the next Congress one that shall rehabilitate them in their +rights. Their conduct at this pregnant moment may settle the +proximate destiny of the Republic, and decide whether the Slave +Power is to rule us by its underlings for four years more, or +whether its pride is to have a fall and its insolence a rebuke in +1860. + +We all remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has +been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again +to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the +blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had +hoped to look upon it no more. It would come back: + + "With twenty mortal murders on its head + _To push them from their stools_!" + +And this dreaded spectre, though a beneficent angel with healing on +his wings in truth, will push yet many traitorous or cowardly +sycophants from the stools they disgrace, and substitute in their +stead men who will quiet Agitation by Justice. Let the men of Kansas +remember that a yet greater trust than that of providing for their +own interests and rights is in their hands. The battle they are to +fight in this quarrel is for the whole North, for the whole country, +for the world. Let them address themselves unto it with calmness, +with prudence, with watchfulness, with courage. They are beset on +every side by crafty and desperate enemies. Greedy land-jobbers, in +haste to be rich, will try to persuade them that not to be innocent +is to be wise. Timid timeservers will urge a submission which +promises peace, though it be but a solitude that is called so. +Rampant Pro-slavery will exalt its horn against Righteousness and +try again the virtue of ruffianism to prevail against civilization. +The barbarians will hang anew upon the borders, ready to complete +the conquest they began so well. And above all, a majority of the men +who are to pass upon the votes are the creatures of the +Administration, who know, by the example of their predecessors, that +the suspicion of honesty will be fatal to all their hopes of +preferment, and that they can purchase reward only by procuring, +_quocunque modo_, the acceptance of the proposition of Congress. +But still the power is in the hands of the Free-State men, if they +choose to put it forth. Let them organize such a scrutiny everywhere, +that fraud and violence cannot escape detection and exposure. Let +them observe most rigidly all the technical rules imposed upon the +electors, that no vote may be lost. Let them come to the polls by +thousands, and trample under their feet the shabby bribe for which +they are asked to trade away their independence and their virtue. +Let them be thus faithful, and never be weary of maintaining the +Agitation, which is proved, by the very dread their enemies have of +it, to be the way to their victory. Thus they will be sure to triumph, +conquering their right to create their own government, and erect a +free commonwealth on the ruins of the tyranny they have overthrown. +And Kansas, at no distant period, will be welcomed by her Free +Sisters to her place among them, with no stain of bribes in her hands, +and with no soil of meanness upon her garments. And then the +"peace" and "prosperity," which President Buchanan saw in vision on +the eve of May-day, will indeed prevail and be established, while +the blackness of infamy will brood forever over the memory of the +magistrate who used the highest office of the Republic to perpetuate +the wrongs of the Slave by the sacrifice of the rights of the Citizen. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Library of Old Authors.--Works of John Webster_. London: John + Russell Smith. 1856-57. + +We turn now to Mr. Hazlitt's edition of Webster. We wish he had +chosen Chapman; for Mr. Dyce's Webster is hardly out of print, and, +we believe, has just gone through a second and revised edition. +Webster was a far more considerable man than Marston, and infinitely +above him in genius. Without the poetic nature of Marlowe, or +Chapman's somewhat unwieldy vigor of thought, he had that +inflammability of mind which, untempered by a solid understanding, +made his plays a strange mixture of vivid expression, incoherent +declamation, dramatic intensity, and extravagant conception of +character. He was not, in the highest sense of the word, a great +dramatist. Shakspeare is the only one of that age. Marlowe had a +rare imagination, a delicacy of sense that made him the teacher of +Shakspeare and Milton in versification, and was, perhaps, as purely +a poet as any that England has produced; but his mind had no +balance-wheel. Chapman abounds in splendid enthusiasms of diction, +and now and then dilates our imaginations with suggestions of +profound poetic depth. Ben Jonson was a conscientious and intelligent +workman, whose plays glow, here and there, with the golden pollen of +that poetic feeling with which his age impregnated all thought and +expression; but his leading characteristic, like that of his great +namesake, Samuel, was a hearty common sense, which fitted him rather +to be a great critic than a great poet. He had a keen and ready +sense of the comic in situation, but no humor. Fletcher was as much a +poet as fancy and sentiment can make any man. Only Shakspeare wrote +comedy and tragedy with truly ideal elevation and breadth. Only +Shakspeare had that true sense of humor which, like the universal +solvent sought by the alchemists, so fuses together all the elements +of a character, (as in _Falstaff_,) that any question of good or evil, +of dignified or ridiculous, is silenced by the apprehension of its +thorough humanity. Rabelais shows gleams of it in _Panurge_; but, in +our opinion, no man ever possessed it in an equal degree with +Shakspeare, except Cervantes; no man has since shown anything like +an approach to it, (for Moliere's quality was comic power rather +than humor,) except Sterne, Fielding, and Richter. Only Shakspeare +was endowed with that healthy equilibrium of nature whose point of +rest was midway between the imagination and the understanding,-- +that perfectly unruffled brain which reflected all objects with +almost inhuman impartiality,--that outlook whose range was ecliptical, +dominating all zones of human thought and action,--that power of +verisimilar conception which could take away _Richard III_ from +History, and _Ulysses_ from Homer,--and that creative faculty whose +equal touch is alike vivifying in _Shallow_ and in _Lear_. He alone +never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the risks +and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a +jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot. He is never, like +many of his fellow-dramatists, confronted with unnatural +Frankensteins of his own making, whom he must get off his hands as +best he may. Given a human foible, he can incarnate it in the +nothingness of Slender, or make it loom gigantic through the tragic +twilight of _Hamlet_. We are tired of the vagueness which classes +all the Elizabethan playwrights together as "great dramatists,"--as +if Shakspeare did not differ from them in kind as well as in degree. +Fine poets some of them were; but though imagination and the power of +poetic expression are, singly, not uncommon gifts, and even in +combination not without secular examples, yet it is the rarest of +earthly phenomena, to find them joined with those faculties of +perception, arrangement, and plastic instinct in the loving union +which alone makes a great dramatic poet possible. We suspect that +Shakspeare will long continue the only specimen of the genus. His +contemporaries, in their comedies, either force what they call +"a humor" till it becomes fantastical, or hunt for jokes, like +rat-catchers, in the sewers of human nature and of language. In +their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or +mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too +often do. Every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist is but the +putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility +of Shakspeare's stand-point as poet and artist. + +Webster's most famous works are "The Duchess of Malfy" and "Vittoria +Corombona," but we are strongly inclined to call "The Devil's +Law-Case" his best play. The two former are in a great measure +answerable for the "spasmodic" school of poets, since the +extravagances of a man of genius are as sure of imitation as the +equable self-possession of his higher moments is incapable of it. +Webster had, no doubt, the primal requisite of a poet, imagination, +but in him it was truly untamed, and Aristotle's admirable +distinction between the _Horrible_ and the _Terrible_ in tragedy was +never better illustrated and confirmed than in the "Duchess" and +"Vittoria." His nature had something of the sleuth-hound quality in +it, and a plot, to keep his mind eager on the trail, must be +sprinkled with fresh blood at every turn. We do not forget all the +fine things that Lamb has said of Webster, but, when Lamb wrote, the +Elizabethan drama was an El Dorado, whose micacious sand, even, was +treasured as auriferous,--and no wonder, in a generation which +admired the "Botanic Garden." Webster is the Gherardo della Notte of +his day, and himself calls his "Vittoria Corombona" a "night-piece." +Though he had no conception of Nature in its large sense, as +something pervading a whole character and making it consistent with +itself, nor of Art, as that which dominates an entire tragedy and +makes all the characters foils to each other and tributaries to the +catastrophe, yet there are flashes of Nature in his plays, struck +out by the collisions of passion, and dramatic intensities of phrase +for which it would be hard to find the match. The "prithee, undo +this button" of _Lear_, by which Shakspeare makes us feel the +swelling of the old king's heart, and that the bodily results of +mental anguish have gone so far as to deaden for the moment all +intellectual consciousness and forbid all expression of grief, is +hardly finer than the broken verse which Webster puts into the mouth +of _Ferdinand_ when he sees the body of his sister, murdered by +his own procurement,-- + + "Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young." + +He has not the condensing power of Shakspeare, who squeezed meaning +into a phrase with an hydraulic press, but he could carve a +cherry-stone with any of the _concellisti_, and abounds in +imaginative quaintnesses that are worthy of Donne, and epigrammatic +tersenesses that remind us of Fuller. Nor is he wanting in poetic +phrases of the purest crystallization. Here are a few examples:-- + + "Oh, if there be another world i' th' moon, + As some fantastics dream, I could wish all _men_, + The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, + Sent thither to people that!" + +(Old Chaucer was yet slier. After saying that Lamech was the first +faithless lover, he adds,-- + + "And he invented _tents_, unless men lie,"-- + +implying that he was the prototype of nomadic men.) + + "Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds: + In the trenches, for the soldier; in the wakeful study, + For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea, + For men of our profession [merchants]; all of which + Arise and spring up honor." + +("Of all which," Mr. Hazlitt prints it.) + + "Poor Jolenta! should she hear of this, + She would not after the report keep fresh + So long as flowers on graves." + + "For sin and shame are ever tied together + With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, + They cannot without violence be undone." + "One whose mind + Appears more like a ceremonious chapel + Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence." + "Gentry? 'tis nought else + But a superstitious relic of time past; + And, sifted to the true worth, it is nothing + But ancient riches." + "What is death? + The safest trench i' th' world to keep man free + From Fortune's gunshot." + + "It has ever been my opinion + That there are none love perfectly indeed, + But those that hang or drown themselves for love," + + says _Julio_, anticipating Butler's + + "But he that drowns, or blows out's brains, + The Devil's in him, if he feigns." + +He also anticipated La Rochefoucauld and Byron in their apophthegm +concerning woman's last love. In "The Devil's Law-Case," _Leonora_ +says: + + "For, as we love our youngest children best, + So the last fruit of our affection, + Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, + Most violent, most unresistible; + Since 'tis, indeed, our latest harvest-home, + Last merriment 'fore winter." + +In editing Webster, Mr. Hazlitt had the advantage (except in a +single doubtful play) of a predecessor in the Rev. Alexander Dyce, +beyond all question the best living scholar of the literature of the +times of Elizabeth and James I. If he give no proof of remarkable +fitness for his task, he seems, at least, to have been diligent and +painstaking. His notes are short and to the point, and--which we +consider a great merit--at the foot of the page. If he had added +a glossarial index, we should have been still better pleased. +Mr. Hazlitt seems to have read over the text with some care, and he +has had the good sense to modernize the orthography, or, as he says, +has "observed the existing standard of spelling throughout." Yet--for +what reason we cannot imagine--he prints "I" for "ay," taking the pains +to explain it every time in a note, and retains "banquerout" and +"coram" apparently for the sake of telling us that they mean +"bankrupt" and "quorum." He does not seem to have a quick ear for +scansion, which would sometimes have assisted him to the true reading. +We give an example or two: + + "The obligation wherein we all stood bound + Cannot be concealed [_cancelled_] without great + reproach." + + "The realm, not they, + Must be regarded. Be [we] strong and bold, + We are the people's factors." + + "Shall not be o'erburdened [_overburdened_] in + our reign." + + "A merry heart + And a good stomach to [a] feast are all." + + "Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and + ruffians." [_dele_ "up."] + + "Brother or father + In [a] dishonest suit, shall be to me." + + "What's she in Rome your greatness cannot awe, + Or your rich purse purchase + Promises and threats." [_dele_ the second "your."] + + "Through clouds of envy and disast [rous] change." + + "The Devil drives; 'tis [it is] full time to go." + +He has overlooked some strange blunders. What is the meaning of + + "Laugh at your misery, as foredeeming you + An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth + Would soon be lost i' the air"? + +We hardly need say that it should be + +"An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth, would," &c. + +"_For_wardness" for "_fro_wardness," (Vol. II. p. 87,) "tennis-balls +struck and ban_ded_" for "ban_died_," (Ib. p. 275,) may be errors of +the press; but: + + "Come, I'll love you wisely: + That's jealousy," + +has crept in by editorial oversight for "wisely, that's jealously." +So have: + + "Ay, the great emperor of [_or_] the mighty Cham"; + +and: + + "This wit [_with_] taking long journeys"; + +and: + + "Virginius, thou dost but supply my place, + I thine: Fortune hath lift me [_thee_] to my chair, + And thrown me headlong to thy pleading bar"; + +and: + + "I'll pour my soul into my daughter's belly, [_body_,] + And with my soldier's tears embalm her wounds." + +We suggest that the change of an _a_ to an _r_ would make sense of +the following:-- + + "Come, my little punk, with thy two compositors, + to this unlawful painting-house," + +[printing-house,] which Mr. Hazlitt awkwardly endeavors to explain by +this note on the word _compositors_:--"i.e. (conjecturally), +making up the composition of the picture"! Our readers can decide for +themselves;--the passage occurs Vol. I. p. 214. + +We think Mr. Hazlitt's notes are, in the main, good; but we should +like to know his authority for saying that _pench_ means "the hole +in a bench by which it was taken up,"--that "descant" means +"look askant on,"--and that "I wis" is equivalent to "I surmise, +imagine," which it surely is not in the passage to which his note is +appended. On page 9, Vol. I., we read in the text, + + "To whom, my lord, bends thus your awe," + +and in the note, "i.e. submission." The original has _aue_, which, +if it mean _ave_, is unmeaning here. Did Mr. Hazlitt never see a +picture of the Annunciation with _ave_ written on the scroll +proceeding from the bending angel's mouth? We find the same word in +Vol. III. p. 217,-- + + "Whose station's built on avees and applause." + +Vol. III. pp. 47-48:-- + + "And then rest, gentle bones; yet pray + That when by the precise you are view'd, + A supersedeas be not sued + To remove you to a place more airy, + That in your stead they may keep chary + Stockfish or seacoal, for the abuses + Of sacrilege have turned graves to viler uses." + +To the last verse Mr. Hazlitt appends this note, "Than that of +burning men's bones for fuel." There is no allusion here to burning +men's bones, but simply to the desecration of graveyards by building +warehouses upon them, in digging the foundations for which the bones +would be thrown out. The allusion is, perhaps, to the "Churchyard of +the Holy Trinity";--see Stow's _Survey_, ed. 1603, p. 126. Elsewhere +in the same play, Webster alludes bitterly to "begging church-land." + +Vol. I. p. 73, "And if he walk through the street, he ducks at the +penthouses, like an ancient that dares not flourish at the oathtaking +of the praetor for fear of the signposts." Mr. Hazlitt's note is, +"_Ancient_ was a standard or flag; also an _ensign_, of which +Skinner says it is a corruption. What the meaning of the simile is +the present editor cannot suggest." We confess we find no difficulty. +The meaning plainly is, that he ducks for fear of hitting the +penthouses, as an ensign on the Lord Mayor's day dares not flourish +his standard for fear of hitting the signposts. We suggest the query, +whether _ancient_, in this sense, be not a corruption of the Italian +word _anziano_. + +Want of space compels us to leave many other passages, which we had +marked for comment, unnoticed. We are surprised that Mr. Hazlitt, +(see his Introduction to "Vittoria Coromboma,") in undertaking to +give us some information concerning the Dukedom and Castle of +Bracciano, should uniformly spell it _Brachiano_. Shakspeare's +_Petruchio_ might have put him on his guard. We should be glad +also to know in what part of Italy he places _Malfi_. + +Mr. Hazlitt's General Introduction supplies us with no new +information, but this was hardly to be expected where Mr. Dyce had +already gone over the field. We wish that he had been able to give +us better means of distinguishing the three almost contemporary John +Websters one from the other, for we think the internal evidence is +enough to show that all the plays attributed to the author of the +"Duchess" and "Vittoria" could not have been written by the same +author. On the whole, he has given us a very respectable, and +certainly a very pretty, edition of an eminent poet. + +In leaving the subject, we cannot but express our satisfaction in +comparing with these examples of English editorship the four volumes +of Ballads recently published by Mr. Child. They are an honor to +American scholarship and fidelity. Taste, learning, and modesty, the +three graces of editorship, seem to have presided over the whole work. +We hope soon, also, to be able to chronicle another creditable +achievement in Mr. White's Shakspeare, which we look for with great +interest. + + + + _History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to + the Present Time_. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., + Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition, + with Additions. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1858. + 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 566, 648. + +We are heartily glad to welcome this reprint of the "History of the +Inductive Sciences," from an improved edition. From an intimate +acquaintance with the first edition, we should cordially recommend +these volumes to those who wish to take a general survey of this +department of human learning. The various subjects are, for the most +part, treated in a manner intelligible and agreeable to the +unlearned reader. As an authority, Whewell is generally trustworthy, +and as a critic usually fair. But in a work going over so much +ground it would be unreasonable to expect perfect accuracy, and +uniformly just estimates of the labors of all scientific men. +Dr. Whewell's scientific philosophy naturally affects his ability as +an historian and critic. In his Bridgewater Treatise, he indulged in +a fling at mathematics, for which we have never wholly forgiven him; +and in the present volume we see repeated evidence of his +underestimate of the value of the sciences of Space and Time. He says, +Vol. I. p. 600, that it was an "erroneous assumption" in Plato to +hold mathematical truths as "Realities more real than the Phenomena." +But to us it seems impossible to understand any work of Nature aright, +except by taking this view of Plato. The study of natural science is +deserving of the contempt which Samuel Johnson bestowed upon it, if +it be not a study of the thoughts of the Divine Mind. And as +phenomena are subject to laws of space and time as their essential +condition, they are primarily a revelation of the mathematical +thoughts of the Creator. Those mathematical ideas are, in Erigena's +phrase, the created creators of all that can appear. + +This false view of the mathematics lies at the foundation of +Whewell's view of a type in organized nature. He conceives a genus +to consist of those species which resemble the typical species of +the genus more than they resemble the typical species of any other +genus. It follows from this view that a species might be created +that would not belong to any genus, but resemble equally the types of +two or three genera. Thus, our little rue-leaved anemone might +belong to the meadow rues or to the wind-flowers, at the pleasure of +the botanist. We believe that classification is vastly more real than +this, real as geometry itself. Another instance of a similar want of +idealism in Dr. Whewell may be found in Vol. II. p. 643:--"Nothing +is added to the evidence of design by the perception of a unity of +plan which in no way tends to promote the design." Now to one who +believes, with us, that a thought is as real as the execution of the +thought, the perception of a unity of plan is the highest evidence +of design. No more convincing evidence of the existence of an +Intelligent Designer is to be found than in the unity of plan,--and +his design, thus proved, is the completion of the plan. For what +purpose he would complete it, is a secondary question. + +In this third edition many valuable additions have been made; and no +tales of Oriental fancy could be more wonderful than some of these +records of the discoveries in exact science made by our +contemporaries. What more magical than the miracles performed every +day in our telegraphic offices?--unless it be the transmission of +human speech in that manner under the waves of the Mediterranean +from Africa to Europe. What more like the dreams of alchemy than +taking metallic casts, in cold metal, with infinitely more delicacy +and accuracy than by melted metals,--taking them, too, from the most +fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than +to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the +compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more +improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? +What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human +measurement than the relative velocities of light in air and in water, +since the velocity in each is probably not less than a hundred +thousand miles a second? Yet two different experimenters arrived, +according to Whewell, in the same year, 1850, at the same result,-- +that the motion is slower in water; thus supplying the last link of +experimental proof to establish the undulatory theory of light. +While the records of science are strewn on every page with accounts +of such triumphs of human skill and intellect, we see no need of +resorting to fiction or to necromancy for the gratification of a +natural taste for the marvellous. + +It is true, Dr. Whewell does not give these discoveries, in the +spirit of an alchemist, as marvels,--but in the spirit of a +philosopher, as intellectual triumphs. Few men of our times have +shown a more active and powerful mind, a more earnest love of truth +for truth's sake, than the author of this History,--and few men have +had a wider or more thorough knowledge of the achievements of other +scientific men. Yet we are surprised, in reading this improved +edition, written scarce a twelvemonth ago, to find how ignorant +Dr. Whewell appears to have been of the existence or value of the +contributions to knowledge made on this side the Atlantic. The +chapter on Electro-Magnetism does not allude to the discoveries of +Joseph Henry, in regard to induced currents, and the adaptation of +varying batteries to varying circuits,--discoveries second in +importance only to those of Faraday,--and which were among the direct +means of leading Morse to the invention of the telegraph. The +chapters on Geology do not mention Professor Hall, and only allude in +a patronizing way to the labors of American geologists, and to the +ease of "reducing their classification to its synonymes and +equivalents in the Old World," as though the historian were not +aware that Hall's nomenclature is adopted on the continent of Europe +by the most eminent men in that department of science. In Geological +Dynamics Dr. Whewell speaks slightingly of glacial action, and +approves of Forbes's semifluid theory, in utter ignorance, it would +seem, of the labors of the Swiss geologists who now honor America +with their presence. The chapters on Zoology, and on Classifications +of Animals, make no allusion to Agassiz's introduction of Embryology +as an element in classification, which was published several years +before the "close of 1856." The history of Neptune gives no hint of +the fact, that its orbit was first determined through the labors of +American astronomers, with all the accuracy that fifty years of +observation might otherwise have been required to secure. Nor does +Dr. Whewell allude to the fact, that Peirce alone has demonstrated +the accuracy of Le Verrier's and Adams's computations, and shown +that a planet in the place which they erroneously assigned to +Neptune would produce the same perturbations of Uranus as those +which Neptune produced. Much less does he allude to that wonderful +demonstration by Peirce of the younger Bond's hypothesis, that the +rings of Saturn are fluid; or to Peirce's remark, that the belt of +the asteroids lies in the region in which the sun could most nearly +sustain a ring. Yet all these points are more important than many of +those which he introduces, and more to the purpose of his chapters. + +Notwithstanding these deficiencies in Whewell's scholarship and in +his philosophy, his History is a valuable addition to our modern +literature, and gives a better sketch of the whole ground than can be +found in any other single work. It is particularly valuable to those +whose ordinary pursuits lead them into other fields than those of +science, and we have known such to acknowledge their great +obligations to these clearly written and most suggestive volumes. + + + + _The Life of George Stephenson, Railway Engineer_. + By SAMUEL SMILES. From the + Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor + & Fields. + +There is something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall +we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The +world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and +other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to +win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and +what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, +manifestly somebody, within a generation or two, has done something +quite as memorable. Whether the world is quite awake to the fact or +not, it has lately entered on a new order of ages. Formerly it +hovered about shores, and built its Tyres, Venices, Amsterdams, and +London only near navigable waters, because it was easier to traverse +a thousand miles of fluid than a hundred miles of solid surface. Now +the case is nearly reversed. The iron rail is making the continent +all coast, anywhere near neighbor to everywhere, and central cities +as populous as seaports. Not only is all the fertility of the earth +made available, but fertility itself can be made by our new power of +transportation. + +Who more than other man or men has done this? Is there any chance +for a new mythology? Can we make a Saturn of Solomon de Caus, who +caught a prophetic glimpse of the locomotive two hundred years ago, +and went to a mad-house, without going mad, because a cardinal had +the instinct to see that the hierarchy would get into hot water by +allowing the French monarch to encourage steam? Can we make a +Jupiter of Mr. Hudson, one bull having been plainly sacrificed to him? +and shall Robert Schuyler serve us for Pluto? Shall we find Neptune, +with his sleeves rolled up, on the North River, commanding the first +practical steamboat, under the name of Robert Fulton? However this +may be, we think Mr. Smiles has made out a quite available demigod +in his well-sketched Railway Engineer. George Stephenson did not +invent the railway or the locomotive, but he did first put the +breath of its life into the latter. He built the first locomotive +that could work more economically than a horse, and by so doing +became the actual father of the railroad system. In 1814, he found +out and applied the steam-blast, whereby the waste steam from the +cylinders is used to increase the combustion, so that the harder the +machine works, the greater is its power to work. From that moment he +foresaw what has since happened, and fought like a Titan against the +world--the men of land, the men of science, and the men of law--to +bring it about. + +But before we go farther, who was this George Stephenson? A +collier-boy,--his father fireman to an old pumping-engine which +drained a Northumbrian coal-mine,--his highest ambition of boyhood to +be "taken on" to have something to do about the mine. And he was +taken on to pick over the coal, and finally to groom the engine, +which he did with the utmost care and veneration, learning how to +keep it well and doctor it when ill. He took wonderfully to +steam-engines, and finally, for their sake, to his letters, at the +age of seventeen! He became steam-engineer to large mines. Of his +own genius and humanity, he studied the nature of fire-damp +explosions, and, what is not more wonderful than well proven, +invented a miner's safety-lamp, on the same principle as Sir +Humphrey Davy's, and tested it at the risk of his life, a month or +two before Sir Humphrey invented his, or published a syllable about +it to the world! He engineered the Stockton and Darlington Railway. +He was thereupon appointed engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester +Railway. Though the means of transportation between those cities, +some thirty miles, were so inadequate that it took longer to get +cotton conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester than from New York to +Liverpool, yet it was with the utmost difficulty that a grant of the +right to build a railway could be obtained from Parliament. There +was little faith in such roads, and still less in steam-traction. +The land-owners were opposed to its passage through their domains, +and obliged Mr. Stephenson to survey by stealth or at the risk of a +broken head. So great was this opposition, that the projectors were +fain to lay out their road for four miles across a remarkable Slough +of Despond, called Chat Moss, where a scientific civil-engineer +testified before Parliament that he did not think it practicable to +make a railway, or, if practicable, at not less cost than £270,000 +for cutting and embankment. George Stephenson, after being almost +hooted out of the witness-box for testifying that it could be done, +and that locomotives could draw trains over it and elsewhere at the +rate of twelve miles an hour,--for which last extravagance his own +friends rebuked him,--carried the road over Chat Moss for £28,000, +and his friends over that at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Thus +he broke the back of the war, and lived to fill England with +railroads as the fruits of his victory; all which, and a great deal +more of the same sort, the reader will find admirably told by +Mr. Smiles,--albeit we cannot but smile too, that, when addressing the +universal English people, he expects them to understand such +provincialisms as _wage_ for wages, _leading coals_ for carrying coal, +and the like. But, nevertheless, his freedom from literary pretence +is really refreshing, and his thoroughness in matters of fact is +worthy of almost unlimited commendation. On the important question, +Who invented the locomotive steam-blast? had Mr. Smiles made in his +book as good use of his materials as he has since elsewhere, he +would have saved some engineers and one or two mechanical editors +from putting their feet into unpleasant places. Our Railroad Manuals, +that have adopted the error of attributing this great invention to +"Timothy Hackworth, in 1827," should be made to read, "George +Stephenson, in 1814." Their authors, and all others, should read +Samuel Smiles, the uppermost, by a whole sky, of all railway +biographers. + + + + + _A Volume of Vocabularies, illustrating the Condition and Manners + of our Forefathers, as well as the History of the Forms of + Elementary Education and of the Languages spoken in this Island, + from the Tenth Century to the Fifteenth_. Edited, from MSS. in + Public and Private Collections, by THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., etc. + Privately printed. [London.] 1857. 8vo. pp. 291. + +Mr. Wright, in editing this handsome volume, has done another +service to the lovers and students of English glossology. Their +thanks are also due to Mr. Joseph Mayer, who generously bore the +expense of printing the book. + +A great deal that is interesting to the student of general history +lies imbedded in language, and Mr. Wright, in a very agreeable +Introduction, has summarized the chief matters of value in the +collection before us, which comprises the printed copies of sixteen +ancient MSS. of various dates. As far as we have had time to examine +it, the book seems to have been edited with care and discretion, and +Mr. Wright has added much to its value by timely and judicious notes. + +Most of the vocabularies here printed (many of them for the first +time) were intended for the use of schoolmasters, and throw great +light on the means and methods of teaching during the periods at +which they were compiled. Mr. Wright tells us that there exist very +few MSS. of educational treatises of the fourteenth century, (during +which teaching would accordingly seem to have been neglected,) in +comparison with the thirteenth and fifteenth, when such works were +abundant. To all who would trace the history of education in England +and follow up our common-school system to its source, the editor's +Introduction will afford valuable hints. + +The following extracts from Mr. Wright's Introduction will give some +notion of the archaeological and philological value of the volume. + + "It is this circumstance of grouping the + words under different heads which gives these + vocabularies their value as illustrations of the + conditions and manners of society. It is evident + that the compiler gave, in each case, the + names of all such things as habitually presented + themselves to his view, or, in other + words, that he presents us with an exact list + and description of all the objects which were + in use at the time he wrote, and no more. + We have, therefore, in each a sort of measure + of the fashions and comforts and utilities of + contemporary life, as well as, in some cases, of + its sentiments. Thus, to begin with a man's + habitation, his house,--the words which describe + the parts of the Anglo-Saxon house are + few in number, a _heal_ or hall, a _bur_ or bedroom, + and in some cases a _cicen_ or kitchen, + and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, + laths, and plaster. But when we come to + the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, + we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic + buildings which William of Malmsbury + assures us that the Normans introduced + into this island; the house becomes more + massive, and the rooms more numerous, and + more diversified in their purposes. When we + look at the furniture of the house, the difference + is still more apparent. The description + given by Alexander Neckam of the hall, the + chambers, the kitchen, and the other departments + of the ordinary domestic establishment, + in the twelfth century, and the furniture + of each, almost brings them before our + eyes, and nothing could be more curious than + the account which the same writer gives us + of the process of building and storing a castle." + p. xv. + +"The philologist will appreciate the tracts printed in the following +pages as a continuous series of very valuable monuments of the +languages spoken in our island during the Middle Ages. It is these +vocabularies alone which have preserved from oblivion a very +considerable and interesting portion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and +without their assistance our Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be far +more imperfect than they are. I have endeavored to collect together +in the present volume all the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies that are +known to exist, not only on account of their diversity, but because +I believe that their individual utility will be increased by thus +presenting them in a collective form. They represent the Anglo-Saxon +language as it existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and, as +written no doubt in different places, they may possibly present some +traces of the local dialects of that period. The curious semi-Saxon +vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in +its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. +The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on +John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language +which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the +Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. In +the partial vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we +have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then +emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become +early English. We are again introduced to the English language more +generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose +treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the +fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given here belong, +as far as the language is concerned, to the fifteenth century. As +written in different parts of the country, they bear evident marks +of dialect; one of them--the vocabulary in Latin verse--is a very +curious relic of the dialect of the West of England at a period of +which such remains are extremely rare."--p. xix. + + + + + _Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton_. By the late REV. + FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Second Series. From + the Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +The biography of Robertson, prefixed to this volume, will gratify +the curiosity which every sympathetic reader of the first series of +his sermons must have felt regarding the incidents of his career. It +was evident to a close observer that the peculiar charm and power of +the preacher came from peculiarities of character and individual +experience, as well as from peculiarities of mind. There was +something so close and searching in his pathos, so natural in his +statements of doctrine, so winning in his appeals,--his simplest +words of consolation or rebuke touched with such subtile certainty +the feelings they addressed,--and his faith in heavenly things was +so clear, deep, intense, and calm,--that the reader could hardly +fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in +the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the +spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His +biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried +in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward +struggle with suffering and calamity,--a character sensitive, tender, +magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly +cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a +sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at +work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to +the decay of strength and the need of repose. He had no time to be +happy. + +The most striking mental characteristic of his sermons is the +originality of his perceptions of religious truth. He takes up the +themes and doctrines of the Church, the discussion of which has +filled libraries with books of divinity which stand as an almost +impregnable wall around the simple facts and teachings of the +Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, +and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and +heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a +man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, +and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in +their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the +truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in +which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, he often tells us +more of the essentials of a subject, and exhibits more clearly the +religious significance of a doctrine, than other writers have done in +labored volumes of exposition and controversy. This power of +simplifying spiritual truth without parting with any of its depth +accounts for the interest with which his sermons are read by persons +of all degrees of age and culture. His method of arrangement is also +admirable; his thoughts are not only separately excellent, but are +all in their right places, so that each is an efficient agent in +deepening the general impression left by the whole. The singular +refinement and beauty of his mind lend a peculiar charm to its +boldness; we have the soul of courage without the rough outside +which so often accompanies it; and his diction, being on a level +with his themes, never offends that fine detecting spiritual taste +which instinctively takes offence when spiritual things are viewed +through unspiritual moods and clothed in words which smack of the +senses. Combine all his characteristics, his intrepidity of +disposition and intellect, his deep experience of religious truth, +the sad earnestness of his faith, his penetration of thought, his +direct, executive expression, and the beauty which pervades and +harmonizes all,--and it is hazarding little to say, that his volumes +will take the rank of classics in the department of theology to +which they belong. + + + + _The Church and the Congregation_. A Plea + for their Unity. By C. A. BARTOL. + Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. + +As church-membership is in some respects the aristocracy of +Congregationalism, and as it is considered by many minds to be as +necessary for the safety of theology as the old distinction of +_esoteric_ and _exoteric_ was for the safety of philosophy, the +publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose +clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and +certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open +communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of +Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the +meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the +Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other +ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps +exaggerates its importance, he thinks that its most beneficent +effects will be seen when it is the symbol of unity, and not of +division. The usual distinction between Church and Congregation he +considers invidious and mischievous, as not indicating a +corresponding distinction in religious character, and as separating +the body of Christian worshippers into two parts by a mechanical +rather than spiritual process. Though he meets objections with +abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due +not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative +statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of +that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly +beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the +expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to +the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common +sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. +This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that +the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also +much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the +practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the +objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in +earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free +from the repellent qualities which are apt to embitter theological +controversies, that even when his ideas come into conflict with the +most obstinate prejudices and rooted convictions, there is nothing +in his mode of stating or enforcing them to give offence. The book +will win its way by the natural force of what truth there is in it, +and the most that an opponent can say is, that the author is in error; +it cannot be said that he is arrogant, contemptuous, self-asserting, +or that he needlessly shocks the opinions he aims to change. + +Mr. Bartol's style is bold, fervid, and figurative, exhibiting a +wide command of language and illustration, and at times rising into +passages of singular beauty and eloquence. The fertility of his mind +in analogies enables him to strengthen his leading conception with a +large number of related thoughts, and the whole subject of vital +Christianity is thus continually in view, and connected with the +special theme he discusses. This characteristic will make his volume +interesting and attractive to many readers who are either opposed to +his views of the Lord's Supper, or are unable to agree with him in +regard to the importance of the change he proposes. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, +June 1858, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JUNE 1858 *** + +***** This file should be named 8903-8.txt or 8903-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/9/0/8903/ + +Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/8903-8.zip b/8903-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..273bc55 --- /dev/null +++ b/8903-8.zip diff --git a/8903.txt b/8903.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1507e79 --- /dev/null +++ b/8903.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9511 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June +1858, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #8903] +Release Date: September, 2005 +First Posted: August 22, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JUNE 1858 *** + + + + +Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +American Tract Society, The +Ann Potter's Lesson +Asirvadam the Brahmin +Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The +Autocrat's Landlady, A Visit to the +Autocrat, The, gives a Breakfast to the Public + +Birds of the Garden and Orchard, The +Birds of the Pasture and Forest, The +Bulls and Bears +Bundle of Irish Pennants, A + +Catacombs of Rome, The +Catacombs of Rome, Note to the +Chesuncook +Colin Clout and the Faery Queen +Crawford and Sculpture + +Daphnaides, +Denslow Palace, The +Dot and Line Alphabet, The + +Eloquence +Evening with the Telegraph-Wires, An + +Farming Life in New England +Faustus, Doctor, The German Popular Legend of + +Gaucho, The +Great Event of the Century, The + +Her Grace, the Drummer's Daughter +Hour before Dawn, The + +Ideal Tendency, The +Illinois in Spring-time + +Jefferson, Thomas + +Kinloch Estate, The + +Language of the Sea, The +Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von +Letter-Writing +Loo Loo + +Mademoiselle's Campaigns +Metempsychosis +Minister's Wooing, The +Miss Wimple's Hoop + +New World, The, and the New Man + +Obituary +Old Well, The +Our Talks with Uncle John + +Perilous Bivouac, A +Physical Courage +Pintal +Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The +President's Prophecy of Peace, The +Prisoner of War, A +Punch + +Railway-Engineering in the United States +Rambles in Aquidneck +Romance of a Glove, The + +Salons de Paris, Les +Sample of Consistency, A +Singing-Birds and their Songs, The +Songs of the Sea +Subjective of it, The +Suggestions + +Three of Us + +Water-Lilies +What are we going to make? +Whirligig of Time, The + +Youth + + +POETRY + +All's Well + +Beatrice +Birth-Mark, The +"Bringing our Sheaves with us" + +Cantatrice, La +Cup, The + +Dead House, The +Discoverer of the North Cape, The + +Evening Melody, An + +Fifty and Fifteen + +House that was just like its Neighbors, The + +Jolly Mariner, The + +Keats, the Poet + +Last Look, The + +Marais du Cygne, Le +My Children +Myrtle Flowers + +Nature and the Philosopher +November +November.--April + +Shipwreck +Skater, The +Spirits in Prison +Swan-Song of Parson Avery, The + +Telegraph, The +To ----- +Trustee's Lament, The + +Waldeinsamkeit +"Washing of the Feet," The, on Holy Thursday, in St. Peter's +What a Wretched Woman said to me +Work and Rest + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + +American Cyclopedia, The New +Annual Obituary Notices, by N. Crosby +Aquarium, The, by P. H. Gosse + +Belle Brittan on a Tour +Bigelow, Jacob, Brief Expositions of Rational Medicine by +Black's Atlas of North America + +Chapman's American Drawing-Book +Church and Congregation, The, by C. A. Bartel +Crosby's Annual Obituary, for 1857 +Curiosities of Literature, by Disraeli +Cyclopedia of Drawing, The, by W. E. Worthen +Cyclopaedia, The New American + +Dana's Household Book of Poetry +Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature +Drawing-Book, The American, by J.G. Chapman +Drawing, The Cyclopedia of + +Ewbank, Thomas, Thoughts on Matter and Force by +Exiles of Florida, The, by J. E. Giddings + +Fitch, John, Westcott's Life of + +Giddings, Joshua R., The Exiles of Florida by +Goadby, Henry, A Text-Book of Animal and Vegetable Physiology by +Gray's Botanical Series + +Household Book of Poetry, by C. A. Dana + +Inductive Sciences, History of the, by Whewell + +Journey due North, A, by G. A. Sala + +Kingsley, Charles, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers by + +Library of Old Authors +Life beneath the Waters + +New Priest in Conception Bay, The + +Pascal, Etudes sur, par M. Victor Cousin +Pellico, Silvio, Lettres de +Physiology, Animal and Vegetable, by Henry Goadby +Poe's Poetical Works + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his Time, with other Papers, by C. Kingsley +Rational Medicine, Brief Expositions of, by Jacob Bigelow +Robertson, Rev. F. W., Sermons by + +Sea-Shore, Common Objects of the, by J. G. Wood +Stephenson, George, Smiles's Life of +Summer Time in the Country + +Thoughts on Matter and Force, by Thomas Ewbank + +Vocabularies, A Volume of, by T. Wright + +Webster, John, Dramatic Works of +Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences +Wright, Thomas, A Volume of Vocabularies by + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +VOL. II.--JUNE, 1858.--NO. VIII. + + + + +CHESUNCOOK. + + +At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I left Boston in the steamer for +Bangor by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,--warmer, +probably, on the water than on the land,--and the sea was as smooth +as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went +singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock. We passed a +vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the islands, and some +of us thought that she was the "rapt ship" which ran + + "on her side so low + That she drank water, and her keel ploughed air," + +not considering that there was no wind, and that she was under bare +poles. Now we have left the islands behind and are off Nahant. We +behold those features which the discoverers saw, apparently unchanged. +Now we see the Cape Ann lights, and now pass near a small +village-like fleet of mackerel fishers at anchor, probably off +Gloucester. They salute us with a shout from their low decks; but I +understand their "Good evening", to mean, "Don't run against me, Sir." +From the wonders of the deep we go below to get deeper sleep. And +then the absurdity of being waked up in the night by a man who wants +the job of blacking your boots! It is more inevitable than +seasickness, and may have something to do with it. It is like the +ducking you get on crossing the line the first time. I trusted that +these old customs were abolished. They might with the same propriety +insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that +somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, +he wanted to know what they had done to them,--they had spoiled them,-- +he never put that stuff on them; and the boot-black narrowly escaped +paying damages. + +Anxious to get out of the whale's belly, I rose early, and joined +some old salts, who were smoking by a dim light on a sheltered part +of the deck. We were just getting into the river. They knew all +about it, of course. I was proud to find that I had stood the voyage +so well, and was not in the least digested. We brushed up and +watched the first signs of dawn through an open port; but the day +seemed to hang fire. We inquired the time; none of my companions had +a chronometer. At length an African prince rushed by, observing, +"Twelve o'clock, gentlemen!" and blew out the light. It was moon-rise. +So I slunk down into the monster's bowels again. + +The first land we make is Manheigan Island, before dawn, and next St. +George's Islands, seeing two or three lights. Whitehead, with its +bare rocks and funereal bell, is interesting. Next I remember that +the Camden Hills attracted my eyes, and afterward the hills about +Frankfort. We reached Bangor about noon. + +When I arrived, my companion that was to be had gone up river, and +engaged an Indian, Joe Aitteon, a son of the Governor, to go with us +to Chesuncook Lake. Joe had conducted two white men a-moose-hunting +in the same direction the year before. He arrived by cars at Bangor +that evening, with his canoe and a companion, Sabattis Solomon, who +was going to leave Bangor the following Monday with Joe's father, by +way of the Penobscot, and join Joe in moose-hunting at Chesuncook, +when we had done with him. They took supper at my friend's house and +lodged in his barn, saying that they should fare worse than that in +the woods. They only made Watch bark a little, when they came to the +door in the night for water, for he does not like Indians. + +The next morning Joe and his canoe were put on board the stage for +Moosehead Lake, sixty and odd miles distant, an hour before we +started in an open wagon. We carried hard bread, pork, smoked beef, +tea, sugar, etc., seemingly enough for a regiment; the sight of +which brought together reminded me by what ignoble means we had +maintained our ground hitherto. We went by the Avenue Road, which is +quite straight and very good, north-westward toward Moosehead Lake, +through more than a dozen flourishing towns, with almost every one +its academy,--not one of which, however, is on my General Atlas, +published, alas! in 1824; so much are they before the age, or I +behind it! The earth must have been considerably lighter to the +shoulders of General Atlas then. + +It rained all this day and till the middle of the next forenoon, +concealing the landscape almost entirely; but we had hardly got out +of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the +sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive +evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the +sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy. He who rides and keeps the +beaten track studies the fences chiefly. Near Bangor, the fence-posts, +on account of the frost's heaving them in the clayey soil, were not +planted in the ground, but were mortised into a transverse horizontal +beam lying on the surface. Afterwards, the prevailing fences were +log ones, with sometimes a Virginia fence, or else rails slanted +over crossed stakes,--and these zigzagged or played leap-frog all +the way to the lake, keeping just ahead of us. After getting out of +the Penobscot Valley, the country was unexpectedly level, or +consisted of very even and equal swells, for twenty or thirty miles, +never rising above the general level, but affording, it is said, a +very good prospect in clear weather, with frequent views of Katadin,-- +straight roads and long hills. The houses were far apart, commonly +small and of one story, but framed. There was very little land under +cultivation, yet the forest did not often border the road. The stumps +were frequently as high as one's head, showing the depth of the snows. +The white hay-caps, drawn over small stacks of beans or corn in the +fields, on account of the rain, were a novel sight to me. We saw +large flocks of pigeons, and several times came within a rod or two +of partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in one journey +out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty partridges from his +buggy. The mountain-ash was now very handsome, as also the +wayfarer's-tree or hobble-bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed +with red. The Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the +prevailing weed all the way to the lake,--the road-side in many +places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as +with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. There were also +whole fields full of ferns, now rusty and withering, which in older +countries are commonly confined to wet ground. There were very few +flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It chanced +that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for fifty miles, though +they were so abundant then in Massachusetts,--except in one place +one or two of the aster acuminatus,--and no golden-rods till within +twenty miles of Monson, where I saw a three-ribbed one. There were +many late buttercups, however, and the two fire-weeds, erechthites +and epilobium, commonly where there had been a burning, and at last +the pearly everlasting. I noticed occasionally very long troughs +which supplied the road with water, and my companion said that three +dollars annually were granted by the State to one man in each +school-district, who provided and maintained a suitable water-trough +by the road-side, for the use of travellers,--a piece of +intelligence as refreshing to me as the water itself. That +legislature did not sit in vain. It was an Oriental act, which made +me wish that I was still farther down East,--another Maine law, +which I hope we may get in Massachusetts. That State is banishing +bar-rooms from its highways, and conducting the mountain-springs +thither. + +The country was first decidedly mountainous in Garland, Sangerville, +and onwards, twenty-five or thirty miles from Bangor. At Sangerville, +where we stopped at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the +landlord told us that he had found a wilderness where we found him. +At a fork in the road between Abbot and Monson, about twenty miles +from Moosehead Lake, I saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of +moose-horns, spreading four or five feet, with the word "Monson" +painted on one blade, and the name of some other town on the other. +They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with +deers' horns, in front entries; but, after the experience which I +shall relate, I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing +a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached Monson, +fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the lake, after dark. + +At four o'clock the next morning, in the dark, and still in the rain, +we pursued our journey. Close to the academy in this town they have +erected a sort of gallows for the pupils to practise on. I thought +that they might as well hang at once all who need to go through such +exercises in so new a country, where there is nothing to hinder +their living an outdoor life. Better omit Blair, and take the air. +The country about the south end of the lake is quite mountainous, +and the road began to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, +it is calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In many +places the road was in that condition called _repaired_, having just +been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the +shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, +like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to +keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare +sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,--a vast +hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern +hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, +though he did not remember the driver. He said that he had taken +care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two before, at +the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was not in as good condition +as then. Every man to his trade. I am not acquainted with a single +horse in the world, not even the one that kicked me. + +Already we had thought that we saw Moosehead Lake from a hill-top, +where an extensive fog filled the distant lowlands, but we were +mistaken. It was not till we were within a mile or two of its south +end that we got our first view of it,--a suitably wild-looking +sheet of water, sprinkled with small low islands, which were covered +with shaggy spruce and other wild wood,--seen over the infant port +of Greenville, with mountains on each side and far in the north, and +a steamer's smoke-pipe rising above a roof. A pair of moose-horns +ornamented a corner of the public-house where we left our horse, and +a few rods distant lay the small steamer Moosehead, Captain King. +There was no village, and no summer road any farther in this +direction,--but a winter road, that is, one passable only when deep +snow covers its inequalities, from Greenville up the east side of the +lake to Lily Bay, about twelve miles. + +I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden all the way on the +outside of the stage the day before, in the rain, giving way to +ladies, and was well wetted. As it still rained, he asked if we were +going to "put it through." He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four +years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a +broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and +more turned-up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the +description of his race. Beside his under-clothing, he wore a red +flannel shirt, woollen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary +dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the +Penobscot Indian. When, afterward, he had occasion to take off his +shoes and stockings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He +had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared to identify +himself with that class. He was the only one of the party who +possessed an India-rubber jacket. The top strip or edge of his canoe +was worn nearly through by friction on the stage. + +At eight o'clock, the steamer with her bell and whistle, scaring the +moose, summoned us on board. She was a well-appointed little boat, +commanded by a gentlemanly captain, with patent life-seats, and +metallic life-boat, and dinner on board, if you wish. She is chiefly +used by lumberers for the transportation of themselves, their boats, +and supplies, but also by hunters and tourists. There was another +steamer, named Amphitrite, laid up close by; but, apparently, her +name was not more trite than her hull. There were also two or three +large sail-boats in port. These beginnings of commerce on a lake in +the wilderness are very interesting,--these larger white birds that +come to keep company with the gulls. There were but few passengers, +and not one female among them: a St. Francis Indian, with his canoe +and moose-hides, two explorers for lumber, three men who landed at +Sandbar Island, and a gentleman who lives on Deer Island, eleven +miles up the lake, and owns also Sugar Island, between which and the +former the steamer runs; these, I think, were all beside ourselves. +In the saloon was some kind of musical instrument, cherubim or +seraphim, to soothe the angry waves; and there, very properly, was +tacked up the map of the public lands of Maine and Massachusetts, a +copy of which I had in my pocket. + +The heavy rain confining us to the saloon awhile, I discoursed with +the proprietor of Sugar Island on the condition of the world in Old +Testament times. But at length, leaving this subject as fresh as we +found it, he told me that he had lived about this lake twenty or +thirty years, and yet had not been to the head of it for twenty-one +years. He faces the other way. The explorers had a fine new birch on +board, larger than ours, in which they had come up the Piscataquis +from Howland, and they had had several messes of trout already. They +were going to the neighborhood of Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes, or +the head-waters of the St. John, and offered to keep us company as +far as we went. The lake to-day was rougher than I found the ocean, +either going or returning, and Joe remarked that it would swamp his +birch. Off Lily Bay it is a dozen miles wide, but it is much broken +by islands. The scenery is not merely wild, but varied and +interesting; mountains were seen, farther or nearer, on all sides +but the north-west, their summits now lost in the clouds; but Mount +Kineo is the principal feature of the lake, and more exclusively +belongs to it. After leaving Greenville, at the foot, which is the +nucleus of a town some eight or ten years old, you see but three or +four houses for the whole length of the lake, or about forty miles, +three of them the public-houses at which the steamer is advertised +to stop, and the shore is an unbroken wilderness. The prevailing +wood seemed to be spruce, fir, birch, and rock-maple. You could +easily distinguish the hard wood from the soft, or "black growth," +as it is called, at a great distance,--the former being smooth, +round-topped, and light green, with a bowery and cultivated look. + +Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a peninsula with a narrow +neck, about midway the lake on the east side. The celebrated +precipice is on the east or land side of this, and is so high and +perpendicular that you can jump from the top many hundred feet into +the water which makes up behind the point. A man on board told us +that an anchor had been sunk ninety fathoms at its base before +reaching bottom! Probably it will be discovered ere long that some +Indian maiden jumped off it for love once, for true love never could +have found a path more to its mind. We passed quite close to the +rock here, since it is a very bold shore, and I observed marks of a +rise of four or five feet on it. The St. Francis Indian expected to +take in his boy here, but he was not at the landing. The father's +sharp eyes, however, detected a canoe with his boy in it far away +under the mountain, though no one else could see it. "Where is the +canoe?" asked the captain, "I don't see it"; but he held on +nevertheless, and by and by it hove in sight. + +We reached the head of the lake about noon. The weather had in the +mean while cleared up, though the mountains were still capped with +clouds. Seen from this point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied +mountains ranging with it north-easterly, presented a very strong +family likeness, as if all cast in one mould. The steamer here +approached a long pier projecting from the northern wilderness and +built of some of its logs,--and whistled, where not a cabin nor a +mortal was to be seen. The shore was quite low, with flat rocks on it, +overhung with black ash, arbor-vitae, etc., which at first looked as +if they did not care a whistle for us. There was not a single cabman +to cry "Coach!" or inveigle us to the United States Hotel. At length +a Mr. Hinckley, who has a camp at the other end of the "carry," +appeared with a truck drawn by an ox and a horse over a rude +log-railway through the woods. The next thing was to get our canoe +and effects over the carry from this lake, one of the heads of the +Kennebec, into the Penobscot River. This railway from the lake to +the river occupied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide +and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked across while +our baggage was drawn behind. My companion went ahead to be ready +for partridges, while I followed, looking at the plants. + +This was an interesting botanical locality for one coming from the +South to commence with; for many plants which are rather rare, and +one or two which are not found at all, in the eastern part of +Massachusetts, grew abundantly between the rails,--as Labrador tea, +kalmia glauca, Canada blueberry, (which was still in fruit, and a +second time in bloom,) Clintonia and Linnaea Borealis, which last a +lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium, +large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula, +diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, and +many others which were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the +lake and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive look there. +The spruce and fir trees crowded to the track on each side to +welcome us, the arbor-vitae with its changing leaves prompted us to +make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. +Sometimes an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with its +rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than our trees +in the most favorable positions. You did not expect to find such +_spruce_ trees in the wild woods, but they evidently attend to +their toilets each morning even there. Through such a front-yard did +we enter that wilderness. + +There was a very slight rise above the lake,--the country appearing +like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual +descent to the Penobscot, which I was surprised to find here a large +stream, from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to east, +or at right angles with the lake, and not more than two and a half +miles from it. The distance is nearly twice too great on the Map of +the Public Lands, and on Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream +is placed too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be nine +hundred and sixty feet above high water in Portland harbor. It is +higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers consider the Penobscot, +where we struck it, twenty-five feet lower than Moosehead,--though +eight miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water +can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a good deal +between here and Chesuncook. The carry-man called this about one +hundred and forty miles above Bangor by the river, or two hundred +from the ocean, and fifty-five miles below Hilton's on the Canada +road, the first clearing above, which is four and a half miles from +the source of the Penobscot. + +At the north end of the carry, in the midst of a clearing of sixty +acres or more, there was a log camp of the usual construction, with +something more like a house adjoining, for the accommodation of the +carryman's family and passing lumberers. The bed of withered +fir-twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty. There was +also a store-house on the bank of the river, containing pork, flour, +iron, bateaux, and birches, locked up. + +We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out to be tea, +and to pitch canoes, for which purpose a large iron pot lay +permanently on the bank. This we did in company with the explorers. +Both Indians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for this +purpose,--that is, for the pitching, not the dinner. Joe took a +small brand from the fire and blew the heat and flame against the +pitch on his birch, and so melted and spread it. Sometimes he put +his mouth over the suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted +air; and at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on +crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly watched his +motions, and listened attentively to his observations, for we had +employed an Indian mainly that I might have an opportunity to study +his ways. I heard him swear once mildly, during this operation, +about his knife being as dull as a hoe,--an accomplishment which he +owed to his intercourse with the whites; and he remarked, "We ought +to have some tea before we start; we shall be hungry before we kill +that moose." + +At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot. Our birch was +nineteen and a half feet long by two and a half at the widest part, +and fourteen inches deep within, both ends alike, and painted green, +which Joe thought affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, +was a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much larger, +though probably not much longer. This carried us three with our +baggage, weighing in all between five hundred and fifty and six +hundred pounds. We had two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, +one of them of bird's-eye maple. Joe placed birch bark on the bottom +for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints against the cross-bars +to protect our backs, while he himself sat upon a cross-bar in the +stern. The baggage occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. +We also paddled by turns in the bows, now sitting with our legs +extended, now sitting upon our legs, and now rising upon our knees; +but I found none of these positions endurable, and was reminded of +the complaints of the old Jesuit missionaries of the torture they +endured from long confinement in constrained positions in canoes, in +their long voyages from Quebec to the Huron country; but afterwards I +sat on the cross-bars, or stood up, and experienced no inconvenience. + +It was dead water for a couple of miles. The river had been raised +about two feet by the rain, and lumberers were hoping for a flood +sufficient to bring down the logs that were left in the spring. Its +banks were seven or eight feet high, and densely covered with white +and black spruce,--which, I think, must be the commonest trees +thereabouts,--fir, arbor-vitae, canoe, yellow, and black birch, rock, +mountain, and a few red maples, beech, black and mountain ash, the +large-toothed aspen, many civil-looking elms, now imbrowned, along +the stream, and at first a few hemlocks also. We had not gone far +before I was startled by seeing what I thought was an Indian +encampment, covered with a red flag, on the bank, and exclaimed, +"Camp!" to my comrades. I was slow to discover that it was a red +maple changed by the frost. The immediate shores were also densely +covered with the speckled alder, red osier, shrubby willows or +sallows, and the like. There were a few yellow-lily-pads still left, +half drowned, along the sides, and sometimes a white one. Many fresh +tracks of moose were visible where the water was shallow, and on the +shore, and the lily-stems were freshly bitten off by them. + +After paddling about two miles, we parted company with the explorers, +and turned up Lobster Stream, which comes in on the right, from the +south-east. This was six or eight rods wide, and appeared to run +nearly parallel with the Penobscot. Joe said that it was so called +from small fresh-water lobsters found in it. It is the Matahumkeag of +the maps. My companion wished to look for moose signs, and intended, +if it proved worth the while, to camp up that way, since the Indian +advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up +this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. +The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were +now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, +the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and +chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee +_kecunnilessu_ in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling +of what possibly was never spelt before, but I pronounced after him +till he said it would do. We passed close to a woodcock, which stood +perfectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if sick. +This, Joe said, they called _nipsquecohossus_. The kingfisher was +_skuscumonsuck_; bear was _wassus_; Indian Devil, _lunxus_; the +mountain-ash, _upahsis_. This was very abundant and beautiful. +Moose-tracks were not so fresh along this stream, except in a small +creek about a mile up it, where a large log had lodged in the spring, +marked "W-cross-girdle-crow-foot." We saw a pair of moose-horns on +the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said +there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed +their heads more than once in their lives. + +After ascending about a mile and a half, to within a short distance +of Lobster Lake, we returned to the Penobscot. Just below the mouth +of the Lobster we found quick water, and the river expanded to +twenty or thirty rods in width. The moose-tracks were quite numerous +and fresh here. We noticed in a great many places narrow and +well-trodden paths by which they had come down to the river, and +where they had slid on the steep and clayey bank. Their tracks were +either close to the edge of the stream, those of the calves +distinguishable from the others, or in shallow water; the holes +made by their feet in the soft bottom being visible for a long time. +They were particularly numerous where there was a small bay, or +_pokelogan_, as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or +separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, +wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten +the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, +where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, +Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then +asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes +had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my +companion obtained it. I now began to notice the bright red berries +of the tree-cranberry, which grows eight or ten feet high, mingled +with the alders and cornel along the shore. There was less hard wood +than at first. + +After proceeding a mile and three quarters below the mouth of the +Lobster, we reached, about sundown, a small island at the head of +what Joe called the Moosehorn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which +he was going to hunt that night, coming in about three miles below), +and on the upper end of this we decided to camp. On a point at the +lower end lay the carcass of a moose killed a month or more before. +We concluded merely to prepare our camp, and leave our baggage here, +that all might be ready when we returned from moose-hunting. Though +I had not come a-hunting, and felt some compunctions about +accompanying the hunters, I wished to see a moose near at hand, and +was not sorry to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went as +reporter or chaplain to the hunters,--and the chaplain has been +known to carry a gun himself. After clearing a small space amid the +dense spruce and fir trees, we covered the damp ground with a +shingling of fir-twigs, and, while Joe was preparing his birch-horn +and pitching his canoe,--for this had to be done whenever we stopped +long enough to build a fire, and was the principal labor which he +took upon himself at such times,--we collected fuel for the night, +large wet and rotting logs, which had lodged at the head of the +island, for our hatchet was too small for effective chopping; but we +did not kindle a fire, lest the moose should smell it. Joe set up a +couple of forked stakes, and prepared half a dozen poles, ready to +cast one of our blankets over in case it rained in the night, which +precaution, however, was omitted the next night. We also plucked the +ducks which had been killed for breakfast. + +While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, +from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a +woodchopper's axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude. We are +wont to liken many sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the +stroke of an axe because they resemble each other under those +circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear there. When we +told Joe of this, he exclaimed, "By George, I'll bet that was moose! +They make a noise like that." These sounds affected us strangely, +and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably +had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and +wildness. + +At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was a dead-water for +three miles, or as far as the Moosehorn; Joe telling us that we must +be very silent, and he himself making no noise with his paddle, +while he urged the canoe along with effective impulses. It was a +still night, and suitable for this purpose,--for if there is wind, +the moose will smell you,--and Joe was very confident that he should +get some. The harvest moon had just risen, and its level rays began +to light up the forest on our right, while we glided downward in the +shade on the same side, against the little breeze that was stirring. +The lofty spiring tops of the spruce and fir were very black against +the sky, and more distinct than by day, close bordering this broad +avenue on each side; and the beauty of the scene, as the moon rose +above the forest, it would not be easy to describe. A bat flew over +our heads, and we heard a few faint notes of birds from time to time, +perhaps the myrtle-bird for one, or the sudden plunge of a musquash, +or saw one crossing the stream before us, or heard the sound of a +rill emptying in, swollen by the recent rain. About a mile below the +island, when the solitude seemed to be growing more complete every +moment, we suddenly saw the light and heard the crackling of a fire +on the bank, and discovered the camp of the two explorers; they +standing before it in their red shirts, and talking aloud of the +adventures and profits of the day. They were just then speaking of a +bargain, in which, as I understood, somebody had cleared twenty-five +dollars. We glided by without speaking, close under the bank, within +a couple of rods of them; and Joe, taking his horn, imitated the +call of the moose, till we suggested that they might fire on us. +This was the last we saw of them, and we never knew whether they +detected or suspected us. + +I have often wished since that I was with them. They search for +timber over a given section, climbing hills and often high trees to +look off,--explore the streams by which it is to be driven, and the +like,--spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a +hundred miles or more from any town,--roaming about, and sleeping on +the ground where night overtakes them,--depending chiefly on the +provisions they carry with them, though they do not decline what game +they come across,--and then in the fall they return and make report +to their employers, determining the number of teams that will be +required the following winter. Experienced men get three or four +dollars a day for this work. It is a solitary and adventurous life, +and comes nearest to that of the trapper of the West, perhaps. They +work ever with a gun as well as an axe, let their beards grow, and +live without neighbors, not on an open plain, but far within a +wilderness. + +This discovery accounted for the sounds which we had heard, and +destroyed the prospect of seeing moose yet awhile. At length, when +we had left the explorers far behind, Joe laid down his paddle, drew +forth his birch horn,--a straight one, about fifteen inches long and +three or four wide at the mouth, tied round with strips of the same +bark,--and standing up, imitated the call of the moose,--_ugh-ugh-ugh_, +or _oo-oo-oo-oo_, and then a prolonged _oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_, and +listened attentively for several minutes. We asked him what kind of +noise he expected to hear. He said, that, if a moose heard it, he +guessed we should find out; we should hear him coming half a mile off; +he would come close to, perhaps into, the water, and my companion +must wait till he got fair sight, and then aim just behind the +shoulder. + +The moose venture out to the riverside to feed and drink at night. +Earlier in the season the hunters do not use a horn to call them out, +but steal upon them as they are feeding along the sides of the stream, +and often the first notice they have of one is the sound of the +water dropping from its muzzle. An Indian whom I heard imitate the +voice of the moose, and also that of the caribou and the deer, using +a much longer horn than Joe's, told me that the first could be heard +eight or ten miles, sometimes; it was a loud sort of bellowing sound, +clearer and more sonorous than the lowing of cattle,--the caribou's +a sort of snort,--and the small deer's like that of a lamb. + +At length we turned up the Moosehorn, where the Indians at the carry +had told us that they killed a moose the night before. This is a +very meandering stream, only a rod or two in width, but +comparatively deep, coming in on the right, fitly enough named +Moosehorn, whether from its windings or its inhabitants. It was +bordered here and there by narrow meadows between the stream and the +endless forest, affording favorable places for the moose to feed, +and to call them out on. We proceeded half a mile up this, as +through a narrow winding canal, where the tall, dark spruce and firs +and arbor-vitae towered on both sides in the moonlight, forming a +perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the spires of a +Venice in the forest. In two places stood a small stack of hay on +the bank, ready for the lumberer's use in the winter, looking +strange enough there. We thought of the day when this might be a +brook winding through smooth-shaven meadows on some gentleman's +grounds; and seen by moonlight then, excepting the forest that now +hems it in, how little changed it would appear! + +Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the canoe close by +some favorable point of meadow for them to come out on, but listened +in vain to hear one come rushing through the woods, and concluded +that they had been hunted too much thereabouts. We saw many times +what to our imaginations looked like a gigantic moose, with his +horns peering from out the forest-edge; but we saw the forest only, +and not its inhabitants, that night. So at last we turned about. +There was now a little fog on the water, though it was a fine, clear +night above. There were very few sounds to break the stillness of +the forest. Several times we heard the hooting of a great horned-owl, +as at home, and told Joe that he would call out the moose for him, +for he made a sound considerably like the horn,--but Joe answered, +that the moose had heard that sound a thousand times, and knew better; +and oftener still we were startled by the plunge of a musquash. Once, +when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard +come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad +aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as +if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like +forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the +damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had +heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,-- +"Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in +the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as +if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but +worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a +boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. +If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with +the dews of the night on them are heavier than by day. + +Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kindled our fire and +went to bed. Each of us had a blanket, in which he lay on the +fir-twigs, with his extremities toward the fire, but nothing over his +head. It was worth the while to lie down in a country where you +could afford such great fires; that was one whole side, and the +bright side, of our world. We had first rolled up a large log some +eighteen inches through and ten feet long, for a back-log, to last +all night, and then piled on the trees to the height of three or +four feet, no matter how green or damp. In fact, we burned as much +wood that night as would, with economy and an air-tight stove, last +a poor family in one of our cities all winter. It was very agreeable, +as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire +kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries +used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, +they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since the creation, +unless by earthquakes. It is surprising with what impunity and +comfort one who has always lain in a warm bed in a close apartment, +and studiously avoided drafts of air, can lie down on the ground +without a shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, +in a frosty autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and even come +soon to enjoy and value the fresh air. + +I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks through the +firs, and sometimes their descent in half-extinguished cinders on my +blanket. They were as interesting as fireworks, going up in endless +successive crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager serpentine +course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops before they +went out. We do not suspect how much our chimneys have concealed; +and now air-tight stoves have come to conceal all the rest. In the +course of the night, I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on +the fire, making my companions curl up their legs. + +When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, September 17,) there was +considerable frost whitening the leaves. We heard the sound of the +chickadee, and a few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the +water about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of our +domains before the dew was off, and found that the ground-hemlock, +or American yew, was the prevailing undershrub. We breakfasted on tea, +hard bread, and ducks. + +Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled down the stream +again, and were soon past the mouth of the Moosehorn. These twenty +miles of the Penobscot, between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are +comparatively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but from time to +time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or gravel-beds, where you +can wade across. There is no expanse of water, and no break in the +forest, and the meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are no +hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant +mountains seen in a few places. The banks are from six to ten feet +high, but once or twice rise gently to higher ground. In many places +the forest on the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light +through from some alder-swamp or meadow behind. The conspicuous +berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore were the red osier, +with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush, mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, +choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. +Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of +the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked +very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the +shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, +that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native +river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to +the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands, +as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was too late for flowers, +except a few asters, golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed +the slight frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up, amid +the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers or hunters had +passed a night,--and sometimes steps cut in the muddy or clayey bank +in front of it. + +We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small stream called +Ragmuff, which came in from the west, about two miles below the +Moosehorn. Here were the ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small +space, which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was now +densely overgrown with the red cherry and raspberries. While we were +trying for trout, Joe, Indian-like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on +his own errands, and when we were ready to start was far beyond call. +So we were compelled to make a fire and get our dinner here, not to +lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps +purple finches,) and myrtle-birds in their summer dress, hopped +within six or eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled +the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the lisping notes +which I had heard in the forest. They suggested that the few small +birds found in the wilderness are on more familiar terms with the +lumberman and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with the +farmer. I have since found the Canada jay, and partridges, both the +black and the common, equally tame there, as if they had not yet +learned to mistrust man entirely. The chickadee, which is at home +alike in the primitive woods and in our wood-lots, still retains its +confidence in the towns to a remarkable degree. + +Joe at length returned, after an hour and a half, and said that he +had been two miles up the stream exploring, and had seen a moose, but, +not having the gun, he did not get him. We made no complaint, but +concluded to look out for Joe the next time. However, this may have +been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to complain of him +afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear +him whistling "O Susanna," and several other such airs, while his +paddle urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His common word +was "Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on one side only, giving the +birch an impulse by using the side as a fulcrum. I asked him how +the ribs were fastened to the side rails. He answered, "I don't know, +I never noticed." Talking with him about subsisting wholly on what +the woods yielded, game, fish, berries, etc., I suggested that his +ancestors did so; but he answered, that he had been brought up in +such a way that he could not do it. "Yes," said he, "that's the way +they got a living, like wild fellows, wild as bears. By George! I +shan't go into the woods without provision,--hard bread, pork, etc." +He had brought on a barrel of hard bread and stored it at the carry +for his hunting. However, though he was a Governor's son, he had not +learned to read. + +At one place below this, on the east side, where the bank was higher +and drier than usual, rising gently from the shore to a slight +elevation, some one had felled the trees over twenty or thirty acres, +and left them drying in order to burn. This was the only preparation +for a house between the Moosehead carry and Chesuncook, but there +was no hut nor inhabitants there yet. The pioneer thus selects a +site for his house, which will, perhaps, prove the germ of a town. + +My eyes were all the while on the trees, distinguishing between the +black and white spruce and the fir. You paddle along in a narrow +canal through an endless forest, and the vision I have in my mind's +eye, still, is of the small dark and sharp tops of tall fir and +spruce trees, and pagoda-like arbor-vitaes, crowded together on each +side, with various hard woods intermixed. Some of the arbor-vitaes +were at least sixty feet high. The hard woods, occasionally +occurring exclusively, were less wild to my eye. I fancied them +ornamental grounds, with farm-houses in the rear. The canoe and +yellow birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman; but the +spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian. The soft engravings +which adorn the annuals give no idea of a stream in such a wilderness +as this. The rough sketches in Jackson's Reports on the Geology of +Maine answer much better. At one place we saw a small grove of +slender sapling white-pines, the only collection of pines that I saw +on this voyage. Here and there, however, was a full-grown, tall, and +slender, but defective one, what lumbermen call a _kouchus_ tree, +which they ascertain with their axes, or by the knots. I did not +learn whether this word was Indian or English. It reminded me of the +Greek [Greek: kogchae], a conch or shell, and I amused myself with +fancying that it might signify the dead sound which the trees yield +when struck. All the rest of the pines had been driven off. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +LA CANTATRICE. + + By day, at a high oak desk I stand, + And trace in a ledger line by line; + But at five o'clock yon dial's hand + Opens the cage wherein I pine; + And as faintly the stroke from the belfry peals + Down through the thunder of hoofs and wheels, + I wonder if ever a monarch feels + Such royal joy as mine! + + Beatrice is dressed and her carriage waits; + I know she has heard that signal-chime; + And my strong heart leaps and palpitates, + As lightly the winding stair I climb + To her fragrant room, where the winter's gloom + Is changed by the heliotrope's perfume, + And the curtained sunset's crimson bloom, + To love's own summer prime. + + She meets me there, so strangely fair + That my soul aches with a happy pain;-- + A pressure, a touch of her true lips, such + As a seraph might give and take again; + A hurried whisper, "Adieu! adieu! + They wait for me while I stay for you!" + And a parting smile of her blue eyes through + The glimmering carriage-pane. + + Then thoughts of the past come crowding fast + On a blissful track of love and sighs;-- + Oh, well I toiled, and these poor hands soiled, + That her song might bloom in Italian skies!-- + The pains and fears of those lonely years, + The nights of longing and hope and tears,-- + Her heart's sweet debt, and the long arrears + Of love in those faithful eyes! + + O night! be friendly to her and me!-- + To box and pit and gallery swarm + The expectant throngs;--I am there to see;-- + And now she is bending her radiant form + To the clapping crowd;--I am thrilled and proud; + My dim eyes look through a misty cloud, + And my joy mounts up on the plaudits loud, + Like a sea-bird on a storm! + + She has waved her hand; the noisy rush + Of applause sinks down; and silverly + Her voice glides forth on the quivering hush, + Like the white-robed moon on a tremulous sea! + And wherever her shining influence calls, + I swing on the billow that swells and falls,-- + I know no more,--till the very walls + Seem shouting with jubilee! + + Oh, little she cares for the fop who airs + His glove and glass, or the gay array + Of fans and perfumes, of jewels and plumes, + Where wealth and pleasure have met to pay + Their nightly homage to her sweet song; + But over the bravas clear and strong, + Over all the flaunting and fluttering throng, + She smiles my soul away! + + Why am I happy? why am I proud? + Oh, can it be true she is all my own?-- + I make my way through the ignorant crowd; + I know, I know where my love hath flown. + Again we meet; I am here at her feet, + And with kindling kisses and promises sweet, + Her glowing, victorious lips repeat + That they sing for me alone! + + + + +GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNITZ. + +The philosophic import of this illustrious name, having suffered +temporary eclipse from the Critical Philosophy, with its swift +succession of transcendental dynasties,--the _Wissenschaftslehre_, +the _Naturphilosophie_, and the _Encyclopaedie_,--has recently +emerged into clear and respectful recognition, if not into broad and +effulgent repute. In divers quarters, of late, the attention of the +learned has reverted to the splendid optimist, whose adventurous +intellect left nothing unexplored and almost nothing unexplained. +Biographers and critics have discussed his theories,--some in the +interest of philosophy, and some in the interest of religion,--some +in the spirit of discipleship, and some in the spirit of opposition,-- +but all with consenting and admiring attestation of the vast +erudition and intellectual prowess and unsurpassed capacity [1] +of the man. + +[Footnote 1: The author of a notice of Leibnitz, more clever than +profound, in four numbers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1852, +distinguishes between capacity and faculty. He gives his subject +credit for the former, but denies his claim to the latter of these +attributes. As if any manifestation of mind were more deserving of +that title than the power of intellectual concentration, to which +nothing that came within its focus was insoluble.] + +A collection of all the works appertaining to Leibnitz, with all his +own writings, would make a respectable library. We have no room for +the titles of all, even of the more recent of these publications. We +content ourselves with naming the Biography, by G. G. Guhrauer, the +best that has yet appeared, called forth by the celebration, in 1846, +of the ducentesimal birthday of Leibnitz,--the latest edition of his +Philosophical Works, by Professor Erdmann of Halle--the publication +of his Correspondence with Arnauld, by Herr Grotefend, and of that +with the Landgrave Ernst von Hessen Rheinfels, by Chr. von Rommel,-- +of his Historical Works, by the librarian Pertz of Berlin,--of the +Mathematical, by Gerhardt,--Ludwig Jeuerbach's elaborate dissertation, +"Darstellung, Entwickelung und Kritik der Leibnitzischen Philosophie,"-- +Zimmermann's "Leibnitz u. Herbart's Monadologie,"--Schelling's +"Leibnitz als Denker,"--Hartenstein's "De Materiae apud Leibnit. +Notione,"--and Adolph Helferich's "Spinoza u. Leibnitz: oder Das +Wesen des Idealismus u. des Realismus." To these we must add, as +one of the most valuable contributions to Leibnitian literature, +M. Foucher de Careil's recent publication of certain MSS. of Leibnitz, +found in the library at Hanover, containing strictures on Spinoza, +(which the editor takes the liberty to call "Refutation Inedite de +Spinoza,")--"Sentiment de Worcester et de Locke sur les Idees,"-- +"Correspondance avec Foucher, Bayle et Fontenelle,"--"Reflexions sur +l'Art de connaitre les Homines,"--"Fragmens Divers," etc. [2], +accompanied by valuable introductory and critical essays. + +[Footnote 2: A second collection, by the same hand, appeared in 1857, +with the title, _Nouvelles Lettres et Opuscules Inedits de Leibnitz_. +Precedes d'une Introduction. Par A. Foucher de Careil. Paris. 1857.] + +M. de Careil complains that France has done so little for the memory +of a man "qui lui a fait l'honneur d'ecrire les deux tiers de ses +oeuvres en Francais." England does not owe him the same obligations, +and England has done far less than France,--in fact, nothing to +illustrate the memory of Leibnitz; not so much as an English +translation of his works, or an English edition of them, in these +two centuries. Nor have M. de Careil's countrymen in times past +shared all his enthusiasm for the genial Saxon. The barren +Psychology of Locke obtained a currency in France, in the last +century, which the friendly Realism of his great contemporary could +never boast. Raspe, the first who edited the "Nouveaux Essais," +takes to himself no small credit for liberality in so doing, and +hopes, by rendering equal justice to Leibnitz and to Locke, to +conciliate those "who, with the former, think that their wisdom is +the sure measure of omnipotence," [3] and those who "believe, with +the latter, that the human mind is to the rays of the primal Truth +what a night-bird is to the sun." [4] + +[Footnote 3: + "Stimai gia che 'I mio saper misura + Certa fosse e infallibile di quanto + Puo far l'alto Fattor della natura." + Tasso, _Gerus_, xiv. 45.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Augel notturno al sole + E nostra mente a' rai del primo Vero." + _Ib_. 46.] + +Voltaire pronounced him "le savant le plus universel de l'Europe," +but characterized his metaphysical labors with the somewhat +equivocal compliment of "metaphysicien assez delie pour vouloir +reconcilier la theologie avec la metaphysique." [5] + +[Footnote 5: "On sait que Voltaire n'aimait pas Leibnitz. +J'imagine que c'est le chretien qu'il detestait en lui." + --Ch. Waddington.] + +Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebrities, has produced no +other who fulfils so completely the type of the _Gelehrte_,--a type +which differs from that of the _savant_ and from that of the scholar, +but includes them both. Feuerbach calls him "the personified thirst +for Knowledge"; Frederic the Great pronounced him an "Academy of +Sciences"; and Fontenelle said of him, that "he saw the end of things, +or that they had no end." It was an age of intellectual adventure +into which Leibnitz was born,--fit sequel and heir to the age of +maritime adventure which preceded it. We please ourselves with +fancied analogies between the two epochs and the nature of their +discoveries. In the latter movement, as in the former, Italy took +the lead. The martyr Giordano Bruno was the brave Columbus of modern +thought,--the first who broke loose from the trammels of mediaeval +ecclesiastical tradition, and reported a new world beyond the watery +waste of scholasticism. Campanella may represent the Vespucci of the +new enterprise; Lord Bacon its Sebastian Cabot,--the "Novum Organum" +being the Newfoundland of modern experimental science. Des Cartes +was the Cortes, or shall we rather say the Ponce de Leon, of +scientific discovery, who, failing to find what he sought,--the +Principle of Life, (the Fountain of Eternal Youth,)--yet found +enough to render his name immortal and to make mankind his debtor. +Spinoza is the spiritual Magalhaens, who, emerging from the straits +of Judaism, beheld + + "Another ocean's breast immense, unknown." + +Of modern thinkers he was + + "----the first + That ever burst + Into that silent sea." + +He discovered the Pacific of philosophy,--that theory of the sole +Divine Substance, the All-One, which Goethe in early life found so +pacifying to his troubled spirit, and which, vague and barren as it +proves on nearer acquaintance, induces at first, above all other +systems, a sense of repose in illimitable vastness and immutable +necessity. + +But the Vasco de Gama of his day was Leibnitz. His triumphant +optimism rounded the Cape of theological Good Hope. He gave the +chief impulse to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted, as he +was, with Western thought, he revived the forgotten interest in the +Old and Eastern World, and brought the ends of the earth together. +Circumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he touched, he +appeared as discoverer, as conqueror, as lawgiver. In mathematics, +he discovered or invented the Differential Calculus,--the logic of +transcendental analysis, the infallible method of astronomy, without +which it could never have compassed the large conclusions of the +"Mecanique Celeste." In his "Protogaea," published in 1693, he laid +the foundation of the science of Geology. From his observations, as +Superintendent of the Hartz Mines, and those which he made in his +subsequent travels through Austria and Italy,--from an examination +of the layers, in different localities, of the earth's crust, he +deduced the first theory, in the geological sense, which has ever +been propounded, of the earth's formation. Orthodox Lutheran as he +was, he braved the theological prejudices which then, even more than +now, affronted scientific inquiry in that direction. "First among men," +says Flourens, "he demonstrated the two agencies which successively +have formed and reformed the globe,--fire and water." In the region +of metaphysical inquiry, he propounded a new and original theory of +Substance, and gave to philosophy the Monad, the Law of Continuity, +the Preestablished Harmony, and the Best Possible World. + +Born at Leipzig, in 1646,--left fatherless at the age of six years,-- +by the care of a pious mother and competent guardians, young +Leibnitz enjoyed such means of education as Germany afforded at that +time, but declares himself, for the most part, self-taught [6]. + +[Footnote 6: "Duo, ihi profuere mirifice, (quae tamen alioqui ambigna, +et pluribus noxia esse solent,) primum quod fere essem [Greek: +autodidaktos], alterum quod quaererem nova in unaquaque scientia." + --LEIBNIT. _Opera Philosoph_. Erdmann. p. 162.] + +So genius must always be, for want of any external stimulus equal to +its own impulse. No normal training could keep pace with his +abnormal growth. No school discipline could supply the fuel +necessary to feed the consuming fire of that ravenous intellect. +Grammars, manuals, compends,--all the apparatus of the classes,-- +were only oil to its flame. The Master of the Nicolai-Schule in +Leipzig, his first instructor, was a steady practitioner of the +Martinet order. The pupils were ranged in classes corresponding to +their civil ages,--their studies graduated according to the +baptismal register. It was not a question of faculty or proficiency, +how a lad should be classed and what he should read, but of calendar +years. As if a shoemaker should fit his last to the age instead of +the foot. Such an age, such a study. Gottfried is a genius, and Hans +is a dunce; but Gottfried and Hans were both born in 1646; +consequently, now, in 1654, they are both equally fit for the +Smaller Catechism. Leibnitz was ready for Latin long before the time +allotted to that study in the Nicolai-Schule, but the system was +inexorable. All access to books cut off by rigorous proscription. +But the thirst for knowledge is not easily stifled, and genius, like +love, "will find out his way." + +He chanced, in a corner of the house, to light on an odd volume of +Livy, left there by some student boarder. What could Livy do for a +child of eight years, with no previous knowledge of Latin, and no +lexicon to interpret between them? For most children, nothing. Not +one in a thousand would have dreamed of seriously grappling with +such a mystery. But the brave Patavinian took pity on our little one +and yielded something to childish importunity. The quaint old copy +was garnished, according to a fashion of the time, with rude +wood-cuts, having explanatory legends underneath. The young +philologer tugged at these until he had mastered one or two words. +Then the book was thrown by in despair as impracticable to further +investigation. Then, after one or two weeks had elapsed, for want of +other employment, it was taken up again, and a little more progress +made. And so by degrees, in the course of a year, a considerable +knowledge of Latin had been achieved. But when, in the Nicolai order, +the time for this study arrived, so far from being pleased to find +his instructions anticipated, or welcoming such promise of future +greatness,--so far from rejoicing in his pupil's proficiency, the +pedagogue chafed at the insult offered to his system by this empiric +antepast. He was like one who suddenly discovers that he is telling +an old story where he thought to surprise with a novelty; or like +one who undertakes to fill a lamp, which, being (unknown to him) +already full, runs over, and his oil is spilled. It was "oleum +perdidit" in another sense than the scholastic one. Complaint was +made to the guardians of the orphan Gottfried of these illicit +visits to the tree of knowledge. Severe prohibitory measures were +recommended, which, however, judicious counsel from another quarter +happily averted. + +At the age of eleven, Leibnitz records, that he made, on one occasion, +three hundred Latin verses without elision between breakfast and +dinner. A hundred hexameters, or fifty distichs, in a day, is +generally considered a fair _pensum_ for a boy of sixteen at a +German gymnasium. + +At the age of seventeen, he produced, as an academic exercise, on +taking the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, his celebrated treatise +on the Principle of Individuality, "De Principle Individui," the +most extraordinary performance ever achieved by a youth of that age,-- +remarkable for its erudition, especially its intimate knowledge of +the writings of the Schoolmen, and equally remarkable for its +vigorous grasp of thought and its subtile analysis. In this essay +Leibnitz discovered the bent of his mind and prefigured his future +philosophy, in the choice of his theme, and in his vivid appreciation +and strenuous positing of the individual as the fundamental +principle of ontology. He takes Nominalistic ground in relation to +the old controversy of Nominalist and Realist, siding with Abelard +and Roscellin and Occam, and against St. Thomas and Duns Scotus. The +principle of individuation, he maintains, is the entire entity of +the individual, and not mere limitation of the universal, whether by +"Existence" or by "_Haecceity_." [7] John and Thomas are individuals +by virtue of their integral humanity, and not by fractional limitation +of humanity. Dobbin is an actual positive horse (_Entitas tota_). +Not a negation, by limitation, of universal equiety (_Negatio_). +Not an individuation, by actual existence, of a non-existent but +essential and universal horse (_Existentia_). Nor yet a horse +only by limitation of kind,--a horse minus Dick and Bessie and the +brown mare, etc. (_Haecceitas_). But an individual horse, +simply by virtue of his equine nature. Only so far as he is an actual +complete horse, is he an individual at all. (_Per quod quid est, +per id unum numero est_.) His individuality is nothing superadded +to his equiety. (_Unum supra ens nihil addit reale_.) Neither +is it anything subtracted therefrom. (_Negatio non potest producere +accidentia individualia_.) In fine, there is and can be no horse +but actual individual horses. (_Essentia et existentia non possunt +separari_.) + +[Footnote 7: "Aut enim principium individuationis ponitur _entitas +tota_, (1) aut non tota. Non totam aut negatio exprimit, (2) aut +aliquid positivum. Positivum aut pars physica est, essentiam +terminaus, _existentia_, (3) aut metaphysica, speciem terminans, +_haec ceitas_. (4)... Pono igitur: omne individuum sua tota +entitate individuatur." + --_De Princ. Indiv_. 3 et 4.] + +This was the doctrine of the Nominalists, as it was of Aristotle +before them. It was the doctrine of the Reformers, except, if we +remember rightly, of Huss. The University of Leipzig was founded +upon it. It is the current doctrine of the present day, and +harmonizes well with the current Materialism. Not that Nominalism in +itself, and as Leibnitz held it, is necessarily materialistic, but +Realism is essentially antimaterialistic. The Realists held with +Plato,--but not in his name, for they, too, claimed to be +Aristotelian, and preeminently so,--that the ideal must precede the +actual. So far they were right. This was their strong point. Their +error lay in claiming for the ideal an objective reality, an +independent being. Conceptualism was only another statement of +Nominalism, or, at most, a question of the relation of language to +thought. It cannot be regarded as a third issue in this controversy,-- +a controversy in which more time was consumed, says John of Salisbury, +"than the Caesars required to make themselves masters of the world," +and in which the combatants, having spent at last their whole stock +of dialectic ammunition, resorted to carnal weapons, passing suddenly, +by a very illogical _metabasis_, from "universals" to particulars. +Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singular fortune, a pagan +philosopher, introduced into Western Europe by Mohammedans, became +the supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristotle was the +Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther found this authority in his way +and disposed of it in short order, devoting Aristotle without +ceremony to the Devil, as "a damned mischief-making heathen." But +Leibnitz, whose large discourse looked before as well as after, +reinstated not only Aristotle, but Plato, and others of the Greek +philosophers, in their former repute;--"Car ces anciens," he said, +"etaient plus solides qu'on ne croit." He was the first to turn the +tide of popular opinion in their favor. + +Not without a struggle was he brought to side with the Nominalists. +Musing, when a boy, in the Rosenthal, near Leipzig, he debated long +with himself,--"Whether he would give up the Substantial Forms of +the Schoolmen." Strange matter for boyish deliberation! Yes, good +youth, by all means, give them up! They have had their day. They +served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Christendom in times of +ecclesiastical thraldom, when learning knew no other vocation. But +the age into which you are born has its own problems, of nearer +interest and more commanding import. The measuring-reed of science +is to be laid to the heavens, the solar system is to be weighed in a +balance; the age of logical quiddities has passed, the age of +mathematical quantities has come. Give them up! You will soon have +enough to do to take care of your own. What with Dynamics and +Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Monads and Majesties, +Concilium AEgyptiacum and Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, +there will be scant room in that busy brain for Substantial Forms. +Let them sleep, dust to dust, with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the +bones of Aquinas! + +The "De Principio Individui" was the last treatise of any note in +the sense and style of the old scholastic philosophy. It was also +one of the last blows aimed at scholasticism, which, long undermined +by the Saxon Reformation, received its _coup de grace_ a century +later from the pen of an English wit. "Cornelius," says the author +of "Martinus Scriblerus," told Martin that a shoulder of mutton was +an individual; which Crambe denied, for he had seen it cut into +commons. 'That's true,' quoth the Tutor, 'but you never saw it cut +into shoulders of mutton.' 'If it could be,' quoth Crambe, 'it would +be the loveliest individual of the University.' When he was told +that a _substance_ was that which is subject to _accidents_: 'Then +soldiers,' quoth Crambe, 'are the most substantial people in the +world.' Neither would he allow it to be a good definition of accident, +that it could be present or absent without the destruction of the +subject, since there are a great many accidents that destroy the +subject, as burning does a house and death a man. But as to that, +Cornelius informed him that there was a _natural_ death and a +_logical_ death; and that though a man after his natural death was +incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep his +stall among the logical predicaments.... + +Crambe regretted extremely that _Substantial Forms_, a race of +harmless beings which had lasted for many years and had afforded a +comfortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should now be +hunted down like so many wolves, without the possibility of retreat. +He considered that it had gone much harder with them than with the +_Essences_, which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries' +shops, where some of them had been advanced into the degree of +_Quintessences_. He thought there should be a retreat for poor +_substantial forms_ amongst the gentlemen-ushers at court; and that +there were, indeed, substantial forms, such as forms of prayer and +forms of government, without which the things themselves could never +long subsist.... + +Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons +which logic had put in their hands. Here Martin and Crambe used to +engage like any prizefighters. And as prize-fighters will agree to +lay aside a buckler, or some such defensive weapon, so Crambe would +agree not to use _simpliciter_ and _secundum quid_, if Martin would +part with _materialiter_ and _formaliter_. But it was found, that, +without the defensive armor of these distinctions, the arguments cut +so deep that they fetched blood at every stroke. Their theses were +picked out of Suarez, Thomas Aquinas, and other learned writers on +those subjects.... One, particularly, remains undecided to this day,-- +'An praeter _esse_ reale actualis essentiae sit alind _esse_ +necessarium quo res actualiter existat?' In English thus: 'Whether, +besides the real being of actual being, there be any other being +necessary to cause a thing to be?' [8] + +[Footnote 8: Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. Chap. VII.] + +Arrived at maturity, Leibnitz rose at once to classic eminence. He +became a conspicuous figure, he became a commanding power, not only +in the intellectual world, of which he constituted himself the centre, +but in part also of the civil. It lay in the nature of his genius to +prove all things, and it lay in his temperament to seek _rapport_ +with all sorts of men. He was infinitely related;--not an individual +of note in his day but was linked with him by some common interest +or some polemic grapple; not a _savant_ or statesman with whom +Leibnitz did not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of +communication. Europe was reticulated with the meshes of his +correspondence. "Never," says Voltaire, "was intercourse among +philosophers more universal; _Leibnitz servait a l'animer_." He +writes now to Spinoza at the Hague, to suggest new methods of +manufacturing lenses,--now to Magliabecchi at Florence, urging, in +elegant Latin verses, the publication of his bibliographical +discoveries,--and now to Grimaldi, Jesuit missionary in China, to +communicate his researches in Chinese philosophy. He hoped by means +of the latter to operate on the Emperor Cham-Hi with the _Dyadik_; [9] +and even suggested said _Dyadik_ as a key to the cipher of the book +"Ye Kim," supposed to contain the sacred mysteries of Fo. He +addresses Louis XIV., now on the subject of a military expedition to +Egypt, (a magnificent idea, which it needed a Napoleon to realize,) +now on the best method of promoting and conserving scientific +knowledge. He corresponds with the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, +with Bossuet, and with Madame Brinon on the Union of the Catholic +and Protestant Churches, and with Privy-Counsellor von Spanheim on +the Union of the Lutheran and Reformed,--with Pere Des Bosses on +Transubstantiation, and with Samuel Clarke on Time and Space,--with +Remond de Montmort on Plato, and with Franke on Popular Education,-- +with the Queen of Prussia (his pupil) on Free-will and Predestination, +and with the Electress Sophia, her mother, (in her eighty-fourth year,) +on English Politics,--with the cabinet of Peter the Great on the +Slavonic and Oriental Languages, and with that of the German Emperor +on the claims of George Lewis to the honors of the Electorate,--and +finally, with all the _savans_ of Europe on all possible scientific +questions. + +[Footnote 9: A species of binary arithmetic, invented by Leibnitz, +in which the only figures employed are 0 and 1.--See KORTHOLT'S +_G.C. Leibnitii Epistolae ad Divarsos_, Letter XVIII.] + +[Transcriber's note: without this notation and its underlying logic, +the development of modern computers would have not been practical.] + +Of this world-wide correspondence a portion related to the sore +subject of his litigated claim to originality in the discovery of +the Differential Calculus,--a matter in which Leibnitz felt himself +grievously wronged, and complained with justice of the treatment he +received at the hands of his contemporaries. The controversy between +him and Newton, respecting this hateful topic, would never have +originated with either of these illustrious men, had it depended on +them alone to vindicate their respective claims. Officious and +ill-advised friends of the English philosopher, partly from misguided +zeal and partly from levelled malice, preferred on his behalf a +charge of plagiarism against the German, which Newton was not likely +to have urged for himself. "The new Calculus, which Europe lauds, is +nothing less," they suggested, "than your fluxionary method, which +Mr. Leibnitz has pirated, anticipating its tardy publication by the +genuine author. Why suffer your laurels to be wrested from you by a +stranger?" Thereupon arose the notorious _Commercium Epistolicum_, +in which Wallis, Fatio de Duillier, Collins, and Keill were +perversely active. Melancholy monument of literary and national +jealousy! Weary record of a vain strife! Ideas are no man's property. +As well pretend to ownership of light, or set up a claim to private +estate in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit blows where it lists. Truth +inspires whom it finds. He who knows best to conspire with it has it. +Both philosophers swerved from their native simplicity and nobleness +of soul. Both sinned and were sinned against. Leibnitz did unhandsome +things, but he was sorely tried. His heart told him that the right +of the quarrel was on his side, and the general stupidity would not +see it. The general malice, rejoicing in aspersion of a noble name, +would not see it. The Royal Society would not see it,--nor France, +until long after Leibnitz's death. Sir David Brewster's account of +the matter, according to the German authorities, Gerhardt, Guhrauer, +and others, is one-sided, and sins by _suppressio veri_, ignoring +important documents, particularly Leibnitz's letter to Oldenburg, +August 27, 1676. Gerhardt has published Leibnitz's own history of +the Calculus as a counter-statement. [10] But even from Brewster's +account, as we remember it, (we have it not by us at this writing.) +there is no more reason to doubt that Leibnitz's discovery was +independent of Newton's than that Newton's was independent of +Leibnitz's. The two discoveries, in fact, are not identical; the end +and application are the same, but origin and process differ, and the +German method has long superseded the English. The question in debate +has been settled by supreme authority. Leibnitz has been tried by his +peers. Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and Biot have honorably +acquitted him of plagiarism, and reinstated him in his rights as true +discoverer of the Differential Calculus. + +[Footnote 10: Historia et Oriffo Calculi Differenttalis, a G. G. +LEIBNITIO conscripts.] + +[Transcriber's note: this controversy rages in academia to this day.] + +The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one +predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: +polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger +in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but +the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite another +kind. He was more actor than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at +the instigation of others, or to meet some pressing demand of the +time. Besides occupying himself with mechanical inventions, some of +which (in particular, his improvement of Pascal's Calculating Machine) +were quite famous in their day,--besides his project of a universal +language, and his labors to bring about a union of the churches,-- +besides undertaking the revision of the laws of the German Empire, +superintending the Hanoverian mines, experimenting in the culture of +silk, directing the medical profession, laboring in the promotion of +popular education, establishing academies of science, superintending +royal libraries, ransacking the archives of Germany and Italy to +find documents for his history of the House of Brunswick, a work of +immense research [11],--besides these, and a multitude of similar and +dissimilar avocations, he was deep in politics, German and European, +and was occupied all his life long with political negotiations. He was +a courtier, he was a _diplomat_, was consulted on all difficult +matters of international policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at +Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial +governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult +commissions,--matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and +appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man +would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety +of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary +brain. And to these were added private studies not less multifarious. +"I am distracted beyond all account," he writes to Vincent Placcius. +"I am making extracts from archives, inspecting ancient documents, +hunting up unpublished manuscripts; all this to illustrate the +history of Brunswick. Letters in great number I receive and write. +Then I have so many discoveries in mathematics, so many speculations +in philosophy, so many other literary observations, which I am +desirous of preserving, that I am often at a loss what to take hold +of first, and can fairly sympathize in that saying of Ovid, 'I am +straitened by my abundance.' [12]" + +[Footnote 11: _Annals Imperii Occidents Brunsvicensis_. Leibnitz +succeeded in discovering at Modena the lost traces of that +connection between the lines of Brunswick and Esto which had been +surmised, but not proved.] + +[Footnote 12: "Quam mirifice sim distractus dici non potest. Varia ex +archivis eruo, antiquas chartns inspicio, manuscripta inedita +conquiro. Ex hic lucem dare conor Brunsvicensi historiae. Magno +numero litteras et accipio et dimitto. Habeo vero tam multa nova in +mathematicis, tot cogitationes in philosophicis, tot alias +literarias observationes, quas vellem non perire, ut saepe inter +agenda anceps haeream et prope illud Ovidianum sentiam: _Iniopem me +copia facit_."] + +His diplomatic services are less known at present than his literary +labors, but were not less esteemed in his own day. When Louis XIV., +in 1688, declared war against the German Empire, on the pretence +that the Emperor was meditating an invasion of France, Leibnitz drew +up the imperial manifesto, which repelled the charge and triumphantly +exposed the hollowness of Louis's cause. Another document, prepared +by him at the solicitation, it is supposed, of several of the courts +of Europe, advocating the claims of Charles of Austria to the vacant +throne of Spain, in opposition to the grandson of Louis, and setting +forth the injurious consequences of the policy of the French monarch, +was hailed by his contemporaries as a masterpiece of historical +learning and political wisdom. By his powerful advocacy of the cause +of the Elector of Brandenburg he may be said to have aided the birth +of the kingdom of Prussia, whose existence dates with the +commencement of the last century. In the service of that kingdom he +wrote and published important state-papers; among them, one relating +to a point of contested right to which recent events have given +fresh significance: "Traite: Sommaire du Droit de Frederic I. Roi de +Prusse a la Souverainete de Neufchatel et de Vallengin en Suisse." + +In Vienna, as at Berlin, the services of Leibnitz were subsidized by +the State. By the Peace of Utrecht, the house of Habsburg had been +defeated in its claims to the Spanish throne, and the foreign and +internal affairs of the Austrian government were involved in many +perplexities, which, it was hoped, the philosopher's counsel might +help to untangle. He was often present at the private meetings of +the cabinet, and received from the Emperor the honorable distinction +of Kaiserlicher Hofrath, in addition to that, which had previously +been awarded to him, of Baron of the Empire. The highest post in the +gift of government was open to him, on condition of renouncing his +Protestant faith, which, notwithstanding his tolerant feeling toward +the Roman Church, and the splendid compensations which awaited such +a convertite, he could never be prevailed upon to do. + +A natural, but very remarkable consequence of this manifold activity +and lifelong absorption in public affairs was the failure of so +great a thinker to produce a single systematic and elaborate work +containing a complete and detailed exposition of his philosophical, +and especially his ontological views. For such an exposition +Leibnitz could find at no period of his life the requisite time and +scope. In the vast multitude of his productions there is no complete +philosophic work. The most arduous of his literary labors are +historical compilations, made in the service of the State. Such were +the "History of the House of Brunswick," already mentioned, the +"Accessiones Historiae," the "Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium +Illustrationi inservientes," and the "Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus";-- +works involving an incredible amount of labor and research, but +adding little to his posthumous fame. His philosophical studies, +after entering the Hanoverian service, which he did in his thirtieth +year, were pursued, as he tells his correspondent Placcius, by +stealth,--that is, at odd moments snatched from official duties and +the cares of state. Accordingly, his metaphysical works have all a +fragmentary character. Instead of systematic treatises, they are +loose papers, contributions to journals and magazines, or sketches +prepared for the use of friends. They are all occasional productions, +elicited by some external cause, not prompted by inward necessity. +The "Nouveaux Essais," his most considerable work in that department, +originated in comments on Locke, and was not published until after +his death. The "Monadology" is a series of propositions drawn up for +the use of Prince Eugene, and was never intended to be made public. +And, probably, the "Theodicee" would never have seen the light +except for his cultivated and loved pupil, the Queen of Prussia, for +whose instruction it was designed. + +It is a curious fact, and a good illustration of the state of +letters in Germany at that time, that Leibnitz wrote so little-- +almost nothing of importance--in his native tongue. In Erdmann's +edition of his philosophical works there are only two short essays +in German; the rest are all Latin or French. He had it in +contemplation at one time to establish a philosophical journal in +Berlin, but doubts, in his letter to M. La Croye on the subject, in +what language it should be conducted: "Il y a quelque tems que j'ay +pense a un journal de Savans qu'on pourroit publier a Berlin, mais +je suis un peu en doute sur la langue ... Mais soit qu'on prit le +Latin ou le Francois," [13] etc. It seems never to have occurred to him +that such a journal might be published in German. That language was +then, and for a long time after, regarded by educated Germans very much +as the Russian is regarded at the present day, as the language of vulgar +life, unsuited to learned or polite intercourse. Frederic the Great, +a century later, thought as meanly of its adaptation to literary +purposes as did the contemporaries of Leibnitz. When Gellert, at his +request, repeated to him one of his fables, he expressed his +surprise that anything so clever could be produced in German. It may +be said in apology for this neglect of their native tongue, that the +German scholars of that age would have had a very inadequate audience, +had their communications been confined to that language. Leibnitz +craved and deserved a wider sphere for his thoughts than the use of +the German could give him. It ought, however, to be remembered to +his credit, that, as language in general was one among the +numberless topics he investigated, so the German in particular +engaged at one time his special attention. It was made the subject +of a disquisition, which suggested to the Berlin Academy, in the +next century, the method adopted by that body for the culture and +improvement of the national speech. In this writing, as in all his +German compositions, he manifested a complete command of the language, +and imparted to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncommon in +his day. The German of Leibnitz is less antiquated at this moment +than the English of his contemporary, Locke. + +[Footnote 13: KORTHOLT. _Epistolae ad Diversos_, Vol. I.] + + + +LEIBNITZ'S PHILOSOPHY. + +The interest to us in this extraordinary man--who died at Hanover, +1716, in the midst of his labors and projects--turns mainly on his +speculative philosophy. It was only as an incidental pursuit that he +occupied himself with metaphysic; yet no philosopher since Aristotle-- +with whom, though claiming to be more Platonic than Aristotelian, he +has much in common--has furnished more luminous hints to the +elucidation of metaphysical problems. The problems he attempted were +those which concern the most inscrutable, but, to the genuine +metaphysician, most fascinating of all topics, the nature of +substance, matter and spirit, absolute being,--in a word, +_Ontology_. This department of metaphysic, the most interesting, +and, _agonistically_ [14], the most important branch of that study, +has been deliberately, purposely, and, with one or two exceptions, +uniformly avoided by the English metaphysicians so-called, with +Locke at their head, and equally by their Scottish successors, until +the recent "Institutes" of the witty Professor of St. Andrew's. +Locke's "Essay concerning the Human Understanding," a century and +a half ago, diverted the English mind from metaphysic proper into +what is commonly called Psychology, but ought, of right, to be termed +_Nooelogy_, or "Philosophy of the Human Mind," as Dugald Stewart +entitled his treatise. This is the study which has usually taken the +place of metaphysic at Cambridge and other colleges,--the science that +professes to show "how ideas enter the mind"; which, considering the +rareness of the occurrence with the mass of mankind, we cannot +regard as a very practical inquiry. We well remember our +disappointment, when, at the usual stage in the college curriculum, +we were promised "metaphysics" and were set to grind in Stewart's +profitless mill, where so few problems of either practical or +theoretical importance are brought to the hopper, and where, in fact, +the object is rather to show how the upper mill-stone revolves upon +the nether, (reflection upon sensation,) and how the grist is +conveyed to the feeder, than to realize actual metaphysical flour. + +[Footnote 14: That is, as a discipline of the faculties,--the chief +benefit to be derived from any kind of metaphysical study.] + +Locke's reason for repudiating ontology is the alleged impossibility +of arriving at truth in that pursuit,--"of finding satisfaction in +a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concern us, whilst +we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of being." [15] +Unfortunately, however, as Kant has shown, the results of nooelogical +inquiry are just as questionable as those of ontology, whilst the +topics on which it is employed are of far inferior moment. If, as +Locke intimates, we can know nothing of being without first +analyzing the understanding, it is equally sure that we can know +nothing of the understanding except in union with and in action on +being. And excepting his own fundamental position concerning the +sensuous origin of our ideas,--to which few, since Kant, will assent,-- +there is hardly a theorem, in all the writings of this school, of +prime and vital significance. The school is tartly, but aptly, +characterized by Professor Ferrier: "Would people inquire directly +into the laws of thought and of knowledge by merely looking to +knowledge or to thought itself, without attending to what is known +or what is thought of? Psychology usually goes to work in this +abstract fashion; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,--as +hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits of old were +wont to typify any particularly fruitless undertaking,--namely, the +operation of milking a he-goat into a sieve. No milk comes, in the +first place, and even that the sieve will not retain! There is a loss +of nothing twice over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no +milk in the first place; and, in the second place, he loses it, +like the man holding the sieve.... Our Scottish philosophy, in +particular, has presented a spectacle of this description. Reid +obtained no result, owing to the abstract nature of his inquiry, and +the nothingness of his system has escaped through all the sieves of +his successors." [16] + +[Footnote 15: _Essay_, Book I. Chap. 1, Sect. 7.] + +[Footnote 16: _Institutes of Metaphysic_, p. 301.] + +Leibnitz's metaphysical speculations are scattered through a wide +variety of writings, many of which are letters to his contemporaries. +These Professor Erdmann has incorporated in his edition of the +Philosophical Works. Beside these we may mention, as particularly +deserving of notice, the "Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et +Ideis", the "Systeme Nouveau de la Nature", "De Primae Philosophiae +Emendatione et de Notione Substantiae", "Reflexions sur l'Essai de +l'Entendement humain", "De Rerum Originatione Radicali", "De ipsa +Natura", "Considerations sur la Doctrine d'un Esprit universel", +"Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement humain", "Considerations sur le +Principe de Vie". To these we must add the "Theodicee" (though more +theological than metaphysical) and the "Monadologie", the most +compact philosophical treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note, +that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and accidental way he +did, he not only wrote with unexampled clearness on matters the most +abstruse, but never, that we are aware, in all the variety of his +communications, extending over so many years, contradicted himself. +No philosopher is more intelligible, none more consequent. + +In philosophy, Leibnitz was a _Realist_. We use that term in the +modern, not in the scholastic sense. In the scholastic sense, as we +have seen, he was not a Realist, but, from childhood up, a Nominalist. +But the Realism of the schools has less affinity with the Realism +than with the Idealism of the present day. + +His opinions must be studied in connection with those of his +contemporaries. + +Des Cartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz, the four most +distinguished philosophers of the seventeenth century, represent +four widely different and cardinal tendencies in philosophy: Dualism, +Idealism, Sensualism, and Realism. + +Des Cartes perceived the incompatibility of the two primary +qualities of being, thought and extension, as attributes of one and +the same (created) substance. He therefore postulated two (created) +substances,--one characterized by thought without extension, the +other by extension without thought. These two are so alien and so +incongruous, that neither can influence the other, or determine the +other, or any way relate with the other, except by direct mediation +of Deity. (The doctrine of Occasional Causes.) This is Dualism,-- +that sharp and rigorous antithesis of mind and matter, which Des +Cartes, if he did not originate it, was the first to develop into +philosophic significance, and which ever since has been the +prevailing ontology of the Western world. So deeply has the thought +of that master mind inwrought itself into the very consciousness of +humanity! + +Spinoza saw, that, if God alone can bring mind and matter together +and effect a relation between them, it follows that mind and matter, +or their attributes, however contrary, do meet in Deity; and if so, +what need of three distinct natures? What need of two substances +beside God, as subjects of these attributes? Retain the middle term +and drop the extremes and you have the Spinozan doctrine of one +(uncreated) substance, combining the attributes of thought and +extension. This is Pantheism, or _objective_ idealism, as +distinguished from the _subjective_ idealism of Fichte. Strange, +that the stigma of atheism should have been affixed to a system +whose very starting-point is Deity and whose great characteristic is +the _ignoration_ of everything but Deity, insomuch that the pure and +devout Novalis pronounced the author a God-drunken man, and +Spinozism a surfeit of Deity. [17] + +[Footnote 17: Let us not be misunderstood. Pantheism is not Theism, and +the one substance of Spinoza is very unlike the one God of theology; +but neither is the doctrine Atheism in any legitimate sense.] + +Naturally enough, the charge of atheism comes from the unbelieving +Bayle, whose omnivorous mind, like the anaconda, assisted its +enormous deglutition with a poisonous saliva of its own, and whose +negative temper makes the "Dictionnaire Historique" more _Morgue_ +than _Valhalla_. + +Locke, who combined in a strange union strong religious faith with +philosophic unbelief, turned aside, as we have seen, from the +questions which had occupied his predecessors; knew little and cared +less about substance and accident, matter and spirit; but set +himself to investigate the nature of the organ itself by which truth +is apprehended. In this investigation he began by emptying the mind +of all native elements of knowledge. He repudiated any supposed +dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored +to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal +experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which +it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; +the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by +Condillac, [18] in the next century. But the same method may lead, as +in the case of Berkeley, to immaterialism, falsely called idealism. +Or it may lead, as in the case of Helveticus, to materialism. Locke +himself would probably have landed in materialism, had he followed +freely the bent of his own thought, without the restraints of a +cautious temper, and respect for the common and traditional opinion +of his time. The "Essay" discovers an unmistakable leaning in that +direction; as where the author supposes, "We shall never be able to +know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible +for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, +to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter +fitly disposed a power to perceive and think;... it being, in respect +of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive +that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, +than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty +of thinking, since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what +sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, +which cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure +and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that +the first thinking eternal Being should, if he pleased, give to +certain systems of created, senseless matter, put together as he +thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought." With +such notions of the nature of thought, as a kind of mechanical +contrivance, that can be conferred outright by an arbitrary act of +Deity, and attached to one nature as well as another, it is evident +that Locke could have had no idea of spirit as conceived by +metaphysicians,--or no belief in that idea, if conceived. And with +such conceptions of Deity and Divine operations, as consisting in +absolute power dissociated from absolute reason, one would not be +surprised to find him asserting, that God, if he pleased, might make +two and two to be one, instead of four,--that mathematical laws are +arbitrary determinations of the Supreme Will,--that a thing is true +only as God wills it to be so,--in fine, that there is no such thing +as absolute truth. The resort to "Omnipotency" in such matters is +more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, +instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination--"[Greek: Doz +d' etelevto Bonlae]"--is a maxim which settles all difficulties. +But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with this +universal solvent at hand? + +[Footnote 18: _Essai sur l'Origine du Connaissances humaines_. Book +IV. Chap. 3, Sect. 6.] + +The "contradiction" which Locke could not see was clearly seen and +keenly felt by Leibnitz. The arbitrary will of God, to him, was no +solution. He believed in necessary truths independent of the Supreme +Will; in other words, he believed that the Supreme Will is but the +organ of the Supreme Reason: "Il ne faut point s'imaginer, que les +verites eternelles, etant dependantes de Dieu, sont arbitrages et +dependent de sa volonte." He felt, with Des Cartes, the incompatibility +of thought with extension, considered as an immanent quality of +substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific propensity which +distinguishes the higher order of philosophic minds. Dualism was an +offence to him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza in his +vivid sense of individuality, of personality. The pantheistic idea +of a single, sole being, of which all other beings are mere +modalities, was also and equally an offence to him. He saw well the +illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a universe as Spinoza dreamed. +He saw it to be a vain imagination, a dream-world, "without form and +void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The philosophy of Leibnitz +is equally remote from that of Des Cartes on the one hand, and from +that of Spinoza on the other. He diverges from the former on the +question of substance, which Des Cartes conceived as consisting of +two kinds, one active (thinking) and one passive (extended), but +which Leibnitz conceives to be all and only active. He explodes +Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of matter and spirit by +positing extension as a continuous act instead of a passive mode, +substance as an active force instead of an inert mass,--matter as +substance appearing, communicating,--as the necessary band and +relation of spirits among themselves. [19] + +[Footnote 19: The following passages may serve as illustrations of +these positions:-- + +"Materia habet de so actum entitativum."--_De Princip. Indiv_. +Coroll. I. + +"Dicam interim notionem virium seu virtutis, (quam Germani vocant +_Kraft_, Galli, _la force_,) cui ego explicandae peculiarem +Dynamices scientiam destinavi, plurimum lucis afferre ad veram +notionem substantiae intelligendam."--_De Primae Philosoph. Emendat, +et de Notione Substantiae_. + +"Corpus ergo est agens extensum; dici poterit esse substantiam +extensam, modo teneatur omnem substantiam _agere, at omne agens +substantiam_ appellari." "Patebit non tantum mentes, sed etiam +substantiae omnes in loco, non nisi per _operationem_ esse."-- +_De Vera Method. Phil. et Theol_. + +"Extensionem concipere ut absolutum ex eo forte oritur quod spatium +concipimus per modum substantiae"--_Ad Des Bosses Ep_. XXIX. + +"Car l'etendue ne signifie qu'une repetition ou multiplicite continuee +de ce qui est repandu."--_Extrait d'une Lettre_, etc. + +"Et l'on peut dire que Petunduc est en quelque facon a l'espace +comme la duree est au tems."--_Exam. des Principes de Malebranche_. + +"La nature de la substance consistant a mon avis dans cette tendance +reglee de laquelle les phenomenes naissent par ordre."--_Lettre a +M. Bayle_. + +"Car rien n'a mieux marque la substance que la puissance d'agir."-- +_Reponse aux Objections du P. Lami_. + +"S'il n'y avait que des esprits, ils seraient sans la liaison +necessaire, sans l'ordre des tems et des lieux."--_Theod_. Sect. 120.] + +He parts company with Spinoza on the question of individuality. +Substance is homogeneous; but substances, or beings, are infinite. +Spinoza looked upon the universe and saw in it the undivided +background on which the objects of human consciousness are painted +as momentary pictures. Leibnitz looked and saw that background, like +the background of one of Raphael's Madonnas, instinct with +individual life, and swarming with intelligences which look out from +every point of space. Leibnitz's universe is composed of Monads, +that is, units, individual substances, or entities, having neither +extension, parts, nor figure, and, of course, indivisible. These are +"the veritable atoms of nature, the elements of things." + +The Monad is unformed and imperishable; it has no natural end or +beginning. It could begin to be only by creation; it can cease to be +only by annihilation. It cannot be affected from without or changed +in its interior by any other creature. Still, it must have qualities, +without which it would not be an entity. And monads must differ one +from another, or there would be no changes in our experience; since +all that takes place in compound bodies is derived from the simples +which compose them. Moreover, the monad, though uninfluenced from +without, is changing continually; the change proceeds from an +internal principle. Every monad is subject to a multitude of +affections and relations, although without parts. This shifting state, +which represents multitude in unity, is nothing else than what we +call _Perception_, which must be carefully distinguished from +_Apperception_, or consciousness. And the action of the internal +principle which causes change in the monad, or a passing from one +perception to another, is _Appetition_. The desire does not always +attain to the perception to which it tends, but it always effects +something, and causes a change of perceptions. + +Leibnitz differs from Locke in maintaining that perception is +inexplicable and inconceivable on mechanical principles. It is +always the act of a simple substance, never of a compound. And +"in simple substances there is nothing but perceptions and their +changes." [20] + +[Footnote 20: _Menadol_. 17.] + +He differs from Locke, furthermore, on the question of the origin of +ideas. This question, he says, "is not a preliminary one in +philosophy, and one must have made great progress to be able to +grapple successfully with it."--"Meanwhile, I think I may say, that +our ideas, even those of sensible objects, _viennent de notre propre +fond_... I am by no means for the _tabula rasa_ of Aristotle; on the +contrary, there is to me something rational (_quelque chose de solide_) +in what Plato called _reminiscence_. Nay, more than that, we have +not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts, but we have also a +_presentiment_ of all our thoughts." [21] + +[Footnote 21: _Reflexions sur l'Essai de l'Entendement humain_.] + +Mr. Lewes, in his "Biographical History of Philosophy," speaks of +the essay from which these words are quoted, as written in "a +somewhat supercilious tone." We are unable to detect any such +feature in it. That trait was wholly foreign from Leibnitz's nature. +"Car je suis des plus dociles," he says of himself, in this same +essay. He was the most tolerant of philosophers. "Je ne meprise +presque rien."--"Nemo est ingenio minus quam ego censorio."-- +"Mirum dictu: probo pleraque quae lego."--"Non admodum refutationes +quaerere aut legere soleo." + +To return to the monads. Each monad, according to Leibnitz, is, +properly speaking, a soul, inasmuch as each is endowed with +perception. But in order to distinguish those which have only +perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will +call the latter _souls_, the former _monads_ or _entelechies_. [22] + +[Footnote 22: _Entelechy_ ([Greek: entelechia]) is an Aristotelian term, +signifying activity, or more properly perhaps, self action. Leibnitz +understands by it something complete in itself ([Greek: echon to +enteles]). Mr. Butler, in his _History of Ancient Philosophy_, +lately reprinted in this country, translates it "act." _Function_, we +think would be a better rendering. (See W. Archer Butler's _Lectures_, +Last Series, Lect. 2.) Aristotle uses the word as a definition of the +soul. "The soul," he says, "is the first entelechy of an active body."] + +The naked monad, he says, has perceptions without relief, or +"enhanced flavor"; it is in a state of stupor. Death, he thinks, may +produce this state for a time in animals. The monads completely fill +the world; there is never and nowhere a void, and never complete +inanimateness and inertness. The universe is a _plenum_ of souls. +Wherever we behold an organic whole, (_unum per se_,) there monads +are grouped around a central monad to which they are subordinate, +and which they are constrained to serve so long as that connection +lasts. Masses of inorganic matter are aggregations of monads without +a regent, or sentient soul (_unum per accidens_). There can be no +monad without matter, that is, without society, and no soul without +a body. Not only the human soul is indestructible and immortal, but +also the animal soul. There is no generation out of nothing, and no +absolute death. Birth is expansion, development, growth; and death +is contraction, envelopment, decrease. The monads which are destined +to become human souls have existed from the beginning in organic +matter, but only as sentient or animal souls, without reason. They +remain in this condition until the generation of the human beings to +which they belong, and then develope themselves into rational souls. +The different organs and members of the body are also relatively +souls which collect around them a number of monads for a specific +purpose, and so on _ad infinitum_. Matter is not only infinitely +divisible, but infinitely divided. All matter (so called) is living +and active. "Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of +plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, +each member of each animal, each drop of their humors, is in turn +another such garden or pond." [23] + +[Footnote 23: _Monadol._ 67.] + +The connection between monads, consequently the connection between +soul and body, is not composition, but an organic relation,--in some +sort, a spontaneous relation. The soul forms its own body, and +moulds it to its purpose. This hypothesis was afterward embraced and +developed as a physiological principle by Stahl. As all the atoms in +one body are organically related, so all the beings in the universe +are organically related to each other and to the All. One creature, +or one organ of a creature, being given, there is given with it the +world's history from the beginning to the end. _All bodies are +strictly fluid; the universe is in flux_. + +The principle of continuity answers the same purpose in Leibnitz's +system that the single substance does in Spinoza's. It vindicates +the essential unity of all being. Yet the two conceptions are +immeasurably different, and constitute an immeasurable difference +between the two systems, considered in their practical and moral +bearings, as well as their ontological aspects. Spinoza [24] +starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-One, from which +there is no logical deduction of the individual. And in Spinoza's +system the individual does not exist except as a modality. But the +existence of the individual is one of the primordial truths of the +human mind, the foremost fact of consciousness. With this, therefore, +Leibnitz begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the Absolute +and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he begins, in pantheism; the moral +result of his system, Godward, is fatalism,--manward, indifferentism +and negation of moral good and evil. Leibnitz ends in theism; the +moral result of his system, Godward, is optimism,--manward, liberty, +personal responsibility, moral obligation. + +[Footnote 24: See Helferich's _Spinoza, und Leibnitz_, p. 76.] + +He demonstrates the being of God by the necessity of a sufficient +reason to account for the series of things. Each finite thing +requires an antecedent or contingent cause. But the supposition of +an endless sequence of contingent causes, or finite things, is absurd; +the series must have had a beginning, and that beginning cannot have +been a contingent cause or finite thing. "The final reason of things +must be found in a necessary substance in which the detail of +changes exists eminently, (_ne soit qu'eminemment_,) as in its source; +and this is what we call God." [25] + +[Footnote 25: _Monadol_. 38.] + +The idea of God is of such a nature, that the being corresponding to +it, if possible, must be actual. We have the idea; it involves no +bounds, no negation, consequently no contradiction. It is the idea +of a possible, therefore of an actual. + +"God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Substance of +which all the creatures, or original monads, are the products, and +_are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations from moment +to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature_, of whose +existence limitation is an essential condition." [26] + +[Footnote 26: Ib. 47.] + +The philosophic theologian and the Christianizing philosopher will +rejoice to find in this proposition a point of reconciliation between +the extramundane God of pure theism and the cardinal principle of +Spinozism, the immanence of Deity in creation,--a principle as dear +to the philosophic mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to +the theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-existent unit, +divine in itself, but with no Divinity behind it. That of Leibnitz +is an endless series of units from a self-existent and divine source. +The one is an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood. + +The doctrine of the _Preestablished Harmony_, so intimately and +universally associated with the name of Leibnitz, has found little +favor with his critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach calls +it his weak side, and thinks that Leibnitz's philosophy, else so +profound, was here, as in other instances, overshadowed by the +popular creed; that he accommodated himself to theology, as a highly +cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his superiority, +accommodates himself to a lady in his conversation with her, +translating his ideas into her language, and even paraphrasing them. +From this view of Leibnitz, as implying insincerity, we utterly +dissent. [27] + +[Footnote 27: See, in connection with this point, two admirable essays +by Lessing,--the one entitled _Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment_, the +other _Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the +Trinity_. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's _Defensio +Trinitatis_. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has +expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and +vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.] + +The author of the "Theodicee" was not more interested in philosophy +than he was in theology. His thoughts and his purpose did equal +justice to both. The deepest wish of his heart was to reconcile them, +not by formal treaty, but in loving and condign union. We do not, +however, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the doctrine +in question; and we quite agree with Feuerbach that the phrase +_preetablie_ does not express a metaphysical determination. +It is one thing to say, that God, by an arbitrary decree from +everlasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every motion in the +world of matter that each volition of a rational agent finds in the +constant procession of physical forces a concurrent event by which it +is executed, but which would have taken place without his volition, +just as the mail-coach takes our letter, if we have one, but goes +all the same, when we do not write,--this is the gross, exoteric +view,--and a very different thing it is to say, that the monads +composing the human system and the universe of things are so related, +adjusted, accommodated to each other, and to the whole, each being a +representative of all the rest and a mirror of the universe, that each +feels all that passes in the rest, and all conspire in every act, [28] +more or less effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the prime +agent. This is Leibnitz's idea of preestablished harmony, which, +perhaps, would be better expressed by the term "necessary consent." +"In the ideas of God, each monad has a right to demand that God, in +regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have +regard to it; for since a created monad can have no physical +influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that +one can be dependent on another."--"The soul follows its own laws +and the body follows its own, and they meet in virtue of the +preestablished harmony which exists between all substances, as +representatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according to +the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc. Bodies act according to +the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. And the two +kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, +harmonize with each other." [29] + +[Footnote 28: In this connection, Leibnitz quotes the remarkable +saying of Hippocrates, [_Greek: Sumpnoia panta_]. The universe +breathes together, conspires.--_Monadal_. 61.] + +[Footnote 29: _Monadol_. 78, 79.] + +The Preestablished Harmony, then, is to be regarded as the +philosophic statement of a fact, and not as a theory concerning the +cause of the fact. But, like all philosophic and adequate statements, +it answers the purpose of a theory, and clears up many difficulties. +It is the best solution we know of the old contradiction of +free-will and fate,--individual liberty and a necessary world. This +antithesis disappears in the light of the Leibnitian philosophy, +which resolves freedom and necessity into different points of +view and different stages of development. The principle of the +Preestablished Harmony was designed by Leibnitz to meet the +difficulty, started by Des Cartes, of explaining the conformity between +the perceptions of the mind and the corresponding affections of the +body, since mind and matter, in his view, could have no connection +with, or influence on each other. The Cartesians explained this +correspondence by the theory of _occasional causes_, that is, by +the intervention of the Deity, who was supposed by his arbitrary will to +have decreed a certain perception or sensation in the mind to go +with a certain affection of the body, with which, however, it had no +real connection. "Car il" (that is, M. Bayle) "est persuade avec les +Cartesiens modernes, que les idees des qualites sensibles que Dieu +donne, selon eux, a l'ame, a l'occasion des mouvemens du corps, +n'ont rien qui represente ces mouvemens, ou qui leur ressemble; de +sorte qu'il etoit purement arbitraire que Dieu nous donnat les idees +de la chaleur, du froid, de la lumiere et autres que nous +experimentons, ou qu'il nous en donnat de tout-autres a cette meme +occasion." [30] + +[Footnote 30: _Theodicee_. Partie II. 340.] + +If the body was exposed to the flame, there was no more reason, +according to this theory, why the soul should be conscious of pain +than of pleasure, except that God had so ordained. Such a supposition +was shocking to our philosopher, who could tolerate no arbitrariness +in God and no gap or discrepancy in nature, and who, therefore, +sought to explain, by the nature of the soul itself and its kindred +monads, the correspondence for which so violent an hypothesis was +embraced by the Cartesians. + +We have left ourselves no room to speak as we would of Leibnitz as +theosopher. It was in this character that he obtained, in the last +century, his widest fame. The work by which he is most commonly known, +by which alone he is known to many, is the "Theodicee,"--an attempt +to vindicate the goodness of God against the cavils of unbelievers. +He was one of the first to apply to this end the cardinal principle +of the Lutheran Reformation,--the liberty of reason. He was one of +the first to treat unbelief, from the side of religion, as an error +of judgment, not as rebellion against rightful authority. The latter +was and is the Romanist view. The former is the Protestant theory, +but was not then, and is not always now, the Protestant practice. +Theology then was not concerned to vindicate the reason or the +goodness of God. It gloried in his physical strength by which he +would finally crush dissenters from orthodoxy. Leibnitz knew no +authority independent of Reason, and no God but the Supreme Reason +directing Almighty Good-will. The philosophic conclusion justly +deducible from this view of God, let cavillers say what they will, +is Optimism. Accordingly, Optimism, or the doctrine of the best +possible world, is the theory of the "Theodicee." Our limits will +not permit us to analyze the argument of this remarkable work. Bunsen +says, "It necessarily failed because it was a not quite honest +compound of speculation and divinity." [31] + +[Footnote 31: _Outlines of the Philos. of Univ. Hist_. Vol. I. Chap. 6.] + +Few at the present day will pretend to be entirely satisfied with +its reasoning, but all who are familiar with it know it to be a +treasury of wise and profound thoughts and of noble sentiments and +aspirations. Bonnet, the naturalist, called it his "Manual of +Christian Philosophy"; and Fontenelle, in his eulogy, speaks +enthusiastically of its luminous and sublime views, of its reasonings, +in which the mind of the geometer is always apparent, of its perfect +fairness toward those whom it controverts, and its rich store of +anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was _not_ familiar with +it, and who, as might be expected, strangely misconceives and +misrepresents the author, is compelled to echo the general sentiment. +He pronounces it a work in which are combined together in an +extraordinary degree "the acuteness of the logician, the imagination +of the poet, and the _impenetrable yet sublime darkness_ of the +metaphysical theologian." The Italics are ours. Our reason for +doubting Stewart's familiarity with the "Theodicee," and with +Leibnitz in general, is derived in part from these phrases. We do +not believe that any sincere student of Leibnitz has found him dark +and impenetrable. Be it a merit or a fault, this predicate is +inapplicable. Never was metaphysician more explicit and more +intelligible. Had he been disposed to mysticize and to shroud +himself in "impenetrable darkness," he would have found it difficult +to indulge that propensity in French. Thanks to the strict regime +and happy limitations of that idiom, the French is not a language in +which philosophy can hide itself. It is a tight-fitting coat, which +shows the exact form, or want of form, of the thought it clothes, +without pad or fold to simulate fulness or to veil defects. It was a +Frenchman, we are aware, who discovered that "the use of language is +to conceal thought"; but that use, so far as French is concerned, +has been hitherto monopolized by diplomacy. + +Another reason for questioning Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz +is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to +ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is +strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. +Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of +Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which he +uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism." [32] + +[Footnote 32: _General View of the Prog. of Metaph. Eth. and Polit. +Phil_. Boston: 1822. p. 75.] + +Now it happens that "the zeal of Leibnitz" was exerted in precisely +the opposite direction. A considerable section of the "Theodicee" +(34-75) is occupied with the illustration and defence of the Freedom +of the Will. It was a doctrine on which he laid great stress, and +which forms an essential part of his system; [33] in proof of which, +let one declaration stand for many: "Je suis d'opinion que notre +volonte n'est pas seulement exempte de la contrainte, mais encore +de la necessite." How far he succeeded in establishing that doctrine +in accordance with the rest of his system is another question. +That he believed it and taught it is a fact of which there can be +no more doubt with those who have studied his writings, than there +is that he wrote the works ascribed to him. But the freedom of will +maintained by Leibnitz was not indeterminism. It was not the +indifference of the tongue of the balance between equal weights, +or that of the ass between equal bundles of hay. Such an +equilibrium he declares impossible. "Cet equilibre en tout sens +est impossible." Buridan's imaginary case of the ass is a fiction +"qui ne sauroit avoir lieu dans l'univers." [34] + +[Footnote 33: "Numquam Leibnitio in mentem venisse libertatem velle +evertere, in qua defendenda quam maxime fuit occupatus, omnia scripta, +precipue autem Theodicaea ejus, clamitant."--KORTHOLT, Vol. IV. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 34: Leibnitz seems to have been of the same mind with +Dante:-- + + "Intra duo cibi distanti e moventi + D' un modo, prima si morria di fame + Che liber' uomo l'un recasse a' denti." + _Parad_, iv. 1.] + +The will is always determined by motives, but not necessarily +constrained by them. This is his doctrine, emphatically stated and +zealously maintained. We doubt if any philosopher, equally profound +and equally sincere, will ever find room in his conclusions for a +greater measure of moral liberty than the "Theodicee" has conceded +to man. "In respect to this matter," says Arthur Schopenhauer, +"the great thinkers of all times are agreed and decided, just as +surely as the mass of mankind will never see and comprehend the +great truth, that the practical operation of liberty is not to be +sought in single acts, but in the being and nature of man." [35] + +[Footnote 35: _Ueber den Willen in der Natur_. FRANKFURT A.M. 1854. +p. 22.] + +Leibnitz's construction of the idea of a possible liberty consistent +with the preestablished order of the universe is substantially that +of Schelling in his celebrated essay on this subject. We must not +dwell upon it, but hasten to conclude our imperfect sketch. + +The ground-idea of the "Theodicee" is expressed in the phrase, +"Best-possible world." Evil is a necessary condition of finite being, +but the end of creation is the realization of the greatest possible +perfection within the limits of the finite. The existing universe is +one of innumerable possible universes, each of which, if actualized, +would have had a different measure of good and evil. The present, +rather than any other, was made actual, as presenting to Divine +Intelligence the smallest measure of evil and the greatest amount of +good. This idea is happily embodied in the closing apologue, designed +to supplement one of Laurentius Valla, a writer of the fifteenth +century. Theodorus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that god +has permitted to Sextus the evil will which was destined to bring so +much misery on himself and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter +Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to lie down in the temple of +Pallas, and is there visited with a dream. The vision takes him to +the Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all possible +worlds. He examines one plan after another; in each the same Sextus +plays a different part and experiences a different fate. The plans +improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon one whose +superior excellence enchants him with delight. After revelling awhile +in the contemplation of this perfect world, he is told that this is +the actual world in which he lives. But in this the crime of Sextus +is a necessary constituent; it could not be what it is as a whole, +were it other than it is in its single parts. + +Whatever may be thought of Leibnitz's success in demonstrating his +favorite doctrine, the theory of Optimism commends itself to piety +and reason as that view of human and divine things which most +redounds to the glory of God and best expresses the hope of man,--as +the noblest and _therefore_ the truest theory of Divine rule and +human destiny. + +We recall at this moment but one English writer of supreme mark who +has held and promulged, in its fullest extent, the theory of Optimism. +That one is a poet. The "Essay on Man," with one or two exceptions, +might almost pass for a paraphrase of the "Theodicee"; and Pope, +with characteristic vigor, has concentrated the meaning of that +treatise in one word, which is none the less true, in the sense +intended, because of its possible perversion,--"Whatever is, is right." + + * * * * * + + + + +LOO LOO. + +A FEW SCENES FROM A TRUE HISTORY. [Concluded.] + + +SCENE IV. + +They had lived thus nearly a year, when, one day as they were riding +on horseback, Alfred saw Mr. Grossman approaching. "Drop your veil," +he said, quickly, to his companion; for he could not bear to have +that Satyr even look upon his hidden flower. The cotton-broker +noticed the action, but silently touched his hat, and passed with a +significant smile on his uncomely countenance. A few days afterward, +when Alfred had gone to his business in the city, Loo Loo strolled +to her favorite recess on the hill-side, and, lounging on the rustic +seat, began to read the second volume of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She +was so deeply interested in the adventures of the noble Pole, that +she forgot herself and all her surroundings. Masses of glossy dark +hair fell over the delicate hand that supported her head; her +morning-gown, of pink French muslin, fell apart, and revealed a +white embroidered skirt, from beneath which obtruded one small foot, +in an open-work silk stocking; the slipper having fallen to the +ground. Thus absorbed, she took no note of time, and might have +remained until summoned to dinner, had not a slight rustling +disturbed her. She looked up, and saw a coarse face peering at her +between the pine boughs, with a most disgusting expression. She at +once recognized the man they had met during their ride; and starting +to her feet, she ran like a deer before the hunter. It was not till +she came near the house, that she was aware of having left her +slipper. A servant was sent for it, but returned, saying it was not +to be found. She mourned over the loss, for the little pink kid +slippers, embroidered with silver, were a birth-day present from +Alfred. As soon as he returned, she told him the adventure, and went +with him to search the arbor of pines. The incident troubled him +greatly. "What a noxious serpent, to come crawling into our Eden!" +he exclaimed. "Never come here alone again, dearest; and never go +far from the house, unless Madame is with you." + +Her circle of enjoyments was already small, excluded as she was from +society by her anomalous position, and educated far above the caste +in which the tyranny of law and custom so absurdly placed her. But +it is one of the blessed laws of compensation, that the human soul +cannot miss that to which it has never been accustomed. Madame's +motherly care, and Alfred's unvarying tenderness, sufficed her +cravings for affection; and for amusement, she took refuge in books, +flowers, birds, and those changes of natural scenery for which her +lover had such quickness of eye. It was a privation to give up her +solitary rambles in the grounds, her inspection of birds' nests, and +her readings in that pleasant alcove of pines. But she more than +acquiesced in Alfred's prohibition. She said at once, that she would +rather be a prisoner within the house all her days than ever see +that odious face again. + +Mr. Noble encountered the cotton-broker, in the way of business, a +few days afterward; but his aversion to the unclean conversation of +the man induced him to conceal his vexation under the veil of common +courtesy. He knew what sort of remarks any remonstrance would elicit, +and he shrank from subjecting Loo Loo's name to such pollution. For a +short time, this prudent reserve shielded him from the attacks he +dreaded. But Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the +sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously +intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered +slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, +"I reckon you have seen this before, Mr. Noble." + +Alfred felt an impulse to seize him by the throat, and strangle him +on the spot. But why should he make a scene with such a man, and +thus drag Loo Loo's name into painful notoriety? The old _roue_ was +evidently trying to foment a quarrel with him. Thoroughly animal in +every department of his nature, he was boastful of brute courage, +and prided himself upon having killed several men in duels. Alfred +conjectured his line of policy, and resolved to frustrate it. He +therefore coolly replied, "I have seen such slippers; they are very +pretty"; and turned away, as if the subject were indifferent to him. + +"Coward!" muttered Grossman, as he left the counting-house. Mr. Noble +did not hear him; and if he had, it would not have altered his course. +He could see nothing enviable in the reputation of being ever ready +for brawls, and a dead-shot in duels; and he knew that his life was +too important to the friendless Loo Loo to be thus foolishly risked +for the gratification of a villain. This incident renewed his old +feelings of remorse for the false position in which he had placed the +young orphan, who trusted him so entirely. To his generous nature, +the wrong seemed all the greater because the object was so +unconscious of it. "It is I who have subjected her to the insolence +of this vile man," he said within himself. "But I will repair the +wrong. Innocent, confiding soul that she is, I will protect her. The +sanction of marriage shall shield her from such affronts." + +Alas for poor human nature! He was sincere in these resolutions, but +he was not quite strong enough to face the prejudices of the society +in which he lived. Their sneers would have fallen harmless. They +could not take from him a single thing he really valued. But he had +not learned to understand that the dreaded power of public opinion +is purely fabulous, when unsustained by the voice of conscience. So +he fell into the old snare of moral compromise. He thought the best +he could do, under the circumstances, was to hasten the period of +his departure for the North, to marry Loo Loo in Philadelphia, and +remove to some part of the country where her private history would +remain unknown. + +To make money for this purpose, he had more and more extended +his speculations, and they had uniformly proved profitable. If +Mr. Grossman's offensive conduct had not forced upon him a painful +consciousness of his position with regard to the object of his +devoted affection, he would have liked to remain in Mobile a few +years longer, and accumulate more; but, as it was, he determined to +remove as soon as he could arrange his affairs satisfactorily. He +set about this in good earnest. But, alas! the great pecuniary crash +of 1837 was at hand. By every mail came news of failures where he +expected payments. The wealth, which seemed so certain a fact a few +months before, where had it vanished? It had floated away, like a +prismatic bubble on the breeze. He saw that his ruin was inevitable. +All he owned in the world would not cancel his debts. And now he +recalled the horrible recollection that Loo Loo was a part of his +property. Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not +manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare. In the +fulness of his prosperity and happiness, he did not comprehend the +risk he was running by delay. He rarely thought of the fact that she +was legally his slave; and when it did occur to him, it was always +accompanied with the recollection that the laws of Alabama did not +allow him to emancipate her without sending her away from the State. +But this never troubled him, because there was always present with +him that vision of going to the North and making her his wife. So +time slipped away, without his taking any precautions on the subject; +and now it was too late. Immersed in debt as he was, the law did not +allow him to dispose of anything without consent of creditors; and he +owed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Grossman. Oh, agony! sharp agony! + +There was a meeting of the creditors. Mr. Noble rendered an account +of all his property, in which he was compelled to include Loo Loo; +but for her he offered to give a note for fifteen hundred dollars, +with good endorsement, payable with interest in a year. It was known +that his attachment to the orphan he had educated amounted almost to +infatuation; and his proverbial integrity inspired so much respect, +that the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not +incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the +proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl +should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant +condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between +them was very different from the merely convenient connections which +were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and modest, and so +sensitive by nature, that exposure to public sale would nearly kill +her. The selfish creditor remained inexorable. The very fact that +this delicate flower had been so carefully sheltered from the mud +and dust of the wayside rendered her a more desirable prize. He +coolly declared, that ever since he had seen her in the arbor, he +had been determined to have her; and now that fortune had put the +chance in his power, no money should induce him to relinquish it. + +The sale was inevitable; and the only remaining hope was that some +friend might be induced to buy her. There was a gentleman in the +city whom I will call Frank Helper. He was a Kentuckian by birth, +kind and open-hearted,--a slave-holder by habit, not by nature. Warm +feelings of regard had long existed between him and Mr. Noble; and to +him the broken merchant applied for advice in this torturing +emergency. Though Mr. Helper was possessed of but moderate wealth, +he had originally agreed to endorse his friend's note for fifteen +hundred dollars; and he now promised to empower some one to expend +three thousand dollars in the purchase of Loo Loo. + +"It is not likely that we shall be obliged to pay so much," said he. +"Bad debts are pouring in upon Grossman, and he hasn't a mint of +money to spare just now, however big he may talk. We will begin with +offering fifteen hundred dollars; and she will probably be bid off +for two thousand." + +"Bid off! O my God!" exclaimed the wretched man. He bowed his head +upon his outstretched arms, and the table beneath him shook with his +convulsive sobs. His friend was unprepared for such an overwhelming +outburst of emotion. He did not understand, no one but Alfred +himself _could_ understand, the peculiarity of the ties that bound +him to that dear orphan. Recovering from this unwonted mood, he +inquired whether there was no possible way of avoiding a sale. + +"I am sorry to say there is no way, my friend," replied Mr. Helper. +"The laws invest this man with power over you; and there is nothing +left for us but to undermine his projects. It is a hazardous business, +as you well know. _You_ must not appear in it; neither can I; for I +am known to be your intimate friend. But trust the whole affair to me, +and I think I can bring it to a successful issue." + +The hardest thing of all was to apprise the poor girl of her +situation. She had never thought of herself as a slave; and what a +terrible awakening was this from her dream of happy security! Alfred +deemed it most kind and wise to tell her of it himself; but he +dreaded it worse than death. He expected she would swoon; he even +feared it might kill her. But love made her stronger than he thought. +When, after much cautious circumlocution, he arrived at the crisis +of the story, she pressed her hand hard upon her forehead, and +seemed stupefied. Then she threw herself into his arms, and they wept, +wept, wept, till their heads seemed cracking with the agony. + +"Oh, the avenging Nemesis!" exclaimed Alfred, at last. "I have +deserved all this. It is all my own fault. I ought to have carried +you away from these wicked laws. I ought to have married you. Truest, +most affectionate of friends, how cruelly I have treated you! you, +who put the welfare of your life so confidingly into my hands!" + +She rose up from his bosom, and, looking him lovingly in the face, +replied,-- + +"Never say that, dear Alfred! Never have such a thought again! You +have been the best and kindest friend that woman ever had. If +_I_ forgot that I was a slave, is it strange that _you_ should +forget it? But, Alfred, I will never be the slave of any other man,-- +never! I will never be put on the auction-stand. I will die first." + +"Nay, dearest, you must make no rash resolutions," he replied. +"I have friends who promise to save you, and restore us to each other. +The form of sale is unavoidable. So, for my sake, consent to the +temporary humiliation. Will you, darling?" + +He had never before seen such an expression in her face. Her eyes +flashed, her nostrils dilated, and she drew her breath like one in +the agonies of death. Then pressing his hand with a nervous grasp, +she answered,-- + +"For _your_ sake, dear Alfred, I will." + +From that time, she maintained outward calmness, while in his +presence; and her inward uneasiness was indicated only by a fondness +more clinging than ever. Whenever she parted from him, she kept him +lingering, and lingering, on the threshold. She followed him to the +road; she kissed her hand to him till he was out of sight; and then +her tears flowed unrestrained. Her mind was filled with the idea +that she should be carried away from the home of her childhood, as +she had been by the rough Mr. Jackson,--that she should become the +slave of that bad man, and never, never see Alfred again. "But I can +die," she often said to herself; and she revolved in her mind +various means of suicide, in case the worst should happen. + +Madame Labasse did not desert her in her misfortunes. She held +frequent consultations with Mr. Helper and his friends, and +continually brought messages to keep up her spirits. A dozen times a +day, she repeated,-- + +"Tout sera bien arrange. Soyez tranquille, ma chere! Soyez tranquille!" + +At last the dreaded day arrived. Mr. Helper had persuaded Alfred to +appear to yield to necessity, and keep completely out of sight. He +consented, because Loo Loo had said she could not go through with +the scene, if he were present; and, moreover, he was afraid to trust +his own nerves and temper. They conveyed her to the auction-room, +where she stood trembling among a group of slaves of all ages and +all colors, from iron-black to the lightest brown. She wore her +simplest dress, without ornament of any kind. When they placed her +on the stand, she held her veil down, with a close, nervous grasp. + +"Come, show us your face," said the auctioneer. "Folks don't like to +buy a pig in a poke, you know." + +Seeing that she stood perfectly still, with her head lowered upon +her breast, he untied the bonnet, pulled it off rudely, and held up +her face to public view. There was a murmur of applause. + +"Show your teeth," said the auctioneer. But she only compressed her +mouth more firmly. After trying in vain to coax her, he exclaimed,-- + +"Never mind, gentlemen. She's got a string of pearls inside them +coral lips of hern. I can swear to that, for I've seen 'em. No use +tryin' to trot her out. She's a leetle set up, ye see, with bein' +made much of. Look at her, gentlemen! Who can blame her for bein' a +bit proud? She's a fust-rate fancy-article. Who bids?" + +Before he had time to repeat the question, Mr. Grossman said, in a +loud voice, "Fifteen hundred dollars." + +This was rather a damper upon Mr. Helper's agent, who bid sixteen +hundred. + +A voice from the crowd called out, "Eighteen hundred." + +"Two thousand," shouted Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand two hundred," said another voice. + +"Two thousand five hundred," exclaimed Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand eight hundred," said the incognito agent. + +The prize was now completely given up to the two competitors; and +the agent, excited by the contest, went beyond his orders, until he +bid as high as four thousand two hundred dollars. + +"Four thousand five hundred," screamed the cotton-broker. + +There was no use in contending with him. He was evidently willing to +stake all his fortune upon victory. + +"Going! Going! Going!" repeated the auctioneer, slowly. There was a +brief pause, during which every pulsation in Loo Loo's body seemed +to stop. Then she heard the horrible words, "Gone, for four thousand +five hundred dollars! Gone to Mr. Grossman!" + +They led her to a bench at the other end of the room. She sat there, +still as a marble statue, and almost as pale. The sudden cessation +of excited hope had so stunned her, that she could not think. +Everything seemed dark and reeling round her. In a few minutes, +Mr. Grossman was at her side. + +"Come, my beauty," said he. "The carriage is at the door. If you +behave yourself, you shall be treated like a queen. Come, my love!" + +He attempted to take her hand, but his touch roused her from her +lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow +in the face that made him stagger,--so powerful was it, in the +vehemence of her disgust and anger. + +His coaxing tones changed instantly. + +"We don't allow niggers to put on such airs," he said. "I'm your +master. You've got to live with me; and you may as well make up your +mind to it first as last." + +He glowered at her savagely for a moment; and drawing from his pocket +an embroidered slipper, he added,-- + +"Ever since I picked up this pretty thing, I've been determined to +have you. I expected to be obliged to wait till Noble got tired of +you, and wanted to take up with another wench; but I've had better +luck than I expected." + +At the sight of that gift of Alfred's in his hated hand, at the +sound of those coarse words, so different from _his_ respectful +tenderness, her pride broke down, and tears welled forth. Looking up +in his stern face, she said, in tones of the deepest pathos,-- + +"Oh, Sir, have pity on a poor, unfortunate girl! Don't persecute me!" + +"Persecute you?" he replied. "No, indeed, my charmer! If you'll be +kind to me, I'll treat you like a princess." + +He tried to look loving, but the expression was utterly revolting. +Twelve years of unbridled sensuality had rendered his countenance +even more disgusting than it was when he shocked Alfred's youthful +soul by his talk about "Duncan's handsome wench." + +"Come, my beauty," he continued, persuasively, "I'm glad to see you +in a better temper. Come with me, and behave yourself." + +She curled her lip scornfully, and repeated,-- + +"I will never live with you! Never!" + +"We'll see about that, my wench," said he. "I may as well take you +down a peg, first as last. If you'd rather be in the calaboose with +niggers than to ride in a carriage with me, you may try it, and see +how you like it. I reckon you'll be glad to come to my terms, before +long." + +He beckoned to two police-officers, and said, "Take this wench into +custody, and keep her on bread and water, till I give further orders." + +The jail to which Loo Loo was conveyed was a wretched place. The +walls were dingy, the floor covered with puddles of tobacco-juice, +the air almost suffocating with the smell of pent-up tobacco-smoke, +unwashed negroes, and dirty garments. She had never seen any place so +loathsome. Mr. Jackson's log-house was a palace in comparison. The +prison was crowded with colored people of all complexions, and +almost every form of human vice and misery was huddled together +there with the poor victims of misfortune. Thieves, murderers, and +shameless girls, decked out with tawdry bits of finery, were mixed +up with modest-looking, heart-broken wives, and mothers mourning for +the children that had been torn from their arms in the recent sale. +Some were laughing, and singing lewd songs. Others sat still, with +tears trickling down their sable cheeks. Here and there the fierce +expression of some intelligent young man indicated a volcano of +revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily +upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the +level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were +roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, +"By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotch _her_ here?" +"She be white lady ob quality, _she_ be." + +The tenderly-nurtured daughter of the wealthy planter remained in +this miserable place two days. The jailer, touched by her beauty and +extreme dejection, offered her better food than had been prescribed +in his orders. She thanked him, but said she could not eat. When he +invited her to occupy, for the night, a small room apart from the +herd of prisoners, she accepted the offer with gratitude. But she +could not sleep, and she dared not undress. In the morning, the +jailer, afraid of being detected in these acts of indulgence, told +her, apologetically, that he was obliged to request her to return to +the common apartment. + +Having recovered somewhat from the stunning effects of the blow that +had fallen on her, she began to take more notice of her companions. +A gang of slaves, just sold, was in keeping there, till it suited +the trader's convenience to take them to New Orleans; and the +parting scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never +forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have +been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? +What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and +prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten +years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day +before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her +from that vile man's power. + +She was roused from her reverie by the entrance of a white gentleman, +whom she had never seen before. He came to inspect the trader's gang +of slaves, to see if any one among them would suit him for a +house-servant; and before long, he agreed to purchase a +bright-looking mulatto lad. He stopped before Loo Loo, and said, +"Are you a good sempstress?" + +"She's not for sale," answered the jailer. "She belongs to Mr. +Grossman, who put her here for disobedience." The man smiled, as he +spoke, and Loo Loo blushed crimson. + +"Ho, ho," rejoined the stranger. "I'm sorry for that. I should like +to buy her, if I could." + +He sauntered round the room, and took from his pocket oranges and +candy, which he distributed among the black picaninnies tumbling +over each other on the dirty floor. Coming round again to the place +where she sat, he put an orange on her lap, and said, in low tones, +"When they are not looking at you, remove the peel"; and, touching +his finger to his lip, significantly, he turned away to talk with +the jailer. + +As soon as he was gone, she asked permission to go, for a few minutes, +to the room she had occupied during the night. There she examined +the orange, and found that half of the skin had been removed unbroken, +a thin paper inserted, and the peel replaced. On the scrap of paper +was written: "When your master comes, appear to be submissive, and +go with him. Plead weariness, and gain time. You will be rescued. +Destroy this, and don't seem more cheerful than you have been." Under +this was written, in Madame Labasse's hand, "Soyez tranquille, ma chere." + +Unaccustomed to act a part, she found it difficult to appear so sad +as she had been before the reception of the note. But she did her +best, and the jailer observed no change. + +Late in the afternoon, Mr. Grossman made his appearance. "Well, my +beauty," said he, "are you tired of the calaboose? Don't you think +you should like my house rather better?" + +She yawned listlessly, and, without looking up, answered, "I am very +tired of staying here." + +"I thought so," rejoined her master, with a chuckling laugh. +"I reckoned I should bring you to terms. So you've made up your mind +not to be cruel to a poor fellow so desperately in love with you,-- +haven't you?" + +She made no answer, and he continued: "You're ready to go home with +me,--are you?" + +"Yes, Sir," she replied, faintly. + +"Well, then, look up in my face, and let me have a peep at those +devilish handsome eyes." + +He chucked her under the chin, and raised her blushing face. She +wanted to push him from her, he was so hateful; but she remembered +the mysterious orange, and looked him in the eye, with passive +obedience. Overjoyed at his success, he paid the jailer his fee, +drew her arm within his, and hurried to the carriage. + +How many humiliations were crowded into that short ride! How she +shrank from the touch of his soft, swabby hand! How she loathed the +gloating looks of the old Satyr! But she remembered the orange, and +endured it all stoically. + +Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber +elegantly furnished. + +"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will +keep my word." + +He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying, +"I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if +you will please to grant it." + +"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything +reasonable." + +She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison; +and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow." + +"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It +grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to +convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent. +But you must reward me with a kiss before I go." + +This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of +exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much +ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her +manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly +tired; indeed I am!" + +He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again +urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up +some refreshments for you, before you sleep." + +He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she +heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! +With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and +washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one +no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly +bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame. + +In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face, +entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade. + +"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly. + +"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind, +motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus' +breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I +hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come. +Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de +sake ob yer friends." + +Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you +know I _have_ any friends?" + +"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows +nottin'." + +The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She +felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had +excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but +it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet. + +"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said. + +"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly. + +"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant. + +"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply. + +Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered, +"Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers." +She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was +wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye +pleasant dreams." + +Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo +eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words: +"Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked. +Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word. +Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labasse had added, "Ne craigner +rien, ma chere." + +Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her +cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she +sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the +apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs, +tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and +lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The +tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of +pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds, +and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were +embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as +the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated +with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass +illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet +before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson +velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and +repeated to herself: + + "He bought me somewhat high; + Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy." + +She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with +patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. +What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master +should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the +windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank +within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out +and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable. +She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud +snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so +near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the +door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They +passed out together,--the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the +door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs, +through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen +with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled +away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the +gentlemen alighted and handed the women out. + +"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, Frank +Helper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant." + +"And Alfred,--Mr. Noble, I mean,--where is he?" asked Loo Loo. + +"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now." + +The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on +their way to the North by an express-train. + +It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured +from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until +he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in +ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended +to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been +endangered, had not Madame Labasse brought cheering messages, from +time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and +success nearly certain. + +When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had +escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars +for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any +one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an +indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant +from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any +connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the +exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, +for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. +He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of +Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England +opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not +understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse +than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, +and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious +wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. +But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was +compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before +leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston, +Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were +posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled; +but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had +travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers +reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to +Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case +the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote: +"I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this +you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter +likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in +charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my +affairs." + +After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained +the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the +rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly +sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling +in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of +whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a +slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo. +Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs, +opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both +her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans. +Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment, +and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last +remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman +who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, +according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and +Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him +before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said +the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. +I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of +Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to +return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing +would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own +protection. + + + +SCENE V. + +Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible, +eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started, +Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome +slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your +reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under +these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake +of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight +hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her." + +The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first," +he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging +over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending +ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee." + +Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and +cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by +reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their +marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an +article of property, according to American law, they did not venture +to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a +commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and +embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals +through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness +of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the +slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries +of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above +the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to +feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall +not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help +_you_, who have done so much for _me_! And Alfred, dear, I want to +give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying +to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and +sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to +be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have. +Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn +thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice +saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be +grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my +good Alfred." + +They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter +from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co. +had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction, +and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance +of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid +sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property, +until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend. + +Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree, +Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk, +and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization +unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had +imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof +from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New +Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of +fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend." +As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who +had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants +in Northern hotels. Madame Labasse was invited to spend the remainder +of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being +unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms. + +Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her +appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her +out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble. +She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had +a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the +financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret, +locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the +youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful +mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a +gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little +white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her. +Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and +presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes +moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up +in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me." + + + + +LETTER-WRITING. + +A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is +constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties +to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but +never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of +fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,--unless, in a word, +real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in +which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other +circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom +his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own +communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He +will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at +him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long +while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a +fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery, +and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,--adding, +that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence. +If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and +affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed +with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty +of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is +nothing to say. + +That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an +unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone +through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown. + +I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in +Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds +me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and +really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week. +New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and +mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their +interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth +little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed +to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday. + +Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar +conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of +mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary +conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with +you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has +forgotten what her _bon mot_ was, and has another, every whit as good, +upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber; +you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as +is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the +night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can +be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the +friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not +answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The +bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate +upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve +them up unseasonably. + +For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself +back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when +he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a +limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will +keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be +shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the +post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even +they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what +they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which +it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or +European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose +want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and +his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an +answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; +to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and +truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its +own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of +pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless +drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed +time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment +of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular +weakness, have gilded,--"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it +with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its +questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis +for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order; +but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and +contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the +writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse +of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct +one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party. + +Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger +postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic +of interest is always with them, and the _billet-doux_, after having +been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the +post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night +of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written +next week as well, since next week they two will stand in +substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet +sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks +she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are +constant changes, delicate tones of color, each + + 'Shade so finely touched love's sense must + seize it.' + +The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again. +Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never +must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence +between our natures." + +But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these +fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from +those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first +moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may +supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would +Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for +another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the +Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the +distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of +us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish +young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to +attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed. +Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who +could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who +would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the +postmen, for fear of the next discharge? + +In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps, +be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers, +school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy, +day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in +the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A +"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence, +is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number, +invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted +company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of +the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as +naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to +stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but +conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most +pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into +words. + +To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through +the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which +people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily +applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters +should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one +feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend, +although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as +absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him +who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making +the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last +word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a +correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the +larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue. +When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who +is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to +open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to +previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or +be protracted for a week or a month. + +Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my +eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, +baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, +born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed +by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in +an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like +the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor, +or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's +distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects +each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of +this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might +be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and +complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits +of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door. + +The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one +feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and +temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of +disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned +hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured +her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are +now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has +nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has +he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it +cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to +decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or +speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already +surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's +epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present, +and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he +would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table. +He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and +flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone, +with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large +hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet, +instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had +something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly +sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for +love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But +"LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well. + +I should not dare to describe the productions of my female +correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them +contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger +proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque +description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. +They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater +task to read them. + +My "fair readers"--as the snobs who write for magazines call women-- +have not, I trust, misapprehended my meaning and lost patience with +me. I would not be understood as expressing a preference for one +description of letters over another. Every person to his tastes and +his talents. But a letter, which does not represent the writer's +real mood, reflect what is uppermost in his or her mind, deal with +things and thoughts rather than with words, and express, if not +strengthen, the peculiar ties between the person writing and the +person written to,--a letter which is not genuine,--is no letter, +but a sham and a lie. A real letter, on the other hand, whatever its +topic, cannot fail to be worth reading. Great thoughts, profound +speculations, matters of experience, bits of observation, delicate +fancies, romantic sentiments, humorous criticisms on people and +things, funny stories, dreams of the future, memories of the past, +pictures of the present, the merest gossip, the veriest trifling, +everything, nothing, may form the theme, if naturally spoken of, not +hunted up to fill out a page. + +No reason for modifying my conclusions occurs to me. It may be said, +that, after all, a poor letter is better than none, because advices +from distant friends are always welcome. But would not a glance at +the well-known handwriting supply this want as fully as the perusal +of a lengthy epistle, written with the hand, but not with the heart? +Does not our chagrin at finding so little of our friends in their +letters more than counterbalance our gratification that they have +been (presumably) kind and thoughtful enough to write? Would we not +gladly give four of their ordinary letters for one of their best? +But the instant they strike off the shackles of regular +correspondence, and despatch letters only when they feel inclined, +replies only while they are fresh, and formulas at other times, if +need be, we have our wish; the miles between our friends and +ourselves shorten, they are really with us now and then, and we take +solid pleasure in chatting with them. + +Am I told, that, until these ideas find general acceptance, it is +dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to +go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a +stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they +would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of +what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the +consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. +The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular +voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence of +character or of conduct, the fewer one has of them, the better. + +Such suggestions as have been thrown out are too obvious to have +escaped any one who has given the subject a moment's thought. But +who has time for that? People live too fast, in these days, to pay +such attention as should be paid to those who are more valuable as +individuals than as parts of the great world. The good offices of +friendship, which are the fulfilment of the highest social duties, +are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of +those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom +and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the +ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and +vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for +the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and +good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion +habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, neglect their +observance. + +I know men, distinguished in the walks of literature, famed for a +beautiful style of composition, who do not write a tolerable letter +nor answer a note of invitation with propriety. Their sentences are +slipshod, their punctuation and spelling beyond criticism, and their +manuscript repulsive. A lady, to whose politeness such an answer is +given, has a right to feel offended, and may very properly ask +whether she be not entitled to as choice language as the promiscuous +crowd which the "distinguished gentleman" addresses from pulpit or +desk. + +How the distinguished gentleman would open his eyes at the question! +He is sure that what he sent her was well enough for a letter. As +though a letter, especially a letter to a lady, should not be as +perfect in its kind as a lecture or sermon in its kind! as though +one's duties toward an individual were less stringent than one's +duties toward an audience! Would the distinguished gentleman be +willing to probe his soul in search of the true reason for the +difference in his treatment of the two? Is he sure that it is not an +outgrowth from a certain "mountainous me," which seeks approbation +more ardently from the one source than from the other? + +There are those who indite elegant notes to comparative strangers, +but, probably upon the principle that familiarity breeds or should +breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate +friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the +numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but +neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their +husbands' houses. + +Pericles, according to Walter Savage Landor, once wrote to Aspasia +as follows:-- + +"We should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in +little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of +our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I +think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly +letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. +Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes +in its efforts to please." + +The London Pericles, the Athenian gentleman,--and there are a few +such as he still extant,--writes to his nearest and dearest friend +none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say +stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. +He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. +He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to +the preparation of a speech. We may feel sure, that, unless he acted +counter to his own maxims, he never wrote a line more or a line less +than he felt an impulse to write, and that he had no "regular +correspondents." + +It is not every one that can write such letters as are in that +delightful book of Walter Savage Landor, or as charmed the friends +of Charles Lamb, the poet Gray, and a few famous women, first, and +the world afterwards. It is not every one who can, with the utmost +and wisest painstaking, produce a thoroughly excellent letter. The +power to do that is original and not to be acquired. The charm of it +will not, cannot, disclose its secret. Like the charm of the finest +manners, of the best conversation, of an exquisite style, of an +admirable character, it is felt rather than perceived. But every +person, who will be simply true to his or her nature, can write a +letter that will be very welcome to a friend, because it will be +expressive of the character which that friend esteems and loves. The +bunch of flowers, hastily put together by her who gathered them, +speaks as plainly of affection, although not in so delicate tones, +as the most tastefully-arranged bouquet. But who desires to be +presented with a nosegay of artificial flowers? Who can abide dead +blossoms or violent discords of color? Freshness, sweetness, and an +approach to harmony, that shall bring to mind the living, growing +plants, and the bountiful Nature from whose embrace flowers are born, +the acceptable gift must have. + +To attempt a closer definition of a good letter than has been given +would be a fruitless, as well as difficult task. "Complete +letter-writers" are chiefly useful for the formulas--notes of +invitation, answers to them, and the like--which they contain, and +for their lessons in punctuation, spelling, and criticism. Their +efforts to instruct upon other points are and must be worse than +useless, because their precepts cramp without inspiring. A few good +examples are more valuable, but a little practice is worth them all. +Letter-writing is, after all, a _pas seul_, as it were; the novice +has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or +to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he +must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and +his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must +be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, +roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his +letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if +not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times and +places and ceremonial retards this process of growth and advance, +which is slow enough, at best. + +But, although most correspondence is, from want of truthfulness, +thoughtfulness, life, good judgment, and good breeding, very +unsatisfactory, it cannot be denied that many good letters are +written every day. Between lovers, parents and children, real and +hearty friends, they pass. Young men on the threshold of life, while +discussing together the grave questions then encountered, write them. +Women, before their time to love and to be loved has come, or after +it is passed,--women, who, disappointed in the great hope of every +woman's life, turn to one another for support and shelter,--are +sending them by every post. Mr. De Quincey somewhere says, that in +the letters of English women, almost alone, survive the pure and racy +idioms of the language; and the German Wolf is said to have asserted, +that in corresponding with his betrothed he learnt the mysteries of +style. + +Such letters as these are worth one's reading, because the utterance +is genuine and genial. The writers feel and express in every line an +interest in what they are writing, and do not recognize the +conventional rules which obtain where people rely less upon +inspirations from within than upon fixed general maxims for their +guidance. As in the drawing-room the gentleman or lady behaves +naturally, and not according to the dancing-master, so in their +correspondence the best-bred people act from nature, and not from +instruction. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. [Continued.] + + Novit etiam pictura tacens in parietibus loqni. + +ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA. + + +IV. + +Christian art began in the catacombs. Under ground, by the feeble +light of lanterns, upon the ceilings of crypts, or in the +semicircular spaces left above some of the more conspicuous graves, +the first Christian pictures were painted. Imperfect in design, +exhibiting often the influence of pagan models, often displaying +haste of performance and poverty of means, confined for the most part +within a limited circle of ideas, and now faded in color, changed by +damp, broken by rude treatment, sometimes blackened by the smoke of +lamps,--they still give abundant evidence of the feeling and the +spirit which animated those who painted them, a feeling and spirit +which unhappily have too seldom found expression in the so-called +religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a +purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to +be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,-- +although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic +skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest +arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and +their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early +Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so +much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy, +as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons, +easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give +consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial. +"The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,-- +restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high +spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting." + +With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these +mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is +impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the +Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It +was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second +century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which +have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries +were probably executed before Christianity had become the +established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in +painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of +simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the +native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying +embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff +conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle. + +In the pictures of the most interesting period, that is, of the +second and third centuries, there is no attempt at literal +portraiture or historic accuracy. They were to be understood only by +those who had the key to them in their minds, and they mostly +arranged themselves in four broad classes. 1st. Representations of +personages or scenes from the Old Testament regarded as types of +those of the New. 2d. Literal or symbolic representations of +personages or scenes from the New Testament. 3d. Miscellaneous +figures, chiefly those of persons in the attitude of prayer. 4th. +Ornamental designs, often copied from pagan examples, and sometimes +with a symbolic meaning attached to them. + +It is a noteworthy and affecting circumstance, that, among the +immense number of the pictures in the catacombs which may be +ascribed to the first three centuries, scarcely one has been found +of a painful or sad character. The sufferings of the Saviour, his +passion and his death, and the martyrdoms of the saints, had not +become, as in after days, the main subjects of the religious Art of +Italy. On the contrary, all the early paintings are distinguished by +the cheerful and trustful nature of the impressions they were +intended to convey. In the midst of external depression, uncertainty +of fortune and of life, often in the midst of persecution, the Roman +Christians dwelt not on this world, but looked forward to the +fulfilment of the promises of their Lord. Their imaginations did not +need the stimulus of painted sufferings; suffering was before their +eyes too often in its most vivid reality; they had learned to regard +it as belonging only to earth, and to look upon it as the gateway to +heaven. They did not turn for consolation to the sorrows of their +Lord, but to his words of comfort, to his miracles, and to his +resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the +one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a +greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The +figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type +that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, +is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the +commonest scenes chosen for representation from the story of the New +Testament. Nor is this strange. The assurance of immortality was to +the world of heathen converts the central fact of Christianity, from +which all the other truths of religion emanated, like rays. It gave +a new and infinitely deeper meaning than it before possessed to all +human experience; and in its universal comprehensiveness, it taught +the great and new lessons of the equality of men before God, and of +the brotherhood of man in the broad promise of eternal life. For us, +brought up in familiarity with Christian truth, surrounded by the +accumulated and constant, though often unrecognized influences of +the Christian faith upon all our modes of thought and feeling, the +imagination itself being more or less completely under their control,-- +for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of +the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he +revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were +constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly +temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad +tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of +example and devotion,--faith in Christ and in his teachings must, +among the sincere, have been always connected with a sense of wonder +and of joy at the change wrought in their views of life and of +eternity. Their thoughts dwelt naturally upon the resurrection of +their Lord, as the greatest of the miracles which were the seal of +his divine commission, and as the type of the rising of the +followers of Him who brought life and immortality to light. + +The troubles and contentions in the early Church, the disputes +between the Jew and the Gentile convert, the excesses of spiritual +excitement, the extravagances of fanciful belief, of which the +Epistles themselves furnish abundant evidence, ceased to all +appearance at the door of the catacombs. Within them there is +nothing to recall the divisions of the faithful; but, on the contrary, +the paintings on the walls almost universally relate to the simplest +and most undisputed truths. It was fitting that among these the +types of the Resurrection should hold a first place. + +But the spiritual needs of life were not to be supplied by the +promises and hopes of immortality alone. There were wants which +craved immediate support, weaknesses that needed present aid, +sufferings that cried for present comfort, and sins for which +repentance sought the assurance of direct forgiveness. And thus +another of the most often-repeated of the pictures in the catacombs +is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No +emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been +found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian +paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with +peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, +it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting +suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed to +desecration or insult from them; and under emblems of this kind, +whose inner meaning was hidden to all but themselves, the first +Christians were often forced to conceal the expression of their faith. +This figure recalled to them many of the sacred words and most +solemn teachings of their Lord: "I am the Good Shepherd; the good +shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Often the good shepherd was +represented as bearing the sheep upon his shoulders; and the picture +addressed itself with touching and effective simplicity to him whom +fear of persecution or the force of worldly temptations had led away. +When one of his sheep is lost, doth not the shepherd go after it +until he find it? "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his +shoulders, rejoicing." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of +God over one sinner that repenteth." How often, before this picture, +has some saddened soul uttered the words of the Psalm: "I have gone +astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy +commandments"! And as if to afford still more direct assurance of the +patience and long-suffering tenderness of the Lord, the Good +Shepherd is sometimes represented in the catacombs as bearing, not a +sheep, but a goat upon his shoulders. It was as if to declare that +his forgiveness and his love knew no limit, but were waiting to +receive and to embrace even those who had turned farthest from him. +In a picture of very early date in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the +Good Shepherd stands between a goat and a sheep, "as a shepherd +divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his +right hand and the goats on his left." But in this picture the order +is reversed,--the goat is on his right hand and the sheep on his left. +It was the strongest type that could be given of the mercy of God. +Sometimes the Good Shepherd is represented, not bearing the sheep on +his shoulders, but leaning on his crook, and with a pipe in his hands, +while his flock stand in various attitudes around him. Here again +the reference to Scripture is plain: "He calleth his own sheep by +name, and leadeth them out;... and the sheep follow him, for they +know his voice." Thus, under various forms and with various meanings, +full of spiritual significance, and suggesting the most invigorating +and consoling thoughts, the Good Shepherd appears oftener than any +other single figure on the vaults and the walls of the catacombs. It +is impossible to look at these paintings, poor in execution and in +external expression as they are, without experiencing some sense, +faint it may be, of the force with which they must have appealed to +the hearts and consciences of those who first looked upon them. It +is as if the inmost thoughts and deepest feeling of the Christians of +those early times had become dimly visible upon the walls of their +graves. The effect is undoubtedly increased by the manner in which +these paintings are seen, by the unsteady light of wax tapers, in +the solitude of long-deserted passages and chapels. In such a place +the dullest imagination is roused, troop on troop of associations +and memories pass in review before it, and the fading colors and +faint outlines of the paintings possess more power over it than the +glow of Titian's canvas, or the firm outline of Michel Angelo's +frescoes. + +Another symbol of the Saviour which is frequently found in the works +of the first three centuries, and which soon afterwards seems to +have fallen almost entirely into disuse, is that of the Fish. It is +not derived, like that of the Good Shepherd, immediately from the +words of Scripture; though its use undoubtedly recalled several +familiar narratives. It seems to have been early associated with the +well-known Greek formula, [Greek: iaesous christos theon uios sotaer], +Jesus Christ the Saviour Son of God, arranged acrostically, so that +the first letters of its words formed the word [Greek: ichthus], fish. +The first association that its use would suggest was that of +Christ's call to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me, and I will make you +fishers of men,"--and thus we find, among the early Christian writers, +the name of "little fish," _pisciculi_, applied to the Christian +disciples of their times. But it would serve also to bring to memory +the miracle that the multitude had witnessed, of the multiplication +of the fishes; and it would recall that last solemn and tender +farewell meeting between the Apostles and their Lord on the shore of +the Sea of Tiberias, in the early morning, when their nets were +filled with fish,--and "Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and +giveth them, and fish likewise." And with this association was +connected, as we learn from the pictures in the catacombs, a still +deeper symbolic meaning, in which it represented the body of our +Lord as given to his apostles at the Last Supper. In the Cemetery of +Callixtus, very near the recently discovered crypt of Pope Cornelius, +are two square sepulchral chambers, adorned with pictures of an +early date. Those of the first chamber have almost utterly perished, +but on the wall of the second may be seen the image of a fish +swimming in the water, and bearing on his back a basket filled with +loaves of the peculiar shape and color used by the Jews as an +offering of the first fruits to their priests; beneath the bread +appears a vessel which shows a red color, like a cup filled with wine. +"As soon as I saw this picture," says the Cavaliere de Rossi, in his +account of the discovery, "the words of St. Jerome came to my mind,-- +'None is richer than he who bears the body of the Lord in an osier +basket and his blood in a glass.'" + +In the same cemetery, very near the crypt of St. Cecilia, there is a +passage wider than common, upon whose side is a series of sepulchral +cells of similar form, and ornamented with similar pictures. In one +of them a table is represented, with four baskets of bread on the +ground, on one side, and three on the other, while upon it three +loaves and a fish are lying. In another of the chambers is a picture +of a single loaf and of a fish upon a plate lying on a table, at one +side of which a man stands with his hands stretched out towards it, +while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It +seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures +the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for +his followers,--a service which has rarely been celebrated under +circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken +in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting +memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were +partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels +of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the +days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for +his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice +was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him +at the table in the upper chamber. [1] + +[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract, +_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_, +expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and +simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic +doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he +considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical +symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least +doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and +the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that +have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their +original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the +date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative +unimportance.] + +There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a +symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture, +but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his +lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his +strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction +of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and +some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind +revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered +indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of +the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of +Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long +period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen +prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs +took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven, +as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that +should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan +eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient +poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the +music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and +compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in +the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow +him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the +lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell, +and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen +story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and +beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths. + +A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which +was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the +man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words, +"Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs, +according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects +that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained +by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They +understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning, +"Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward +to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely +congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in +many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist +writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the +doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called +the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay +stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," +and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated +power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the +painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the +narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting +assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but +there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any +reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures +themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to +contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent +the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet +and bearing his bed. [2] + +[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes +is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance +"represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both +knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not +seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It +is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before +accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the +possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one +figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act +of giving absolution expressed?] + +Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the +life of Moses,--his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord, +his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of +the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first +and the last are most common, and the truths which they were +intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was +regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation, +of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to +Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the +promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land +of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be +seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through +faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage. +Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou +standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard +the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the +Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance. +Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and +the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we +may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in +connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised +even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it +should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says +that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of +Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but +of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another +instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the +thought of immortality with the presence of death. + +So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth +abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the +living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ," +said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary +interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as +typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this +miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures +in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing +dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one +of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of +this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a +similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands +of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a +curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now +current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and +fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in +his hands,--emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being +the Vicegerent of Christ,--and on the bottom of a glass vessel of +late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of +the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not +of Moses, but of Peter,--for the Church had by this time advanced +far in its assumptions. + +The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the +walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet +appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the +great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth, +lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series; +but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted, +according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing +of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has +already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of +the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd, +(which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to +represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may +perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to +come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to +deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief +those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither, +so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and +wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter +dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows +as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was +one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the +long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were +enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the +Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon +those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new +commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with +rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth. +It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not +Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more +than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their +right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some, +at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may +have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more +subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic +meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later +fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations +of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell, +the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education +often led them. + +Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear +a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the +Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel +in the lions' den,--the other that of the Three Children of Israel +in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of +deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will +deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of +prayer,--the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with +arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached +to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They +were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them, +figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture +is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of +these figures with names inscribed above them,--as, for instance, +"HILARA IN PACE." + +Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old +Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the +middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with +the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the +type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the +midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider +signification, it was the type of the world saved through the +revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St. +Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that +is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even +baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." +Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more +literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes, +perhaps, by still other types. + +Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which +the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later +masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham, +in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the +Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a +common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling, +of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated +symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their +typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the +catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition +to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the +miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated, +with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight +to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new +picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is +continually receiving interesting additions. + +There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the +combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are +generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a +different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the +central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller +compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with +Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his +sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault +are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling +are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely +ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on +heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful +character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers, +crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed +more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and +other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church +delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in +the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on +their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put +these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual +significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner +meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus, +the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of +triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the +joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit, +and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the +emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor +of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the +anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol +of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for +the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life; +the lamb, of the Saviour himself. + +Many of these symbols were, it is plain, derived from the Scripture, +but many also had a heathen origin, and were adopted by the +Christians with a new or an additional significance. It was not +strange that this should be so, for many associations still bound +the Christians of the early centuries to the things they had turned +away from. Thus, the horse is frequently found upon the funeral vases +and marbles of the ancients; the peacock, the bird of Juno, was the +emblem of the apotheosis of the Roman empresses; the palm and the +crown had long been in use; and the funeral genii of the heathen +Romans were in some sort the type of the later Christian angels. But +although this adoption of ancient symbols is to be noticed, it is +also to be observed that there is in the Christian cemeteries on the +whole a remarkable absence of heathen imagery,--less by far than +might have been expected in the works of those surrounded by heathen +modes of thought and expression. The influence of Christianity, +however, so changed the current of ideas, and so affected the +feelings of those whom it called to new life, that heathenism became +to them, as it were, a dead letter, devoid of all that could rouse +the fancy, or affect the inner thought. A great gulf was fixed +between them and it,--a gulf which for three centuries, at least, +charity alone could bridge over. It was not till near the fourth +century that heathenism began, to any marked extent, to modify the +character and to corrupt the purity of Christianity. + +And with this is connected one of the most important historic facts +with regard to the Art of the catacombs. In no one of the pictures +of the earlier centuries is support or corroboration to be found of +the distinctive dogmas and peculiar claims of the Roman Church. We +have already spoken of the pictures that have been supposed to have +symbolic reference to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the +Eucharist, and have shown how little they require such an +interpretation. The exaltation of St. Peter above the other Apostles +is utterly unknown in the works of the first three centuries; in +instances in which he is represented, it is as the companion of St. +Paul. The Virgin never appears as the subject of any special +reverence. Sometimes, as in pictures of the Magi bringing their gifts, +she is seen with the child Jesus upon her lap. No attempt to +represent the Trinity (an irreverence which did not become familiar +till centuries later) exists in the catacombs, and no sign of the +existence of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be met with in them, +unless in works of a very late period. Of the doctrines of Purgatory +and Hell, of Indulgences, of Absolution, no trace is to be found. Of +the worship of the saints there are few signs before the fourth +century,--and it was not until after this period that figures of the +saints, such as those spoken of heretofore, in the account of the +crypt of St. Cecilia, became a common adornment of the sepulchral +walls. The use of the _nimbus_, or glory round the head, was not +introduced into Christian Art before the end of the fourth century. +It was borrowed from Paganism, and was adopted, with many other +ideas and forms of representation, from the same source, after +Romanism had taken the place of Paganism as the religion of the +Western Empire. The faith of the catacombs of the first three +centuries was Christianity, not Romanism. + +In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought +outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. +Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the +spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of +expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The +Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its +lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the +personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having +passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the +crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and +the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and +bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles, +beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of +feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works +disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves +were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom +they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves +hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr +became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or +_retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most +precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from +its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts +utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two +men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and +if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the +dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the +showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is +listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on +another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less +abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head +bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has +turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this +parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its +now rifled and forlorn graves. + +But the Art of the catacombs, after its first age, was not confined +to painting. Many sculptured sarcophagi have been found within the +crypts, and in the crypts of the churches connected with the +cemeteries. Here was again the adoption of an ancient custom; and in +many instances, indeed, the ancient sarcophagi themselves were +employed for modern bodies, and the old heathens turned out for the +new Christians. Others were obviously the work of heathen artists +employed for Christian service; and others exhibit, even more +plainly than the later paintings, some of the special doctrines of +the Church. The whole character of this sculpture deserves fuller +investigation than we can give to it here. The collection of these +first Christian works in marble that has recently been made in the +Lateran Museum affords opportunity for its careful study,--a study +interesting not only in an artistic, but in an historic and +doctrinal point of view. + +The single undoubted Christian statue of early date that has come +down to us is that of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, which was +found in 1551, near the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, it +was much mutilated, and has been greatly restored; but it is still +of uncommon interest, not only from its excellent qualities as a +work of Art, but also from the engraving upon its side of a list of +the works of the Saint, and of a double paschal cycle. This, too, is +now in the Christian Museum at the Lateran. + +Another branch of early Christian Art, which deserves more attention +than it has yet received, is that of the mosaics of the catacombs. +Their character is widely different from that of those with which a +few centuries afterwards the popes splendidly adorned their favorite +churches. But we must leave mosaics, gems, lamps, and all the lesser +articles of ornament and of common household use that have been +found in the graves, and which bring one often into strange +familiarity with the ways and near sympathy with the feelings of +those who occupied the now empty cells. Most of these trifles seem +to have been buried with the dead as the memorials of a love that +longed to reach beyond death with the expressions of its constancy +and its grief. Among them have been found the toys of little children,-- +their jointed ivory dolls, their rattles, their little rings, and +bells,--full, even now, of the sweet sounds of long-ago household +joys, and of the tender recollections of household sorrows. In +looking at them, one is reminded of the constant recurrence of the +figure of the Good Shepherd bearing his lamb, painted upon the walls +of these ancient chapels and crypts. + +It was thus that the dawn of Christian Art lighted up the darkness +of the catacombs. While the Roman nobles were decorating their +villas and summer-houses with gay figures, scenes from the ancient +stories, and representations of licentious fancies,--while the +emperors were paving the halls of their great baths with mosaic +portraits of the famous prize-fighters and gladiators,--the +Christians were painting the walls of their obscure cemeteries with +imagery which expressed the new lessons of their faith, and which +was the type and the beginning of the most beautiful works that the +human imagination has conceived, and the promise of still more +beautiful works yet to be created for the delight and help of the +world. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +BEATRICE + + How was I worthy so divine a loss, + Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? + Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, + Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns? + + And when she came, how earned I such a gift? + Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, + The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, + The hourly mercy of a woman's soul? + + Ah, did we know to give her all her right, + What wonders even in our poor clay were done! + It is not Woman leaves us to our night, + It is our earth that grovels from her sun. + + Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes + We whirl too oft from her who still shines on + To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes + Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. + + Still must this body starve our souls with shade; + But when Death makes us what we were before, + Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, + And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor. + + + + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. + + "The sense of the world is short,-- + Long and various the report,-- + To love and be beloved: + Men and gods have not outlearned it; + And how oft soe'er they've turned it, + 'Tis not to be improved!"--EMERSON. + + +Mr. Vane and Mr. Payne both were eagerly describing to me their +arrangements for an excursion to the Lake. I did not doubt it would +be charming, but neither of these two gentlemen would be endurable +on such a drive, and each was determined to ask me first. I stood +pushing apart the crushed flowers of my bouquet, in which all the +gardener's art vindicated itself by making the airy grace of Nature +into a flat, unmeaning mosaic. + +In the next room the passionate melancholy of a waltz was mocked and +travestied by the frantic and ungrateful whirl that only Americans +are capable of executing; the music lived alone in upper air; of men +and dancing it was all unaware; the involved cadences rolled away +over the lawn, shook the dew-drooped roses on their stems, and went +upward into the boundless moonlight to its home. Through all, Messrs. +Vane and Payne harangued me about the splendid bowling-alley at the +Lake, the mountain-strawberries, the boats, the gravel-walks! At +last it became amusing to see how skilfully they each evaded and +extinguished the other; it was a game of chess, and he was to be +victor who should first ask me; if one verged upon the question, the +other quickly interposed some delightful circumstance about the +excursion, and called upon the first to corroborate his testimony; +neither, in Alexander's place, would have done anything but assure +the other that the Gordian knot was very peculiarly tied, and quite +tight. + +Presently Harry Tempest stood by my side. I became aware that he had +heard the discussion. He took my bouquet from my hand, and stood +smelling it, while my two acquaintance went on. I was getting +troubled and annoyed; Mr. Tempest's presence was not composing. I +played with my fan nervously; at length I dropped it. Harry Tempest +picked it up, and, as I stooped, our eyes met; he gave me the fan, +and, turning from Messrs. Vane and Payne, said, very coolly,-- + +"The Lake is really a charming place; I think, Miss Willing, you +would find a carriage an easier mode of conveyance, so far, than +your pony; shall I bring one for you? or do you still prefer to ride?" + +This was so quietly done, that it seemed to me really a settled +affair of some standing that I was to go to the Lake with Mr. Tempest. +Mr. Vane sauntered off to join the waltzers; Mr. Payne suddenly +perceived Professor Rust at his elbow and began to talk chemistry. I +said, as calmly as I had been asked,-- + +"I will send you word some time tomorrow; I cannot tell just now." + +Here some of my friends came to say good night; my duties as hostess +drew me toward the door; Harry Tempest returned my bouquet and +whispered, or rather said in that tone of society that only the +person addressed can hear,-- + +"Clara! let it be a drive!" + +My head bent forward as he spoke, for I could not look at him; when +I raised it, he was gone. + +The music still soared and floated on through the windows into the +moonlight; one by one the older part of my guests left me; only a +few of the gayest and youngest still persevered in that indefatigable +waltz, the oval room looking as if a score of bubbles were playing +hop and skip,--for in the crinoline expansions the gentlemen's black +pen-and-ink outlines were all lost. At length even these went; the +music died; its soul went up with a long, broken cry; its body was +put piecemeal into several green bags, shouldered by stout Germans, +and carried quite out of sight. The servants gathered and set away +such things as were most needful to be arranged, put out the lights, +locked the doors and windows, and went to bed. Mrs. Reading, my good +housekeeper, begged me to go up stairs. + +"You look so tired, Miss Clara!" + +"So I am, Delia!" said I. "I will rest. Go to bed you, and I shall +come presently." + +I heard her heavy steps ascend the stairs; I heard the door of her +room close, creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the +coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. +I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I +needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous +question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found +in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, +was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out +upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked eyes and fat +cheeks had eyed me a thousand times when Elsie's arm was clasped +over my neck, and with her head upon my shoulder we lay and laughed, +when we should have been dressing, at those Chinese chintz curtains. +Elsie was gone; if she had been here, I had been at once counselled. +Rest there, dead Past!--I could not go to my bedroom. + +The green-house opened from the large parlor by a sash-door. At this +season of the year the glazed roof and sides were withdrawn or +lowered, but at night the lower sashes were drawn up and fastened, +lest incursive cats or dogs should destroy my flowers. The great +Newfoundland that was our guard slept on the floor here, since it +was the weakest spot for any ill-meaning visitors to enter at. + +I drew the long skirt of my lace dress up over my hair, and quietly +went into the green-house. The lawn and its black firs tempted me, +but there was moonlight on the lawn, and moonlight I cannot bear; it +burns my head more fiercely than any noon sun; it scorches my eyelids; +it exhausts and fevers me; it excites my brain, and now I looked for +calm. This the odor of the flowers and their pure expression +promised me. A tall, thick-leaved camellia stood half-way down the +border, and before it was a garden-chair. The moonlight shed no ray +there, but through the sashes above streamed cool and fair over the +blooms that clung to the wall and adorned the parterres and vases; +for this house was set after a fashion of my own, a winter-garden +under glass; no stages filled the centre. It was laid out with no +stiff rule, but here and there in urns of stone, or in pyramidal +stands, gorgeous or fragrant plants ran at their own wild will, while +over all the wall and along the woodwork of the roof trailed +passion-flowers, roses, honeysuckles, fragrant clematis, ivy, and +those tropic vines whose long dead names belie their fervid +luxuriance and fantastic growth; great trees of lemon and orange +interspaced the vines in shallow niches of their own, and the languid +drooping tresses of a golden acacia flung themselves over and across +the deep glittering mass of a broad-leaved myrtle. + +As I sat down in the chair, Pan reared his dusky length from his mat, +and came for a recognition. It was wont to be something more +positive than caresses; but to-night neither sweet biscuit nor +savory bit of confectionery appeared in the hand that welcomed him; +yet he was as loving as ever, and, with a grim sense of protection, +flung himself at my feet, drew a long breath, and slept. I dared not +yet think; I rested my head against the chair, and breathed in the +odor of the flowers: the delicate scent of tea-roses; the Southern +perfume, fiery and sweet, like Greek wine, of profuse heliotropes,--a +perfume that gives you thirst, and longing, and regret. I turned my +head toward the orange-trees; Southern, also, but sensuous and tropic, +was the breath of those thick white stars,--a tasted odor. Not so +the cool air that came to me from a diamond-shaped bed of Parma +violets, kept back so long from bloom that I might have a succession +of them; these were the last, and their perfume told it, for it was +at once a caress and a sigh. I breathed the gale of sweetness till +every nerve rested and every pulse was tranquil as the air without. + +I heard a little stir. I looked up. A stately calla, that reared one +marble cup from its gracious cool leaves, was bending earthward with +a slow and voluntary motion; from the cup glided a fair woman's shape; +snowy, sandalled feet shone from under the long robe; hair of +crisped gold crowned the Greek features. It was Hypatia. A little +shiver crept through a white tea-rose beside the calla; its delicate +leaves fluttered to the ground; a slight figure, a sweet, sad face, +with melancholy blue eyes and fair brown hair, parted the petals. La +Valliere! She gazed in my eyes. + +"Poor little child!" said she. "Have you a treatise against love, +Hypatia?" + +The Greek of Egypt smiled and looked at me also. "I have discovered +that the steps of the gods are upon wool," answered she; "if love +had a beginning to sight, should not we also foresee its end?" + +"And when one foresees the end, one dies," murmured La Valliere. + +"Bah!" exclaimed Marguerite of Valois, from the heart of a rose-red +camellia,--"not at all, my dear; one gets a new lover!" + +"Or the new lover gets you," said a dulcet tone, tipped with satire, +from the red lips of Mary of Scotland,--lips that were just now the +petals of a crimson carnation. + +"Philosophy hath a less troubled sea wherein to ride than the stormy +fluctuance of mortal passion; Plato is diviner than Ovid," said a +puritanic, piping voice from a coif that was fashioned out of the +white camellia-blooms behind my chair, and circled the prim beauty +of Lady Jane Grey. + +"Are you a woman, or one of the Sphinx's children?" said a stormy, +thrilling, imperious accent, from the wild purple and scarlet flower +of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous +Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and +slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,--sallow, thin, but more +graceful than any bending bough of the desert acacia, and with eyes +like midnight, deep, glowing, flashing, melting into dew, as she +looked at the sedate lady of England. + +"You do not know love!" resumed she. "It is one draught,--a jewel +fused in nectar; drink the pearl and bring the asp!" + +Her words brought beauty; the sallow face burnt with living scarlet +on lip and cheek; the tiny pearl-grains of teeth flashed across the +swarth shade above her curving, passionate mouth; the wide nostrils +expanded; the great eyes flamed under her low brow and glittering +coils of black hair. + +"Poor Octavia!" whispered La Valliere. Lady Jane Grey took up her +breviary and read. + +"After all, you died!" said Hypatia. + +"I lived!" retorted Cleopatra. + +"Lived and loved," said a dreamy tone from the hundred leaves of a +spotless La Marque rose; and the steady, "unhasting, unresting" soul +of Thekla looked out from that centreless flower, in true German +guise of brown braided tresses, deep blue eyes like forget-me-nots, +sedate lips, and a straight nose. + +"I have lived, and loved, and cut bread and butter," solemnly +pronounced a mountain-daisy, assuming the broad features of a +fraeulein. + +Cleopatra used an Egyptian oath. Lady Jane Grey put down her breviary +and took up Plato. Marguerite of Valois laughed outright. Hypatia +put a green leaf over Charlotte, with the air of a high-priestess, +and extinguished her. + +"Who does not love cannot lose," mused La Valliere. + +"Who does not love neither has nor gains," said Hypatia. "The dilemma +hath two sides, and both gain and loss are problematic. It is the +ideal of love that enthralls us, not the real." + +"Hush! you white-faced Greek! It was not an ideal; it was Mark Antony. +By Isis! does a dream fight, and swear, and kiss?" + +"The Navarrese did; and France dreamed he was my master,--not I!" +laughed Marguerite. + +"This is most weak stuff for goodly and noble women to foster," +grimly uttered a flame-colored hawk's-bill tulip, that directly +assumed a ruff and an aquiline nose. + +Mary of Scotland passed her hand about her fair throat. "Where is +Leicester's ring?" said she. + +The Queen did not hear, but went on. "Truly, you make as if it was +the intent of women to be trodden under foot of men. She that +ruleth herself shall rule both princes and nobles, I wot. Yet I had +done well to marry. Love or no love, I would the house of Hanover +had waged war with one of mine own blood; I hate those fair, fat +Guelphs!" + +"Love hath sometimes the thorn alone, the rose being blasted in bud," +uttered a sweet and sonorous voice with a little nasal accent, out +of the myrtle-boughs that starred with bloom her hair, and swept the +hem of her green dress. + +"Sweet soul, wast thou not, then, sated upon sonnets?" said Mary of +Scotland, in a stage aside. + +"Do not the laurels overgrow the thorn?" said La Valliere, with a +wistful, inquiring smile. + +Laura looked away. "They are very green at Avignon," said she. + +Out of two primroses, side by side, Stella and Vanessa put forth +pale and anxious faces, with eyes tear-dimmed. + +"Love does not feed on laurels," said Stella; "they are fruitless." + +"That the clergy should be celibate is mine own desire," broke in +Queen Elizabeth. "Shall every curly fool's-pate of a girl be turning +after an anointed bishop? I will have this thing ended, certes! and +that with speed." + +Vanessa was too deep in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. +"I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and +veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto age and +learning." + +"Ciel!" muttered Marguerite; "is it, then, that in this miserable +England one cherishes a grand passion for one's grandfather?" + +The heliotrope-clusters melted into a face of plastic contour, rich +full lips, soft interfused outlines, intense purple eyes, and heavy +waving hair, dark indeed, but harmonized curiously with the narrow +gold fillet that bound it. "It is no pain to die for love," said the +low, deep voice, with an echo of rolling gerunds in the tone. + +"That depends on how sharp the dagger is," returned Mary of Scotland. +"If the axe had been dull"---- + +From the heart of a red rose Juliet looked out; the golden centre +crowned her head with yellow tresses; her tender hazel eyes were +calm with intact passion; her mouth was scarlet with fresh kisses, +and full of consciousness and repose. "Harder it is to live for love," +said she; "hardest of all to have ever lived without it." + +"How much do you all help the matter?" said a practical Yankee voice +from a pink hollyhock. "If the infinite relations of life assert +themselves in marriage, and the infinite I merges its individuality +in the personality of another, the superincumbent need of a passional +relation passes without question. What the soul of the seeker asks +from itself and the universe is, whether the ultimate principle of +existent life is passional or philosophic." + +"Your dialectic is wanting in purity of expression," calmly said +Hypatia; "the tongue of Olympus suits gods and their ministers only." + +"Plato hath no question of the matter in hand," observed Lady Jane +Grey, with a tone of finishing the subject. + +"I know nothing of your questions and philosophies," scornfully +stormed Cleopatra. "Fire seeks fire, and clay, clay. Isis send me +Antony, and every philosopher in Alexandria may go drown in the Nile! +Shall I blind my eyes with scrolls of papyrus when there is a goodly +Roman to be looked upon?" + +From the deep blue petals of a double English violet came a delicate +face, pale, serene, sad, but exceeding tender. "Love liveth when the +lover dies," said Lady Rachel Russell. "I have well loved my lord in +the prison; shall I cease to affect him when he is become one of the +court above?" + +"You are cautious of speech, Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. +"Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you has +carried cap and bell." + +They all turned toward the hawk's-bill tulip; it was not there. + +"Gone to Kenilworth," demurely sneered Mary of Scotland. + +A pond-lily, floating in a tiny tank, opened its clasped petals; and +with one bare pearly foot upon the green island of leaves, and the +other touching the edge of the marble basin, clothed with a rippling, +lustrous, golden garment of hair, that rolled downward in glittering +masses to her slight ankles, and half hid the wide, innocent, blue +eyes and infantile, smiling lips, Eve said, "I was made for Adam," +and slipped silently again into the closing flower. + +"But we have changed all that!" answered Marguerite, tossing her +jewel-clasped curls. + +"They whom the saints call upon to do battle for king and country +have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear +voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and +flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless +lips of a woman. + +"There have been cloistered nuns," timidly breathed La Valliere. + +"There is a monk's-hood in that parterre without," said Marguerite. + +The white clematis shivered. It was a veiled shape in long robes, +that hid face and figure, who clung to the wall and whispered, +"Paraclete!" + +"There are tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of +Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint +outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red +roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine +streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially +obscured, that ran, "Utque talis Rosa nulli alteri plantae adhaereret"---- + +"But the girl there is no saint; I think, rather, she is of mine own +land," said a purple passion-flower, that hid itself under a black +mantilla, and glowed with dark beauty. The Spanish face bent over me +with ardent eyes and lips of sympathetic passion, and murmured, +"Do not fear! Pedro was faithful unto and after death; there are some +men"---- + +Pan growled! I rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me +in very extempore costume, holding a night-lamp:-- + +"Goodness me, Miss Clara!" said she, "I never was more scared. I +happened to wake up, and I thought I see your west window open +across the corner; so I roused up to go and see if you was sick; and +you wasn't in bed, nor your frock anywhere. I was frighted to pieces; +but when I come down and found the greenhouse door open, I went in +just for a chance, and, lo and behold! here you are, sound asleep in +the chair, and Pan a-lying close onto that beautiful black lace frock! +Do get up, Miss Clara! you'll be sick to-morrow, sure as the world!" + +I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla +breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and +perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant. + +"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?" + +Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed. + +"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a +pretty good feller; but seein' things was as they was, if I'd had +means and knowed what I know now, I shouldn't never have married him." + +"May-be you'd have married somebody else, though," suggested I. + +"Like enough, Miss Clara; girls are unaccountable perverse when they +get in love. But do get up and go to bed. A'n't you goin' to the +Lake to-morrow?" + +That put my speculation to flight. Up I rose and meekly followed +Delia to my room; this time she staid to see me fairly disrobed. But +I had had sleep enough. I was also quiet; I could think. The future +lay at my feet, to be planned and patterned at my will; or so I +thought. I had not permitted myself to think much about Harry Tempest, +from an instinctive feeling of danger; I did not know then that + + "En songeant qu'il faut oublier + On s'en souvient!" + +I was young, rich, beautiful, independent; I came and went as I would, +without question, and did my own pleasure. If I married, all this +power must be given up; possibly I and my husband would tire of each +other,--and then what remained but fixed and incurable disgust and +pain? I thought over my strange dream. Cleopatra, the enchantress, +and the scorn of men: that was not love, it was simple passion of +the lowest grade. Lady Jane Grey: she was only proper. Marguerite de +Valois: profligate. Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. +Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Paetus dying, she could not +love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side +of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they +satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the +distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the +half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before +the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly +resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no +opportunity to speak to me alone. But I slept too long; it was noon +before I woke, and I had sent no message about my preference of the +pony, as I promised, to Mr. Tempest. I had only time to breakfast +and dress. At three o'clock he came,--with his carriage, of course. +So I rode to the Lake! + +It's all very well to make up one's mind to say a certain thing; it +is better if you say it; but, somehow or other,--I really was +ashamed afterward,--I forgot all my good reasons. I found I had taken +a great deal of pains to no purpose. In short, after due time, I +married Harry Tempest; and though it is some time since that happened, +I am still much of Eve's opinion,-- + + "I WAS MADE FOR ADAM." + + * * * * * + + + + +CRAWFORD AND SCULPTURE. + +There is as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, +the palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the +versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste +severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. +The simplicity, directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace +of Sculpture have analogies in literature and character: the terse +despatch of a brave soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, +some proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic lines, that have become +household words, puritanic consistency, silent fortitude, are but so +many vigorous outlines, and impress us by virtue of the same +colorless intensity as a masterpiece of the statuary. How +sculpturesque is Dante, even in metaphor, as when he writes,-- + + "Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa; + Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, + A guisa di leon quando si posa." + +Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints are covered +with snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and mountain are clearly +defined by the universal whiteness. Death, in its pale, still, fixed +image,--always solemn, sometimes beautiful,--would have inspired +primeval humanity to mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. Even +New Zealanders elaborately carve their war-clubs; and from the +"graven images" prohibited by the Decalogue as objects of worship, +through the mysterious granite effigies of ancient Egypt, the brutal +anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and gilded figures on a +ship's prow,--whether emblems of rude ingenuity, tasteless caprice, +retrospective sentiment, or embodiments of the highest physical and +mental culture, as in the Greek statues,--there is no art whose +origin is more instructive and progress more historically significant. +The vases of Etruria are the best evidence of her degree of +civilization; the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood ware redeem the +economical art of England; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the +Roman Capitol are the most venerable local insignia; the carvings of +Gibbons, in old English manor-houses, outrival all the luxurious +charms of modern upholstery; Phidias is a more familiar element in +Grecian history than Pericles; the moral energy of the old Italian +republics is more impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the +bold and vigorous creations of Michel Angelo than in the political +annals of Macchiavelli; and it is the massive, uncouth sculptures, +half-buried in sylvan vegetation, which mythically transmit the +ancient people of Central America. + +We confess a faith in, and a love for, the "testimony of the rocks,"-- +not only as interpreted by the sagacious Scotchman, as he excavated +the "old red sandstone," but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, +and power by the hand of man through all generations. We love to +catch a glimpse of these silent memorials of our race, whether as +Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with summer foliage in a garden, or +as Heroes gleaming with startling distinctness in the moonlit +city-square; as the similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the +halls of nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone +effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm without the +respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim, with the +enamored gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the asp had done its work,-- + + "She looks like sleep, + As she would catch another Antony + In her _strong toil of grace_." + +Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture,--partly because of an +inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its +greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its +awe-inspiring influence in "the monumental caves of death," as +described by Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that "all arts +address themselves to the sensibility and imagination"; and no one +thus alive to the appeal of sculpture will marvel that the +infuriated mob spared the statues of the Tuileries at the bloody +climax of the French Revolution,--that a "love of the antique" knit +in bonds of life-long friendship Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani,-- +that among the most salient of childhood's memories should be +Memnon's image and the Colossus of Rhodes,--that an imaginative girl +of exalted temperament died of love for the Apollo Belvidere,--and +that Carrara should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have +peopled earth with grace. + +To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing tableaux than a +gifted sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!--standing +erect by the mass of clay,--with graduated touch, moulding into +delicate undulations or expressive lines the inert mass,--now +stepping back to see the effect,--now bending forward, almost +lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a thin layer,--and so, +hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action, each perception +active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual approximation, under +patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap of +earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. When such a man +departs from the world, after having thus labored in love and with +integrity so as to bequeathe memorable and cherished trophies of +this beautiful art,--when he dies in his prime, his character as a +man endeared by the ties of friendship, and his fame as an artist +made precious by the bond of a common nativity, we feel that the art +he loved and illustrated and the fame he won and honored demand a +coincident discussion. + +Thomas Crawford was born in New York, March 22, 1813, and died in +London, October 16, 1857. His lineage, school education, and early +facilities indicate no remarkable means or motive for artistic +development; they were such as belong to the average positions of +the American citizen; although a bit of romance, which highly amused +the young sculptor, was the visit of a noble Irish lady to his studio, +who ardently demonstrated their common descent from an ancient house. +At first contented to experiment as a juvenile draughtsman, to gaze +into the windows of print-shops, to collect what he could obtain in +the shape of casts, to carve flowers, leaves, and monumental designs +in the marble-yard of Launitz,--then adventuring in wood sculptures +and portraits, until the encouragement of Thorwaldsen, the nude +models of the French Academy at Rome, and copies from the +Demosthenes and other antiques in the Vatican disciplined his eye +and touch,--thus by a healthful, rigorous process attaining the +manual skill and the mature judgment which equipped him to venture +wisely in the realm of original conception,--there was a thoroughness +and a progressive application in his whole initiatory course, +prophetic, to those versed in the history of Art, of the ultimate +and secure success so legitimately earned. + +If Rome yields the choicest test, in modern times, of individual +endowment in sculpture, by virtue of her unequalled treasures and +select proficients in Art,--Munich affords the second ordeal in +Europe, because of the cultivated taste and superior foundries for +which that capital is renowned; and it is remarkable that both the +great statues there cast from Crawford's models by Mueller inspired +those impromptu festivals which give expression to German enthusiasm. +The advent of the Beethoven statue was celebrated by the adequate +performance, under the auspices of both court and artists, of that +peerless composer's grandest music. When, on the evening of his +arrival, Crawford went to see, for the first time, his Washington in +bronze, he was surprised at the dusky precincts of the vast arena; +suddenly torches flashed illumination on the magnificent horse and +rider, and simultaneously burst forth from a hundred voices a song +of triumph and jubilee: thus the delighted Germans congratulated +their gifted brother, and hailed the sublime work,--to them typical +at once of American freedom, patriotism, and genius. The king warmly +recognized the original merits and consummate effect of the work; +the artists would suffer no inferior hands to pack and despatch it to +the sea-side; peasants greeted its triumphal progress;--the people +of Richmond were emulous to share the task of conveying it from the +quay to the Capitol hill; mute admiration, followed by ecstatic +cheers, hailed its unveiling, and the most gracious native eloquence +inaugurated its erection. + +Descriptions of works of Art, especially of statues, are +proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, +to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, +intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing +Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious +labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;--we +might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the +concentration of his thoughtful brow, and the loving serenity of his +expression,--a kind of embodied musical self-absorption, yet an +accurate portrait of the man in his inspired mood; so might he have +stood when gathering into his serene consciousness the pastoral +melodies of Nature, on a summer evening, to be incorporated into +immortal combinations of harmonious sound;--we might descant upon +the union of majesty and spirit in the figure of Washington and the +vital truth of action in the horse, the air of command and of +rectitude, the martial vigor and grace, so instantly felt by the +popular heart, and so critically praised by the adept in statuary +cognizant of the difficulties to be overcome and the impression to +be absolutely evolved from such a work, in order to make it at once +true to Nature and to character;--we might repeat the declaration, +that no figure, ancient or modern, so entirely illustrates the +classic definition of oratory, as consisting in action, as the +statue of Patrick Henry, which seems instinct with that memorable +utterance, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The inventive +felicity of the design for one of the pediments of the Capitol might +be unfolded as a vivid historic poem; and it requires no imagination +to show that Jefferson looks the author of the Declaration of +Independence. The union of original expression and skill in statuary +and of ingenious constructiveness in monumental designs, which +Crawford exhibited, may be regarded as a peculiar excellence and a +rare distinction. + +Much has been said and written of the limits of sculpture; but it is +the sphere, rather than the art itself, which is thus bounded; and +one of its most glorious distinctions, like that of the human form +and face, which are its highest subject, is the vast possible +variety within what seems, at first thought, to be so narrow a field. +That the same number and kind of limbs and features should, under the +plastic touch of genius, have given birth to so many and totally +diverse forms, memorable for ages and endeared to humanity, is in +itself an infinite marvel, which vindicates, as a beautiful wonder, +the statuary's art from the more Protean rivalry of pictorial skill. +If we call to mind even a few of the sculptured creations which are +"a joy forever," even to retrospection,--haunting by their pure +individuality the temple of memory, permanently enshrined in +heartfelt admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and +woman, significant in history, powerful in expression, or +irresistible in grace,--we feel what a world of varied interest is +hinted by the very name of Sculpture. Through it the most just and +clear idea of Grecian culture is revealed to the many. The solemn +mystery of Egyptian and the grand scale of Assyrian civilization are +best attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies the land +of the Pyramids and all its associations, mythological, scientific, +natural, and sacred,--its reverence for the dead, and its dim and +portentous traditions! and what a reflex of Nineveh's palmy days are +the winged lions exhumed by Layard! What more authentic tokens of +Mediaeval piety and patience exist than the elaborate and grotesque +carvings of Albert Duerer's day? The colossal Brahma in the temple of +Elephanta, near Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic superstition. +And can an illustration of the revival of Art, in the fifteenth +century, so exuberant, aspiring, and sublime, be imagined, to +surpass the Day and Night, the Moses, and other statues of Angelo?-- +But such general inferences are less impressive than the personal +experience of every European traveller with the least passion for +the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is there any sphere of +observation and enjoyment to such a one, more prolific of individual +suggestions than this so-called limited art? From the soulful glow +of expression in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the +womanly contours, so exquisite, in the armless figure of the Venus +de Milo,--from the aerial posture of John of Bologna's Mercury, to +the inimitable and firm dignity in the attitude of Aristides in the +Museum of Naples,--from the delicate lines which teach how grace can +chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the +embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici +Chapel,--from the stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all +bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning +gesture, to the _abandon_ gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing +Faun,--from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding +frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written forever the inhumanities +of ancient civilization, to the triumphant beauty and firm, light, +enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's Ariadne,--from the unutterable joy +of Cupid and Psyche's embrace, to the grand authority of Moses,--how +many separate phases of human emotion "live in stone"! What greater +contrast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge of facts and in our +consciousness of sentiment, can be exemplified, than those so +distinctly, memorably, and gracefully moulded in the apostolic +figures of Thorwaldsen, the Hero and Leander of Steinhaueser, the +lovely funereal monument, inspired by gratitude, which Rauch reared +to Louise of Prussia, Chantrey's Sleeping Children, Canova's Lions +in St. Peter's, the bas-reliefs of Ghiberti on the Baptistery doors +at Florence, and Gibson's Horses of the Sun? + +Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a pleasant +afternoon, along the Zurich road, to the old General's garden, where +stands the colossal lion designed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the +brave renown of the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the royal +family of France during the massacre of the Revolution? Carved from +the massive sandstone, the majestic animal, with the fatal spear in +his side, yet loyal in his vigil over the royal shield, is a grand +image of fidelity unto death. The stillness, the isolation, the +vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the clear mirror of the basin, +into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting the vast proportions +of the enormous lion, the veteran Swiss, who acts as _cicerone_, the +adjacent chapel with its altar-cloth wrought by one of the fair +descendants of the Bourbon king and queen for whom these victims +perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Nature and Art, +convey a unique impression, in absolute contrast with such white +effigies, for instance, as in the dusky precincts of Santa Croce +droop over the sepulchre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar +in the Mercato Nuevo of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness of that +sweet scion of the English nobility, moulded by Chantrey in all the +soft and lithe grace of childhood, holding a contented dove to her +bosom. + +Even as the subject of taste, independently of historical diversities, +sculpture presents every degree of the meretricious, the grotesque, +and the beautiful,--more emphatically, because more palpably, than +is observable in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an +immortal precedent; the Mediaeval carvings embody the rude Teutonic +truthfulness; where Canova provoked comparison with the antique, as +in the Perseus and Venus, his more gross ideal is painfully evident. +How artificial seems Bernini in contrast with Angelo! How minutely +expressive are the terra-cotta images of Spain! What a climax of +absurdity teases the eye in the monstrosities in stone which draw +travellers in Sicily to the eccentric nobleman's villa, near Palermo! +Who does not shrink from the French allegory and horrible melodrama +of Roubillac's monument to Miss Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey? +How like Horace Walpole to dote on Ann Conway's canine groups! We +actually feel sleepy, as we examine the little black marble Somnus +of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the first sight of the +Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in the presence of Nymphs, Graces, +and the Goddess of Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of genius, they +seem the ethereal types of that + + ----"common clay ta'en from the common earth, + Moulded by God and tempered by the tears + Of angels to the perfect form of woman." + +Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is +tranquillity,--a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe +chastens admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we +echo the poet's sentiment,-- + + "I do feel a mighty calmness creep + Over my heart, which can no longer borrow + Its hues from chance or change,--those children of to-morrow." + +It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate, +death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial +as commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like +those in St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked +beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venerable +associations of a Mediaeval tomb; while marble figures, typifying +Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding over the lineaments of the +illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral decorations, the most apt +and impressive. We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on +an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in which the brave +young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the scene and +story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form +of a recumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of the old +city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown forever +the gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In +Cathedral and Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the +sequestered parish church or the rural cemetery, what image so +accords with the sad reality and the serene hope of humanity, as the +adequate marble personification on sarcophagus and beneath shrine, +in mausoleum or on turf-mound? + + "His palms infolded on his breast, + There is no other thought express'd + But long disquiet merged in rest." + +In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so +readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is +in the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and +expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities +we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of +diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it +is the statues of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic +charm of her history; abstractly, we regard them with the poet:-- + + "Their gods? what were their gods? + There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules, + Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker + Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns + At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode + Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell + Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief; + Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best; + And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers; + Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer, + Sat in the circle of his starry power + And frowned 'I will!' to all." + +Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,--but calm, +fair, strong, and immortal. "They seem," wrote Hazlitt, "to have no +sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless +excellence they appear sufficient to themselves." + +In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the +most glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by +torchlight endears even these poor traditional deities forever. + + On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow, + Auroras beam, + The steeds of Neptune through the waters go, + Or Sibyls dream. + + As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved + Illusions wild, + Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved + And Juno smiled. + + Aerial Mercuries in bronze upspring, + Dianas fly, + And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling + Without a sigh. + +To this variety in unity, this wealth of antique genius, Crawford +brought the keen relish of an observant and the aptitude of a +creative mind. His taste in Art was eminently catholic; he loved the +fables and the personages of Greece because of this very diversity +of character,--the freedom to delineate human instincts and passions +under a mythological guise,--just as Keats prized the same themes as +giving broad range to his fanciful muse. A list of our prolific +sculptor's works is found to include the entire circle of subjects +and styles appropriate to his art--first, the usual classic themes, +of which his first remarkable achievement was the Orpheus; then a +series of Christian or religious illustrations, from Adam and Saul +to Christ at the Well of Samaria; next, individual portraits; a +series of domestic figures, such as the "Children in the Wood," or +"Truant Boys"; and, finally, what may be termed national statuary, +of which Beethoven and Washington are eminent exemplars. Like +Thorwaldsen, Crawford excelled in _basso-rilievo_, and was a +remarkable pictorial sculptor. Having made early and intense +studies of the antique, he as carefully observed Nature; few +statuaries have more keenly noted the action of childhood or +equestrian feats, so that the limbs and movement of the sweetest of +human and the noblest of brute creatures were critically known to him. +In sculpture, we believe that a great secret of the highest success +lies in an intuitive eclecticism, whereby the faultless graces of the +antique are combined with just observation of Nature. Without +correct imitative facility, a sculptor wanders from the truth and +the fact of visible things; without ideality, he makes but a +mechanical transcript; without invention, he but repeats +conventional traits. The desirable medium, the effective principle, +has been well defined by the author of "Scenes and Thoughts in Europe":-- +"Art does not merely copy Nature; it _cooeperates_ with her, it makes +palpable her finest essence, it reveals the spiritual source of the +corporeal by the perfection of its incarnations." That Crawford +invariably kept himself to "the height of this great argument" it +were presumptuous to assert; but that he constantly approached such +an ideal, and that he sometimes seized its vital principle, the +varied and expressive forms yet conserved in his studio at Rome +emphatically attest. He had obtained command of the vocabulary of +his art; in expressing it, like all men who strive largely, he was +unequal. Some of his creations are far more felicitous than others; +he sometimes worked too fast, and sometimes undertook what did not +greatly inspire him; but when we reflect on the limited period of his +artist-life, on the intrepid advancement of its incipient stages +under the pressure of narrow means and comparative solitude, on the +extraordinary progress, the culminating force, the numerous trophies, +and the acknowledged triumphs of a life of labors, so patiently +achieved, and suddenly cut off in mid career,--we cannot but +recognize a consummate artist and the grandest promise yet +vouchsafed to the cause of national Art. + +Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good a judge of +sculpture as the best academician or anatomist. It is this direct +appeal, this elemental simplicity, which constitutes the great +distinction and charm of the art. There is nothing evasive and +mysterious; in dealing with form and expression through features and +attitude, average observation is a reliable test. The same English +poet was right in declaring that the Greek sculptors did not find +their inspiration in the dissecting-room; yet upon no subject has +criticism displayed greater insight on the one hand and pedantry on +the other, than in the discussion of these very _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of +antiquity. While Michel Angelo, who was at Rome when the Laocooen was +discovered, hailed it as "the wonder of Art," and scholars +identified the group with a famous one described by Pliny, Canova +thought that the right arm of the father was not in its right +position, and the other restorations in the work have all been +objected to. Goethe recognized a profound sagacity in the artist: +"If," he wrote, "we try to place the bite in some different position, +the whole action is changed, and we find it impossible to conceive +one more fitting; the situation of the bite renders necessary the +whole action of the limbs";--and another critic says, "In the group +of the Laocooen, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to +show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." +In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth +to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American +back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked why the +figures were seated in a row on a dry-goods box, and declared that +the serpent was not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the +child's, without breaking its vertebrae. So disgusted was Titian with +the critical pedantry elicited by this group, that, in ridicule +thereof, he painted a caricature,--three monkeys writhing in the +folds of a little snake. + +Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against which Byron, +while contemplating the Venus de Medici, utters so eloquent an +invective, sculpture is a grand, serene, and intelligible art,--more +so than architecture and painting,--and, as such, justly consecrated +to the heroic and the beautiful in man and history. It is predominantly +commemorative. How the old cities of Europe are peopled to +the imagination, as well as the eye, by the statues of their +traditional rulers or illustrious children, keeping, as it were, a +warning sign, or a sublime vigil, silent, yet expressive, in the +heart of busy life and through the lapse of ages! We could never +pass Duke Cosmo's imposing effigy in the old square of Florence +without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of the +Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local +association,--nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, +with hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars +in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of +Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with +infamy. There was always a gleam of poetry,--however sad,--on the +most foggy day, in the glimpse afforded from our window, in +Trafalgar Square, of that patient horseman, Charles the Martyr. How +alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by moonlight, in Rome, as we +passed his plashing fountain! And those German poets,--Goethe, +Schiller, and Jean Paul,--what to modern eyes were Frankfort, +Stuttgart, and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms? The +most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of the Bourbon +dynasty was that inspired by Jeanne d'Arc, graceful in her marble +sleep, as sculptured by Marie d'Orleans; and the most impressive +token of Napoleon's downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image +intended for the square of Leghorn, but thrown permanently on the +sculptor's hands by the waning of his proud star. The statue of Heber, +to Christian vision, hallows Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini +breathes of the months of artistic suspense, inspiration, and +experiment, so graphically described in that clever egotist's memoirs. +One feels like blessing the grief-bowed figures at the tomb of +Princess Charlotte, so truly do their attitudes express our sympathy +with the love and the sorrow her name excites. Would not Sterne have +felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau of the Widow +Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially embodied by Ball Hughes? What more +spirited symbol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the +gilded horses of St. Mark's? How natural was Michel Angelo's +exclamation, "March!" as he gazed on Donatello's San Giorgio, in the +Church of San Michele,--one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, +complete armor, and the foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the +challenge, or a knight listening for the charge! Tenerani's +"Descent from the Cross," in the Torlonia Chapel, outlives in +remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that financial house. The +outlines of Flaxman, essentially statuesque, seem alone adequate to +illustrate to the eye the great Mediaeval poet, whose verse seems +often cut from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How grandly +sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement's tomb! + +It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these permanent +trophies of the sculptor's art may now be mingled our national fame. +Twenty years ago, the address in Murray's Guide-Book,--_Crawford, an +American Sculptor, Piazza Barberini_,--would have been unique; now +that name is enrolled on the list of the world's benefactors in the +patrimony of Art. Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel, +gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture and architecture +not destined soon to pass away; no more eloquent and original +advocate of the beautiful and the true in the higher social economies +has blest our day; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the poetry +of form; his essays are a valuable legacy of philosophic thought. +The Greek Slave of Powers was invariably surrounded by visitors at +the London World's Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Palmer has +sent forth from his isolated studio at Albany a series of ideal busts, +of a pure type of original and exquisite beauty. Others might be +named who have honorably illustrated an American claim to +distinction in an art eminently republican in its perpetuation of +national worth and the identity of its highest achievements with +social progress. + +Facility of execution and prolific invention were the essential +traits of Crawford's genius. For some years his studio has been one +of the shrines of travellers at Rome, because of the number and +variety as well as excellence of its trophies. The idea has been +suggested, and it is one we hope to see realized, that this complete +series of casts should be permanently conserved in such a temple as +Copenhagen reared to the memory of her great sculptor. It was on +account of this facility and fecundity that Crawford advocated +plaster as an occasional substitute for bronze and marble, where +elaborate compositions were proposed. He felt capable of achieving +so much, his mind teemed with so many panoramic and single +conceptions,--historical, allegorical, ideal, and illustrative of +standard literature or classical fable,--that only time and expense +presented obstacles to unlimited invention. Perhaps no one can +conceive this peculiar creativeness of his fancy and aptitude of hand, +who has not had occasion to talk with Crawford of some projected +monument or statue. No sooner was he possessed of the idea to be +embodied, the person or occasion to be commemorated, than he +instantly conceived a plan and drew a model, invariably possessing +some felicitous thought or significant arrangement. His sketch-book +was quite as suggestive of genius as his studio. The "Sketch of a +Statue to crown the Dome of the United States Capitol"--a photograph +of which is before us as we write, dated two years ago--is an +instance in point. A more grand figure, original and symbolic, +graceful and sublime, in attitude, aspect, drapery, accessories, and +expression, or one more appropriate, cannot be imagined; and yet it +is only one of hundreds of national designs, more or less mature, +which that fertile brain, patriotic heart, and cunning hand devised. +We are justified in regarding the appropriation by the State of +Virginia, for a monument to Washington by such a man, as an epoch in +the history of national Art. Crawford hailed it as would a confident +explorer the ship destined to convey him to untracked regions, the +ambitious soldier tidings of the coming foe, or any brave aspirant a +long-sought opportunity. It is one of the drawbacks to elaborate +achievement in sculpture, that the materials and the processes of +the art require large pecuniary facilities. To plan and execute a +great national monument, under a government commission, was +precisely the occasion for which Crawford had long waited. Happening +to read the proposals in a journal, while on a visit to this country, +he repaired immediately to Richmond, submitted his views, and soon +received the appointment. + +The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is +always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of +men have we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One +lovely evening in spring, we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse +of a beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation +of its own, and the afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue +of her loved and lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of +death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner +did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and +filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands, +and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in +contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. +"How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside, +with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity +of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the standard +of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of +beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the lips of +a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is the cognizance this +noble art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would +unfold by the hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty, +organization and use,--tracing therein a profound law and an +illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than +Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon receptions;--his white hair, kindly +smile, urbane manners, and unpretending simplicity gave an added +charm to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art,-- +reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in which +Humboldt cultivates science, and Sismondi history. Nor less +indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we +have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the +problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured +reproduction; or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the +treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. During Crawford's last +visit to America, we accompanied him to examine a portrait of +Washington by Wright. It boasts no elegance of arrangement or +refinement of execution; at a glance it was evident that the artist +had but a limited sense of beauty and lacked imagination; but, on +the other hand, he possessed what, for a sculptor's object,--namely, +facts of form and feature,--is more important,--conscience. +Crawford declared this was the only portrait of Washington which +literally represented his costume; having recently examined the +uniform, sword, etc., he was enabled to identify the strands of the +epaulette, the number of buttons, and even the peculiar seal and +watch-key. A man so faithful to details, so devoted to authenticity, +Crawford argued, was reliable in more essential things. He remarked, +that one of his own greatest difficulties in the equestrian statue +had been to reconcile the shortness of the neck in Stuart's portrait +and Houdon's statue (the body of which was not taken from life) with +the stature of Washington,--there being an anatomical incongruity +therein. "I had determined," he continued, "to follow what the laws +of Nature and all precedent indicate as the right proportion,-- +otherwise it would be impossible to make a graceful and impressive +statue; but in this picture, bearing such remarkable evidence of +authenticity, I find the correct distance between chin and breast." + +American travellers in Italy will sometimes be repelled by a certain +narrowness in the critical estimate of modern sculptors; though of +all arts sculpture demands and justifies the most liberal eclecticism. +Thus, a broad line of demarcation has been arbitrarily drawn between +high finish and prolific invention, originality and superficial skill; +as if these merits could not be united, or were incompatible with +each other,--and that, invariably, works of "outward skill elaborate" +are "of inward less exact." A Boston critic denominates Powers +"a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in +his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is +unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such +subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso +charming creations,--in attitude and feature true to the moment and +the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their +popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his +portrait busts and statues are, in many instances, unrivalled for +character as well as execution. A letter to one of his friends lies +before us, in which he responds to an amicable remonstrance at his +apparent slowness of achievement. The reasoning is so cogent, the +principle asserted of such wide application, and the artistic +conscience so nobly evident, that we venture to quote a passage. + +"It is said, that works designed to adorn buildings need not be done +with much care, being only architectural sculptures. This is quite a +modern idea. The Greeks did not entertain it, as is proved by those +gems which Lord Elgin sawed away from the walls of the Parthenon. I +cannot admit that a noble art should ever be prostituted to purposes +of mere show. They do not make rough columns, coarse and uneven +friezes, jagged mouldings, etc., for buildings. These are always +highly finished. Are figures in marble less important? But speed, +speed, is the order of the day,--'quick and cheap' is the cry; and +if I prefer to linger behind and take pains with the little I do, +there are some now, and there will be more hereafter, to approve it. +I cannot consent to model statues at the rate of three in six months, +and a clear conscience will reward me for not having yielded to the +temptation of making money at the sacrifice of my artistic reputation. +Art is, or should be, poetry, in its various forms,--no matter what +it is written upon,--parchment, paper, canvas, or marble. Milton +employed his daughter to write his 'Paradise Lost,' not to compose it; +her hand was moved by his soul; she was his modelling-tool,--nothing +more. But to employ another to model for you, and go away from him, +is not analogous. He then composes for you; modelling is composition. +And whom did Shakspeare get to do this for him? Whom did Gray employ +to arrange in words that immortal wreath set with diamond thoughts +which he has thrown upon a country churchyard? Whom did Michel +Angelo get to model his Moses? How many young men did Ghiberti employ +during the forty years he was engaged upon the Gates of Paradise? I +cannot yield my convictions of what is proper in Art. I will do my +work as well as I know how, and necessity compels me to demand ample +payment for it." + +We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic philosopher has not +analyzed the vital relation of the arts to each other and given a +popular exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the +antique has long been an acknowledged initiation for the limner, and +Campbell, in his terse description of the histrionic art, says that +therein "verse ceases to be airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb." +How much of their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe +to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean +adopted the "dying fall" of General Abercrombie's figure in St. +Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the memorable scenes and +votaries of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor's art,-- +as, for instance, the last act of "Don Giovanni," wherein the +expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in connection +with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare has +availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting +scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the +"Winter's Tale,"-- + + "Her natural posture! + Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed, + Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she + In thy not chiding: for she was as tender + As infancy and grace." + +Garrick imitated to the life, in "Abel Drugger," a vacant stare +peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was +a devotee of the chisel and adorned Chatsworth with free-stone +Sea-Nymphs. + +Crawford's interest in portrait-busts was secondary, owing to his +inventive ardor; the study he bestowed upon the lineaments of +Washington, however, gave a zest and a special insight to his +endeavor to represent his head in marble, and, accordingly, this +specimen of his ability, which arrived in this country after his +decease, is remarkable for its expressive, original, and finished +character. For ourselves, in view of the great historical value, +comparative authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of +this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm. +The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard +to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the +Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal +development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are +best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has +spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and +distinctness of impression associate most of our illustrious moderns +with their sculptured features: the ironical grimace of Voltaire is +perpetuated by Houdon's bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of +Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's countenance is familiar through +the elaborate chisel of Roubillac; Nollekens moulded Sterne's +delicate and unimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and Chantrey the +lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed the rude but +conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare preserved at +Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is +Albert Duerer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of Alexander +Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of him +by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for +Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in +marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never +more convinced of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of +"counterfeit presentment" than when exploring the Bacioechi _palazzo_ +at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, lighted from above, +and draped as well as carpeted with purple, stood on a simple +pedestal the bust of Napoleon's sister, thus enshrined after death +by her husband. The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated +head against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent emphatic +individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a holy place, where +communion with the departed, so spiritually represented by the +exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our +countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible +excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of +detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and with these, in many cases, +the highest characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute +artistic value, independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck +or Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achievements in this +regard are memorable, and fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty +and meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as +wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which +so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as +the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument +in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the +more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks +melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb? + + "The lips, as Cumae's cavern close, + The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, + The rigid front, almost morose, + But for the patient hope within, + Declare a life whose course hath been + Unsullied still, though still severe, + Which, through the wavering days of sin, + Kept itself icy chaste and clear." + +National characters become, as it were, household gods through the +sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon +seem as appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the +heads of Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images +of Scipio Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in +London. + +There is no phase of modern life so legitimate in its enjoyment and +so pleasing to contemplate as the life of the true artist. Endowed +with a faculty and inspired by a love for creative beauty, work is +to him at once a high vocation and a generous instinct. Imagine the +peace and the progress of those years at Rome when Crawford toiled +day after day in his studio,--at first without encouragement and for +bread, then in a more confident spirit and with some definite triumph, +and at last crowned with domestic happiness and artistic renown,--his +mind filled with ideal tasks more and more grand in their scope, and +the coming years devoted in prospect to the realization of his +noblest aspirations. From early morning to twilight, with rare and +brief interruptions, he thus designed, modelled, chiselled, +superintended, every day adding something permanent to his trophies. +This self-consecration was entire, and in his view indispensable. Few +and simple were the recreative interludes: a reunion of +brother-artists or fellow-countrymen and their families,--an +occasional journey, almost invariably with a professional intent,--a +summer holiday or a winter festival; but, methodical in pastime as +in work, his family and his books were his cherished resources. +Often so weary at night that he returned home only to recline on a +couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable +volume provided by his vigilant companion,--the best energies of his +mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art. +This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or +dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much; +but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of +character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human +experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine of many a +dreamer, the haunt of countless inefficient enthusiasts. But there, +as elsewhere, will must intensify thought, action control imagination, +or both are fruitless. Those melancholy ruins, those grand temples +of religion, the immortal forms and hues that glorify palace and +chapel, square, mausoleum, and Vatican, the dreamy murmur of +fountains, the aroma of violets and pine-trees, the pensive relics +of imperial sway, the sublime desolation of the Campagna, the mystery +of Nature and Art, when both are hallowed by time, the social zest +of an original brotherhood like the artists, the freedom and +loveliness, the ravishment of spring and the soft radiance of sunset, +all that there captivates soul and sense, must be resisted as well +as enjoyed;--self-control, self-respect, self-dedication are as +needful as susceptibility, or these peerless local charms will only +enchant to betray the artist. Crawford carried to Rome the ardor of +an Irish temperament and the vigor of an American character. +Hundreds have passed through a like ordeal of privation, ungenial +because conventional work, and slow approach to the goal of +recognized power and remunerated sacrifice; but few have emerged +from the shadow to the sunshine, by such manly steps and patient, +cheerful trust. It was not the voice of complaint that first +attracted towards him intelligent sympathy,--it was brave achievement; +and from the day when a remittance from Boston enabled him to put +his Orpheus in marble, to the day when, attended by his devoted +sister, he paid the last visit to his crowded studio, and looked, +with quivering eyelids, but firm heart, on the silent but eloquent +offspring of his brain and hand, the Artist in him was coincident +with the Man,--clear, unswerving, productive, the sphere extending, +the significance multiplying, and the mastery becoming more and more +complete through resolute practice, vivid intuition, and candid +search for truth. + +In the fifteenth century, and earlier, the lives of artists were +adventurous; political relations gave scope to incident; and Michel +Angelo, Salvator Rosa, and Benvenuto Cellini furnish almost as many +anecdotes as memorials of genius. In modern times, however, +vicissitude has chiefly diversified the uniform and tranquil +existence of the artist; his struggles with fortune, and not his +relations to public events, have given external interest to his +biography. It is the mental rather than the outward life which is +fraught with significance to the painter and sculptor; consciousness +more than experience affords salient points in his career. How the +executive are trained to embody the creative powers, through what +struggles dexterity is attained, and by what reflection and earnest +musing and observant patience and blest intuitions original +achievements glimmer upon the fancy, grow mature by thought, correct +through the study of Nature, and are finally realized in action,-- +these and such as these inward revelations constitute the actual +life of the artist. The mere events of Crawford's existence are +neither marvellous nor varied; his early love of imitative pastime, +his fixed purpose, his resort to stone-cutting as the nearest +available expedient for the gratification of that instinct to copy +and create form which so decidedly marks an aptitude for sculpture, +his visit to Rome, the self-denial and the lonely toil of his +novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and +his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise +enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity. +Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to +these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his +professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost +as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel +therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal +interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as +the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of +his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, he +long occupied an isolated position. The qualities of the man,--his +patient industry,--the new and unexpected superiority in different +branches of his art, so constantly exhibited,--the loyal, generous, +and frank spirit of his domestic and social life,--the freedom, the +faith, and the assiduity that endeared him to so large and +distinguished a circle, were individual claims often noted by +foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his +country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now +cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a +musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with +sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of +fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every +nation of Europe was represented, and the most illustrious of living +English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to +his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently +contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of +his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as +insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of +its victims,--by no violent epidemic, like those which have again +and again devastated the cities of Europe,--by no illusive decline, +whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations, +and which, in that soft clime, has peopled with the dust of +strangers the cemetery which the pyramid of Cestius overshadows and +the heart of Shelley consecrates,--by none of these familiar gates +of death did Crawford pass on; but, in the meridian of his powers +and his fame, in the climax of his artistic career, in the noontide +of his most genial activity, a corrosive tumor on the inner side of +the orbit of the eye encroached month by month, week by week, hour +by hour, upon the sources of life. Medical skill freed the brain +from its deadly pressure, but could not divert its organic affinity. +The mind's integrity was thus preserved intact; consciousness and +self-possession lent their dignity to waning strength; but the alert +muscles were relaxed; the busy hands folded in prayer; what Michel +Angelo uttered in his eighty-sixth Crawford was called upon to echo +in his forty-fifth year:-- + + "Wellnigh the voyage now is overpast, + And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude, + Draws nigh that common haven where at last, + Of every action, be it evil or good, + Must due account be rendered. Well I know + How vain will then appear that favored art, + Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart; + For all is vain that man desires below." + +The cheerful voice was often hushed by pain; but conjugal and +sisterly love kept vigil, a long, a bitter year, by that couch of +suffering in the heart of multitudinous Paris and London; hundreds +of sympathizing friends, in both hemispheres, listened and prayed +and hoped through a dreary twelvemonth. With the ripe autumn closed +the quiet struggle; and "in the bleak December" the mortal remains +were followed from the temple where his youth worshipped, to the +snow-clad knoll at Greenwood; garlands and tears, the ritual and the +requiem, eulogy and elegy, consecrated the final scene. By a singular +coincidence, the news of his decease reached the United States +simultaneously with the arrival of the ship in James River with the +colossal bronze statue of Washington, his crowning achievement. + +One would imagine, from the eagerness and intensity exhibited by +Crawford, that he anticipated a brief career. Work seemed as +essential to his comfort as rest is to less determined natures. He +was a thorough believer in the moral necessity of absolute +allegiance to his sphere; and differed from his brother-artists +chiefly in the decisive manner in which he kept aloof from extrinsic +and incidental influences. If Art ever made labor delectable, it was +so with him. He seemed to go through with the ordinary processes of +life with but a half consciousness thereof,--save where his personal +affections were concerned. One of the first works for which he +expressed a sympathetic admiration was Thorwaldsen's "Triumph of +Alexander,"--one of the most elaborate and suggestive of modern +friezes. He early contemplated an entire series of illustrations of +Ovid. He alternated, with infinite relish, between the extreme phases +of his art,--a delicate Peri and a majestic Colossus, an extensive +array of basso rilievo figures, a sublime ideal of manhood and an +exquisite image of infancy. His alacrity of temper was co-equal with +his steadiness of purpose; and the cheerfulness of an active mind, +sanguine temperament, and great nervous energy did not abandon him, +even in the state of forced passivity so intolerable to such habitude; +for hilarious words and, once or twice, the old ringing laugh +startled the fond watchers of his declining hours. The events of his +life are but a few expressive outlines; his works embody his most +real experience; and the thoughts and feelings, the observation and +the sentiment, not therein moulded or sketched, happily found +adequate record in the ample and ingenuous letters he wrote to his +beloved sister, from the time of his first arrival in Europe to that +of his last arrival in America,--embracing a period of twenty-two +years. Each work he conceived and executed, each process of study, +the impressions he gained and the convictions at which he arrived in +relation to ancient and modern art,--each journey, achievement, plan, +opinion,--what he saw, and imagined, and hoped, and did,--was +frankly and fondly noted; and the time may come when these epistles, +inspired by love and dictated by intelligent sympathy and insight, +will be compiled into a priceless memorial of artist-life. + + + + +ASIRVADAM THE BRAHMIN. + +Who put together the machinery of the great Indian revolt, and set +it going? Who stirred up the sleeping tiger in the Sepoy's heart, +and struck Christendom aghast with the dire devilries of Meerut and +Cawnpore? + +Asirvadam the Brahmin! + +Asirvadam is nimble with mace or cue; at the billiard-table, it is +hinted, he can distinguish a kiss from a carom; at the sideboard +(and here, if I were Mr. Charles Reade, I would whisper, in small +type) he confounds not cocktails with cobblers; when, being in trade, +he would sell you saltpetre, he tries you with flax-seed; when he +would buy indigo, he offers you indigo at a sacrifice. Yet, in +Asirvadam, if any quality is more noticeable than the sleek +respectability of the Baboo, it is the jealous orthodoxy of the +Brahmin. If he knows in what presence to step out of his slippers, +and when to pick them up again with his toes, in jaunty dandyisms of +etiquette, he also makes the most of his insolent order and its +patent of privilege, and wears the rue of his triple cord with a +demure and dignified difference. High, low, or jack, it is always +"the game" with him; and the game is--Asirvadam the Brahmin,--free +tricks and Brahmins' rights,--Asirvadam for his caste, and +everything for Asirvadam. + +The natural history of our astute and accomplished friend is worth a +page or two. And first, as to his color. Asirvadam comes from the +northern provinces, and calls the snow-turbaned Himalayas cousin; +consequently his complexion is the brightest among Brahmins. By some +who are uninitiated in the chemical mysteries of our metropolitan +milk-trade, it has been likened to chocolate and cream, with plenty +of cream; but the comparison depends, for the idea it conveys, so +much on the taste of the ethnological inquirer, as to the proportion +of cream, and still so much more, as in the case of Mr. Weller's +weal pies, on the reputation of "the lady as makes it," that it will +hardly serve the requirements of a severe scientific statement. +Copper-color has an excess of red, and sepia is too brown; the tarry +tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even +that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, +and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits +of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time +being. The flipper of your legitimate shiver-my-timbery old salt, +whose most amiable office is piping all hands to witness punishment, +has long since acquired the hue of a seven-years' meerschaum; while +the dandy cockswain of a forty-gun frigate lying off the navy-yard, +who brings the third cutter ship-shapely alongside with a pretty +girl in the stern-sheets, lends her--the pretty girl--a hand at the +gangway, that has been softened by fastidious applications of +solvent slush to the tint of a long envelope "on public service." +"Law sheep," when we come to the binding of books, is too sallow for +this simile; a little volume of "Familiar Quotations," in limp calf, +(Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855,) might answer,--if the cover of the +January number of the "Atlantic Monthly" were not exactly the thing. + +Simplicity, convenience, decorum, and picturesqueness distinguish +the costume of Asirvadam the Brahmin. Three yards of yard-wide fine +cotton cloth envelope his loins, in such a manner, that, while one +end hangs in graceful folds in front, the other falls in a fine +distraction behind. Over this, a robe of muslin, or silk, or pina +cloth--the latter in peculiar favor, by reason of its superior purity, +for high-caste wear--covers his neck, breast, and arms, and descends +nearly to his ankles. Asirvadam borrowed this garment from the +Mussulman; but he fastens it on the left side, which the follower of +the Prophet never does, and surmounts it with an ample and elegant +waistband, beside the broad Romanesque mantle that he tosses over +his shoulder with such a senatorial air. His turban, also, is an +innovation,--not proper to the Brahmin,--pure and simple, but, like +the robe, adopted from the Moorish wardrobe, for a more imposing +appearance in Sahib society. It is formed of a very narrow strip, +fifteen or twenty yards long, of fine stuff, moulded to the orthodox +shape and size by wrapping it, while wet, on a wooden block; having +been hardened in the sun, it is worn like a hat. As for his feet, +Asirvadam, uncompromising in externals, disdains to pollute them +with the touch of leather. Shameless fellows, Brahmins though they be, +of the sect of Vishnu, go about, without a blush, in thonged sandals, +made of abominable skins; but Asirvadam, strict as a Gooroo when the +eyes of his caste are on him, is immaculate in wooden clogs. + +In ornaments, his taste, though somewhat grotesque, is by no means +lavish. A sort of stud or button, composed of a solitary ruby, in +the upper rim of the cartilage of either ear,--a chain of gold, +curiously wrought, and intertwined with a string of small pearls, +around his neck,--a massive bangle of plain gold on his arm,--a +richly jewelled ring on his thumb, and others, broad and shield-like, +on his toes,--complete his outfit in these vanities. + +As often as Asirvadam honors us with his morning visit of business +or ceremony, a slight yellow line, drawn horizontally between his +eyebrows, with a paste composed of ground sandal-wood, denotes that +he has purified himself externally and internally, by bathing and +prayers. To omit this, even by the most unavoidable chance to appear +in public without it, were to incur a grave public scandal; only +excepting the reason of mourning, when, by an expressive Oriental +figure, the absence of the caste-mark is accepted for the token of a +profound and absorbing sorrow, which takes no thought even for the +customary forms of decency. The disciple of Siva crossbars his +forehead with ashes of cow-dung or ashes of the dead; the sectary of +Vishnu adorns his with a sort of trident, composed of a central +perpendicular line in red, and two oblique lines, white or yellow. +But the true Brahmin knows no Siva or Vishnu, no sectarian +distinctions or preferences; Indra has set no seal upon his brow, nor +Krishna, nor Devendra. For, ignoring celestial personalities, it is +the Trimurti that he grandly adores,--Creation, Preservation, +Destruction triune,--one body with three heads; and the right line +alone, or _pottu_, the mystic circle, describes the sublime +simplicity of his soul's aspiration. + +When Asirvadam was but seven years old, he was invested with the +triple cord, by a grotesque, and in most respects absurd, extravagant, +and expensive ceremony, called the _Upanayana_, or Introduction to +the Sciences, because none but Brahmins are freely admitted to their +mysteries. This triple cord consists of three thick strands of cotton, +each composed of several finer threads; these three strands, +representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, are not twisted together, but +hang separately, from the left shoulder to the right hip. The +preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest +hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies. +Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card +and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great +cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions +from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of +priests and masters of ceremonies. + +It is a noticeable fact in the natural history of the always +insolent Asirvadam, that, unlike Shatriya, the warrior, Vaishya, the +cultivator, or Soodra, the laborer, he is not born into the full +enjoyment of his honors, but, on the contrary, is scarcely of more +consideration than a Pariah, until by the Upanayana he has been +admitted to his birthright. Yet, once decorated with the ennobling +badge of his order, our friend became from that moment something +superior, something exclusive, something supercilious, arrogant, +exacting,--Asirvadam, the high Brahmin,--a creature of wide strides +without awkwardness, towering airs without bombast, Sanscrit +quotations without pedantry, florid phraseology without hyperbole, +allegorical illustrations and proverbial points without +sententiousness, fanciful flights without affectation, and formal +strains of compliment without offensive adulation. + +When Asirvadam meets Asirvadam in the way, compliments pass: each +touches his forehead with his right hand, and murmurs twice the +auspicious name of Rama. But the passing Vaishya or Soodra elevates +reverently his joined palms above his head, and, stepping out of his +slippers, salutes the descendant of the Seven Holy Penitents with +_namaskaram_, the pious obeisance. _Andam arya_! "Hail, exalted +Lord!" he cries; and the exalted lord, extending the pure lilies of +his hands lordliwise, as one who condescends to accept an humble +offering, mutters the mysterious benediction which only Gooroos and +high Brahmins may bestow,--_Asirvadam_! + +The low-caste slave who may be admitted to the distinguished +presence of our friend, to implore indulgence, or to supplicate +pardon for an offence, must thrice touch the ground, or the honored +feet, with both his hands, which immediately he lays upon his +forehead; and there are occasions of peculiar humiliation which +require the profound prostration of the _sashtangam_, or abasement of +the eight members, wherein the suppliant extends himself face +downward on the earth, with palms joined above his head. + +If Asirvadam--having concluded a visit in which he has deferentially +reminded me of the peculiar privilege I enjoy in being admitted to +social converse with so select a being--is about to withdraw the +light of his presence, he retires backward, with many humbly gracious +salaams. If, on the other hand, I have had the honor to be his +distinguished guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking +my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, +that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, +so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares +me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from +mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, +who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to +Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning or the end of +that. + +When Asirvadam crosses my threshold, he leaves his slippers at the +door. I am flattered by the act into a self-appreciative complacency, +until I discover that he thereby simply puts me on a level with his +cow. When he converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and +gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his +hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding, +forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one, +the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,--forgetting that he +is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from +his palanquin,--to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons +the broad highway,--the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted +of men, and adored of himself,--Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +"They, the Brahmin Asirvadam, to him, Phaldasana, who is obedient, +who is true, who has every faithful quality, who knows how to serve +with cheerfulness, to submit in silence, who by the excellent +services he renders the Brahmins has become like unto the stone +Chintamani, the bringer of good, who by the number and variety and +acceptableness of his gifts shall attain, without further trials, to +the paradise of Indra: _Asirvadam_! + +"The year Vikarj, the tenth of the month Phalguna: we are at Benares +in good health; bring us word of thine. It shall be thy privilege to +make sashtangam at the feet--which are the true lilies of Nilufar-- +of us the Lord Brahmin, who are endowed with all the virtues and all +the sciences, who are great as Mount Meru, to whom belongs +illustrious knowledge of the four Vedas, the splendor of whose +beneficence is as the noon-flood of the sun, who are renowned +throughout the fourteen worlds, whom the fourteen worlds admire. + +"Having received with both hands that which we have abased ourself +by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head, +thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful +alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict +letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened +to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our +presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed, +thine eyes cast down,--thou who art as though thou wert not,--until +we shall vouchsafe to perceive thee. And when thou hast obtained our +leave, then, and not sooner, shalt thou make sashtangam at our +blessed feet, which are the pure flowers of Nilufar, and with many +lowly kisses shalt lay down before them thy unworthy offering,--ten +rupees, as thou knowest,--more, if thou art wise,--less, if thou +darest. + +"This is all we have to say to thee. _Asirvadam_!" + +In the epistolary style of Asirvadam the Brahmin we are at a loss +which to admire most,--the flowers or the force, the modesty or the +magnificence. + +Among the cloistral cells of the women's quarter, which surround the +inner court of Asirvadam's domestic establishment, is a dark and +narrow chamber which is the domain of woman's rights. It is called +"the Room of Anger," because, when the wife of the bosom has been +tempted by inveigling box-wallahs with a love of a pink coortee, or +a pair of chased bangles, "such darlings, and so cheap," and has +conceived a longing for the same, her way is, without a word +beforehand, to go shut herself up in the Room of Anger, and pout and +sulk till she gets them; and seeing that the wife of the bosom is +also the pure concocter of the Brahminical curry and server of the +Brahminical rice, that she is the goddess of the sacred kitchen and +high-priestess of pots and pans, it is easy to see that her success +is certain. Poor little brown fool! that twelve feet square of +curious custom is all, of the world-wide realm of beauty and caprice, +that she can call her own. + +When the enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the +lover's presents,--the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the +loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the +fruits,--the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal +lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of +his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not +eat,--she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, +nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, +she does not dream,--she feeds. + +Around her neck a strange ornament of gold, having engraved upon it +the likeness of Lakshmee, is suspended by a consecrated string of +one hundred and eight threads of extreme fineness, dyed yellow with +saffron. This is the Tahli, the wife's badge,--"Asirvadam the Brahmin, +his chattel." They brought it to her on a silver salver garnished +with flowers, she sitting with her betrothed on a great cushion; and +ten Brahmins, holding around the happy pair a screen of silk, +invoked for them the favor of the three divine couples,--Brahma with +Sarawastee, Vishnu with Lakshmee, Siva with Paravatee. Then they +offered incense, to the Tahli, and a sacrifice of fire, and they +blessed it with many mantras, or holy texts; and as the bride turned +her to the east, and fixed her inmost thought on the "Great Mountain +of the North," Asirvadam the Brahmin clasped his collar on her neck, +never to be loosened till he, dying, shall leave her to be burned, +or spurned. + +No man, when he meets Asirvadam the Brahmin, presumes to ask, +"How is the little brown fool today?" No man, when he visits him, +ventures to inquire if she is at home; it is not the etiquette. +Should the little brown fool, having a mind of her own, and being +resolved not to endure this any longer, suddenly make Asirvadam +ridiculous some day, the etiquette is to hush it up among their +friends. + +As Raja, the warrior, sprang from the right arm of Brahma, and +Vaishya, the cultivator, from his belly, and Soodra, the laborer, +from his feet,--so Asirvadam the Brahmin was conceived in the head +and brought forth from the mouth of the Creator; and he is above the +others by so much as the head is above arms, belly, and feet; he is +wiser than the others, inasmuch as he has lain among the thoughts of +the god, has played with his inventions, and made excursions through +the universe with his speech. Therefore, if it be true, as some say, +that Asirvadam is an ant-hill of lies, he is also a snake's-nest of +wisdom, and a beehive of ingenuity. Let him be respected, for his +rights are plain. + +It is his right to be taught the Vedas and the mantras, all the +tongues of India, and the sciences; to marry a child-wife, no matter +how old he may be,--or a score of wives, if he be a Kooleen Brahmin, +so that he may drive a lively business in the way of dowries; to +peruse the books of magic, and perform the awful sacrifice of the +Yajna; to receive presents without limit, levy taxes without law, +and beg with insolence. + +It is his duty to study diligently; to conform rigorously to the +rules of his caste; to honor and obey his superiors without question +or hesitation; to insult his inferiors, for the magnifying of his +office; to get him a wife without loss of time, and a male child by +all means. During his religious minority he is expected to bathe and +sacrifice twice a day, to abstain from adorning his forehead or his +breast with sandal, to wear no flowers in his hair, to chew no betel, +to regard himself in no mirrors. + +Under Hindoo law, which is his own law, Asirvadam the Brahmin pays no +taxes, tolls, or duties; corporal punishment can in no case be +inflicted upon him; if he is detected in defalcation or the taking +of bribes, partial restitution is the worst penalty that can befall +him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite +his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe, +is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a +monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is +as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your +portion with Karta, the Fox, as the good Abbe Dubois relates. + +"Karta, Karta!" screamed an Ape, one day, when he saw a fox feeding +on a rotten carcass, "thou must, in a former life, have committed +some dreadful crime, to be doomed to a new state in which thou +feedest on such garbage." + +"Alas!" replied the Fox, "I am not punished more severely than I +deserve. I was once a man, and then I promised something to a Brahmin, +which I never gave him. That is the true cause of my being +regenerated in this shape. Some good works, which I did have, won for +me the indulgence of remembering what I was in my former state, and +the cause for which I have been degraded into this." + +Asirvadam has choice of a hundred callings, as various in dignity +and profit as they are numerous. Under native rule he makes a good +cooly, because the officers of the revenue are forbidden to search a +Brahmin's baggage, or anything that he carries. He is an expeditious +messenger, for no man may stop him; and he can travel cheaply for +whom there is free entertainment on every road. "For the belly one +will play many tricks"; and Asirvadam, in financial straits, may +teach dancing to nautch-girls; or he may play the mountebank or the +conjurer, and with a stock of mantras and charms proceed to the +curing of murrain in cattle, pip in chickens, and short-windedness +in old women,--at the same time telling fortunes, calculating +nativities, finding lost treasure, advising as to journeys and +speculations, and crossing out crosses in love for any pretty dear +who will cross the poor Brahmin's palm with a rupee. He may engage +in commercial pursuits; and in that case, his bulling and bearing at +the opium-sales will put Wall Street to the blush. He may turn his +attention to the healing art; and allopathically, homoeopathically, +hydropathically, electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck +through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of +charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the +army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the +shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making +mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, +fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, +he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,--sleekest of lackeys, most +servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of +hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most +versatile of adventurers, most inventive of charlatans, most +restless of schemers, most insidious of jesuits, most treacherous of +confidants, falsest of friends, hardest of masters, most arrogant of +patrons, cruelest of tyrants, most patient of haters, most +insatiable of avengers, most gluttonous of ravishers, most infernal +of devils,--pleasantest of fellows. + +Superlatively dainty as to his fopperies of orthodoxy, Asirvadam is +continually dying of Pariah roses in aromatic pains of caste. If in +his goings and comings one of the "lilies of Nilufar" should chance +to stumble upon a bit of bone or rag, a fragment of a dish, or a +leaf from which some one has eaten,--should his sacred raiment be +polluted by the touch of a dog or a Pariah,--he is ready to faint, +and only a bath can revive him. He may not touch his sandals with +his hand, nor repose in a strange seat, but is provided with a mat, +a carpet, or an antelope's skin, to serve him for a cushion in the +houses of his friends. With a kid glove you may put his +respectability in peril, and with your patent-leather pumps affright +his soul within him. To him a pocket-handkerchief is a sore offence, +and a tooth-pick monstrous. All the Vedas could not save the Giaour +who "chews"; nor burnt brandy, though the Seven Penitents distilled +it, purify the mouth that a tooth-brush has polluted. Beware how you +offer him a wafered letter; and when you present him with a copy of +your travels, let it be bound in cloth. + +He has the Mantalini idiosyncrasy as to dem'd unpleasant bodies; and +when he hears that his mother is dead, he straight-way jumps into a +bath with his clothes on. Many mantras and much holy-water, together +with incense of sandal-wood, and other perfumery, regardless of +expense, can alone relieve his premises of the deadness of his wife. + +For a Soodra even to look upon the earthen vessels wherein his rice +is boiled implies the necessity of a summary smash of the infected +crockery; and his kitchen is his holy of holies. When he eats, the +company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent +thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a +complexity of dangers;--a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might +have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have +turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and +impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his +repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous +duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the +heaven of his mouth. When he would quench his thirst, he disdains to +apply the earth-born beaker to his lips, but lets the water fall +into his solemn swallow from on high,--a pleasant feat to see, and +one which, like a whirling dervis, diverts you by its agility, while +it impresses you by its devotion. + +It is easy to perceive, that, if our friend Asirvadam were not one +of the "Young Bengal" lights who do not fash themselves with trifles, +his orthodox sensibilities would be subjected to so many and gross +affronts from the indiscriminate contacts of a mixed community, that +he would shortly be compelled to take refuge in one of those +Arcadias of the triple cord, called _Agragramas_, where pure +Brahmins are met in all the exclusiveness of high caste, and where +the more a man rubs against his neighbor the more he is sanctified. +True, the Soodras have an irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at +the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra +when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are +saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers. + +There was once a foolish Brahmin, to whom a rich and charitable +merchant presented two pieces of cloth, the finest that had ever +been seen in the Agragrama. He showed them to the other Brahmins, +who all congratulated him on so fortunate an acquisition; they told +him it was the reward of some deed that he had done in a previous +life. Before putting them on, he washed them, according to custom, +in order to purify them from the pollution of the weaver's touch, +and hung them up to dry, with the ends fastened to two branches of a +tree. Presently a dog, happening to pass that way, ran under them, +and the Brahmin could not decide whether the unclean beast was tall +enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who +were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to +settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him. +Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog, +he crawled under the precious cloths. + +"Did I touch it?" + +"No!" cried all the children; and his soul was filled with joy. + +But the next moment the terrible conviction took possession of his +mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing +under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement +must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He +called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his +breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then +resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth, +and conscientiously, and anxiously, wagged. + +"A touch! a touch!" cried all the children, and the Brahmin groaned, +for he knew that his beautiful raiment was ruined. Thrice he wagged, +and thrice the children cried, "A touch! a touch!" + +So the strict Brahmin leaped to his feet, in a frightful rage, and, +tearing the precious cloth from the tree, rent it in a hundred shreds, +while he cursed the abominable dog and the master that owned him. +And the children admired and were edified, and they whispered among +themselves,-- + +"Now, surely, it behooveth us to take heed to our ways, for our +father is particular." + +Moral: And the Brahmin winked. + +The Samaradana is an institution for which our friend Asirvadam +entertains peculiar veneration. This is simply an abundant feast of +Brahminical good things, to which the "fat and greasy citizens" of +the caste are bidden by some zealous or manoeuvring Soodra,--on +occasion of the dedication of a temple, perhaps, or in a season of +drought, or when a malign constellation is to be averted, or to +celebrate the birth or marriage of some exalted personage. From all +the country round about, the Brahmins flock to the feasting, singing +Sanscrit hymns and obscene songs, and shouting, _Hara! hara! Govinda!_ +The low fellow who has the honor to entertain so select a company is +not suffered to seat himself in the midst of his guests, much less +to partake of the viands he has been permitted to provide; but in +consideration of his "deed of exalted merit," and his expensive +appreciation of the beauties and advantages of high-caste society, +as expressed in all the delicacies of the season, he may come, when +the last course has been discussed, and, prostrating himself in the +sashtangam posture, receive the unanimous asirvadam of the company. + +If, in taking leave of his august guests, he should also signify his +sense of the honor they have done him, by presenting each with a +piece of cloth or a sum of money, he is assured that he is altogether +superior in mind and person to the gods, and that, if he is wise, he +will not neglect to remind his friends of his munificence by another +exhibition of it within a reasonable time. + +In the creed of Asirvadam the Brahmin, the drinker of strong drink +is a Pariah, and the eater of cow's flesh is damned already. If, then, +he can tell a cocktail from a cobbler, and scientifically +discriminate between a julep and a gin-sling, it must be because the +Vedas are unclasped to him; for in the Vedas all things are taught. +It is of Asirvadam's father that the story is told, how, when a fire +broke out in his house once, and all the pious neighbors ran to +rescue his effects, the first articles saved were a tub of pickled +pork and a jar of arrack. But this, also, no doubt, is the malicious +invention of some satirical rogue of a Soodra. Asirvadam, as is well +known, recoils with horror from the abomination of eating aught that +has once lived and moved and had a being; but if, remembering that, +you should seek to fill his soul with consternation by inviting him +to inspect a fig under a microscope, he would quietly advise you to +break your nasty glass and "go it blind." + +But there is one custom which Asirvadam the Brahmin observes in +common with the Pariah, and that is the solemn ceremonial of Death. +When his time comes, he dies, is burned, and presently forgotten; +and it is a consolation for his ever having been at all, that some +one is sure to be the richer and happier and freer for his ceasing +to be. True, he may assume new earthly conditions, may pass into +other vexatious shapes of life; but the change must ever be for the +better in respect of the interests of those who have suffered by the +powers and capabilities of the shape which he relinquishes. He may +become a snake; but then he is easily scotched, or fooled out of his +fangs with a cunning charmer's tom-tom;--he may pass into the foul +feathers of an indiscriminately gluttonous adjutant-bird; but some +day a bone will choke him;--his soul may creep under the mangy skin +of a Pariah dog, and be kicked out of compounds by scullions; he may +be condemned to the abominable offices of a crow at the burning +ghauts, a jackal by the wells of Thuggee, or a rat in sewers; but he +can never again be such a nuisance, such a sore offence to the minds +and hearts of men, as when he was Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +Fortunate indeed will he be, if the low, deep curses of all whom he +has oppressed, betrayed, insulted, shall not have availed against +him in his last hour. "Mayest thou never have a friend to lay thee +on the ground when thou diest!"--no imprecation so fierce, so fell, +as that; even Asirvadam the Brahmin abates his cruel greed, when +some poor Soodra client, bled of his last anna, thinks of his sick +wife, and the darling cow that must be sold at last, and grows +desperate. "Mayest thou have no wife to sprinkle the spot with +cow-dung where thy corpse shall lie, and to spread the unspotted +cloth; nor any cow, her horns tipped with rings of brass, and her +neck garlanded with flowers, to lead thee, holding by her tail, +through pleasant paths to the land of Yama! May no Purohita come to +strew thy bier with the holy herb, nor any next of kin be near to +whisper the last mantra!" + +Horrid Soodra! But though thy words make the soul of Asirvadam shiver, +they are but the voice of a dog, after all, and nothing can come of +them. Asirvadam the Brahmin has raised up lusty boys to himself, as +every good Brahmin should; and they shall bind together his thumbs +and his great toes, and lay him on the ground, when his hour is come,-- +lest the bed or the mat cling to his ghost, whithersoever it go, and +torment it eternally. His wife shall spread beneath him a cloth that +the hands of Kooleen Brahmins have woven. Lilies of Nilufar shall +garland the neck of the happy cow that is to lead him safely beyond +the fiery river, and the rings shall be golden wherewith her horns +are tipped. A mighty concourse of clients shall follow him to the +place of burning,--to "Rudra, the place of tears,"--whither ten +Kooleen Brahmins will bear him; and as often as they set down the +bier to feed the dead with a morsel of moistened rice, other +Brahmins shall sing his wisdom and his virtues, and celebrate his +meritorious deeds. When his funeral pyre is lighted, his sons, and +his sons' sons, and his daughters' husbands, and his nephews, shall +beat their breasts and rend the air with lamentations; and when his +body has been consumed, his ashes shall be given to the Ganges,--all +save a certain portion, which shall be made into a paste with milk, +and moulded into an image; and the image shall be set up in his house, +that the Brahmins and all his people may offer sacrifices before it. + +On the tenth day, his wife shall adorn her forehead with a scarlet +emblem, blacken the edges of her eyelids with soorma, deck her hair +with scarlet flowers, her neck and bosom with sandal, stain her face, +arms, and legs with turmeric, and array her in her choicest robes +and all her jewels, and follow her eldest son, in full procession, +to the tank hard by the "land of Rudra." And the heir shall take +three little stones, that were planted there in a row by the +Purohitas, and, going down into the water as deep as his neck, shall +turn his face to the sun and say, "Until this day these three stones +have stood for my father, that is dead. Henceforth let him cease to +be a carcass; let him enter into the joys of Swarga, the paradise of +Devendra, to be blessed with all conceivable blessings so long as +the waters of Ganges shall continue to flow;--so shall the dead +Brahmin not prowl through the universe, afflicting with evil tricks +stars, men, and trees; so shall he be laid." + +But who shall lay the quick Asirvadam, than whom there walks not a +sprite more cunning, more malign? + +Ever since the Solitaries, odious by their black arts to princes and +people, were slain or driven out,--fifteen centuries and more,-- +Asirvadam the Brahmin has been selfish, wicked, and mischievously +busy,--corrupting the hearts, bewildering the minds, betraying the +hopes, exhausting the moral and physical strength of the Hindoos. He +has taught them the foolish tumult of the Hooly, the fanatical +ferocities of the Yajna, the unwhisperable obscenities of the Saktis, +the fierce and ruinous extravagances of the Doorga Pooja, the +mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of +the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious +debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of +Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,--all the +fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral +epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or a Cawnpore. + +Of the outrageous insolence of the Seven Penitents he omits nothing +but their sincerity; of the enlightened simplicity of the anchoret +philosophers he retains nothing but their selfishness; of the +intellectual influence of the Gooroo pontiffs he covets nothing but +their dissimulation. He has taught his gaping disciples that a +skilfully compounded and plausibly administered lie is a goodly thing,-- +except it be told against the cause of a Brahmin, in which case no +oxyhydrogeneralities of earthly combustion can afford an idea of the +particular hotness of the hell devised for such a liar. He has +solemnly impressed them with the mysterious sacredness of the Ganges, +and its manifold virtues of a supernatural order; to swear falsely +by its waters, he says, is a crime for which Indra the Dreadful has +provided an eternity of excruciations,--except the false oath be +taken in the interest of a Brahmin, in which case the perjurer may +confidently expect a posthumous good time. For the rich to extort +money from the poor, says Asirvadam, is an affront to the Gooroos +and the Gods, which must be punished by forfeiture to the Brahmins +of the whole sum extorted, the poor client to pay an additional +charge for the trouble his protectors have incurred; the same when +fines are recovered; and in cases of enforced payment of debts, +three-fourths of the sum collected are swallowed up in costs. Being +a Brahmin, to pay a bribe is a foolish act; to receive one--a +necessary circumstance, perhaps. Not being a Brahmin, to offer or +accept a bribe is a disgraceful transaction, requiring that both +parties shall be made an example of;--the bribe is forfeited to the +Brahmins, and the poorer party fined; if the fine exceed his means, +the richer party to pay the excess. + +As the Brahminical interpretation of an oath is not always clear to +prisoners and witnesses of other castes, it is usual to illustrate +the definition to the obtuser or more scrupulous unfortunates by the +old-fashioned machinery of ordeals: such as compelling the +conscientious or obdurate inquirer to promenade without sandals over +burning coals; or to grasp, and hold for a time, a bar of red-hot +iron; or to plunge the hands into boiling oil, and keep them there +for several minutes. The party receiving these illustrations and +practical definitions of the Brahminical nature of an oath, without +discomfort or scar, is frankly adjudged innocent and reasonable. + +Another pretty trick of ordeal, which borrows its more striking +features from the department of natural history, is that in which +the prisoner or witness is required to grope about for a trinket or +small coin in a basket or jar already occupied by a lively cobra. +Should the groper not be bitten, our courtly friend, Asirvadam, is +satisfied there has been some mistake here, and gallantly begs the +gentleman's pardon. To force the subject to swallow water, cup by cup, +until it burst from mouth and nose, is also a very neat ordeal, but +requiring practice. + +Formerly, Asirvadam the Brahmin "farmed" the offences of his district;-- +that is, he paid a certain sum to government for the right to try, +and to punish, all the high crimes and misdemeanors that should be +committed in his "section" for a year. Of course, fines were his +favorite penalties; and although most of the time, expenses for +meddlers and perjurers being heavy, the office did not pay more than +a fair living profit, there would now and then come a year when, +rice being scarce and opium cheap, with the aid of a little extra +exasperation, he cut it pretty fat. "Take it year in and year out," +said Asirvadam the Brahmin, "a fellow couldn't complain." + +Asirvadam the Brahmin is among the Sepoys. He sits by the well of +Barrackpore, a comrade on either side, and talks, as only he can +talk to whom no books are sealed. To one, a rigid statue of thrilled +attention, he speaks of the time when Arab horsemen first made +flashing forays down upon Mooltan; he tells of Mahmoud's mace, that +clove the idol of Somnath, and of the gold and gems that burst from +the treacherous wood, as water from the smitten rock in the +wilderness; he tells of Timour, and Baber the Founder, and the long +imperial procession of the Great Moguls,--of Humayoon, and Akbar, +and Shah Jehan, and Aurengzebe,--of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan,-- +of Moorish splendor and the Prophet's sway; and the swarthy Mussulman +stiffens in lip-parted listening. + +To the other, a fiery enthusiast, fretting for the acted moral of a +tale he knows too well, he whispers of British blasphemy and +insolence,--of Brahmins insulted, and gods derided,--of Vedas +violated, and the sacred Sanscrit defiled by the tongues of +Kaffirs,--of Pariahs taught and honored,--of high and low castes +indiscriminately mingled, an obscene herd, in schools and regiments,-- +of glorious institutions, old as Mount Meru, boldly overthrown,--of +suttee suppressed, and infanticide abated,--of widows re-married, +and the dowries of the brides of Brahmins limited,--of high-caste +students handling dead bodies, and Soodra beggars drinking from +Brahminical wells,--of the triple cord broken in twain, and +Brahminee bulls slain in the streets, and cartridges greased with the +fat of cows, and Christian converts indemnified, and property not +confiscated for loss of caste,--and a frightful falling off in the +benighting business generally; and the fierce Rajpoot grinds his +white teeth, while Asirvadam the Brahmin plots, and plots, and plots. + +Incline your ears, my brothers, and I will sing you softly, and low, +a song to make Moor and Rajpoot bite, with their very hearts: + +"Bring Soma to the adorable Indra, the lord of all, the lord of +wealth, the lord of heaven, the perpetual lord, the lord of men, the +lord of earth, the lord of horses, the lord of cattle, the lord of +water!" + +"Offer adoration to Indra, the overcomer, the destroyer, the +munificent, the invincible, the all-endowing, the creator, the +all-adorable, the sustainer, the unassailable, the ever-victorious!" + +"I proclaim the mighty exploits of that Indra who is ever victorious, +the benefactor of man, the overthrower of man, the caster-down, the +warrior, who is gratified by our libations, the grantor of desires, +the subduer of enemies, the refuge of the people!" + +"Unequalled in liberality, the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, +profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of +prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, +Indra has given birth to the light of the morning!" + +"Indra, bestow upon us most excellent treasures, the reputation of +ability, prosperity, increase of wealth, security of person, +sweetness of speech, and auspiciousness of days!" + +"Offer worship quickly to Indra; recite hymns; let the outpoured +drops exhilarate him; pay adoration to his superior strength!" + +"When, Indra, thou harnessest thy horses, there is no such +charioteer as thou; none is equal to thee in strength; none, +howsoever well horsed, has overtaken thee!" + +"He, who alone bestows wealth upon the man who offers him oblations, +is the undisputed sovereign: Indra, ho!" + +"When will he trample with his foot upon the man who offers no +oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our +praises? Indra, ho!" + +"Indra grants formidable strength to him who worships him, having +libations prepared: Indra, ho!" + +The song that was chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the +maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the +well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and +mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red +knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene. + +When Asirvadam the Brahmin conjured the wild demon of revolt to light +the horrid torch and bare the greedy blade, he tore a chapter from +the Book of Menu:-- + +"Let no man, engaged in combat, smite his foe with concealed weapons, +nor with arrows mischievously barbed, nor with poisoned arrows, nor +with darts blazing with fire." + +"Nor let him strike his enemy alighted on the ground; nor an +effeminate man, nor one who sues for life with closed palms, nor one +whose hair is loose, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am +thy captive.'" + +"Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one +who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, +but no combatant, nor one who is fighting with another man." + +"Calling to mind the duty of honorable men, let him never slay one +who has broken his weapon, nor one who is afflicted, nor one who +has been grievously wounded, nor one who is terrified, nor one who +turns his back." + +But Asirvadam the Brahmin, like the Thug of seven victims, has +tasted the sugar of blood, sweeter upon his tongue than to the lips +of an eager babe the pearl-tipped nipple of its mother. Henceforth +he must slay, slay, slay, mutilate and ravish, burn and slay, in the +name of the queen of horrors.--Karlee, ho! + +Now what shall be done with our dangerous friend? Shall he be blown +from the mouths of guns? or transported to the heart-breaking +Andamans? or lashed to his own churruck-posts, and flayed with cats +by stout drummers? or handcuffed with Pariahs in chain-gangs, to +work on his knees in foul sewers? or choked to death with raw +beefsteaks and the warm blood of cows? or swinged by stout Irish +wenches with bridle-ends? or smitten on the mouth with kid gloves by +English ladies, his turban trampled under foot by every Feringhee +brat in Bengal?--Wanted, a poetical putter-down for Asirvadam the +Brahmin. + +"Devotion is not in the ragged garment, nor in the staff, nor in +ashes, nor in the shaven head, nor in the sounding of horns. + +"Numerous Mahomets there have been and multitudes of Brahmas, Vishnus, +and Sivas; + +"Thousands of seers and prophets, and tens of thousands of saints +and holy men: + +"But the chief of lords is the one Lord, the true name of God!" + + * * * * * + + + + +WHAT ARE WE GOING TO MAKE? + +It would be easy to collect a library of lamentations over the +mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many +people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do +nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest +detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would +have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree +to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, +they think, argues degeneracy from the good old times of abstract +philosophy and spiritual dogmatism. But what do we better know of +the Infinite Spirit than that he is an infinite mechanic? Whence do +we get worthier or sublimer conceptions of him than from the +machinery with which he works? Are we ourselves less godlike +building mills than sitting in pews?--less in the image of our Maker, +endeavoring to subdue matter than endeavoring to ignore its existence? +Without questioning that the moral nature within us is superior to +the mechanical, we think it quite susceptible of proof that the +moral condition of the world depends on the mechanical, and that it +has advanced and will advance at equal pace with the progress of +machinery. To prove this, or anything else, however, is by no means +the purpose of this article, but only to take the general reader +around a little among mechanical people and ideas, to see what lies +ahead. + +"Papa, what are you going to make?" was doubtless the question of +Tubal-Cain's little boy, when he saw his ingenious father hammering +a red-hot iron, with a stone for a hammer, and another for an anvil. +Little boys have often since asked the same question in blacksmiths' +shops, and we now have shops in which the largest boys may well ask +it. It might be answered in a general way, that the smiths or smiters, +black and white, were and are going to make what our Maker left +unmade in making the human race. The lower animals were all sent +into the world in appropriate, finished, and well-fitting costume, +provided with direct and effective means of subsistence and defence. +The eagle had his imperial plumage, beak, and talons; the elephant +his leathern roundabout and travelling trunk, with its convenient +air-pump; and the beaver, at once a carpenter and a mason, had his +month full of chisels and his tail a trowel. The _bipes implumis_, on +the contrary, was hatched nude, without even the embryo of a +pin-feather. There was nothing for him but the recondite capabilities +of his two talented, but talonless hands, and a large brain almost +without instinct. Nothing was ready-made, only the means of making. +He was brought into the infinite world a finite deity, an +infinitesimal creator,--the first being of that class, to our +knowledge. His most urgent business as a creator was to make tools +for himself, and especially for the purpose of supplying his own +pitiful destitution of feathers. From the aprons of fig-leaves, +stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has +made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other +animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, +lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and +birds-of-paradise; and it only remains that what can be done shall +be done more extensively,--we do not mean for the individual, but +for the masses. Man has created not only tools, but servants,-- +animals all but alive. We may soon say that he has created great +bodies politic and bodies corporate, with heads, hands, feet, claws, +tails, lungs, digestive organs, and perhaps other viscera. What is +remarkable, having at first failed to furnish them with nerves, he +has lately supplied that deficiency,--a token that he will supply +some others. + +Let not the reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not +preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine +with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good +city of Lynn,--where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in +making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be +either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that +human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more +than the rudest semblance of that self-directing vitality which +characterizes the most servile of God-created machinery. The human +mechanic must be content, if he can approach as near to the creation +of life as the painter and sculptor have done. The soul of the +man-made horse-power is primarily the horse, and secondarily the +small boy who stands by to "cut him up" occasionally. Maelzel +created excellent chess-players, with the exception of intelligence, +which he was obliged to borrow of the original Creator and conceal +in a closet under the table. + +But let us not undervalue ourselves--which would, in fact, be to +undervalue our Creator--for such shortcomings. Though into our iron +horse's skull or cab we have to put one or two living men to supply +its deficiency of understanding, it is nevertheless a recognizable +animal, of a very grand and somewhat novel type. Its respiratory, +digestive, and muscular systems are respectable; and in the nature +and articulation of its organs of motion it is clearly original. The +wheel, typical of eternity, is nowhere to be found among living +organisms, unless we take the brilliant vision of Ezekiel in a +literal sense. The idea of attributing life or spirit to wheels, +organs by their nature detached or discontinuous from the living +creatures of which they were parts, was worthy of a prophet or poet; +but to no such prophetic vision were the first wheelwrights indebted +for their conception of so great an improvement upon animal +locomotion. For if they had not made chariots before Noah's flood, +they certainly had done it before Pharaoh's smaller affair in the +Red Sea. On that occasion, the chariot-wheels of the Egyptians were +taken off; but this does not seem to have produced effects so +decisive as would result from a similar disorganization in Broadway +or Washington Street; for the charioteers still "drave them heavily." +Hence we may infer that the wheels were of rude workmanship, making +the chariots little less liable to the infirmity of friction than +those Western vehicles called mud-boats, used to navigate semi-fluid +regions which pass on the map for _terra firma_. + +Yet, notwithstanding the rudeness of the primitive chariot, made of +two or three sticks and two rings cut from a hollow tree, it was the +germ of human inventions, and embosomed the world's destiny. It was +the most original as well as the most godlike of human thoughts. The +ship may have been copied from the nautilus, or from the embarked +squirrel trimming his tail to the breeze; or it may have been +blundered upon by the savage mounted on a drift-log, accidentally +making a sail of his sheepskin cloak while extending his arms to +keep his balance. But the cart cannot be regarded either as a +plagiarism from Nature, or the fruit of accident. The inventor must +have unlocked Nature's private closet with the key of mathematical +principle, and carried off the wheel and axle, the only mechanical +power she had not used in her physical creation, as patent to our +senses. Of course, she meant it should be stolen. She had, it is true, +made a show of punishing her little Prometheus for running off with +her match-box and setting things on fire, but she must have felt +proud of the theft. In well-regulated families children are not +allowed to play with fire, though the passion to do it is looked on +as a favorable mental indication. When the good dame saw that her +infant _chef-d'oeuvre_ had got hold of her reserved mechanical +element, the wheel, she foresaw his use of the stolen fire would be +something more than child's play. The cart, whether two-wheeled, or, +as our Hibernian friends will have it, one-wheeled, was an infinite +success, an invention of unlimited capabilities. Yet the inventor +obtained no record. Neither his name nor his model is to be found in +any patent-office. + +The tool-making animal, having obtained this marvellous means of +multiplying, or rather treasuring and applying, mechanical force, +went on at least some thousands of years before waking up to its +grand significance. Among the nations that first obtained excellence +in textile fabrics, very little use has ever been made of the wheel. +The spinning-girl of Dacca, who twists, and for ages has twisted, a +pound of cotton into a thread two hundred and fifty miles long, +beating Manchester by ninety miles, has no wheel, unless you so call +a ball of clay, of the size of a pea, stuck fast on one end of her +spindle, by means of which she twists it between her thumb and +finger. But this wonderful mechanical feat costs her many months of +labor, to say nothing of previous training; while the Manchester +factory-girl, aided by the multiplying power of the wheel, easily +makes as much yarn, though not quite so fine, in a day. If it were +an object to rival the tenuity of the finest India muslin, machinery +could easily accomplish it. But that spider-web fabric is carried so +nearly to transparency, that the Emperor Aurengzebe is said to have +reproved his daughter for the indelicacy of her costume while she +wore seven thicknesses of it. She might have worn twelve hundred +yards without burdening herself with more than a pound weight; what +she did wear did not, probably, weigh two ounces. The Chinese and +Japanese have spinning-wheels hardly equal to those brought over by +our pilgrim fathers in the Mayflower. But they have also, what +Western civilization has not, praying-wheels. In Japan the +praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it +is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a +mill. The Japanese, however, have mills for hulling rice, turned by +very respectable water-wheels. The Egyptians and Greeks had +water-wheels, and in fact understood all the mechanical powers. +Archimedes, all the world knows, astounded the Romans by mechanical +combinations which showered rocks on the besiegers of Syracuse, and +boasted he could make a projectile of the world itself, if he could +only find a standing-place outside of it. + +The present civilization of Europe very properly began with the clock, +a machine which a monk, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, was supposed +to have borrowed from Satan, though he was probably indebted for it +to the Saracens. For nearly nine hundred years after his day, the +best ingenuity of Italian, German, Swiss, French, and English +mechanics was devoted to perfecting this noble creation, and it +became at last a part of the civilized man, a sort of additional or +supplementary sense. The savage may well be excused for mistaking +the watch for a living creature. It could not serve us better, if it +were. True, it does not perform its function by its own force, but by +a stock of extraneous force which is from time to time put into a +little store-house called a spring. Neither does the living creature +perform its functions by any other force than that which is developed +by the chemical action within it, or the _quasi_ combustion of its +food. Its will does but direct the application of its mechanical +power. It creates none. You may weigh the animal and all the food it +is to consume, and thence calculate the utmost ounce of work, of a +given kind, which it can thereafter perform. It may do less, but +cannot do more. Having consumed all of its food and part of itself, +it dies. Its chemical organs have oxydated or burned up all the +combustibles submitted to them, thus developing a definite amount of +heat, a part of which, at the dictation of the will, by the +mechanism of nerves and muscles, has been converted into mechanical +motion. When the chemical function ceases, for the want of materials +to act upon, the development of heat ceases. There is no more either +to be converted into motion or to maintain the temperature of the +body; and self-consumption having already taken the place of +self-repair, there is no article left but the _articulus mortis_. + +But of all the force or motion produced by, or rather passing through, +a living animal, or any other organism, none is ever, so far as we +know, annihilated. The motion which has apparently ceased or been +destroyed has in reality passed into heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, or other effect,--itself, perhaps, nothing but motion, to +keep on, in one form or another, indefinitely. The fuel which we put +into the stomach of the horse, of iron or of flesh, first by its +oxydation raises heat, a part of which it is the function of the +individual to convert into motion, to be expended on friction and +resistance, or, in other words, to be reconverted into heat. What +becomes of this heat, then? If the fuel were to be replaced or +deoxydated, the heat that originally came from the oxydation would be +precisely reabsorbed. But this heat of itself cannot overcome the +stronger affinity which now chains the fuel to the oxygen. It must +go forward, not backward, about its business, forever and ever. It +may pass, but not cease. The sharp-eyed Faraday has been following +far away this Proteus, with a strong suspicion that it changes at +last into gravity, in which shape it returns straight to the sun, +carrying down with it, probably, those flinty showers of meteors +which, striking fire in the atmosphere of the prime luminary, +replenish its overflowing fountain of life. But we are not aware +that he has yet discovered the anastomosis of this conversion, or +quite established the fact. We are therefore not yet quite ready to +resolve the universe of physical forces into the similitude of the +mythical mill-stream, which, flowing round a little hill, came back +and fed its own pond. Nevertheless, we believe the physicists have +pretty generally agreed to assume as a law of Nature what they call +the conservation of force, the principle we have been endeavoring to +explain. + +Under the lead of this law, theory, or assumption, discoveries have +been made that deeply and practically interest the most abject +mortal who anywhere swings a hoe or shoulders a hod, as well as the +lords of the land. For example, it has been ascertained that heat is +converted into motion, or motion into heat, according to a fixed or +constant ratio or equivalent. To be more particular, the heat which +will raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree of +Fahrenheit's scale, when converted into mechanical motion, is +equivalent to the force which a weight of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds would exert by falling one foot. This is a +wonderfully small quantity of heat to balance so heavy a blow, but +the careful experiments of Mr. Joule of Manchester, the discoverer, +confirmed by Regnault, Thomson, Rankine, Clausius, Mayer, Rennie, +and others, have, we believe, satisfied scientific men that it is +not far from the correct measure. Were the same, or a far less +amount of heat, concentrated on a minute chip of steel struck off by +collision with a flint, it would be visible to the eye as a spark, +and show us how motion is converted into light as well as heat. + +It is not our vocation to dive into the infinities, either upward or +downward, in search, on the one hand, of the ultimate atoms of the +rarest ether, by whose vibrations the luminous waves run through +space at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute, or, +on the other, of the nebulous systems, worlds in the gristle, so far +off that the light just now arriving from them tells only how they +looked two hundred thousand years ago. All we have to say is, that, +if we do not now absolutely know, we do reasonably suspect, that heat +and light are mere mechanical motions, alike in nature and +interconvertible in fact. The luminiference seems to behave itself, +not like infinitely small bullets projected from Sharpe's rifles of +proportionately small bore, as was once supposed, but rather after +the manner of the sound-waves, which we know travel through the air +from the sonorous body to the ear. They have also a resemblance, not +so close, to the waves which run in all directions along the surface +of a pond of water from the point where a stone falls into it. These +three classes of waves, differing so immensely in magnitude and +velocity, all agree in this,--that it is the wave that travels, and +not the fluid or medium. The rapidity of the luminous wave is about +nine hundred million times that of the sound-wave; hence we may +suppose that the ether in which it moves is about as many times +rarer or lighter than air, and the retina of the eye which it +impresses as many times more delicate and sensitive than the drum of +the ear. It can hardly be unreasonable to suppose that a fluid so +rare as this luminiferous ether will readily interflow the particles +of all other matter, gaseous, liquid, or solid, and that in such +abundance that its vibrations or agitations may be propagated through +them. Yet even the rarest gases must considerably obstruct and +modify the vibratory waves, while liquids and solids, according to +their density and structural arrangement of atoms, must do it far +more. The luminiferous ether, in which all systems are immersed, +kept hereabout in an incessant quiver through its complete and +perhaps three-fold gamut of vibrations by the sun, strikes the aerial +ocean of the earth about an average of five hundred million millions +of blows per second, for each of the seven colors, or luminous notes, +not to speak of the achromatic vibrations, whose effects are other +than vision or visionary. The aerial ocean is such open-work, that +these infinitesimal billows are not much, though somewhat, broken by +it; but when they reach the terraqueous globe itself, they dash into +foam which goes whirling and eddying down into solids and liquids, +among their wild caverns of ultra-microscopic littleness, and this +foam or whirl-storm of ethereal substance is heat, if we are not +much mistaken. According to its intensity, it expands by its own mere +motion all grosser material. + +The quantity of this ethereal foam, yeast, whirlwind, hubbub, or +whatever else you please to call it, which is got up or given up by +the combustion of three pounds of good bituminous coal, according to +Mr. Joule's experiments, is more than equivalent to a day's labor +of a powerful horse. With our best stationary steam-engines, at +present, we get a day's horse-power from not less than twenty-four +pounds of coal. At this rate, the whole supply of mineral coal in +the world, as it may be roughly estimated, is equivalent only to the +labor of one thousand millions of horses for fifteen hundred years. +With the average performance of our present engines, it would +support that amount of horse-power for only one thousand years. But +could we obtain the full mechanical duty of the fuel by our engines, +it would be equal to the work of a thousand millions of horses for +sixteen thousand years, or of about fifteen times as many men for +the same time. This would materially postpone the exhaustion of the +coal, at which one so naturally shudders,--to say nothing of the +saving of having to dig but one eighth as much of the mineral to +produce the same effect. Hence some of the interest that attaches to +this discovery of Mr. Joule, which has given a new impulse to the +labor of inventors in pushing the steam-engine towards perfection. + +But if the whole available mechanical power, laid in store in the +coal mines, in addition to all the unimproved wind and water power, +should seem to any one insufficient to work out this world's manifest +destiny, the doctrine of the essential unity or conservation of +force is not exhausted of consolation. All the coal of which we have +spoken is but the result of the action of sun-light in past ages, +decomposing carbonic acid in the vegetative process. The combustion +of the carbon reproduces a force exactly equivalent to that of the +sun-light which was absorbed or consumed in its vegetative separation. +Supposing the whole estimated stock of coal in the world to be +consumed at once, it would cover the entire globe with a stratum of +carbonic acid about seventy-two feet deep. And if all the energy of +sun-light which this globe receives or encounters in a year were to +be devoted to its decomposition, according to Pouillet's estimate of +the strength of sunshine,--and he probably knows, if any one does,-- +deducting all that would be wasted on rock or water, there would be +enough to complete the task in a year or two. A marvellous growth of +forest, that would be! But the coal is not to be burned up at once. +When we get our steam-engines in motion to the amount of two or +three thousand millions of horse-power, and are running off the coal +at the rate of one tenth of one per cent per annum, the simple and +inevitable consequence will be that the wood will be growing enough +faster to keep good the general stock of fuel. Doubtless the forests +are now limited in their growth and stunted from their ante-Saurian +stature, not so much for want of soil, moisture, or sunshine as for +want of carbonic acid in the air, to be decomposed by the foliage, +the great deposition of coal in the primitive periods having +exhausted the supply. Our present havoc of wood only changes the +locality of wood-lots, and our present consumption of coal, rapid +enough to exhaust the entire supply in about seventy-seven thousand +years, is sure to increase the aggregate cordage of the forests. By +the time we have brought our locomotive steam-cultivators to such +perfection as to plough up and pulverize the great central deserts, +we may see trees flourish where it would have been useless to plant +the seed before we had converted so much of the earth's entrails +into smoke. + +There was a time, before we had harnessed the powers of Nature to +found, forge, spin, weave, print, and drudge for us generally, that +in every civilized country the strong-headed men used their +strong-handed brethren as machines. Only he could be very knowing who +owned many scribes, or he very rich who owned many hewers of wood +and drawers of water. With our prodigious development of mechanical +inventions, iron and coal, our mighty steam-driven machinery for +making machines, the time for chattelizing men, or depending mainly +on animal power of any sort for the production of wealth, has passed +by. Abrogate the golden rule, if you will, and establish the creed +of caste,--let the strongest of human races have full license to +enslave the weakest, and let it have the pick of soil and staples,-- +still, if you do not abolish the ground rules of arithmetic, and the +fact that a pound of carbon costs less than a pound of corn, and must +cost less for at least a thousand years to come, chattelism of man +will cease in another generation, and the next century will not dawn +on a human slave. At present, a pound of carbon does not cost so +much as a pound of corn in any part of the United States, and in no +place visited by steam-transportation does it cost one fifth as much. +We are already able to get as much work out of a pound of carbon as +can be got from a pound of corn fed to the faithfullest slave in the +world. Mr. Joule has shown us that there is really in a pound of +carbon more than twice as much work as there is in a pound of corn. +The human corn-consuming machine comes nearer getting the whole +mechanical duty or equivalent out of his fuel than our present +steam-engine does, but the former is all he ever will be, while the +latter is an infant and growing. + +We shall doubtless soon see engines that will get the work of two +slaves out of the coal that just balances one slave's food in the +scales. Our iron-boned, coal-eating slave, with the advantage of +that peculiar and almost infinitely applicable mechanical element, +the wheel, may be made to go anywhere and do any sort of work, and, +as we have seen, he will do it for one tenth of the cost of any +brute or human slave. + +But will not our artificial slave be more liable to insurrection? +Everybody admits that he already accomplishes incalculable drudgery +in the huge mill, on the ocean, and on the iron highway. But almost +everybody looks upon him as a sleeping volcano, which must sooner or +later flare up into irresistible wrath and do frightful mischief. +Underwriters shake their prudent heads at him. Coroners' inquests, +sitting solemnly over his frequent desolations, find only that some +of his ways are past finding out. Can such a creature be +domesticated so as to serve profitably and comfortably on by-roads +as well as high-roads, on farms, in gardens, in kitchens, in mines, +in private workshops, in all sorts of places where steady, +uncomplaining toil is wanted? Can we ever trust him as we trust +ourselves, or our humble friends, the horse and the ox? The law of +the conservation of force, now so nearly developed, will perhaps +throw some light on this inquiry. + +Boiler explosions have a sort of family resemblance to the freaks of +lightning or the thunderbolt. Indeed, so striking is the similarity, +that people have been prone to think, that, previously to an +explosion, the steam in the boiler must have become in some +inexplicable way charged with electricity like a thunder-cloud, and +that the discharge must have occasioned the catastrophe. It is +needless to say to those who understand a Leyden jar, that nothing +of the sort takes place. The friction of the watery globules, carried +along by the steam in blowing off, is found to disturb the +electrical equilibrium, as any other friction does; but the +circumstances in the case of a boiler are always so favorable to its +restoration, that an electrical thunderbolt cannot possibly be +raised there that would damage a gnat. Yet a boiler explosion may, +after all, depend on the same immediate cause as the mechanical +effect which is frequently noticed after an electrical discharge in a +thunder-storm. Let us hypothetically analyze what takes place in a +thunder-storm. For the sake of illustration, and nothing more, we +will suppose the existence, throughout all otherwise void space, of +three interflowing ethers, the atoms of each of which are, in regard +to each other, repellant, negative, or the reverse of ponderable, +and that these ethers differ in a series by vast intervals as to +size and distance of atoms, that each neither repels nor attracts +the other, that only the rarest is everywhere, and that the denser +ones, while self-repellant, have affinities, more or less, which +draw them from the interplanetary spaces towards the ponderable +masses. Let the rarest of these ethers be that whose vibrations +cause the phenomena of light,--the next denser that which, either by +vibration or translatory motion, causes the electrical phenomena,-- +and the most dense of the three that which by its motions, of +whatever sort, causes the phenomena of heat. The solar impulse +propagated through the luminiferous ether towards any mass encounters +in its neighborhood the electrical and calorific ethers, and sets +them into motions which may be communicated from one to the other, +but which are communicated to ponderable matter, or result in +mechanical action, only or chiefly by the impulse of the denser or +calorific ether. When the sun shines on land and water, as we have +already said, there is a violent ethereal commotion in the +interstices of the superficial matter, which we will now suppose to +be that of the calorific ether; and by virtue of this motion, +together with whatever affinities this ether may be supposed to have +for ponderable matter, we may account for evaporation, and the +production of those vast aerial currents by which the evaporated +water is diffused. In the production of aerial currents, heat is +converted into force, and hence vapor is converted into watery +globules mechanically suspended on clouds, which, by their friction, +sweep the electrical ether into excessive condensation in the great +Leyden-jar arrangement of the sky. Whatever it may be that gives +relief to this condensation, the relief itself consists in motion, +either translatory or vibratory, of the electrical ether or ethers. +As this motion, if it be such, often takes place through gases, +liquids, and solids, without any sensible mechanical effect, and at +other times is contemporary with phenomena of intense heat, we may, +till otherwise informed, suppose, that, whenever it produces a +mechanical effect, it is by so impinging on the calorific ether as +to produce the motion of heat, which is instantly thereafter +converted into mechanical force. It is not so much the greatness of +the amount of this mechanical force which gives it its peculiar +destructiveness, as the inequality of its strain; not so much the +quantity of matter projected, as the velocity of the blow. One may +have his brains blown out by a bullet of air as well as one of lead, +if the air only blows hard enough and to one point. Whatever its +material, the edge of the thunder-axe is almost infinitely sharp, +and its blow is as destructive as it is timeless. But it is always +heat, not electrical discharge, which only sometimes causes heat, +that strikes the blow. + +Now in the case of a steam-boiler, when the water, having been +reduced too low, is allowed suddenly to foam up on the overheated +crown-sheet of the furnace, there must be just that sudden or +instantaneous conversion of heat into force which may take place +when the current of the electrical discharge passes through the +gnarled fibres of an oak. The boiler and the oak are blown to shivers +in equally quick time. The only difference seems to be, that in one +case electricity stood immediately, in point of time, behind the heat, +and in the other it stood away back beyond the crocodiles, playing +its _role_ more genially in the growth of the monster forests whose +remains we are now digging from the bowels of the earth as coal. In +the normal action of a steam-boiler, the steam-generating surfaces +being all under water, however unequally the fire may act in +different localities, the water, by its rapid circulation, if not by +its heat-absorbing power, diffuses the heat and constantly equalizes +the strain resulting from its conversion into mechanical force. The +increase of pressure takes place gradually and evenly, and may +easily be kept far within safe limits. It is quite otherwise when +the conductivity of the boiler-plate is not aided and controlled by +the distributiveness of the water, as it is not whenever the plate +is in contact with the fire on one side without being also in contact +with the water on the other. Everybody knows that boilers explode +under such circumstances, but everybody does not know why. + +A cylinder of plate-iron will withstand a gradually applied, evenly +distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, +acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or +establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the +sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be +nothing very serious in itself,--no more so than a rent produced by +the hydraulic press,--if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of +a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not take instant +advantage of it to enlarge the breach and blow the whole structure +to fragments, or, in other words, if it did not permit nearly the +whole of the accumulated heat in the boiler to be at once converted +into mechanical motion. For example, a boiler whose ordinary working +pressure is one hundred pounds to the square inch, which may give an +aggregate on the whole surface of five millions of pounds, would not +give way, perhaps, if that pressure were gradually and evenly +increased to thirty millions. But if the water is allowed to get so +low that some part of the plate exposed to the fire is no longer +covered with it, that part will directly become far hotter than the +water or the mass of the steam,--dry steam having no more power to +carry away the excess of heat than so much air. After that, when the +water rises again, the first wave or wallop that strikes the +overheated plate absorbs the excess of heat, and its conversion into +steam of higher pressure than that already existing is so sudden +that it may be regarded as instantaneous. It is to be remembered +that for every pound of water raised one degree, or heat to that +amount absorbed in generating steam, a force of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds is created. In this case a new or additional +force is created, which, acting in all directions from one point, +first takes effect on the line which joins that point with the +nearest opposite point in the wall of the boiler. If it is not like +smiting with the edge of a ponderous battle-axe, it is at least as +dangerous as a cannon ball shot along that line. If the local heat +so suddenly absorbed be but enough to raise ten pounds of water ten +degrees, it is equivalent to the force acquired by seventy-seven +thousand two hundred pounds falling through a foot, or of a +cannon-ball of one hundred pounds flying at the rate of more than a +mile per second. If by any miracle the boiler should stand this +shock or series of shocks, the pressure becomes equalized, and the +overheated plate having parted with its excess of heat, safety is +restored. But if cohesion is anywhere overcome by the sudden blow, +the wild horses stampede in all directions. The boiler, minus the +water and boiler-head perhaps, goes through ceiling, roof, and brick +walls, as if they were cobwebs, and, surrounded with fragments of +men and things, is seen descending like a comet through the +neighboring air. + +To get rid of this liability to have a Thor-hammer or thunderbolt +generated in the stomach of a steam-engine, at any moment when the +vigilance of the engineer happens to be at fault, something is going +to be done. No safety-valve or fusible plug is adequate. The boiler +cannot be all safety-valve. The trouble is, the hammer is not more +likely to strike the first of its terrible series of blows on the +valve than anywhere else. A safety-valve, in good order, is a +sovereign precaution against the excess of an equally distributed +strain, but it is not an adequate protection against a shock or +unequal strain. The old-fashioned gaugecocks, which are by no means +to be dispensed with, reveal the state of the water in the boiler to +the watchful engineer about as surely as the stethoscope reveals to +the doctor the condition of his patient's lungs. A surer and more +convenient indication is the tubular glass gauge, on the fountain +principle, which in its best form is both trustworthy and durable. +No well-informed proprietor suffers his boiler to be without one; +but it is not a cure for carelessness. It is only a window for the +vigilant eye to look through, not the eye itself. Steam-boilers will +have to be constructed so that when the subsidence of the water +fails to check itself by enlarging the supply, it shall, before the +point of danger is reached, infallibly check the combustion, let off +the steam, and blow a whistle or ring a bell, which the proprietor +may, if he pleases, regard as the official death-knell of the +careless engineer. Human vigilance must not be superseded, but +fortified,--as in the case of the watchman watched by the tell-tale +clock. The steam-creature must be so constituted as to refuse to +work itself down to the zone where alone unequal strains are possible; +it must cry out in horror and strike work. Mechanically the solution +of the problem is easy, and the enhancement in cost of construction +will be nothing, compared to the risk of loss from these explosions. +With this guard against the deficiency of water, steam-power will +become the safest, as it is the most manageable, of all forces that +have hitherto been subsidized by the civilized man. + +But there is one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great +injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical +way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy or +the laws of dietetics. + +Our creature has no regular meals, especially if he is one of the +fast kind; but a grimy nurse stands by, and, opening his mouth every +few minutes, crams in a few spoonfuls of the black pudding. The +natural consequence is more or less indigestion and inequality of +strength. We have not yet taken full advantage of the laws of +combustion, or adapted our apparatus to the peculiarities of the +best and cheapest fuel. Nature manages more wisely in her machinery. +Combustion, the union of fuel with oxygen, ceases for want of air as +well as for want of fuel. In the case of fuels compounded of carbon +and hydrogen, if the air be withheld when the mass is in rapid +combustion, the heat will cause a portion of the fuel to pass off by +distillation, unconsumed, and this portion will be lost. But from +the best anthracite, which is nearly pure carbon concentrated, if +oxygen be entirely excluded, not much can distil away with any +degree of heat. The combustion of this fuel, therefore, admits of +very easy and economical regulation, by simply regulating the supply +of air. When the air is admitted at all, it should be admitted above +as well as below the fuel, so that the carbonic oxyde that is +generated in the mass may be burned, or converted into carbonic acid, +over the top. Why, then, should not the iron horse, before leaving +his stable, take a meal of anthracite sufficient to last him fifty +or one hundred miles? Let him swallow a ton at once, if he need it. +Before starting, let the temperature of the mass in the furnace be +got up to the point where the combustion will go on with sufficient +rapidity for the required speed by simply supplying air, which +should also be fed as hot as possible. This done, the engineer +throughout the trip will have perfect control of his force by means +of the steam-blast and air-openings. There will be no smoke nuisance, +the combustion being complete so far as it takes place at all. +There will be no need of loading the furnace with firebrick to +equalize the heat,--the mass of incandescent fuel serving that +purpose; and no waste or inequality will occur from opening the door +to throw in a cold collation. + +What are we going to make? First, we are going to finish up, and +carry out into all desirable species, our great idea of an iron slave, +the illustrious Man Friday of our modern civilization. Whether we +put water, air, or ether into his aorta, as the medium of converting +heat into force, we shall at last have a safe subject, available for +all sorts of drudgery, that will do the work of a man without eating +more than half as much weight of coal as a man eats of bread and meat. +Next, carrying into all departments of human industry, in its +perfect development, this new creature, which has already, as a mere +infant, made so stupendous a change in some of them, we shall make +the human millions all masters, from being nearly all slaves. We +shall make both idleness and poverty nearly impossible. Human labor, +as a general thing, is a positive pleasure only when the hand and +brain work in concert. Hence, the more you increase well-devised and +efficient machinery, which requires and rewards intelligent +oversight and skilful direction, the more you increase the love of +labor. We have already manufacturing communities so well supplied +with tasks for brains and hands, that everybody works, or would do +so but for Circe and her seductive hollow-ware. We are beginning to +push machinery into agriculture, where it will have still greater +scope. With the means we now have, in the enormously increased +production of iron, our almost omnipresent and omnipotent +machine-shops, our railroads leading everywhere, another century, or +perhaps half of it, will see every arable rood of the earth and +every rood that can be made arable, ploughed, sowed, and the crops +harvested by iron horses, iron oxen, or iron men, under the free and +intelligent supervision of people who know how to feed, drive, doctor, +and make the most of them. + +One island, which would hardly be missed from the map of the world, +so small that its rivers all fall into the sea mere brooks, with not +more than one-thirteenth as much coal as we have in the United States, +and perhaps not one-hundredth as much iron ore, by the use of +steam-driven machinery produces as much iron and perhaps weaves as +much cloth yearly as all the rest of the world. If it does not the +latter, it would do it, if it could find enough of the raw material +and paying customers. But agriculture, which supplies the raw +material, though it is the first and most universal form of human +labor, lags behind the world's present manufacturing power. One cause +of the late, and perhaps of the previous commercial revulsion, was +this disproportion. The more rapid enlargement of manufacturing +industry, multiplied in power by its machinery, caused the raw +material to rise in price and the manufactured article to fall, till +the operations could not be supported from the profits at the same +time that contracts were fulfilled with capitalists. Manufactures +must pause till agriculture overtakes. Steam-machinery applied to +agriculture is the only thing that can correct this disproportion, +and this is what we are going to make. The world is not to be much +longer dependent for its cotton on the compulsory labor of the Dark +Ages, nor for its flax and corn on blistered free hands or +overworked cattle. The laborer, in either section of our country, +will be transformed into an ingenious gentleman or lady, comfortably +mounted on a migratory steam-cultivator to direct its gigantic +energies,--or, at least, occasionally so occupied. Under this system, +it must be plain enough, to all persons prophetically inclined, that +the Northern valleys will greatly multiply their products, while the +Southern cotton-fields will whiten with heavier crops than human +chattelism ever produced, and the mountains of both latitudes, now +hardly notched with civilization, will roll down the wool of sheep +in clouds. + +Finally, with important and fruitful mechanical ideas which the +world did not have twenty years ago, with machinery which no one +could have believed possible one hundred years ago, and which has, +since that time, quintupled the power of every free laborer in +Christendom, we are going to make man what his Creator designed him +to be,--always and everywhere a sub-creator. By the press we are +making the knowledge of the past the knowledge of the present, the +knowledge of one the knowledge of all. By the telegraph the senses +of sight and hearing are to be extended around the globe. If we do +not make ships to navigate the air, for ourselves, our wives, and +our little ones, it will not be because we cannot, but because, being +lords of land and sea, with power to traverse either with all +desirable speed, we are too wise to waste force either in beating +the air for buoyancy, battling with gravity like birds, on the one +hand, or in paddling huge balloons against the wind, on the other. +The steam-driven wheel leaves us no occasion to envy even that +ubiquitous denizen of the universe, the flying-fish. We have in it +the most economical means of self-transportation, as well as of +mechanical production. It only remains to make the most of it. This, +to be sure, will not be achieved without infinite labor and +innumerable failures. The mechanical genius of the race is like the +polypus anxiously stretching its tentacles in every direction, and +though frustrated thousands of times, it grasps something at last. + +One of the most significant structures in the world, by the way, is +the United States Patent Office at Washington. No other building in +that novel city means a hundredth part as much, or shows so clearly +what the world's most cunning thoughts and hands are chiefly engaged +with. Not that the Patent Office contains so many miracles of +mechanical success; rather the contrary. Take a just appraisal of +its treasures, and you will regard it rather as the chief tomb in the +Pere la Chaise of human hopes. What multitudes of long-nursed and +dearly-cherished inventions there repose in a common grave, useful +only as warnings to future inventors! One great moral of the survey +is, that inventive talent is shamefully wasted among us, for want of +proper scientific direction and suitable encouragement. The mind +that comprehends general principles in all their relations, and sees +what needs to be done and what is possible and profitable to be done, +is of necessity not the one to arrange in detail the means of doing. +The man of science and the mechanical inventor are distinct persons, +speaking of either in his best estate; and the maximum success of +machinery depends on their acting together with a better +understanding than they have hitherto had. It were less difficult +than invidious to point to living examples of the want of +cooperation and co-appreciation between our knowing and our doing men; +but, for the sake of illustrating our idea, we will run the risk of +quoting a minute from the proceedings of one of our scientific +societies, premising that we know nothing more of the parties than +we learn from the minute itself,--to wit, that one is, or was, an +ingenious mechanic, and the other a promoter of science. + +"Dr. Patterson gave an account of an automaton speaking-machine +which Mr. Franklin Peale and himself had recently inspected. The +machine was made to resemble as nearly as possible, in every respect, +the human vocal organs; and was susceptible of varied movements by +means of keys. Dr. Patterson was much struck by the distinctness with +which the figure could enunciate various letters and words. The +difficult combination _three_ was well pronounced,--the _th_ less +perfectly, but astonishingly well. It also enumerated diphthongs, +and numerous difficult combinations of sounds. Sixteen keys were +sufficient to produce all the sounds. In enunciating the simple +sounds, the movements of the mouth could be seen. The parts were +made of gum elastic. The figure was made to say, with a peculiar +intonation, but surprising distinctness, 'Mr. Patterson, I am glad to +see you.' It sang, 'God save Victoria,' and 'Hail Columbia,'--the +words and air combined. Dr. Patterson had determined to visit the +maker of the machine, Mr. Faber, in private, in order to obtain +further interesting information; but, on the following day, Dr. P. +was distressed to learn, that, in a fit of excitement, he had +destroyed every particle of a figure which had taken him seventeen +years to construct." + +It is quite probable that the world lost very little by the +destruction of this curious figure, whatever the nature or cause of +the "excitement" that led to it. All we have to say is, that it does +lose much, when the genius that can create such things is not set +upon the right tasks, and encouraged to success by the "high +consideration" of scientific men, who alone of all the world can +appreciate the difficulties it has to contend with. It is by setting +the right mechanical problems before the men who can make dumb matter +talk, that we are to bring about the resurrection of the black Titan +who has lain buried under the mountains for thousands of millenniums, +and constitute him the efficient sub-gardener of the world's Paradise +Regained. + + + * * * * * + + + + +SHIPWRECK + + We who by shipwreck only find the shores + Of divine wisdom can but kneel at first, + Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, + That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, + The shock and sustenance of solid earth: + Inland afar we see what temples gleam + Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, + And we conjecture shining shapes therein; + Yet for a space 'tis good to wonder here + Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + + [Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the + end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at + once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh + verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your + audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people + can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off + without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into + the saddle again, at every parenthesis.] + +----The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had +fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street. +It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable +exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayley. +When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face, +and complained that he had been "made sport of." By sympathizing +questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him "old daddy," +and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed. + +This incident led me to make some observations at table the next +morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this +record. + +----The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I +learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of +Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were +usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native +town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a +"Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, +and the following dialogue ensued. + +_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, did you know there was g-on-to +be a race to-morrah? + +_Myself_. No. Who's g-on-to run, 'n'wher's't g-on-to be? + +_The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico and Doctor Williams, round the brim +o' your hat. + +These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at +that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, +the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, +I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to +make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress +ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. + +A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, +is never itself again afterwards. + +It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary. + +Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is +always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, +suggestive of a wet brush. + +The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing +its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of +"respectability." + +----The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very +pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French, +except the word for potatoes,--_pummies de tare_.--_Ultimum moriens_, +I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With +this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I +saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the +white one in his hand. + +----I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor +for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think +and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many +respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this +time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing, and therefore +I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a +word or two about my friends. + +The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful +and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small +technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and +though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand +airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting +on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet I +am sure he has a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its +cultivators. + +But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other day.-- +My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, because I +keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into +the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your +customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them +off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher +a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, +the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew +all this very well when he advised every literary man to have a +profession. + +----Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with +the other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of +intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have +found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other +amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my +carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest +possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to +tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work +immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, +and got so interested in it, that, when we were set loose, I +"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished. + +There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and +others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my +winter's work is over, and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn +to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life than +he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says,-- +yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he can sing +least. + +Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed, sometimes,-- +said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst songs fall below +my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to others who +have told me so, that they ought to be _all best_,--if not in actual +execution, at least in plan and motive. I am grateful--he continued-- +for all such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have his most +serious efforts praised, and the highest aspect of his nature get the +most sunshine. + +Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change +their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing +their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant by +complementary colors? You know the effect, too, that the prolonged +impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your +eyes after looking steadily at a _red_ object, you see a _green_ +image. + +It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking at +one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or truth, +when they turn away, the _complementary_ aspect of the same object +stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. Shall +they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not? + +When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite largeness +of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote +the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, +I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from +time to time, and come down from its noblest condition,--never, of +course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, +but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise +themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the +bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble +friends in the basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet +and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple adornments, but befitting the +station of those who wear them--show themselves to the crowd, who +think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs +know that they are cheap and perishable? + +----I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or +other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you +what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me, +one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ. Life +turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come +under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my +_adagio_ movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play us so +always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, +the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. How +easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must be no end of +just such melodies in him,--I will open the poor machine for you one +moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note marks where a spur of +steel has been driven in. It is easy to grind out the song, but to +plant these bristling points which make it was the painful task of +time. + +I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no +larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them +piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect. +The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their +turn! + +So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest songs, +and after it a gay _chanson_, and then a string of epigrams. All true,-- +he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the corolla spread, +and another with its disk half opened, and the third with the +heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two showing its tip +through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of the poet's soul,-- +he told me. + +----What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the +souls of poets most fully? + +Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus. +Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark, and +a fern will not flower anywhere. + +What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's corolla?-- +I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am afraid; or at +least they shine on a good many that never come to anything. + +Who are _they_?--said the schoolmistress. + +Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his +best reward. + +The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I +really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have +pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, +but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true +poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,--to a +woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, +so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.-- +Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,--what color +would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed +whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's praises! I should +have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- + + "Lilies without; roses within!" + +But then,--he added,--we all think, _if_ so and so, we should have +been this or that, as you were saying, the other day, in those +rhymes of yours. + +----I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but +of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in +soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and +sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own hands +the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts the +over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. + +There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. +[Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please to tell us +about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are +blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,-- +_negative_ or _washed_ blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to +become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with +golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,-- +_positive_ or _stained_ blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as +unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike a +snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a +sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline +fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her +quick, glittering glances. + +Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, +and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of +moonlight genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of +nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to +those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. +Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with melancholy. +There is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of +compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact that +some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest songs are the +growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for the rougher +duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or +of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, sweet natures, +born to weakness, and mostly dying before their time,--one cannot +help thinking that the human race dies out singing, like the swan in +the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hotel Dieu, +at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by a key in his throat, which he +had swallowed when delirious in consequence of a fall,)--this poor +fellow was a very good example of the poet by excess of sensibility. +I found, the other day, that some of my literary friends had never +heard of him, though I suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know +the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed +in the great hospital of Paris. + + "Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, + J'apparus un jour, et je meurs; + Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive, + Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." + + At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, + One day I pass, then disappear; + I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest + No friend shall come to shed a tear. + +You remember the same thing in other words somewhere in Kirke +White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these +sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world +will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have loved! +how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes +grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner and thinner, +until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, +they drop it and pass onward. + +----Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them +up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the +hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. + +Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; +they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only +makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, +seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence +at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so +long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. + +If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the +dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring +through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, +uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow +up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us +sometimes for silence and rest!--that this dreadful mechanism, +unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral +figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can +wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?-- +that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters +beneath?--that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to +utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is +shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that +building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where +neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which +a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. +There is nothing for it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling +of its wheels, but to spring against the stone wall and silence them +with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,-- +and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise +as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and +serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of +a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid +automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would +the world give for the discovery? + +----From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place +and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they call +John. + +You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will +maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot stop, +but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at +the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. They clap +on the breaks by means of opium; they change the maddening monotony +of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It is because the brain +is locked up and we cannot touch its movement directly, that we +thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice by which they may +reach the interior, and so alter its rate of going for a while, and +at last spoil the machine. + +Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work +independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who +follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of +keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their +reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the mechanical +appliances to help them govern their intellects. + +----He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded +to by name. + +Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of +inebriating fluids?--said the divinity-student. + +If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,-- +I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are +the things that some foolish people call _dangerous_ subjects,--as if +these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea-worm +burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more +mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal +with these obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of +them, and no bigger than a horse-hair, is to get a piece of silk +round their _heads_, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only +break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the +person that has the misfortune of harboring one of them. Whence it +is plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head +lies. + +Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of +intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For you +may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has not a +head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain virtue, I +was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. I +have heard an immense number of moral physicians lay down the +treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority of them would +always insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all body +and tail. So I have found a very common result of their method to be +that the string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature was +broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The truth +is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make +the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on +behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the +influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is. For the +arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that +the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The way to argue down a vice +is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions, +when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its +case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then +meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel +did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him +with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape. +If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to +deal with him. + +That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear. +Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with religious +excitement,--oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said she was so +easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents have +been made tipsy by a beef-steak. + +There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation, which, in +themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be +considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When +the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the +cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging +spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused, or +the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment when +the whole human zooephyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is +ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution box,--it would +be hard to say that a man was at that very time, worse, or less to +be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits +about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic virtues don't wash; +but until the water takes their colors out, the tints are very much +like those of the true celestial stuff. + +[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to +report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine +these records to commit to their candor.] + +A _person_ at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady +drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I +restrained myself, and answered thus:-- + +Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to the +product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the +vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne, +"the foaming wine of Eastern France," is rum. Hock, which our friend, +the Poet, speaks of as: + + "The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, + Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," + +is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the +first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address +myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, almost in +abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise +both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into +which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and +sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I +thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober. + +Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by +drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before +they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no +doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost irresistible +hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but oftenest of all +a _punishment_. + +Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and +sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,-- +ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control +of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their +owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we +have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or +ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it is +simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or +aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, +and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings +into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled +being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no chance +to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught the +lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an +_ad valorem_ scale for them,--and all of us. + +But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more +prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,--the +reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine +frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once explained +to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great picture. The +creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only +put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that +blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of +creative genius is allied to _reverie_, or dreaming. If mind and +body were both healthy, and had food enough and fair play, I doubt +whether any men would be more temperate than the imaginative classes. +But body and mind often flag,--perhaps they are ill-made to begin +with, underfed with bread or ideas, over-worked, or abused in some +way. The automatic action, by which genius wrought its wonders, fails. +There is only one thing which can rouse the machine; not will,--that +cannot reach it; nothing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the +wheels awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The +dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, because their mode +of action can be imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning +ones are safe, because they imply continued voluntary effort. + +I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on a +man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and +fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious +parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is +already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that +he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to +stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face +which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy +there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude +of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in +their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to +labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination of +the seeds of intemperance. + +Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,--no +steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,-- +he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the +maelstrom. + +----I wonder if you know the _terrible smile_? [The young fellow +whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the +sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word +_smile_. The company was curious to know what I meant.] + +There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you +than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth, +which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and +thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about +themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of +self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, +which are betrayed by the cowardly behavior of the eye and the +tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate +beings. + +----Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the +divinity-student. + +Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or +other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't +think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have known a +number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing conveys +the idea of _underbreeding_ more than this self-betraying smile. Yet +I think this peculiar habit, as well as that of _meaningless blushing_, +may be fallen into by very good people who meet often, or sit +opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's face is infinitely +removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I think +Titian understood the look of a gentleman as well as anybody that +ever lived. The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his hand, +in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have seen that collection, +will remind you of what I mean. + +----Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I +cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if +they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one meets +one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same manifestation. +The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence of the +_platysma myoides_, which is called the _risorius Santorini_. + +----Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above. + +The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's +laughing-muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were born +with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am +uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you +of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they +are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally +recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet +three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. + +----There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar +to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are +some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't +understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature +and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the +right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female +countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the +sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the +person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any +unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient +apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an +appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may +inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how +morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest +demonstration of this kind. When a _lady_ walks the streets, she +leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well +enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces +framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a +right to see them. + +----When we observe how the same features and style of person and +character descend from generation to generation, we can believe that +some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. Little +snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us--before they +are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in +the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the age of --2 or +--3 months. + +----My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This +remark excited a burst of hilarity, which I did not allow to +interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the +great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-turtles +mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested +several odd analogies enough. + +There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the +_ovarian eggs_ of the next generation's or century's civilization. +These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet; +some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But +as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and +these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are not +good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian +eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the minds of +others. One must be in the _habit_ of talking with such persons to +get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their development is +necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, which +must be long and closely studied. But these are the men to talk with. +No fresh truth ever gets into a book. + +"----A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow",--said one of the company. + +I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my +friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its +materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and +been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one +mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be +milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something +which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man +instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in +print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it +lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his +intellect. + +----Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of +thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of thought, +who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and the +retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in the +popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to separate +them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of +opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few +generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of +its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of +it or even with it; the world calls him hard names probably; but if +you would find the man of the future, you must look into the folds +of his cerebral convolutions. + +[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as +if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed +his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few +corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and +witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as the old +gentleman opposite says.] + +----Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about. + +SPRING HAS COME. + _Intra Muros_. + + The sunbeams, lost for half a year, + Slant through my pane their morning rays; + For dry Northwesters cold and clear, + The East blows in its thin blue haze. + + And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, + Then close against the sheltering wall + The tulip's horn of dusky green, + The peony's dark unfolding ball. + + The golden-chaliced crocus burns; + The long narcissus-blades appear; + The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, + And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. + + The willow's whistling lashes, wrung + By the wild winds of gusty March, + With sallow leaflets lightly strung, + Are swaying by the tufted larch. + + The elms have robed their slender spray + With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; + Wide o'er the clasping arch of day + Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + + --See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, + That flames in glory for an hour,-- + Behold it withering,--then look up,-- + How meek the forest-monarch's flower!-- + + When wake the violets, Winter dies; + When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; + When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, + "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + + The windows blush with fresh bouquets, + Cut with the May-dew on their lips; + The radish all its bloom displays, + Pink; as Aurora's finger-tips. + + Nor less the flood of light that showers + On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- + The walks are gay as bridal bowers + With rows of many-petalled maids. + + The scarlet shell-fish click and clash + In the blue barrow where they slide; + The horseman, proud of streak and splash, + Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + + Here comes the dealer's awkward string, + With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- + Rough colts, with careless country-swing, + In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + --Wild filly from the mountain-side, + Doomed to the close and chafing thills, + Lend me thy long, untiring stride + To seek with thee thy western hills! + + I hear the whispering voice of Spring, + The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, + Like some poor bird with prisoned wing + That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + + Oh for one spot of living green,-- + One little spot where leaves can grow,-- + To love unblamed, to walk unseen, + To dream above, to sleep below! + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PRESIDENT'S PROPHECY OF PEACE. + +There was joy in the national palace on the eve of May-day. The +heart of the Chief of Thirty Millions was full of gladness. It was a +high holiday at the capital of the nation. Jubilant processions +crowded the streets. The boom of cannon told to the heavens that some +great event, full of glory and of blessing, was just happily born +into the history of the world. Strains of triumphant music at once +expressed and stirred afresh the rapture which the new fruition of a +deferred and doubting hope had kindled in myriad breasts. Rejoicing +multitudes swarmed before the palace gate, and with congratulatory +shouts compelled the presence of the Nation's Head. He stood before +them proud and happy, and answered to the transports of their joy +with a responsive sympathy. He rejoiced in the prospect of the peace +and prosperity with which the occasion of this jubilee was to cheer +and bless the land in all its borders. His chosen friends and +counsellors surrounded him and echoed his prophecies of good. A +kindred homage was next paid to the virtuous artificers of the +new-wrought blessing, without whose shaping hands it would have +perished before the sight, or taken some dreadful form of mischief +and of horror. Their words of cheer and exultation, too, swelled the +surging tide of patriotic emotion till it overflowed again. Thus with +the thunder of artillery, with the animating sound of drum and +trumpet, with the more persuasive music of impassioned words, with +shoutings and with revelry, these jocund compeers, from the highest +to the lowest, mingled into one by the alchemy of a common joy, +chased the hours of that memorable night and gave strange welcome to +the morn of May. + +What great happiness had just befallen, which should thus transport +with joy the chief magistrate of a mighty nation, and send an +answering pulse of rapture through all the veins of his capital? The +armies of the Republic had surely just returned in triumph from some +dubious battle joined with a barbarian invader who threatened to +trample all her cherished rights, and the institutions which are +their safeguard, under his iron heel. Perhaps the Angel of Mercy had +at length set again the seals upon some wide-wasting pestilence +which had long been walking in darkness, with Terror going before +her and Death following after. Or was it the desolating course of +Famine that had been stayed, as it swept, gaunt and hungry, over the +land, and consumed its inhabitants from off its face? Peradventure, +the prayers of holy men had prevailed, and the heavens which had +been as brass were melted, and the earth which had been but ashes +revived again, a living altar, crowned afresh with flowers, and +prophetic of the thank-offerings of harvests. Or it might be that a +great discoverer had added a new world to the domain of human +happiness, by some invention which should lighten the toils and +multiply the innocent satisfactions of mankind. Or had virtue and +intelligence won some signal victory over barbarism and ignorance, +and blessed with liberty and knowledge regions long abandoned to +despotism and to darkness? These had been, indeed, occasions on +which the chief ruler of a great people might fitly lead the anthem +of a nation's thanksgiving. + +But the joy which thus overflowed the hearts of President and people +at the metropolis of our politics, and which has sprinkled with its +cordial drops kindred spirits scattered far and wide over the land, +welled up from no wholesome sources such as these. It was no +deliverance from barbarous enemies, from pestilential disease, from +meagre famine, that moved those raptures,--no joy at ignorance +dissipated, barbarism dispelled, or tyranny put down. The "peace" +and the "prosperity," the prophecy of which was so sweet to the +souls that took sweet counsel together on that night, were of a kind +which only souls tuned to such unison and so subtly trained could +fully comprehend and rightly estimate. This gentle peace, thus +joyfully presaged, is to be won by the submission of an inchoate +State to a form of government subjecting its inhabitants to +institutions abhorrent to their souls and fatal to their prosperity, +forced upon them at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of +the revolver by hordes of sordid barbarians from a hostile soil, +their natural and necessary enemies. And the sweet harbinger of this +blessed peace, the halcyon which broods over the stormy waves and +tells of the calm at hand, is a bribe so cunningly devised that its +contrivers firmly believe it will buy up the souls of these +much-injured men, and reconcile them to the shame and infamy of +trading away their lights and their honor as the boot of a dirty +bargain in the land-market. And the "prosperity" which is to wait +upon this happy "peace" glows with a like golden promise. It is a +prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North +Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the +Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the +intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever +follows after the footsteps of Slavery,--a prosperity which is to +blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish +the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, +if the joy of the President and his directors is to be made full. +Such is the message of peace and good-will which thrilled with +prophetic raptures the hearts which flowed together on that happy +night, and such the blessed prospects which made the air of +Washington vocal with the ecstasies of triumph. + +The history of the world is full enough of illustrations of +"the Art of making a Great Kingdom a Small One." The art of +degrading the imperial idea of a true republic from its just +preeminence among the polities of mankind, of quenching the +principles of eternal right which are the star-points of its divine +crown, of trailing the shining whiteness of its robes in the dust, +and making it an object of contempt rather than of adoration, has +never been taught more emphatically than in the examples furnished +by our own later annals. If Mr. Buchanan and his predecessor had set +themselves to work, of good set purpose, to bring republican +institutions into derision, and to prove that the American +experiment was a dead failure, they could not have proceeded more +cunningly with their task. Their aim has been, as it has seemed, to +give the lie to all the principles on which it has been assumed that +these institutions rest, and to show that their real object is to +subject the many to the government of the few, as the manner is of +the nations round about. The thin veil of decent falsehood, under +which the caution of earlier time had decorously hid this fact, has +been torn aside by the rude intrepidity of assurance which +long-continued success had fostered. The problem to be solved being +to prove the chief axiom of our political science, that the people +have a right to self-government and to the choice of their own +institutions, to be a lie, it is worked out in the presence of an +admiring world, after this fashion. + +The old Ordinance--which set limits to Slavery, and which, as it +preceded the Constitution, should in honor and equity be taken as a +condition precedent to it, and the later pledge of the South, that +this contract should be sacredly kept on the other side of a certain +parallel of latitude, having both been infamously violated for the +sake of extending the domain of Slavery into regions solemnly +dedicated to Liberty, the entire energies of the General Government +and of the political party it represented were put forth to +crystallize this double lie into the institutions of Kansas, and +thus take it out of the category of theory and reduce it into that +of fact. The reluctance of the inhabitants of the young Territory +went for nothing, and provision was soon effectually made to +overcome their resistance. Every form of terrorism, to which tyrants +all alike instinctively resort to disarm resistance to their will, +was launched at the property, the lives, and the happiness of the +defenceless settlers. Hordes of barbarians, as we have said before, +from every part of the Southern hive, but especially from the savage +tribes of the bordering Missouri, poured themselves over the devoted +land. Murder, arson, robbery, every outrage that could be offered to +man or woman, waited on their footsteps and stalked abroad with them +in their forays against Freedom. When the first steps were to be +taken towards the organization of a government, they precipitated +themselves upon the Territory in fiercer numbers. They made +themselves masters of the polling-places; they drove away by +violence and threats the peaceable inhabitants and lawful voters, +and by open force and unblushing fraud elected themselves or their +creatures the lawgivers of the commonwealth about to be created. So +outrageous were the crimes of these miscreants at this and +subsequent periods, that even the very creatures of Pierce and +Buchanan, chosen especially for their supposed fitness to assist in +these villanies, turned away, one after another, sickened at the +sight of them, and forfeited forever the favor of their masters by +shrinking from an unqualified and unhesitating obedience. + +The Constitution, contrived by the wretches thus nefariously clothed +in the stolen sovereignty of the true inhabitants of Kansas, of +course made Slavery an integral part of the institutions of the State. +A code of laws was enacted absolutely without parallel in the history +of the world for insolent trampling down of rights and for bloody +cruelty of penalties,--laws so abominable as even to call down upon +them, from his place in the Senate, the emphatic condemnation of so +veteran a soldier in the service of Slavery as General Cass, now +Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of State. These Territorial laws, thus +infamously vile, thus made in defiance of the well-known will of the +great majority of the people of Kansas, Mr. Pierce hastened to +recognize as the authentic expression of the mind of the people there, +and exerted all the moral and all the physical force of the +government to maintain them in their authority. Since that magistrate +was kicked aside as no longer available for the uses of Slavery, +because of the very infamy he had won in its service, Mr. Buchanan, +unlessoned by his fate, has adopted his views and carried out his +policy. + +We do not propose to follow this march of shameful events step by +step, nor to speak of them in their exact chronological order, nor +yet to specify to which of these magistrates the credit of any one +of them belongs, inasmuch as the philosophy and method of the policy +of the one and the other are absolutely identical. We have space +only to glance at unquestionable facts, and to trace them to their +necessary motives. To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and +the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons +of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to +what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no +more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of +China. When the actual inhabitants of the Territory had met in +Convention and framed a Constitution excluding Slavery, and had +adopted it, and the legislature authorized by it met, its members +were dispersed by national soldiers, detailed to compel submission +to the behests of the Slavemastery of the Government and of the +nation. These troops have been kept on foot ever since, to intimidate +the people, to assist as special police in the arrest and detention +of political prisoners charged with crimes against the Usurpation, +and to sustain the Federal governors and judges in carrying out +their instructions for the Subjugation of the majority by legal +chicane or by military violence. + +Such was the genesis of the Lecompton Constitution, and such the +nursing it had received at the hands of the paternal government at +Washington. In due course of time it was presented to Congress as +the charter under which the people of Kansas asked to receive the +concession of their right of State government; and the scene of war +was forthwith transferred from those distant fields to the chambers +of national legislation, under the immediate eye of the chief of the +state. This high officer soon dispelled any delusive doubts which, +for the purpose of securing his election, he had permitted to be +ventilated during the late Presidential campaign, that he would at +least see fair play in the struggle between Slavery and Freedom in +Kansas. With indecent zeal and unscrupulous partisanship, he +concentrated all the energies of his administration, and employed +the whole force of the influence and the patronage of the nation, to +obtain the indorsement by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, and +thus to compel the people of Kansas to pass under the yoke of their +Slaveholding invaders. The true origin and character of that vile +fabrication had been made plain to every eye that was willing to see, +and the abhorrence in which it was held by nearly the entire +population of the Territory put beyond question by more than one +trial vote. Yet it was embraced as the test measure of the +Administration to prove the unbroken fealty of the President to the +Power which is mightier than he. Victory was reckoned upon in advance, +as certain and easy. A servile, or rather a commanding majority in +the Senate,--nearly half of that body being of the class that rules +the rulers,--was ready to do whatever dirty and detestable work was +demanded of them. A majority of more than thirty in the House, +elected as supporters of the Administration, seemed to make success +there also an inevitable necessity. But by reason of the vastly +larger proportion of members from the Free States in that body, and +their greater nearness to their constituents, these reasonable +expectations were disappointed. Men who had taken service in the +Democratic ranks, and had been faithful unto that day, refused to +obey the word of command when it took this tone and was informed +with this purpose. And for a season the plague was stayed, and +sanguine hearts trusted that it was stayed forever. + +We are willing to believe that the bulk of the Democrats in both +Houses of Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and +cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was +demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed +to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, +and of which their party had always professed to be the special +defence and guard. But the mantle of our charity is not wide enough +to cover up the base treachery of those men who, acknowledging and +demonstrating the right, devised or consented to the villany which +was to crush or to cripple it. That the final shape which the +Lecompton juggle took was an invention of the enemy, cunningly +contrived to win by indirection what was too dangerous to be +attempted by open violence, is a conclusion from which no candid +mind can escape, after a full consideration of the case. The +defection of so large a body of Northern Democrats from the side of +the Slaveholding Directory was doubtless a significant and startling +fact, suggestive of dangerous insubordination on the part of allies +who had ever been found sure and steadfast in every jeopardy of +Slavery. And it made a resort to guile necessary to carry the point +which it was not prudent to press to the extremity of force. The +Slaveholders are not fastidious as to the means by which they reach +their end. Though they might have preferred to hew their way to their +design with a high hand, and to put down all opposition by bought or +bullied majorities, backed by the strong arm of the nation, yet they +never refuse to compromise and palter when the path to success lies +through stratagems or frauds. The skill in this instance, as in all +others, by which they propose to win everything under the show of +yielding somewhat, is worthy of Machiavel or of Lucifer, and is far +above the capacity of the paltry Northern tool who is permitted to +enjoy the infamy of the invention which he was employed to utter. +The Slaveholders, like other despots, do their dirty work by proxy, +and scorn the wretched instruments they use, and then fling from +them in disgust. + +The Lecompton cheat having been defeated in the House after it had +received the indorsement of the Senate, the two coordinates were at +issue, and it seemed for a brief time to have met with the fate it +merited. But cunning and treachery combined to put it into the hands +of a Committee of Conference to be manipulated afresh, and, if +possible, moulded into a shape that might give Democratic recusants +an excuse for treason to the North and submission to the Power that +demanded it. And the invention was worthy of the diabolical sagacity +and ingenuity which have always marked the politics of Slavery. The +maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to +men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the +hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, +was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And +to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens +them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. +They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or +dissent as to the Constitution held over their heads. Their enemies +know too well what its fate would be, if offered, pure and simple, +to their acceptance or refusal. They are only to say whether or not +they will accept five million acres of land that Congress +munificently offers them for the construction of their railways. If +they say, "Yes, thank you," to this simple question, the Chief +Conjurer of the nation, the great Medicine Man of our tribe, the +Head Magician of our Egypt, will only have to say, "Presto pass," +and they will find themselves a Slave State in the glorious Union, +under a solemn contract, struck by this same act, to endure Slavery +for six years to come. If they say, "No, we won't," the door of the +Union is shut in their faces, and they are told to wait without in +all the bleakness of Territorial dependency, subject to the laws now +afflicting them, with a satrap sent down from Washington to rule over +them, and with Lecomptes and Catos to decree justice for them, until +swindling tools of the Administration shall be instructed to allow +the presence of a sufficient population to entitle a State to a +Representative. + +If they consent to be erected into a Slave State by accepting the +bribe, they will come into the Union by a puff of Presidential breath, +though having only forty thousand inhabitants, with two Senators and +a Representative, and all the advantages incident to Federal +connection and patronage. Should they reject it, they will be left, +it may be, to years of Territorial annoyance, and the annoyance of a +Slave Territory, too, till Government officials shall discover their +numbers to amount to near a hundred thousand, and possibly to much +more, after the next census has newly apportioned the House. With +Slavery, they have proffered to them broad lands to help cover their +wide expanse with an iron reticulation of railways, developing their +resources and multiplying their material prosperity, at the slight +cost of their consistency and their honor. Without it, they may have +to stand shivering at the gate of the Union, blasted by the +"cold shade" of our American aristocracy, and far removed from the +genial sunshine of national favor and bounty. Truly did Senator +Wilson say that Congress approached Kansas at once with a bribe and +a threat. Never was the devilish cunning of Slaveholding politics +more strikingly illustrated than by the insidious vileness of this +proposition. It had been bad enough, surely, had we been called upon +to rejoice, as over a great triumph of the right, at the concession +to Kansas of the sovereignty of settling her own institutions in her +own way, had such been granted. Nothing could be more simple and +natural, in a case of conflicting assertions and opposite beliefs as +to the state of opinion there, than to remit the decision of the +doubt to a fresh vote. Had any other interest than that in human +beings been involved, such a disposition of the whole matter would +have excited neither remark nor opposition. Nothing, perhaps, could +exemplify the control Slavery has obtained over the affairs of the +country more strongly than the power it has had to hinder this +simple remedy of an alleged wrong or error,--and this, by procuring +the defection of sordid Northern Representatives from what they +confessed to be the right, to this corrupt evasion,--an evasion +designed to fit the people of Kansas for servitude by tempting them +to sacrifice their self-respect and their honor. Let these +miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before +popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight +into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for +the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the +people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it +would have been humiliating enough to have had to exult over it as a +victory of Freedom. With what depth of shame, then, should we +contemplate the compassing of their end by the Slavocrats, through +the venal surrender of the rights so long and so manfully asserted, +for so paltry a temptation! + +But we do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. +We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse +to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will +reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their +reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their +circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the +post of honor they have sought in the great fight for freedom and +maintained so long and so well, disappointing and throwing into +confusion the distant allies who have stood behind them in their most +evil hours, for all the lands that President and Congress have to +give. It is, indeed, a momentous crisis for them, and we have faith +to believe that they will not be wanting to its demands. The eyes of +the lovers of liberty everywhere are earnestly watching to see how +they will come out from the ordeal by fire and by gold to which they +are subjected. What Boston was in 1775, and Paris in 1789, is Kansas +now,--the field on which a great battle for the right is to be fought. +Honor or infamy attends the issue of her action in the dilemma in +which the crafty malice of her enemies has placed her. If she agree +to take the dirty acres which are proffered to her as the price of +her integrity, she consents to take the yoke of Slavery upon her +neck and not even to attempt to shake herself free from it for six +years to come. We know that shuffling Democrats, and even +temporizing Republicans, represent that the people, after accepting +the Lecompton Constitution, can forthwith summon a Convention and +substitute another scheme of government in its stead. But this could +be initiated only by a breach of the promise they would have just +pledged, and could be carried through only by a revolution. Such a +course would be a direct violation of the philosophy of +Constitutional Government, which assumes as its fundamental axiom, +that Constitutions can be altered only in the way and according to +the conditions prescribed in themselves. Such a proceeding would be +a _coup d'etat_, not as flagitious certainly as that of Bonaparte, +but to the full as revolutionary and illegal. And we may be sure +that the arm of the United States Government would not be shortened +so that it should not interpose and hinder such a defiance of itself +and the Power whose instrument it is. With servile and corrupt +judges at its beck and a majority in Congress within its purchase, +the occasion and means of such an interference would be readily +devised and supplied. + +We believe that this line of policy would lead to an armed collision +with the General Government. It is for the oppressed inhabitants of +any country to say when their wrongs have reached the height which +justifies the drawing of the civil sword. We have neither the right +nor the disposition to advise the people of Kansas in a matter so +emphatically their own. But there is another way of coming to this +arbitrament,--inevitable, if they deviate a hair's-breadth from the +strict line of law,--should they deem there is no other remedy for +their wrongs. The admirable Constitution just framed at Leavenworth, +one well worthy of a free people that has been tried as with fire, +will be adopted before these lines are before the public eye. Let +them reject the Buchanan-English swindle, put their heel on the +Lecompton fraud, set up the Leavenworth Constitution, and erect a +State government under it in defiance of the Territorial Usurpation, +and they will soon find themselves face to face with the tyranny at +Washington. But is there not reason to hope that firmness and +patience may yet win the battle for freedom without resorting to so +serious an alternative? Is it indeed inevitable that Kansas must +remain out of the pale of the Union, under the oppression of the +Territorial laws, until the hirelings of the Government shall have +determined that slaves enough have been poured in to decide the +complexion of the new State, and shall authorize her to ask for +admission? We are told that the joy at Washington and elsewhere over +this "settlement" of the Kansas difficulty was because it was taken +out of Congress, and "Agitation" at an end. But what is to hinder +its being brought into Congress again?--and whose fault will it be, +if Agitation do not survive and grow mightier unto the victory? If +the present Congress can shut its doors against this intruder, its +power dies with itself, and it greatly lies with the people of Kansas +to make the next Congress one that shall rehabilitate them in their +rights. Their conduct at this pregnant moment may settle the +proximate destiny of the Republic, and decide whether the Slave +Power is to rule us by its underlings for four years more, or +whether its pride is to have a fall and its insolence a rebuke in +1860. + +We all remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has +been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again +to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the +blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had +hoped to look upon it no more. It would come back: + + "With twenty mortal murders on its head + _To push them from their stools_!" + +And this dreaded spectre, though a beneficent angel with healing on +his wings in truth, will push yet many traitorous or cowardly +sycophants from the stools they disgrace, and substitute in their +stead men who will quiet Agitation by Justice. Let the men of Kansas +remember that a yet greater trust than that of providing for their +own interests and rights is in their hands. The battle they are to +fight in this quarrel is for the whole North, for the whole country, +for the world. Let them address themselves unto it with calmness, +with prudence, with watchfulness, with courage. They are beset on +every side by crafty and desperate enemies. Greedy land-jobbers, in +haste to be rich, will try to persuade them that not to be innocent +is to be wise. Timid timeservers will urge a submission which +promises peace, though it be but a solitude that is called so. +Rampant Pro-slavery will exalt its horn against Righteousness and +try again the virtue of ruffianism to prevail against civilization. +The barbarians will hang anew upon the borders, ready to complete +the conquest they began so well. And above all, a majority of the men +who are to pass upon the votes are the creatures of the +Administration, who know, by the example of their predecessors, that +the suspicion of honesty will be fatal to all their hopes of +preferment, and that they can purchase reward only by procuring, +_quocunque modo_, the acceptance of the proposition of Congress. +But still the power is in the hands of the Free-State men, if they +choose to put it forth. Let them organize such a scrutiny everywhere, +that fraud and violence cannot escape detection and exposure. Let +them observe most rigidly all the technical rules imposed upon the +electors, that no vote may be lost. Let them come to the polls by +thousands, and trample under their feet the shabby bribe for which +they are asked to trade away their independence and their virtue. +Let them be thus faithful, and never be weary of maintaining the +Agitation, which is proved, by the very dread their enemies have of +it, to be the way to their victory. Thus they will be sure to triumph, +conquering their right to create their own government, and erect a +free commonwealth on the ruins of the tyranny they have overthrown. +And Kansas, at no distant period, will be welcomed by her Free +Sisters to her place among them, with no stain of bribes in her hands, +and with no soil of meanness upon her garments. And then the +"peace" and "prosperity," which President Buchanan saw in vision on +the eve of May-day, will indeed prevail and be established, while +the blackness of infamy will brood forever over the memory of the +magistrate who used the highest office of the Republic to perpetuate +the wrongs of the Slave by the sacrifice of the rights of the Citizen. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Library of Old Authors.--Works of John Webster_. London: John + Russell Smith. 1856-57. + +We turn now to Mr. Hazlitt's edition of Webster. We wish he had +chosen Chapman; for Mr. Dyce's Webster is hardly out of print, and, +we believe, has just gone through a second and revised edition. +Webster was a far more considerable man than Marston, and infinitely +above him in genius. Without the poetic nature of Marlowe, or +Chapman's somewhat unwieldy vigor of thought, he had that +inflammability of mind which, untempered by a solid understanding, +made his plays a strange mixture of vivid expression, incoherent +declamation, dramatic intensity, and extravagant conception of +character. He was not, in the highest sense of the word, a great +dramatist. Shakspeare is the only one of that age. Marlowe had a +rare imagination, a delicacy of sense that made him the teacher of +Shakspeare and Milton in versification, and was, perhaps, as purely +a poet as any that England has produced; but his mind had no +balance-wheel. Chapman abounds in splendid enthusiasms of diction, +and now and then dilates our imaginations with suggestions of +profound poetic depth. Ben Jonson was a conscientious and intelligent +workman, whose plays glow, here and there, with the golden pollen of +that poetic feeling with which his age impregnated all thought and +expression; but his leading characteristic, like that of his great +namesake, Samuel, was a hearty common sense, which fitted him rather +to be a great critic than a great poet. He had a keen and ready +sense of the comic in situation, but no humor. Fletcher was as much a +poet as fancy and sentiment can make any man. Only Shakspeare wrote +comedy and tragedy with truly ideal elevation and breadth. Only +Shakspeare had that true sense of humor which, like the universal +solvent sought by the alchemists, so fuses together all the elements +of a character, (as in _Falstaff_,) that any question of good or evil, +of dignified or ridiculous, is silenced by the apprehension of its +thorough humanity. Rabelais shows gleams of it in _Panurge_; but, in +our opinion, no man ever possessed it in an equal degree with +Shakspeare, except Cervantes; no man has since shown anything like +an approach to it, (for Moliere's quality was comic power rather +than humor,) except Sterne, Fielding, and Richter. Only Shakspeare +was endowed with that healthy equilibrium of nature whose point of +rest was midway between the imagination and the understanding,-- +that perfectly unruffled brain which reflected all objects with +almost inhuman impartiality,--that outlook whose range was ecliptical, +dominating all zones of human thought and action,--that power of +verisimilar conception which could take away _Richard III_ from +History, and _Ulysses_ from Homer,--and that creative faculty whose +equal touch is alike vivifying in _Shallow_ and in _Lear_. He alone +never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the risks +and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a +jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot. He is never, like +many of his fellow-dramatists, confronted with unnatural +Frankensteins of his own making, whom he must get off his hands as +best he may. Given a human foible, he can incarnate it in the +nothingness of Slender, or make it loom gigantic through the tragic +twilight of _Hamlet_. We are tired of the vagueness which classes +all the Elizabethan playwrights together as "great dramatists,"--as +if Shakspeare did not differ from them in kind as well as in degree. +Fine poets some of them were; but though imagination and the power of +poetic expression are, singly, not uncommon gifts, and even in +combination not without secular examples, yet it is the rarest of +earthly phenomena, to find them joined with those faculties of +perception, arrangement, and plastic instinct in the loving union +which alone makes a great dramatic poet possible. We suspect that +Shakspeare will long continue the only specimen of the genus. His +contemporaries, in their comedies, either force what they call +"a humor" till it becomes fantastical, or hunt for jokes, like +rat-catchers, in the sewers of human nature and of language. In +their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or +mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too +often do. Every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist is but the +putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility +of Shakspeare's stand-point as poet and artist. + +Webster's most famous works are "The Duchess of Malfy" and "Vittoria +Corombona," but we are strongly inclined to call "The Devil's +Law-Case" his best play. The two former are in a great measure +answerable for the "spasmodic" school of poets, since the +extravagances of a man of genius are as sure of imitation as the +equable self-possession of his higher moments is incapable of it. +Webster had, no doubt, the primal requisite of a poet, imagination, +but in him it was truly untamed, and Aristotle's admirable +distinction between the _Horrible_ and the _Terrible_ in tragedy was +never better illustrated and confirmed than in the "Duchess" and +"Vittoria." His nature had something of the sleuth-hound quality in +it, and a plot, to keep his mind eager on the trail, must be +sprinkled with fresh blood at every turn. We do not forget all the +fine things that Lamb has said of Webster, but, when Lamb wrote, the +Elizabethan drama was an El Dorado, whose micacious sand, even, was +treasured as auriferous,--and no wonder, in a generation which +admired the "Botanic Garden." Webster is the Gherardo della Notte of +his day, and himself calls his "Vittoria Corombona" a "night-piece." +Though he had no conception of Nature in its large sense, as +something pervading a whole character and making it consistent with +itself, nor of Art, as that which dominates an entire tragedy and +makes all the characters foils to each other and tributaries to the +catastrophe, yet there are flashes of Nature in his plays, struck +out by the collisions of passion, and dramatic intensities of phrase +for which it would be hard to find the match. The "prithee, undo +this button" of _Lear_, by which Shakspeare makes us feel the +swelling of the old king's heart, and that the bodily results of +mental anguish have gone so far as to deaden for the moment all +intellectual consciousness and forbid all expression of grief, is +hardly finer than the broken verse which Webster puts into the mouth +of _Ferdinand_ when he sees the body of his sister, murdered by +his own procurement,-- + + "Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young." + +He has not the condensing power of Shakspeare, who squeezed meaning +into a phrase with an hydraulic press, but he could carve a +cherry-stone with any of the _concellisti_, and abounds in +imaginative quaintnesses that are worthy of Donne, and epigrammatic +tersenesses that remind us of Fuller. Nor is he wanting in poetic +phrases of the purest crystallization. Here are a few examples:-- + + "Oh, if there be another world i' th' moon, + As some fantastics dream, I could wish all _men_, + The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, + Sent thither to people that!" + +(Old Chaucer was yet slier. After saying that Lamech was the first +faithless lover, he adds,-- + + "And he invented _tents_, unless men lie,"-- + +implying that he was the prototype of nomadic men.) + + "Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds: + In the trenches, for the soldier; in the wakeful study, + For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea, + For men of our profession [merchants]; all of which + Arise and spring up honor." + +("Of all which," Mr. Hazlitt prints it.) + + "Poor Jolenta! should she hear of this, + She would not after the report keep fresh + So long as flowers on graves." + + "For sin and shame are ever tied together + With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, + They cannot without violence be undone." + "One whose mind + Appears more like a ceremonious chapel + Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence." + "Gentry? 'tis nought else + But a superstitious relic of time past; + And, sifted to the true worth, it is nothing + But ancient riches." + "What is death? + The safest trench i' th' world to keep man free + From Fortune's gunshot." + + "It has ever been my opinion + That there are none love perfectly indeed, + But those that hang or drown themselves for love," + + says _Julio_, anticipating Butler's + + "But he that drowns, or blows out's brains, + The Devil's in him, if he feigns." + +He also anticipated La Rochefoucauld and Byron in their apophthegm +concerning woman's last love. In "The Devil's Law-Case," _Leonora_ +says: + + "For, as we love our youngest children best, + So the last fruit of our affection, + Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, + Most violent, most unresistible; + Since 'tis, indeed, our latest harvest-home, + Last merriment 'fore winter." + +In editing Webster, Mr. Hazlitt had the advantage (except in a +single doubtful play) of a predecessor in the Rev. Alexander Dyce, +beyond all question the best living scholar of the literature of the +times of Elizabeth and James I. If he give no proof of remarkable +fitness for his task, he seems, at least, to have been diligent and +painstaking. His notes are short and to the point, and--which we +consider a great merit--at the foot of the page. If he had added +a glossarial index, we should have been still better pleased. +Mr. Hazlitt seems to have read over the text with some care, and he +has had the good sense to modernize the orthography, or, as he says, +has "observed the existing standard of spelling throughout." Yet--for +what reason we cannot imagine--he prints "I" for "ay," taking the pains +to explain it every time in a note, and retains "banquerout" and +"coram" apparently for the sake of telling us that they mean +"bankrupt" and "quorum." He does not seem to have a quick ear for +scansion, which would sometimes have assisted him to the true reading. +We give an example or two: + + "The obligation wherein we all stood bound + Cannot be concealed [_cancelled_] without great + reproach." + + "The realm, not they, + Must be regarded. Be [we] strong and bold, + We are the people's factors." + + "Shall not be o'erburdened [_overburdened_] in + our reign." + + "A merry heart + And a good stomach to [a] feast are all." + + "Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and + ruffians." [_dele_ "up."] + + "Brother or father + In [a] dishonest suit, shall be to me." + + "What's she in Rome your greatness cannot awe, + Or your rich purse purchase + Promises and threats." [_dele_ the second "your."] + + "Through clouds of envy and disast [rous] change." + + "The Devil drives; 'tis [it is] full time to go." + +He has overlooked some strange blunders. What is the meaning of + + "Laugh at your misery, as foredeeming you + An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth + Would soon be lost i' the air"? + +We hardly need say that it should be + +"An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth, would," &c. + +"_For_wardness" for "_fro_wardness," (Vol. II. p. 87,) "tennis-balls +struck and ban_ded_" for "ban_died_," (Ib. p. 275,) may be errors of +the press; but: + + "Come, I'll love you wisely: + That's jealousy," + +has crept in by editorial oversight for "wisely, that's jealously." +So have: + + "Ay, the great emperor of [_or_] the mighty Cham"; + +and: + + "This wit [_with_] taking long journeys"; + +and: + + "Virginius, thou dost but supply my place, + I thine: Fortune hath lift me [_thee_] to my chair, + And thrown me headlong to thy pleading bar"; + +and: + + "I'll pour my soul into my daughter's belly, [_body_,] + And with my soldier's tears embalm her wounds." + +We suggest that the change of an _a_ to an _r_ would make sense of +the following:-- + + "Come, my little punk, with thy two compositors, + to this unlawful painting-house," + +[printing-house,] which Mr. Hazlitt awkwardly endeavors to explain by +this note on the word _compositors_:--"i.e. (conjecturally), +making up the composition of the picture"! Our readers can decide for +themselves;--the passage occurs Vol. I. p. 214. + +We think Mr. Hazlitt's notes are, in the main, good; but we should +like to know his authority for saying that _pench_ means "the hole +in a bench by which it was taken up,"--that "descant" means +"look askant on,"--and that "I wis" is equivalent to "I surmise, +imagine," which it surely is not in the passage to which his note is +appended. On page 9, Vol. I., we read in the text, + + "To whom, my lord, bends thus your awe," + +and in the note, "i.e. submission." The original has _aue_, which, +if it mean _ave_, is unmeaning here. Did Mr. Hazlitt never see a +picture of the Annunciation with _ave_ written on the scroll +proceeding from the bending angel's mouth? We find the same word in +Vol. III. p. 217,-- + + "Whose station's built on avees and applause." + +Vol. III. pp. 47-48:-- + + "And then rest, gentle bones; yet pray + That when by the precise you are view'd, + A supersedeas be not sued + To remove you to a place more airy, + That in your stead they may keep chary + Stockfish or seacoal, for the abuses + Of sacrilege have turned graves to viler uses." + +To the last verse Mr. Hazlitt appends this note, "Than that of +burning men's bones for fuel." There is no allusion here to burning +men's bones, but simply to the desecration of graveyards by building +warehouses upon them, in digging the foundations for which the bones +would be thrown out. The allusion is, perhaps, to the "Churchyard of +the Holy Trinity";--see Stow's _Survey_, ed. 1603, p. 126. Elsewhere +in the same play, Webster alludes bitterly to "begging church-land." + +Vol. I. p. 73, "And if he walk through the street, he ducks at the +penthouses, like an ancient that dares not flourish at the oathtaking +of the praetor for fear of the signposts." Mr. Hazlitt's note is, +"_Ancient_ was a standard or flag; also an _ensign_, of which +Skinner says it is a corruption. What the meaning of the simile is +the present editor cannot suggest." We confess we find no difficulty. +The meaning plainly is, that he ducks for fear of hitting the +penthouses, as an ensign on the Lord Mayor's day dares not flourish +his standard for fear of hitting the signposts. We suggest the query, +whether _ancient_, in this sense, be not a corruption of the Italian +word _anziano_. + +Want of space compels us to leave many other passages, which we had +marked for comment, unnoticed. We are surprised that Mr. Hazlitt, +(see his Introduction to "Vittoria Coromboma,") in undertaking to +give us some information concerning the Dukedom and Castle of +Bracciano, should uniformly spell it _Brachiano_. Shakspeare's +_Petruchio_ might have put him on his guard. We should be glad +also to know in what part of Italy he places _Malfi_. + +Mr. Hazlitt's General Introduction supplies us with no new +information, but this was hardly to be expected where Mr. Dyce had +already gone over the field. We wish that he had been able to give +us better means of distinguishing the three almost contemporary John +Websters one from the other, for we think the internal evidence is +enough to show that all the plays attributed to the author of the +"Duchess" and "Vittoria" could not have been written by the same +author. On the whole, he has given us a very respectable, and +certainly a very pretty, edition of an eminent poet. + +In leaving the subject, we cannot but express our satisfaction in +comparing with these examples of English editorship the four volumes +of Ballads recently published by Mr. Child. They are an honor to +American scholarship and fidelity. Taste, learning, and modesty, the +three graces of editorship, seem to have presided over the whole work. +We hope soon, also, to be able to chronicle another creditable +achievement in Mr. White's Shakspeare, which we look for with great +interest. + + + + _History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to + the Present Time_. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., + Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition, + with Additions. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1858. + 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 566, 648. + +We are heartily glad to welcome this reprint of the "History of the +Inductive Sciences," from an improved edition. From an intimate +acquaintance with the first edition, we should cordially recommend +these volumes to those who wish to take a general survey of this +department of human learning. The various subjects are, for the most +part, treated in a manner intelligible and agreeable to the +unlearned reader. As an authority, Whewell is generally trustworthy, +and as a critic usually fair. But in a work going over so much +ground it would be unreasonable to expect perfect accuracy, and +uniformly just estimates of the labors of all scientific men. +Dr. Whewell's scientific philosophy naturally affects his ability as +an historian and critic. In his Bridgewater Treatise, he indulged in +a fling at mathematics, for which we have never wholly forgiven him; +and in the present volume we see repeated evidence of his +underestimate of the value of the sciences of Space and Time. He says, +Vol. I. p. 600, that it was an "erroneous assumption" in Plato to +hold mathematical truths as "Realities more real than the Phenomena." +But to us it seems impossible to understand any work of Nature aright, +except by taking this view of Plato. The study of natural science is +deserving of the contempt which Samuel Johnson bestowed upon it, if +it be not a study of the thoughts of the Divine Mind. And as +phenomena are subject to laws of space and time as their essential +condition, they are primarily a revelation of the mathematical +thoughts of the Creator. Those mathematical ideas are, in Erigena's +phrase, the created creators of all that can appear. + +This false view of the mathematics lies at the foundation of +Whewell's view of a type in organized nature. He conceives a genus +to consist of those species which resemble the typical species of +the genus more than they resemble the typical species of any other +genus. It follows from this view that a species might be created +that would not belong to any genus, but resemble equally the types of +two or three genera. Thus, our little rue-leaved anemone might +belong to the meadow rues or to the wind-flowers, at the pleasure of +the botanist. We believe that classification is vastly more real than +this, real as geometry itself. Another instance of a similar want of +idealism in Dr. Whewell may be found in Vol. II. p. 643:--"Nothing +is added to the evidence of design by the perception of a unity of +plan which in no way tends to promote the design." Now to one who +believes, with us, that a thought is as real as the execution of the +thought, the perception of a unity of plan is the highest evidence +of design. No more convincing evidence of the existence of an +Intelligent Designer is to be found than in the unity of plan,--and +his design, thus proved, is the completion of the plan. For what +purpose he would complete it, is a secondary question. + +In this third edition many valuable additions have been made; and no +tales of Oriental fancy could be more wonderful than some of these +records of the discoveries in exact science made by our +contemporaries. What more magical than the miracles performed every +day in our telegraphic offices?--unless it be the transmission of +human speech in that manner under the waves of the Mediterranean +from Africa to Europe. What more like the dreams of alchemy than +taking metallic casts, in cold metal, with infinitely more delicacy +and accuracy than by melted metals,--taking them, too, from the most +fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than +to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the +compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more +improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? +What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human +measurement than the relative velocities of light in air and in water, +since the velocity in each is probably not less than a hundred +thousand miles a second? Yet two different experimenters arrived, +according to Whewell, in the same year, 1850, at the same result,-- +that the motion is slower in water; thus supplying the last link of +experimental proof to establish the undulatory theory of light. +While the records of science are strewn on every page with accounts +of such triumphs of human skill and intellect, we see no need of +resorting to fiction or to necromancy for the gratification of a +natural taste for the marvellous. + +It is true, Dr. Whewell does not give these discoveries, in the +spirit of an alchemist, as marvels,--but in the spirit of a +philosopher, as intellectual triumphs. Few men of our times have +shown a more active and powerful mind, a more earnest love of truth +for truth's sake, than the author of this History,--and few men have +had a wider or more thorough knowledge of the achievements of other +scientific men. Yet we are surprised, in reading this improved +edition, written scarce a twelvemonth ago, to find how ignorant +Dr. Whewell appears to have been of the existence or value of the +contributions to knowledge made on this side the Atlantic. The +chapter on Electro-Magnetism does not allude to the discoveries of +Joseph Henry, in regard to induced currents, and the adaptation of +varying batteries to varying circuits,--discoveries second in +importance only to those of Faraday,--and which were among the direct +means of leading Morse to the invention of the telegraph. The +chapters on Geology do not mention Professor Hall, and only allude in +a patronizing way to the labors of American geologists, and to the +ease of "reducing their classification to its synonymes and +equivalents in the Old World," as though the historian were not +aware that Hall's nomenclature is adopted on the continent of Europe +by the most eminent men in that department of science. In Geological +Dynamics Dr. Whewell speaks slightingly of glacial action, and +approves of Forbes's semifluid theory, in utter ignorance, it would +seem, of the labors of the Swiss geologists who now honor America +with their presence. The chapters on Zoology, and on Classifications +of Animals, make no allusion to Agassiz's introduction of Embryology +as an element in classification, which was published several years +before the "close of 1856." The history of Neptune gives no hint of +the fact, that its orbit was first determined through the labors of +American astronomers, with all the accuracy that fifty years of +observation might otherwise have been required to secure. Nor does +Dr. Whewell allude to the fact, that Peirce alone has demonstrated +the accuracy of Le Verrier's and Adams's computations, and shown +that a planet in the place which they erroneously assigned to +Neptune would produce the same perturbations of Uranus as those +which Neptune produced. Much less does he allude to that wonderful +demonstration by Peirce of the younger Bond's hypothesis, that the +rings of Saturn are fluid; or to Peirce's remark, that the belt of +the asteroids lies in the region in which the sun could most nearly +sustain a ring. Yet all these points are more important than many of +those which he introduces, and more to the purpose of his chapters. + +Notwithstanding these deficiencies in Whewell's scholarship and in +his philosophy, his History is a valuable addition to our modern +literature, and gives a better sketch of the whole ground than can be +found in any other single work. It is particularly valuable to those +whose ordinary pursuits lead them into other fields than those of +science, and we have known such to acknowledge their great +obligations to these clearly written and most suggestive volumes. + + + + _The Life of George Stephenson, Railway Engineer_. + By SAMUEL SMILES. From the + Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor + & Fields. + +There is something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall +we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The +world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and +other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to +win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and +what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, +manifestly somebody, within a generation or two, has done something +quite as memorable. Whether the world is quite awake to the fact or +not, it has lately entered on a new order of ages. Formerly it +hovered about shores, and built its Tyres, Venices, Amsterdams, and +London only near navigable waters, because it was easier to traverse +a thousand miles of fluid than a hundred miles of solid surface. Now +the case is nearly reversed. The iron rail is making the continent +all coast, anywhere near neighbor to everywhere, and central cities +as populous as seaports. Not only is all the fertility of the earth +made available, but fertility itself can be made by our new power of +transportation. + +Who more than other man or men has done this? Is there any chance +for a new mythology? Can we make a Saturn of Solomon de Caus, who +caught a prophetic glimpse of the locomotive two hundred years ago, +and went to a mad-house, without going mad, because a cardinal had +the instinct to see that the hierarchy would get into hot water by +allowing the French monarch to encourage steam? Can we make a +Jupiter of Mr. Hudson, one bull having been plainly sacrificed to him? +and shall Robert Schuyler serve us for Pluto? Shall we find Neptune, +with his sleeves rolled up, on the North River, commanding the first +practical steamboat, under the name of Robert Fulton? However this +may be, we think Mr. Smiles has made out a quite available demigod +in his well-sketched Railway Engineer. George Stephenson did not +invent the railway or the locomotive, but he did first put the +breath of its life into the latter. He built the first locomotive +that could work more economically than a horse, and by so doing +became the actual father of the railroad system. In 1814, he found +out and applied the steam-blast, whereby the waste steam from the +cylinders is used to increase the combustion, so that the harder the +machine works, the greater is its power to work. From that moment he +foresaw what has since happened, and fought like a Titan against the +world--the men of land, the men of science, and the men of law--to +bring it about. + +But before we go farther, who was this George Stephenson? A +collier-boy,--his father fireman to an old pumping-engine which +drained a Northumbrian coal-mine,--his highest ambition of boyhood to +be "taken on" to have something to do about the mine. And he was +taken on to pick over the coal, and finally to groom the engine, +which he did with the utmost care and veneration, learning how to +keep it well and doctor it when ill. He took wonderfully to +steam-engines, and finally, for their sake, to his letters, at the +age of seventeen! He became steam-engineer to large mines. Of his +own genius and humanity, he studied the nature of fire-damp +explosions, and, what is not more wonderful than well proven, +invented a miner's safety-lamp, on the same principle as Sir +Humphrey Davy's, and tested it at the risk of his life, a month or +two before Sir Humphrey invented his, or published a syllable about +it to the world! He engineered the Stockton and Darlington Railway. +He was thereupon appointed engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester +Railway. Though the means of transportation between those cities, +some thirty miles, were so inadequate that it took longer to get +cotton conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester than from New York to +Liverpool, yet it was with the utmost difficulty that a grant of the +right to build a railway could be obtained from Parliament. There +was little faith in such roads, and still less in steam-traction. +The land-owners were opposed to its passage through their domains, +and obliged Mr. Stephenson to survey by stealth or at the risk of a +broken head. So great was this opposition, that the projectors were +fain to lay out their road for four miles across a remarkable Slough +of Despond, called Chat Moss, where a scientific civil-engineer +testified before Parliament that he did not think it practicable to +make a railway, or, if practicable, at not less cost than L270,000 +for cutting and embankment. George Stephenson, after being almost +hooted out of the witness-box for testifying that it could be done, +and that locomotives could draw trains over it and elsewhere at the +rate of twelve miles an hour,--for which last extravagance his own +friends rebuked him,--carried the road over Chat Moss for L28,000, +and his friends over that at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Thus +he broke the back of the war, and lived to fill England with +railroads as the fruits of his victory; all which, and a great deal +more of the same sort, the reader will find admirably told by +Mr. Smiles,--albeit we cannot but smile too, that, when addressing the +universal English people, he expects them to understand such +provincialisms as _wage_ for wages, _leading coals_ for carrying coal, +and the like. But, nevertheless, his freedom from literary pretence +is really refreshing, and his thoroughness in matters of fact is +worthy of almost unlimited commendation. On the important question, +Who invented the locomotive steam-blast? had Mr. Smiles made in his +book as good use of his materials as he has since elsewhere, he +would have saved some engineers and one or two mechanical editors +from putting their feet into unpleasant places. Our Railroad Manuals, +that have adopted the error of attributing this great invention to +"Timothy Hackworth, in 1827," should be made to read, "George +Stephenson, in 1814." Their authors, and all others, should read +Samuel Smiles, the uppermost, by a whole sky, of all railway +biographers. + + + + + _A Volume of Vocabularies, illustrating the Condition and Manners + of our Forefathers, as well as the History of the Forms of + Elementary Education and of the Languages spoken in this Island, + from the Tenth Century to the Fifteenth_. Edited, from MSS. in + Public and Private Collections, by THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., etc. + Privately printed. [London.] 1857. 8vo. pp. 291. + +Mr. Wright, in editing this handsome volume, has done another +service to the lovers and students of English glossology. Their +thanks are also due to Mr. Joseph Mayer, who generously bore the +expense of printing the book. + +A great deal that is interesting to the student of general history +lies imbedded in language, and Mr. Wright, in a very agreeable +Introduction, has summarized the chief matters of value in the +collection before us, which comprises the printed copies of sixteen +ancient MSS. of various dates. As far as we have had time to examine +it, the book seems to have been edited with care and discretion, and +Mr. Wright has added much to its value by timely and judicious notes. + +Most of the vocabularies here printed (many of them for the first +time) were intended for the use of schoolmasters, and throw great +light on the means and methods of teaching during the periods at +which they were compiled. Mr. Wright tells us that there exist very +few MSS. of educational treatises of the fourteenth century, (during +which teaching would accordingly seem to have been neglected,) in +comparison with the thirteenth and fifteenth, when such works were +abundant. To all who would trace the history of education in England +and follow up our common-school system to its source, the editor's +Introduction will afford valuable hints. + +The following extracts from Mr. Wright's Introduction will give some +notion of the archaeological and philological value of the volume. + + "It is this circumstance of grouping the + words under different heads which gives these + vocabularies their value as illustrations of the + conditions and manners of society. It is evident + that the compiler gave, in each case, the + names of all such things as habitually presented + themselves to his view, or, in other + words, that he presents us with an exact list + and description of all the objects which were + in use at the time he wrote, and no more. + We have, therefore, in each a sort of measure + of the fashions and comforts and utilities of + contemporary life, as well as, in some cases, of + its sentiments. Thus, to begin with a man's + habitation, his house,--the words which describe + the parts of the Anglo-Saxon house are + few in number, a _heal_ or hall, a _bur_ or bedroom, + and in some cases a _cicen_ or kitchen, + and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, + laths, and plaster. But when we come to + the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, + we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic + buildings which William of Malmsbury + assures us that the Normans introduced + into this island; the house becomes more + massive, and the rooms more numerous, and + more diversified in their purposes. When we + look at the furniture of the house, the difference + is still more apparent. The description + given by Alexander Neckam of the hall, the + chambers, the kitchen, and the other departments + of the ordinary domestic establishment, + in the twelfth century, and the furniture + of each, almost brings them before our + eyes, and nothing could be more curious than + the account which the same writer gives us + of the process of building and storing a castle." + p. xv. + +"The philologist will appreciate the tracts printed in the following +pages as a continuous series of very valuable monuments of the +languages spoken in our island during the Middle Ages. It is these +vocabularies alone which have preserved from oblivion a very +considerable and interesting portion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and +without their assistance our Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be far +more imperfect than they are. I have endeavored to collect together +in the present volume all the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies that are +known to exist, not only on account of their diversity, but because +I believe that their individual utility will be increased by thus +presenting them in a collective form. They represent the Anglo-Saxon +language as it existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and, as +written no doubt in different places, they may possibly present some +traces of the local dialects of that period. The curious semi-Saxon +vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in +its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. +The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on +John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language +which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the +Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. In +the partial vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we +have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then +emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become +early English. We are again introduced to the English language more +generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose +treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the +fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given here belong, +as far as the language is concerned, to the fifteenth century. As +written in different parts of the country, they bear evident marks +of dialect; one of them--the vocabulary in Latin verse--is a very +curious relic of the dialect of the West of England at a period of +which such remains are extremely rare."--p. xix. + + + + + _Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton_. By the late REV. + FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Second Series. From + the Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +The biography of Robertson, prefixed to this volume, will gratify +the curiosity which every sympathetic reader of the first series of +his sermons must have felt regarding the incidents of his career. It +was evident to a close observer that the peculiar charm and power of +the preacher came from peculiarities of character and individual +experience, as well as from peculiarities of mind. There was +something so close and searching in his pathos, so natural in his +statements of doctrine, so winning in his appeals,--his simplest +words of consolation or rebuke touched with such subtile certainty +the feelings they addressed,--and his faith in heavenly things was +so clear, deep, intense, and calm,--that the reader could hardly +fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in +the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the +spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His +biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried +in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward +struggle with suffering and calamity,--a character sensitive, tender, +magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly +cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a +sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at +work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to +the decay of strength and the need of repose. He had no time to be +happy. + +The most striking mental characteristic of his sermons is the +originality of his perceptions of religious truth. He takes up the +themes and doctrines of the Church, the discussion of which has +filled libraries with books of divinity which stand as an almost +impregnable wall around the simple facts and teachings of the +Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, +and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and +heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a +man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, +and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in +their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the +truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in +which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, he often tells us +more of the essentials of a subject, and exhibits more clearly the +religious significance of a doctrine, than other writers have done in +labored volumes of exposition and controversy. This power of +simplifying spiritual truth without parting with any of its depth +accounts for the interest with which his sermons are read by persons +of all degrees of age and culture. His method of arrangement is also +admirable; his thoughts are not only separately excellent, but are +all in their right places, so that each is an efficient agent in +deepening the general impression left by the whole. The singular +refinement and beauty of his mind lend a peculiar charm to its +boldness; we have the soul of courage without the rough outside +which so often accompanies it; and his diction, being on a level +with his themes, never offends that fine detecting spiritual taste +which instinctively takes offence when spiritual things are viewed +through unspiritual moods and clothed in words which smack of the +senses. Combine all his characteristics, his intrepidity of +disposition and intellect, his deep experience of religious truth, +the sad earnestness of his faith, his penetration of thought, his +direct, executive expression, and the beauty which pervades and +harmonizes all,--and it is hazarding little to say, that his volumes +will take the rank of classics in the department of theology to +which they belong. + + + + _The Church and the Congregation_. A Plea + for their Unity. By C. A. BARTOL. + Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. + +As church-membership is in some respects the aristocracy of +Congregationalism, and as it is considered by many minds to be as +necessary for the safety of theology as the old distinction of +_esoteric_ and _exoteric_ was for the safety of philosophy, the +publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose +clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and +certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open +communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of +Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the +meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the +Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other +ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps +exaggerates its importance, he thinks that its most beneficent +effects will be seen when it is the symbol of unity, and not of +division. The usual distinction between Church and Congregation he +considers invidious and mischievous, as not indicating a +corresponding distinction in religious character, and as separating +the body of Christian worshippers into two parts by a mechanical +rather than spiritual process. Though he meets objections with +abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due +not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative +statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of +that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly +beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the +expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to +the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common +sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. +This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that +the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also +much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the +practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the +objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in +earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free +from the repellent qualities which are apt to embitter theological +controversies, that even when his ideas come into conflict with the +most obstinate prejudices and rooted convictions, there is nothing +in his mode of stating or enforcing them to give offence. The book +will win its way by the natural force of what truth there is in it, +and the most that an opponent can say is, that the author is in error; +it cannot be said that he is arrogant, contemptuous, self-asserting, +or that he needlessly shocks the opinions he aims to change. + +Mr. Bartol's style is bold, fervid, and figurative, exhibiting a +wide command of language and illustration, and at times rising into +passages of singular beauty and eloquence. The fertility of his mind +in analogies enables him to strengthen his leading conception with a +large number of related thoughts, and the whole subject of vital +Christianity is thus continually in view, and connected with the +special theme he discusses. This characteristic will make his volume +interesting and attractive to many readers who are either opposed to +his views of the Lord's Supper, or are unable to agree with him in +regard to the importance of the change he proposes. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, +June 1858, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JUNE 1858 *** + +***** This file should be named 8903.txt or 8903.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/9/0/8903/ + +Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8903] +[This file was first posted on August 22, 2003] +[Date last updated: June 4, 2005] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. II, NO. 8, JUNE 1858 *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +American Tract Society, The +Ann Potter's Lesson +Asirvadam the Brahmin +Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The +Autocrat's Landlady, A Visit to the +Autocrat, The, gives a Breakfast to the Public + +Birds of the Garden and Orchard, The +Birds of the Pasture and Forest, The +Bulls and Bears +Bundle of Irish Pennants, A + +Catacombs of Rome, The +Catacombs of Rome, Note to the +Chesuncook +Colin Clout and the Faery Queen +Crawford and Sculpture + +Daphnaides, +Denslow Palace, The +Dot and Line Alphabet, The + +Eloquence +Evening with the Telegraph-Wires, An + +Farming Life in New England +Faustus, Doctor, The German Popular Legend of + +Gaucho, The +Great Event of the Century, The + +Her Grace, the Drummer's Daughter +Hour before Dawn, The + +Ideal Tendency, The +Illinois in Spring-time + +Jefferson, Thomas + +Kinloch Estate, The + +Language of the Sea, The +Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von +Letter-Writing +Loo Loo + +Mademoiselle's Campaigns +Metempsychosis +Minister's Wooing, The +Miss Wimple's Hoop + +New World, The, and the New Man + +Obituary +Old Well, The +Our Talks with Uncle John + +Perilous Bivouac, A +Physical Courage +Pintal +Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The +President's Prophecy of Peace, The +Prisoner of War, A +Punch + +Railway-Engineering in the United States +Rambles in Aquidneck +Romance of a Glove, The + +Salons de Paris, Les +Sample of Consistency, A +Singing-Birds and their Songs, The +Songs of the Sea +Subjective of it, The +Suggestions + +Three of Us + +Water-Lilies +What are we going to make? +Whirligig of Time, The + +Youth + + +POETRY + +All's Well + +Beatrice +Birth-Mark, The +"Bringing our Sheaves with us" + +Cantatrice, La +Cup, The + +Dead House, The +Discoverer of the North Cape, The + +Evening Melody, An + +Fifty and Fifteen + +House that was just like its Neighbors, The + +Jolly Mariner, The + +Keats, the Poet + +Last Look, The + +Marais du Cygne, Le +My Children +Myrtle Flowers + +Nature and the Philosopher +November +November.--April + +Shipwreck +Skater, The +Spirits in Prison +Swan-Song of Parson Avery, The + +Telegraph, The +To ----- +Trustee's Lament, The + +Waldeinsamkeit +"Washing of the Feet," The, on Holy Thursday, in St. Peter's +What a Wretched Woman said to me +Work and Rest + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + +American Cyclopedia, The New +Annual Obituary Notices, by N. Crosby +Aquarium, The, by P. H. Gosse + +Belle Brittan on a Tour +Bigelow, Jacob, Brief Expositions of Rational Medicine by +Black's Atlas of North America + +Chapman's American Drawing-Book +Church and Congregation, The, by C. A. Bartel +Crosby's Annual Obituary, for 1857 +Curiosities of Literature, by Disraeli +Cyclopedia of Drawing, The, by W. E. Worthen +Cyclopaedia, The New American + +Dana's Household Book of Poetry +Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature +Drawing-Book, The American, by J.G. Chapman +Drawing, The Cyclopedia of + +Ewbank, Thomas, Thoughts on Matter and Force by +Exiles of Florida, The, by J. E. Giddings + +Fitch, John, Westcott's Life of + +Giddings, Joshua R., The Exiles of Florida by +Goadby, Henry, A Text-Book of Animal and Vegetable Physiology by +Gray's Botanical Series + +Household Book of Poetry, by C. A. Dana + +Inductive Sciences, History of the, by Whewell + +Journey due North, A, by G. A. Sala + +Kingsley, Charles, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers by + +Library of Old Authors +Life beneath the Waters + +New Priest in Conception Bay, The + +Pascal, Etudes sur, par M. Victor Cousin +Pellico, Silvio, Lettres de +Physiology, Animal and Vegetable, by Henry Goadby +Poe's Poetical Works + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his Time, with other Papers, by C. Kingsley +Rational Medicine, Brief Expositions of, by Jacob Bigelow +Robertson, Rev. F. W., Sermons by + +Sea-Shore, Common Objects of the, by J. G. Wood +Stephenson, George, Smiles's Life of +Summer Time in the Country + +Thoughts on Matter and Force, by Thomas Ewbank + +Vocabularies, A Volume of, by T. Wright + +Webster, John, Dramatic Works of +Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences +Wright, Thomas, A Volume of Vocabularies by + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +VOL. II.--JUNE, 1858.--NO. VIII. + + + + +CHESUNCOOK. + + +At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I left Boston in the steamer for +Bangor by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,--warmer, +probably, on the water than on the land,--and the sea was as smooth +as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went +singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock. We passed a +vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the islands, and some +of us thought that she was the "rapt ship" which ran + + "on her side so low + That she drank water, and her keel ploughed air," + +not considering that there was no wind, and that she was under bare +poles. Now we have left the islands behind and are off Nahant. We +behold those features which the discoverers saw, apparently unchanged. +Now we see the Cape Ann lights, and now pass near a small +village-like fleet of mackerel fishers at anchor, probably off +Gloucester. They salute us with a shout from their low decks; but I +understand their "Good evening", to mean, "Don't run against me, Sir." +From the wonders of the deep we go below to get deeper sleep. And +then the absurdity of being waked up in the night by a man who wants +the job of blacking your boots! It is more inevitable than +seasickness, and may have something to do with it. It is like the +ducking you get on crossing the line the first time. I trusted that +these old customs were abolished. They might with the same propriety +insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that +somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, +he wanted to know what they had done to them,--they had spoiled them,-- +he never put that stuff on them; and the boot-black narrowly escaped +paying damages. + +Anxious to get out of the whale's belly, I rose early, and joined +some old salts, who were smoking by a dim light on a sheltered part +of the deck. We were just getting into the river. They knew all +about it, of course. I was proud to find that I had stood the voyage +so well, and was not in the least digested. We brushed up and +watched the first signs of dawn through an open port; but the day +seemed to hang fire. We inquired the time; none of my companions had +a chronometer. At length an African prince rushed by, observing, +"Twelve o'clock, gentlemen!" and blew out the light. It was moon-rise. +So I slunk down into the monster's bowels again. + +The first land we make is Manheigan Island, before dawn, and next St. +George's Islands, seeing two or three lights. Whitehead, with its +bare rocks and funereal bell, is interesting. Next I remember that +the Camden Hills attracted my eyes, and afterward the hills about +Frankfort. We reached Bangor about noon. + +When I arrived, my companion that was to be had gone up river, and +engaged an Indian, Joe Aitteon, a son of the Governor, to go with us +to Chesuncook Lake. Joe had conducted two white men a-moose-hunting +in the same direction the year before. He arrived by cars at Bangor +that evening, with his canoe and a companion, Sabattis Solomon, who +was going to leave Bangor the following Monday with Joe's father, by +way of the Penobscot, and join Joe in moose-hunting at Chesuncook, +when we had done with him. They took supper at my friend's house and +lodged in his barn, saying that they should fare worse than that in +the woods. They only made Watch bark a little, when they came to the +door in the night for water, for he does not like Indians. + +The next morning Joe and his canoe were put on board the stage for +Moosehead Lake, sixty and odd miles distant, an hour before we +started in an open wagon. We carried hard bread, pork, smoked beef, +tea, sugar, etc., seemingly enough for a regiment; the sight of +which brought together reminded me by what ignoble means we had +maintained our ground hitherto. We went by the Avenue Road, which is +quite straight and very good, north-westward toward Moosehead Lake, +through more than a dozen flourishing towns, with almost every one +its academy,--not one of which, however, is on my General Atlas, +published, alas! in 1824; so much are they before the age, or I +behind it! The earth must have been considerably lighter to the +shoulders of General Atlas then. + +It rained all this day and till the middle of the next forenoon, +concealing the landscape almost entirely; but we had hardly got out +of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the +sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive +evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the +sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy. He who rides and keeps the +beaten track studies the fences chiefly. Near Bangor, the fence-posts, +on account of the frost's heaving them in the clayey soil, were not +planted in the ground, but were mortised into a transverse horizontal +beam lying on the surface. Afterwards, the prevailing fences were +log ones, with sometimes a Virginia fence, or else rails slanted +over crossed stakes,--and these zigzagged or played leap-frog all +the way to the lake, keeping just ahead of us. After getting out of +the Penobscot Valley, the country was unexpectedly level, or +consisted of very even and equal swells, for twenty or thirty miles, +never rising above the general level, but affording, it is said, a +very good prospect in clear weather, with frequent views of Katadin,-- +straight roads and long hills. The houses were far apart, commonly +small and of one story, but framed. There was very little land under +cultivation, yet the forest did not often border the road. The stumps +were frequently as high as one's head, showing the depth of the snows. +The white hay-caps, drawn over small stacks of beans or corn in the +fields, on account of the rain, were a novel sight to me. We saw +large flocks of pigeons, and several times came within a rod or two +of partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in one journey +out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty partridges from his +buggy. The mountain-ash was now very handsome, as also the +wayfarer's-tree or hobble-bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed +with red. The Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the +prevailing weed all the way to the lake,--the road-side in many +places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as +with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. There were also +whole fields full of ferns, now rusty and withering, which in older +countries are commonly confined to wet ground. There were very few +flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It chanced +that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for fifty miles, though +they were so abundant then in Massachusetts,--except in one place +one or two of the aster acuminatus,--and no golden-rods till within +twenty miles of Monson, where I saw a three-ribbed one. There were +many late buttercups, however, and the two fire-weeds, erechthites +and epilobium, commonly where there had been a burning, and at last +the pearly everlasting. I noticed occasionally very long troughs +which supplied the road with water, and my companion said that three +dollars annually were granted by the State to one man in each +school-district, who provided and maintained a suitable water-trough +by the road-side, for the use of travellers,--a piece of +intelligence as refreshing to me as the water itself. That +legislature did not sit in vain. It was an Oriental act, which made +me wish that I was still farther down East,--another Maine law, +which I hope we may get in Massachusetts. That State is banishing +bar-rooms from its highways, and conducting the mountain-springs +thither. + +The country was first decidedly mountainous in Garland, Sangerville, +and onwards, twenty-five or thirty miles from Bangor. At Sangerville, +where we stopped at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the +landlord told us that he had found a wilderness where we found him. +At a fork in the road between Abbot and Monson, about twenty miles +from Moosehead Lake, I saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of +moose-horns, spreading four or five feet, with the word "Monson" +painted on one blade, and the name of some other town on the other. +They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with +deers' horns, in front entries; but, after the experience which I +shall relate, I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing +a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached Monson, +fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the lake, after dark. + +At four o'clock the next morning, in the dark, and still in the rain, +we pursued our journey. Close to the academy in this town they have +erected a sort of gallows for the pupils to practise on. I thought +that they might as well hang at once all who need to go through such +exercises in so new a country, where there is nothing to hinder +their living an outdoor life. Better omit Blair, and take the air. +The country about the south end of the lake is quite mountainous, +and the road began to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, +it is calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In many +places the road was in that condition called _repaired_, having just +been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the +shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, +like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to +keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare +sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,--a vast +hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern +hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, +though he did not remember the driver. He said that he had taken +care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two before, at +the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was not in as good condition +as then. Every man to his trade. I am not acquainted with a single +horse in the world, not even the one that kicked me. + +Already we had thought that we saw Moosehead Lake from a hill-top, +where an extensive fog filled the distant lowlands, but we were +mistaken. It was not till we were within a mile or two of its south +end that we got our first view of it,--a suitably wild-looking +sheet of water, sprinkled with small low islands, which were covered +with shaggy spruce and other wild wood,--seen over the infant port +of Greenville, with mountains on each side and far in the north, and +a steamer's smoke-pipe rising above a roof. A pair of moose-horns +ornamented a corner of the public-house where we left our horse, and +a few rods distant lay the small steamer Moosehead, Captain King. +There was no village, and no summer road any farther in this +direction,--but a winter road, that is, one passable only when deep +snow covers its inequalities, from Greenville up the east side of the +lake to Lily Bay, about twelve miles. + +I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden all the way on the +outside of the stage the day before, in the rain, giving way to +ladies, and was well wetted. As it still rained, he asked if we were +going to "put it through." He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four +years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a +broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and +more turned-up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the +description of his race. Beside his under-clothing, he wore a red +flannel shirt, woollen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary +dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the +Penobscot Indian. When, afterward, he had occasion to take off his +shoes and stockings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He +had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared to identify +himself with that class. He was the only one of the party who +possessed an India-rubber jacket. The top strip or edge of his canoe +was worn nearly through by friction on the stage. + +At eight o'clock, the steamer with her bell and whistle, scaring the +moose, summoned us on board. She was a well-appointed little boat, +commanded by a gentlemanly captain, with patent life-seats, and +metallic life-boat, and dinner on board, if you wish. She is chiefly +used by lumberers for the transportation of themselves, their boats, +and supplies, but also by hunters and tourists. There was another +steamer, named Amphitrite, laid up close by; but, apparently, her +name was not more trite than her hull. There were also two or three +large sail-boats in port. These beginnings of commerce on a lake in +the wilderness are very interesting,--these larger white birds that +come to keep company with the gulls. There were but few passengers, +and not one female among them: a St. Francis Indian, with his canoe +and moose-hides, two explorers for lumber, three men who landed at +Sandbar Island, and a gentleman who lives on Deer Island, eleven +miles up the lake, and owns also Sugar Island, between which and the +former the steamer runs; these, I think, were all beside ourselves. +In the saloon was some kind of musical instrument, cherubim or +seraphim, to soothe the angry waves; and there, very properly, was +tacked up the map of the public lands of Maine and Massachusetts, a +copy of which I had in my pocket. + +The heavy rain confining us to the saloon awhile, I discoursed with +the proprietor of Sugar Island on the condition of the world in Old +Testament times. But at length, leaving this subject as fresh as we +found it, he told me that he had lived about this lake twenty or +thirty years, and yet had not been to the head of it for twenty-one +years. He faces the other way. The explorers had a fine new birch on +board, larger than ours, in which they had come up the Piscataquis +from Howland, and they had had several messes of trout already. They +were going to the neighborhood of Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes, or +the head-waters of the St. John, and offered to keep us company as +far as we went. The lake to-day was rougher than I found the ocean, +either going or returning, and Joe remarked that it would swamp his +birch. Off Lily Bay it is a dozen miles wide, but it is much broken +by islands. The scenery is not merely wild, but varied and +interesting; mountains were seen, farther or nearer, on all sides +but the north-west, their summits now lost in the clouds; but Mount +Kineo is the principal feature of the lake, and more exclusively +belongs to it. After leaving Greenville, at the foot, which is the +nucleus of a town some eight or ten years old, you see but three or +four houses for the whole length of the lake, or about forty miles, +three of them the public-houses at which the steamer is advertised +to stop, and the shore is an unbroken wilderness. The prevailing +wood seemed to be spruce, fir, birch, and rock-maple. You could +easily distinguish the hard wood from the soft, or "black growth," +as it is called, at a great distance,--the former being smooth, +round-topped, and light green, with a bowery and cultivated look. + +Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a peninsula with a narrow +neck, about midway the lake on the east side. The celebrated +precipice is on the east or land side of this, and is so high and +perpendicular that you can jump from the top many hundred feet into +the water which makes up behind the point. A man on board told us +that an anchor had been sunk ninety fathoms at its base before +reaching bottom! Probably it will be discovered ere long that some +Indian maiden jumped off it for love once, for true love never could +have found a path more to its mind. We passed quite close to the +rock here, since it is a very bold shore, and I observed marks of a +rise of four or five feet on it. The St. Francis Indian expected to +take in his boy here, but he was not at the landing. The father's +sharp eyes, however, detected a canoe with his boy in it far away +under the mountain, though no one else could see it. "Where is the +canoe?" asked the captain, "I don't see it"; but he held on +nevertheless, and by and by it hove in sight. + +We reached the head of the lake about noon. The weather had in the +mean while cleared up, though the mountains were still capped with +clouds. Seen from this point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied +mountains ranging with it north-easterly, presented a very strong +family likeness, as if all cast in one mould. The steamer here +approached a long pier projecting from the northern wilderness and +built of some of its logs,--and whistled, where not a cabin nor a +mortal was to be seen. The shore was quite low, with flat rocks on it, +overhung with black ash, arbor-vitae, etc., which at first looked as +if they did not care a whistle for us. There was not a single cabman +to cry "Coach!" or inveigle us to the United States Hotel. At length +a Mr. Hinckley, who has a camp at the other end of the "carry," +appeared with a truck drawn by an ox and a horse over a rude +log-railway through the woods. The next thing was to get our canoe +and effects over the carry from this lake, one of the heads of the +Kennebec, into the Penobscot River. This railway from the lake to +the river occupied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide +and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked across while +our baggage was drawn behind. My companion went ahead to be ready +for partridges, while I followed, looking at the plants. + +This was an interesting botanical locality for one coming from the +South to commence with; for many plants which are rather rare, and +one or two which are not found at all, in the eastern part of +Massachusetts, grew abundantly between the rails,--as Labrador tea, +kalmia glauca, Canada blueberry, (which was still in fruit, and a +second time in bloom,) Clintonia and Linnaea Borealis, which last a +lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium, +large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula, +diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, and +many others which were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the +lake and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive look there. +The spruce and fir trees crowded to the track on each side to +welcome us, the arbor-vitae with its changing leaves prompted us to +make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. +Sometimes an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with its +rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than our trees +in the most favorable positions. You did not expect to find such +_spruce_ trees in the wild woods, but they evidently attend to +their toilets each morning even there. Through such a front-yard did +we enter that wilderness. + +There was a very slight rise above the lake,--the country appearing +like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual +descent to the Penobscot, which I was surprised to find here a large +stream, from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to east, +or at right angles with the lake, and not more than two and a half +miles from it. The distance is nearly twice too great on the Map of +the Public Lands, and on Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream +is placed too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be nine +hundred and sixty feet above high water in Portland harbor. It is +higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers consider the Penobscot, +where we struck it, twenty-five feet lower than Moosehead,--though +eight miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water +can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a good deal +between here and Chesuncook. The carry-man called this about one +hundred and forty miles above Bangor by the river, or two hundred +from the ocean, and fifty-five miles below Hilton's on the Canada +road, the first clearing above, which is four and a half miles from +the source of the Penobscot. + +At the north end of the carry, in the midst of a clearing of sixty +acres or more, there was a log camp of the usual construction, with +something more like a house adjoining, for the accommodation of the +carryman's family and passing lumberers. The bed of withered +fir-twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty. There was +also a store-house on the bank of the river, containing pork, flour, +iron, bateaux, and birches, locked up. + +We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out to be tea, +and to pitch canoes, for which purpose a large iron pot lay +permanently on the bank. This we did in company with the explorers. +Both Indians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for this +purpose,--that is, for the pitching, not the dinner. Joe took a +small brand from the fire and blew the heat and flame against the +pitch on his birch, and so melted and spread it. Sometimes he put +his mouth over the suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted +air; and at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on +crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly watched his +motions, and listened attentively to his observations, for we had +employed an Indian mainly that I might have an opportunity to study +his ways. I heard him swear once mildly, during this operation, +about his knife being as dull as a hoe,--an accomplishment which he +owed to his intercourse with the whites; and he remarked, "We ought +to have some tea before we start; we shall be hungry before we kill +that moose." + +At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot. Our birch was +nineteen and a half feet long by two and a half at the widest part, +and fourteen inches deep within, both ends alike, and painted green, +which Joe thought affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, +was a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much larger, +though probably not much longer. This carried us three with our +baggage, weighing in all between five hundred and fifty and six +hundred pounds. We had two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, +one of them of bird's-eye maple. Joe placed birch bark on the bottom +for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints against the cross-bars +to protect our backs, while he himself sat upon a cross-bar in the +stern. The baggage occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. +We also paddled by turns in the bows, now sitting with our legs +extended, now sitting upon our legs, and now rising upon our knees; +but I found none of these positions endurable, and was reminded of +the complaints of the old Jesuit missionaries of the torture they +endured from long confinement in constrained positions in canoes, in +their long voyages from Quebec to the Huron country; but afterwards I +sat on the cross-bars, or stood up, and experienced no inconvenience. + +It was dead water for a couple of miles. The river had been raised +about two feet by the rain, and lumberers were hoping for a flood +sufficient to bring down the logs that were left in the spring. Its +banks were seven or eight feet high, and densely covered with white +and black spruce,--which, I think, must be the commonest trees +thereabouts,--fir, arbor-vitae, canoe, yellow, and black birch, rock, +mountain, and a few red maples, beech, black and mountain ash, the +large-toothed aspen, many civil-looking elms, now imbrowned, along +the stream, and at first a few hemlocks also. We had not gone far +before I was startled by seeing what I thought was an Indian +encampment, covered with a red flag, on the bank, and exclaimed, +"Camp!" to my comrades. I was slow to discover that it was a red +maple changed by the frost. The immediate shores were also densely +covered with the speckled alder, red osier, shrubby willows or +sallows, and the like. There were a few yellow-lily-pads still left, +half drowned, along the sides, and sometimes a white one. Many fresh +tracks of moose were visible where the water was shallow, and on the +shore, and the lily-stems were freshly bitten off by them. + +After paddling about two miles, we parted company with the explorers, +and turned up Lobster Stream, which comes in on the right, from the +south-east. This was six or eight rods wide, and appeared to run +nearly parallel with the Penobscot. Joe said that it was so called +from small fresh-water lobsters found in it. It is the Matahumkeag of +the maps. My companion wished to look for moose signs, and intended, +if it proved worth the while, to camp up that way, since the Indian +advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up +this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. +The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were +now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, +the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and +chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee +_kecunnilessu_ in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling +of what possibly was never spelt before, but I pronounced after him +till he said it would do. We passed close to a woodcock, which stood +perfectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if sick. +This, Joe said, they called _nipsquecohossus_. The kingfisher was +_skuscumonsuck_; bear was _wassus_; Indian Devil, _lunxus_; the +mountain-ash, _upahsis_. This was very abundant and beautiful. +Moose-tracks were not so fresh along this stream, except in a small +creek about a mile up it, where a large log had lodged in the spring, +marked "W-cross-girdle-crow-foot." We saw a pair of moose-horns on +the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said +there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed +their heads more than once in their lives. + +After ascending about a mile and a half, to within a short distance +of Lobster Lake, we returned to the Penobscot. Just below the mouth +of the Lobster we found quick water, and the river expanded to +twenty or thirty rods in width. The moose-tracks were quite numerous +and fresh here. We noticed in a great many places narrow and +well-trodden paths by which they had come down to the river, and +where they had slid on the steep and clayey bank. Their tracks were +either close to the edge of the stream, those of the calves +distinguishable from the others, or in shallow water; the holes +made by their feet in the soft bottom being visible for a long time. +They were particularly numerous where there was a small bay, or +_pokelogan_, as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or +separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, +wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten +the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, +where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, +Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then +asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes +had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my +companion obtained it. I now began to notice the bright red berries +of the tree-cranberry, which grows eight or ten feet high, mingled +with the alders and cornel along the shore. There was less hard wood +than at first. + +After proceeding a mile and three quarters below the mouth of the +Lobster, we reached, about sundown, a small island at the head of +what Joe called the Moosehorn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which +he was going to hunt that night, coming in about three miles below), +and on the upper end of this we decided to camp. On a point at the +lower end lay the carcass of a moose killed a month or more before. +We concluded merely to prepare our camp, and leave our baggage here, +that all might be ready when we returned from moose-hunting. Though +I had not come a-hunting, and felt some compunctions about +accompanying the hunters, I wished to see a moose near at hand, and +was not sorry to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went as +reporter or chaplain to the hunters,--and the chaplain has been +known to carry a gun himself. After clearing a small space amid the +dense spruce and fir trees, we covered the damp ground with a +shingling of fir-twigs, and, while Joe was preparing his birch-horn +and pitching his canoe,--for this had to be done whenever we stopped +long enough to build a fire, and was the principal labor which he +took upon himself at such times,--we collected fuel for the night, +large wet and rotting logs, which had lodged at the head of the +island, for our hatchet was too small for effective chopping; but we +did not kindle a fire, lest the moose should smell it. Joe set up a +couple of forked stakes, and prepared half a dozen poles, ready to +cast one of our blankets over in case it rained in the night, which +precaution, however, was omitted the next night. We also plucked the +ducks which had been killed for breakfast. + +While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, +from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a +woodchopper's axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude. We are +wont to liken many sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the +stroke of an axe because they resemble each other under those +circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear there. When we +told Joe of this, he exclaimed, "By George, I'll bet that was moose! +They make a noise like that." These sounds affected us strangely, +and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably +had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and +wildness. + +At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was a dead-water for +three miles, or as far as the Moosehorn; Joe telling us that we must +be very silent, and he himself making no noise with his paddle, +while he urged the canoe along with effective impulses. It was a +still night, and suitable for this purpose,--for if there is wind, +the moose will smell you,--and Joe was very confident that he should +get some. The harvest moon had just risen, and its level rays began +to light up the forest on our right, while we glided downward in the +shade on the same side, against the little breeze that was stirring. +The lofty spiring tops of the spruce and fir were very black against +the sky, and more distinct than by day, close bordering this broad +avenue on each side; and the beauty of the scene, as the moon rose +above the forest, it would not be easy to describe. A bat flew over +our heads, and we heard a few faint notes of birds from time to time, +perhaps the myrtle-bird for one, or the sudden plunge of a musquash, +or saw one crossing the stream before us, or heard the sound of a +rill emptying in, swollen by the recent rain. About a mile below the +island, when the solitude seemed to be growing more complete every +moment, we suddenly saw the light and heard the crackling of a fire +on the bank, and discovered the camp of the two explorers; they +standing before it in their red shirts, and talking aloud of the +adventures and profits of the day. They were just then speaking of a +bargain, in which, as I understood, somebody had cleared twenty-five +dollars. We glided by without speaking, close under the bank, within +a couple of rods of them; and Joe, taking his horn, imitated the +call of the moose, till we suggested that they might fire on us. +This was the last we saw of them, and we never knew whether they +detected or suspected us. + +I have often wished since that I was with them. They search for +timber over a given section, climbing hills and often high trees to +look off,--explore the streams by which it is to be driven, and the +like,--spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a +hundred miles or more from any town,--roaming about, and sleeping on +the ground where night overtakes them,--depending chiefly on the +provisions they carry with them, though they do not decline what game +they come across,--and then in the fall they return and make report +to their employers, determining the number of teams that will be +required the following winter. Experienced men get three or four +dollars a day for this work. It is a solitary and adventurous life, +and comes nearest to that of the trapper of the West, perhaps. They +work ever with a gun as well as an axe, let their beards grow, and +live without neighbors, not on an open plain, but far within a +wilderness. + +This discovery accounted for the sounds which we had heard, and +destroyed the prospect of seeing moose yet awhile. At length, when +we had left the explorers far behind, Joe laid down his paddle, drew +forth his birch horn,--a straight one, about fifteen inches long and +three or four wide at the mouth, tied round with strips of the same +bark,--and standing up, imitated the call of the moose,--_ugh-ugh-ugh_, +or _oo-oo-oo-oo_, and then a prolonged _oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_, and +listened attentively for several minutes. We asked him what kind of +noise he expected to hear. He said, that, if a moose heard it, he +guessed we should find out; we should hear him coming half a mile off; +he would come close to, perhaps into, the water, and my companion +must wait till he got fair sight, and then aim just behind the +shoulder. + +The moose venture out to the riverside to feed and drink at night. +Earlier in the season the hunters do not use a horn to call them out, +but steal upon them as they are feeding along the sides of the stream, +and often the first notice they have of one is the sound of the +water dropping from its muzzle. An Indian whom I heard imitate the +voice of the moose, and also that of the caribou and the deer, using +a much longer horn than Joe's, told me that the first could be heard +eight or ten miles, sometimes; it was a loud sort of bellowing sound, +clearer and more sonorous than the lowing of cattle,--the caribou's +a sort of snort,--and the small deer's like that of a lamb. + +At length we turned up the Moosehorn, where the Indians at the carry +had told us that they killed a moose the night before. This is a +very meandering stream, only a rod or two in width, but +comparatively deep, coming in on the right, fitly enough named +Moosehorn, whether from its windings or its inhabitants. It was +bordered here and there by narrow meadows between the stream and the +endless forest, affording favorable places for the moose to feed, +and to call them out on. We proceeded half a mile up this, as +through a narrow winding canal, where the tall, dark spruce and firs +and arbor-vitae towered on both sides in the moonlight, forming a +perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the spires of a +Venice in the forest. In two places stood a small stack of hay on +the bank, ready for the lumberer's use in the winter, looking +strange enough there. We thought of the day when this might be a +brook winding through smooth-shaven meadows on some gentleman's +grounds; and seen by moonlight then, excepting the forest that now +hems it in, how little changed it would appear! + +Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the canoe close by +some favorable point of meadow for them to come out on, but listened +in vain to hear one come rushing through the woods, and concluded +that they had been hunted too much thereabouts. We saw many times +what to our imaginations looked like a gigantic moose, with his +horns peering from out the forest-edge; but we saw the forest only, +and not its inhabitants, that night. So at last we turned about. +There was now a little fog on the water, though it was a fine, clear +night above. There were very few sounds to break the stillness of +the forest. Several times we heard the hooting of a great horned-owl, +as at home, and told Joe that he would call out the moose for him, +for he made a sound considerably like the horn,--but Joe answered, +that the moose had heard that sound a thousand times, and knew better; +and oftener still we were startled by the plunge of a musquash. Once, +when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard +come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad +aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as +if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like +forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the +damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had +heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,-- +"Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in +the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as +if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but +worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a +boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. +If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with +the dews of the night on them are heavier than by day. + +Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kindled our fire and +went to bed. Each of us had a blanket, in which he lay on the +fir-twigs, with his extremities toward the fire, but nothing over his +head. It was worth the while to lie down in a country where you +could afford such great fires; that was one whole side, and the +bright side, of our world. We had first rolled up a large log some +eighteen inches through and ten feet long, for a back-log, to last +all night, and then piled on the trees to the height of three or +four feet, no matter how green or damp. In fact, we burned as much +wood that night as would, with economy and an air-tight stove, last +a poor family in one of our cities all winter. It was very agreeable, +as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire +kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries +used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, +they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since the creation, +unless by earthquakes. It is surprising with what impunity and +comfort one who has always lain in a warm bed in a close apartment, +and studiously avoided drafts of air, can lie down on the ground +without a shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, +in a frosty autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and even come +soon to enjoy and value the fresh air. + +I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks through the +firs, and sometimes their descent in half-extinguished cinders on my +blanket. They were as interesting as fireworks, going up in endless +successive crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager serpentine +course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops before they +went out. We do not suspect how much our chimneys have concealed; +and now air-tight stoves have come to conceal all the rest. In the +course of the night, I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on +the fire, making my companions curl up their legs. + +When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, September 17,) there was +considerable frost whitening the leaves. We heard the sound of the +chickadee, and a few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the +water about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of our +domains before the dew was off, and found that the ground-hemlock, +or American yew, was the prevailing undershrub. We breakfasted on tea, +hard bread, and ducks. + +Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled down the stream +again, and were soon past the mouth of the Moosehorn. These twenty +miles of the Penobscot, between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are +comparatively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but from time to +time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or gravel-beds, where you +can wade across. There is no expanse of water, and no break in the +forest, and the meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are no +hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant +mountains seen in a few places. The banks are from six to ten feet +high, but once or twice rise gently to higher ground. In many places +the forest on the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light +through from some alder-swamp or meadow behind. The conspicuous +berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore were the red osier, +with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush, mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, +choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. +Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of +the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked +very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the +shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, +that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native +river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to +the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands, +as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was too late for flowers, +except a few asters, golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed +the slight frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up, amid +the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers or hunters had +passed a night,--and sometimes steps cut in the muddy or clayey bank +in front of it. + +We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small stream called +Ragmuff, which came in from the west, about two miles below the +Moosehorn. Here were the ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small +space, which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was now +densely overgrown with the red cherry and raspberries. While we were +trying for trout, Joe, Indian-like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on +his own errands, and when we were ready to start was far beyond call. +So we were compelled to make a fire and get our dinner here, not to +lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps +purple finches,) and myrtle-birds in their summer dress, hopped +within six or eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled +the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the lisping notes +which I had heard in the forest. They suggested that the few small +birds found in the wilderness are on more familiar terms with the +lumberman and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with the +farmer. I have since found the Canada jay, and partridges, both the +black and the common, equally tame there, as if they had not yet +learned to mistrust man entirely. The chickadee, which is at home +alike in the primitive woods and in our wood-lots, still retains its +confidence in the towns to a remarkable degree. + +Joe at length returned, after an hour and a half, and said that he +had been two miles up the stream exploring, and had seen a moose, but, +not having the gun, he did not get him. We made no complaint, but +concluded to look out for Joe the next time. However, this may have +been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to complain of him +afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear +him whistling "O Susanna," and several other such airs, while his +paddle urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His common word +was "Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on one side only, giving the +birch an impulse by using the side as a fulcrum. I asked him how +the ribs were fastened to the side rails. He answered, "I don't know, +I never noticed." Talking with him about subsisting wholly on what +the woods yielded, game, fish, berries, etc., I suggested that his +ancestors did so; but he answered, that he had been brought up in +such a way that he could not do it. "Yes," said he, "that's the way +they got a living, like wild fellows, wild as bears. By George! I +shan't go into the woods without provision,--hard bread, pork, etc." +He had brought on a barrel of hard bread and stored it at the carry +for his hunting. However, though he was a Governor's son, he had not +learned to read. + +At one place below this, on the east side, where the bank was higher +and drier than usual, rising gently from the shore to a slight +elevation, some one had felled the trees over twenty or thirty acres, +and left them drying in order to burn. This was the only preparation +for a house between the Moosehead carry and Chesuncook, but there +was no hut nor inhabitants there yet. The pioneer thus selects a +site for his house, which will, perhaps, prove the germ of a town. + +My eyes were all the while on the trees, distinguishing between the +black and white spruce and the fir. You paddle along in a narrow +canal through an endless forest, and the vision I have in my mind's +eye, still, is of the small dark and sharp tops of tall fir and +spruce trees, and pagoda-like arbor-vitaes, crowded together on each +side, with various hard woods intermixed. Some of the arbor-vitaes +were at least sixty feet high. The hard woods, occasionally +occurring exclusively, were less wild to my eye. I fancied them +ornamental grounds, with farm-houses in the rear. The canoe and +yellow birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman; but the +spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian. The soft engravings +which adorn the annuals give no idea of a stream in such a wilderness +as this. The rough sketches in Jackson's Reports on the Geology of +Maine answer much better. At one place we saw a small grove of +slender sapling white-pines, the only collection of pines that I saw +on this voyage. Here and there, however, was a full-grown, tall, and +slender, but defective one, what lumbermen call a _kouchus_ tree, +which they ascertain with their axes, or by the knots. I did not +learn whether this word was Indian or English. It reminded me of the +Greek [Greek: kogchae], a conch or shell, and I amused myself with +fancying that it might signify the dead sound which the trees yield +when struck. All the rest of the pines had been driven off. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +LA CANTATRICE. + + By day, at a high oak desk I stand, + And trace in a ledger line by line; + But at five o'clock yon dial's hand + Opens the cage wherein I pine; + And as faintly the stroke from the belfry peals + Down through the thunder of hoofs and wheels, + I wonder if ever a monarch feels + Such royal joy as mine! + + Beatrice is dressed and her carriage waits; + I know she has heard that signal-chime; + And my strong heart leaps and palpitates, + As lightly the winding stair I climb + To her fragrant room, where the winter's gloom + Is changed by the heliotrope's perfume, + And the curtained sunset's crimson bloom, + To love's own summer prime. + + She meets me there, so strangely fair + That my soul aches with a happy pain;-- + A pressure, a touch of her true lips, such + As a seraph might give and take again; + A hurried whisper, "Adieu! adieu! + They wait for me while I stay for you!" + And a parting smile of her blue eyes through + The glimmering carriage-pane. + + Then thoughts of the past come crowding fast + On a blissful track of love and sighs;-- + Oh, well I toiled, and these poor hands soiled, + That her song might bloom in Italian skies!-- + The pains and fears of those lonely years, + The nights of longing and hope and tears,-- + Her heart's sweet debt, and the long arrears + Of love in those faithful eyes! + + O night! be friendly to her and me!-- + To box and pit and gallery swarm + The expectant throngs;--I am there to see;-- + And now she is bending her radiant form + To the clapping crowd;--I am thrilled and proud; + My dim eyes look through a misty cloud, + And my joy mounts up on the plaudits loud, + Like a sea-bird on a storm! + + She has waved her hand; the noisy rush + Of applause sinks down; and silverly + Her voice glides forth on the quivering hush, + Like the white-robed moon on a tremulous sea! + And wherever her shining influence calls, + I swing on the billow that swells and falls,-- + I know no more,--till the very walls + Seem shouting with jubilee! + + Oh, little she cares for the fop who airs + His glove and glass, or the gay array + Of fans and perfumes, of jewels and plumes, + Where wealth and pleasure have met to pay + Their nightly homage to her sweet song; + But over the bravas clear and strong, + Over all the flaunting and fluttering throng, + She smiles my soul away! + + Why am I happy? why am I proud? + Oh, can it be true she is all my own?-- + I make my way through the ignorant crowd; + I know, I know where my love hath flown. + Again we meet; I am here at her feet, + And with kindling kisses and promises sweet, + Her glowing, victorious lips repeat + That they sing for me alone! + + + + +GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNITZ. + +The philosophic import of this illustrious name, having suffered +temporary eclipse from the Critical Philosophy, with its swift +succession of transcendental dynasties,--the _Wissenschaftslehre_, +the _Naturphilosophie_, and the _Encyclopaedie_,--has recently +emerged into clear and respectful recognition, if not into broad and +effulgent repute. In divers quarters, of late, the attention of the +learned has reverted to the splendid optimist, whose adventurous +intellect left nothing unexplored and almost nothing unexplained. +Biographers and critics have discussed his theories,--some in the +interest of philosophy, and some in the interest of religion,--some +in the spirit of discipleship, and some in the spirit of opposition,-- +but all with consenting and admiring attestation of the vast +erudition and intellectual prowess and unsurpassed capacity [1] +of the man. + +[Footnote 1: The author of a notice of Leibnitz, more clever than +profound, in four numbers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1852, +distinguishes between capacity and faculty. He gives his subject +credit for the former, but denies his claim to the latter of these +attributes. As if any manifestation of mind were more deserving of +that title than the power of intellectual concentration, to which +nothing that came within its focus was insoluble.] + +A collection of all the works appertaining to Leibnitz, with all his +own writings, would make a respectable library. We have no room for +the titles of all, even of the more recent of these publications. We +content ourselves with naming the Biography, by G. G. Guhrauer, the +best that has yet appeared, called forth by the celebration, in 1846, +of the ducentesimal birthday of Leibnitz,--the latest edition of his +Philosophical Works, by Professor Erdmann of Halle--the publication +of his Correspondence with Arnauld, by Herr Grotefend, and of that +with the Landgrave Ernst von Hessen Rheinfels, by Chr. von Rommel,-- +of his Historical Works, by the librarian Pertz of Berlin,--of the +Mathematical, by Gerhardt,--Ludwig Jeuerbach's elaborate dissertation, +"Darstellung, Entwickelung und Kritik der Leibnitzischen Philosophie,"-- +Zimmermann's "Leibnitz u. Herbart's Monadologie,"--Schelling's +"Leibnitz als Denker,"--Hartenstein's "De Materiae apud Leibnit. +Notione,"--and Adolph Helferich's "Spinoza u. Leibnitz: oder Das +Wesen des Idealismus u. des Realismus." To these we must add, as +one of the most valuable contributions to Leibnitian literature, +M. Foucher de Careil's recent publication of certain MSS. of Leibnitz, +found in the library at Hanover, containing strictures on Spinoza, +(which the editor takes the liberty to call "Refutation Inedite de +Spinoza,")--"Sentiment de Worcester et de Locke sur les Idees,"-- +"Correspondance avec Foucher, Bayle et Fontenelle,"--"Reflexions sur +l'Art de connaitre les Homines,"--"Fragmens Divers," etc. [2], +accompanied by valuable introductory and critical essays. + +[Footnote 2: A second collection, by the same hand, appeared in 1857, +with the title, _Nouvelles Lettres et Opuscules Inedits de Leibnitz_. +Precedes d'une Introduction. Par A. Foucher de Careil. Paris. 1857.] + +M. de Careil complains that France has done so little for the memory +of a man "qui lui a fait l'honneur d'ecrire les deux tiers de ses +oeuvres en Francais." England does not owe him the same obligations, +and England has done far less than France,--in fact, nothing to +illustrate the memory of Leibnitz; not so much as an English +translation of his works, or an English edition of them, in these +two centuries. Nor have M. de Careil's countrymen in times past +shared all his enthusiasm for the genial Saxon. The barren +Psychology of Locke obtained a currency in France, in the last +century, which the friendly Realism of his great contemporary could +never boast. Raspe, the first who edited the "Nouveaux Essais," +takes to himself no small credit for liberality in so doing, and +hopes, by rendering equal justice to Leibnitz and to Locke, to +conciliate those "who, with the former, think that their wisdom is +the sure measure of omnipotence," [3] and those who "believe, with +the latter, that the human mind is to the rays of the primal Truth +what a night-bird is to the sun." [4] + +[Footnote 3: + "Stimai gia che 'I mio saper misura + Certa fosse e infallibile di quanto + Puo far l'alto Fattor della natura." + Tasso, _Gerus_, xiv. 45.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Augel notturno al sole + E nostra mente a' rai del primo Vero." + _Ib_. 46.] + +Voltaire pronounced him "le savant le plus universel de l'Europe," +but characterized his metaphysical labors with the somewhat +equivocal compliment of "metaphysicien assez delie pour vouloir +reconcilier la theologie avec la metaphysique." [5] + +[Footnote 5: "On sait que Voltaire n'aimait pas Leibnitz. +J'imagine que c'est le chretien qu'il detestait en lui." + --Ch. Waddington.] + +Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebrities, has produced no +other who fulfils so completely the type of the _Gelehrte_,--a type +which differs from that of the _savant_ and from that of the scholar, +but includes them both. Feuerbach calls him "the personified thirst +for Knowledge"; Frederic the Great pronounced him an "Academy of +Sciences"; and Fontenelle said of him, that "he saw the end of things, +or that they had no end." It was an age of intellectual adventure +into which Leibnitz was born,--fit sequel and heir to the age of +maritime adventure which preceded it. We please ourselves with +fancied analogies between the two epochs and the nature of their +discoveries. In the latter movement, as in the former, Italy took +the lead. The martyr Giordano Bruno was the brave Columbus of modern +thought,--the first who broke loose from the trammels of mediaeval +ecclesiastical tradition, and reported a new world beyond the watery +waste of scholasticism. Campanella may represent the Vespucci of the +new enterprise; Lord Bacon its Sebastian Cabot,--the "Novum Organum" +being the Newfoundland of modern experimental science. Des Cartes +was the Cortes, or shall we rather say the Ponce de Leon, of +scientific discovery, who, failing to find what he sought,--the +Principle of Life, (the Fountain of Eternal Youth,)--yet found +enough to render his name immortal and to make mankind his debtor. +Spinoza is the spiritual Magalhaens, who, emerging from the straits +of Judaism, beheld + + "Another ocean's breast immense, unknown." + +Of modern thinkers he was + + "----the first + That ever burst + Into that silent sea." + +He discovered the Pacific of philosophy,--that theory of the sole +Divine Substance, the All-One, which Goethe in early life found so +pacifying to his troubled spirit, and which, vague and barren as it +proves on nearer acquaintance, induces at first, above all other +systems, a sense of repose in illimitable vastness and immutable +necessity. + +But the Vasco de Gama of his day was Leibnitz. His triumphant +optimism rounded the Cape of theological Good Hope. He gave the +chief impulse to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted, as he +was, with Western thought, he revived the forgotten interest in the +Old and Eastern World, and brought the ends of the earth together. +Circumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he touched, he +appeared as discoverer, as conqueror, as lawgiver. In mathematics, +he discovered or invented the Differential Calculus,--the logic of +transcendental analysis, the infallible method of astronomy, without +which it could never have compassed the large conclusions of the +"Mecanique Celeste." In his "Protogaea," published in 1693, he laid +the foundation of the science of Geology. From his observations, as +Superintendent of the Hartz Mines, and those which he made in his +subsequent travels through Austria and Italy,--from an examination +of the layers, in different localities, of the earth's crust, he +deduced the first theory, in the geological sense, which has ever +been propounded, of the earth's formation. Orthodox Lutheran as he +was, he braved the theological prejudices which then, even more than +now, affronted scientific inquiry in that direction. "First among men," +says Flourens, "he demonstrated the two agencies which successively +have formed and reformed the globe,--fire and water." In the region +of metaphysical inquiry, he propounded a new and original theory of +Substance, and gave to philosophy the Monad, the Law of Continuity, +the Preestablished Harmony, and the Best Possible World. + +Born at Leipzig, in 1646,--left fatherless at the age of six years,-- +by the care of a pious mother and competent guardians, young +Leibnitz enjoyed such means of education as Germany afforded at that +time, but declares himself, for the most part, self-taught [6]. + +[Footnote 6: "Duo, ihi profuere mirifice, (quae tamen alioqui ambigna, +et pluribus noxia esse solent,) primum quod fere essem [Greek: +autodidaktos], alterum quod quaererem nova in unaquaque scientia." + --LEIBNIT. _Opera Philosoph_. Erdmann. p. 162.] + +So genius must always be, for want of any external stimulus equal to +its own impulse. No normal training could keep pace with his +abnormal growth. No school discipline could supply the fuel +necessary to feed the consuming fire of that ravenous intellect. +Grammars, manuals, compends,--all the apparatus of the classes,-- +were only oil to its flame. The Master of the Nicolai-Schule in +Leipzig, his first instructor, was a steady practitioner of the +Martinet order. The pupils were ranged in classes corresponding to +their civil ages,--their studies graduated according to the +baptismal register. It was not a question of faculty or proficiency, +how a lad should be classed and what he should read, but of calendar +years. As if a shoemaker should fit his last to the age instead of +the foot. Such an age, such a study. Gottfried is a genius, and Hans +is a dunce; but Gottfried and Hans were both born in 1646; +consequently, now, in 1654, they are both equally fit for the +Smaller Catechism. Leibnitz was ready for Latin long before the time +allotted to that study in the Nicolai-Schule, but the system was +inexorable. All access to books cut off by rigorous proscription. +But the thirst for knowledge is not easily stifled, and genius, like +love, "will find out his way." + +He chanced, in a corner of the house, to light on an odd volume of +Livy, left there by some student boarder. What could Livy do for a +child of eight years, with no previous knowledge of Latin, and no +lexicon to interpret between them? For most children, nothing. Not +one in a thousand would have dreamed of seriously grappling with +such a mystery. But the brave Patavinian took pity on our little one +and yielded something to childish importunity. The quaint old copy +was garnished, according to a fashion of the time, with rude +wood-cuts, having explanatory legends underneath. The young +philologer tugged at these until he had mastered one or two words. +Then the book was thrown by in despair as impracticable to further +investigation. Then, after one or two weeks had elapsed, for want of +other employment, it was taken up again, and a little more progress +made. And so by degrees, in the course of a year, a considerable +knowledge of Latin had been achieved. But when, in the Nicolai order, +the time for this study arrived, so far from being pleased to find +his instructions anticipated, or welcoming such promise of future +greatness,--so far from rejoicing in his pupil's proficiency, the +pedagogue chafed at the insult offered to his system by this empiric +antepast. He was like one who suddenly discovers that he is telling +an old story where he thought to surprise with a novelty; or like +one who undertakes to fill a lamp, which, being (unknown to him) +already full, runs over, and his oil is spilled. It was "oleum +perdidit" in another sense than the scholastic one. Complaint was +made to the guardians of the orphan Gottfried of these illicit +visits to the tree of knowledge. Severe prohibitory measures were +recommended, which, however, judicious counsel from another quarter +happily averted. + +At the age of eleven, Leibnitz records, that he made, on one occasion, +three hundred Latin verses without elision between breakfast and +dinner. A hundred hexameters, or fifty distichs, in a day, is +generally considered a fair _pensum_ for a boy of sixteen at a +German gymnasium. + +At the age of seventeen, he produced, as an academic exercise, on +taking the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, his celebrated treatise +on the Principle of Individuality, "De Principle Individui," the +most extraordinary performance ever achieved by a youth of that age,-- +remarkable for its erudition, especially its intimate knowledge of +the writings of the Schoolmen, and equally remarkable for its +vigorous grasp of thought and its subtile analysis. In this essay +Leibnitz discovered the bent of his mind and prefigured his future +philosophy, in the choice of his theme, and in his vivid appreciation +and strenuous positing of the individual as the fundamental +principle of ontology. He takes Nominalistic ground in relation to +the old controversy of Nominalist and Realist, siding with Abelard +and Roscellin and Occam, and against St. Thomas and Duns Scotus. The +principle of individuation, he maintains, is the entire entity of +the individual, and not mere limitation of the universal, whether by +"Existence" or by "_Haecceity_." [7] John and Thomas are individuals +by virtue of their integral humanity, and not by fractional limitation +of humanity. Dobbin is an actual positive horse (_Entitas tota_). +Not a negation, by limitation, of universal equiety (_Negatio_). +Not an individuation, by actual existence, of a non-existent but +essential and universal horse (_Existentia_). Nor yet a horse +only by limitation of kind,--a horse minus Dick and Bessie and the +brown mare, etc. (_Haecceitas_). But an individual horse, +simply by virtue of his equine nature. Only so far as he is an actual +complete horse, is he an individual at all. (_Per quod quid est, +per id unum numero est_.) His individuality is nothing superadded +to his equiety. (_Unum supra ens nihil addit reale_.) Neither +is it anything subtracted therefrom. (_Negatio non potest producere +accidentia individualia_.) In fine, there is and can be no horse +but actual individual horses. (_Essentia et existentia non possunt +separari_.) + +[Footnote 7: "Aut enim principium individuationis ponitur _entitas +tota_, (1) aut non tota. Non totam aut negatio exprimit, (2) aut +aliquid positivum. Positivum aut pars physica est, essentiam +terminaus, _existentia_, (3) aut metaphysica, speciem terminans, +_haec ceitas_. (4)... Pono igitur: omne individuum sua tota +entitate individuatur." + --_De Princ. Indiv_. 3 et 4.] + +This was the doctrine of the Nominalists, as it was of Aristotle +before them. It was the doctrine of the Reformers, except, if we +remember rightly, of Huss. The University of Leipzig was founded +upon it. It is the current doctrine of the present day, and +harmonizes well with the current Materialism. Not that Nominalism in +itself, and as Leibnitz held it, is necessarily materialistic, but +Realism is essentially antimaterialistic. The Realists held with +Plato,--but not in his name, for they, too, claimed to be +Aristotelian, and preeminently so,--that the ideal must precede the +actual. So far they were right. This was their strong point. Their +error lay in claiming for the ideal an objective reality, an +independent being. Conceptualism was only another statement of +Nominalism, or, at most, a question of the relation of language to +thought. It cannot be regarded as a third issue in this controversy,-- +a controversy in which more time was consumed, says John of Salisbury, +"than the Caesars required to make themselves masters of the world," +and in which the combatants, having spent at last their whole stock +of dialectic ammunition, resorted to carnal weapons, passing suddenly, +by a very illogical _metabasis_, from "universals" to particulars. +Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singular fortune, a pagan +philosopher, introduced into Western Europe by Mohammedans, became +the supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristotle was the +Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther found this authority in his way +and disposed of it in short order, devoting Aristotle without +ceremony to the Devil, as "a damned mischief-making heathen." But +Leibnitz, whose large discourse looked before as well as after, +reinstated not only Aristotle, but Plato, and others of the Greek +philosophers, in their former repute;--"Car ces anciens," he said, +"etaient plus solides qu'on ne croit." He was the first to turn the +tide of popular opinion in their favor. + +Not without a struggle was he brought to side with the Nominalists. +Musing, when a boy, in the Rosenthal, near Leipzig, he debated long +with himself,--"Whether he would give up the Substantial Forms of +the Schoolmen." Strange matter for boyish deliberation! Yes, good +youth, by all means, give them up! They have had their day. They +served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Christendom in times of +ecclesiastical thraldom, when learning knew no other vocation. But +the age into which you are born has its own problems, of nearer +interest and more commanding import. The measuring-reed of science +is to be laid to the heavens, the solar system is to be weighed in a +balance; the age of logical quiddities has passed, the age of +mathematical quantities has come. Give them up! You will soon have +enough to do to take care of your own. What with Dynamics and +Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Monads and Majesties, +Concilium AEgyptiacum and Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, +there will be scant room in that busy brain for Substantial Forms. +Let them sleep, dust to dust, with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the +bones of Aquinas! + +The "De Principio Individui" was the last treatise of any note in +the sense and style of the old scholastic philosophy. It was also +one of the last blows aimed at scholasticism, which, long undermined +by the Saxon Reformation, received its _coup de grace_ a century +later from the pen of an English wit. "Cornelius," says the author +of "Martinus Scriblerus," told Martin that a shoulder of mutton was +an individual; which Crambe denied, for he had seen it cut into +commons. 'That's true,' quoth the Tutor, 'but you never saw it cut +into shoulders of mutton.' 'If it could be,' quoth Crambe, 'it would +be the loveliest individual of the University.' When he was told +that a _substance_ was that which is subject to _accidents_: 'Then +soldiers,' quoth Crambe, 'are the most substantial people in the +world.' Neither would he allow it to be a good definition of accident, +that it could be present or absent without the destruction of the +subject, since there are a great many accidents that destroy the +subject, as burning does a house and death a man. But as to that, +Cornelius informed him that there was a _natural_ death and a +_logical_ death; and that though a man after his natural death was +incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep his +stall among the logical predicaments.... + +Crambe regretted extremely that _Substantial Forms_, a race of +harmless beings which had lasted for many years and had afforded a +comfortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should now be +hunted down like so many wolves, without the possibility of retreat. +He considered that it had gone much harder with them than with the +_Essences_, which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries' +shops, where some of them had been advanced into the degree of +_Quintessences_. He thought there should be a retreat for poor +_substantial forms_ amongst the gentlemen-ushers at court; and that +there were, indeed, substantial forms, such as forms of prayer and +forms of government, without which the things themselves could never +long subsist.... + +Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons +which logic had put in their hands. Here Martin and Crambe used to +engage like any prizefighters. And as prize-fighters will agree to +lay aside a buckler, or some such defensive weapon, so Crambe would +agree not to use _simpliciter_ and _secundum quid_, if Martin would +part with _materialiter_ and _formaliter_. But it was found, that, +without the defensive armor of these distinctions, the arguments cut +so deep that they fetched blood at every stroke. Their theses were +picked out of Suarez, Thomas Aquinas, and other learned writers on +those subjects.... One, particularly, remains undecided to this day,-- +'An praeter _esse_ reale actualis essentiae sit alind _esse_ +necessarium quo res actualiter existat?' In English thus: 'Whether, +besides the real being of actual being, there be any other being +necessary to cause a thing to be?' [8] + +[Footnote 8: Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. Chap. VII.] + +Arrived at maturity, Leibnitz rose at once to classic eminence. He +became a conspicuous figure, he became a commanding power, not only +in the intellectual world, of which he constituted himself the centre, +but in part also of the civil. It lay in the nature of his genius to +prove all things, and it lay in his temperament to seek _rapport_ +with all sorts of men. He was infinitely related;--not an individual +of note in his day but was linked with him by some common interest +or some polemic grapple; not a _savant_ or statesman with whom +Leibnitz did not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of +communication. Europe was reticulated with the meshes of his +correspondence. "Never," says Voltaire, "was intercourse among +philosophers more universal; _Leibnitz servait a l'animer_." He +writes now to Spinoza at the Hague, to suggest new methods of +manufacturing lenses,--now to Magliabecchi at Florence, urging, in +elegant Latin verses, the publication of his bibliographical +discoveries,--and now to Grimaldi, Jesuit missionary in China, to +communicate his researches in Chinese philosophy. He hoped by means +of the latter to operate on the Emperor Cham-Hi with the _Dyadik_; [9] +and even suggested said _Dyadik_ as a key to the cipher of the book +"Ye Kim," supposed to contain the sacred mysteries of Fo. He +addresses Louis XIV., now on the subject of a military expedition to +Egypt, (a magnificent idea, which it needed a Napoleon to realize,) +now on the best method of promoting and conserving scientific +knowledge. He corresponds with the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, +with Bossuet, and with Madame Brinon on the Union of the Catholic +and Protestant Churches, and with Privy-Counsellor von Spanheim on +the Union of the Lutheran and Reformed,--with Pere Des Bosses on +Transubstantiation, and with Samuel Clarke on Time and Space,--with +Remond de Montmort on Plato, and with Franke on Popular Education,-- +with the Queen of Prussia (his pupil) on Free-will and Predestination, +and with the Electress Sophia, her mother, (in her eighty-fourth year,) +on English Politics,--with the cabinet of Peter the Great on the +Slavonic and Oriental Languages, and with that of the German Emperor +on the claims of George Lewis to the honors of the Electorate,--and +finally, with all the _savans_ of Europe on all possible scientific +questions. + +[Footnote 9: A species of binary arithmetic, invented by Leibnitz, +in which the only figures employed are 0 and 1.--See KORTHOLT'S +_G.C. Leibnitii Epistolae ad Divarsos_, Letter XVIII.] + +[Transcriber's note: without this notation and its underlying logic, +the development of modern computers would have not been practical.] + +Of this world-wide correspondence a portion related to the sore +subject of his litigated claim to originality in the discovery of +the Differential Calculus,--a matter in which Leibnitz felt himself +grievously wronged, and complained with justice of the treatment he +received at the hands of his contemporaries. The controversy between +him and Newton, respecting this hateful topic, would never have +originated with either of these illustrious men, had it depended on +them alone to vindicate their respective claims. Officious and +ill-advised friends of the English philosopher, partly from misguided +zeal and partly from levelled malice, preferred on his behalf a +charge of plagiarism against the German, which Newton was not likely +to have urged for himself. "The new Calculus, which Europe lauds, is +nothing less," they suggested, "than your fluxionary method, which +Mr. Leibnitz has pirated, anticipating its tardy publication by the +genuine author. Why suffer your laurels to be wrested from you by a +stranger?" Thereupon arose the notorious _Commercium Epistolicum_, +in which Wallis, Fatio de Duillier, Collins, and Keill were +perversely active. Melancholy monument of literary and national +jealousy! Weary record of a vain strife! Ideas are no man's property. +As well pretend to ownership of light, or set up a claim to private +estate in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit blows where it lists. Truth +inspires whom it finds. He who knows best to conspire with it has it. +Both philosophers swerved from their native simplicity and nobleness +of soul. Both sinned and were sinned against. Leibnitz did unhandsome +things, but he was sorely tried. His heart told him that the right +of the quarrel was on his side, and the general stupidity would not +see it. The general malice, rejoicing in aspersion of a noble name, +would not see it. The Royal Society would not see it,--nor France, +until long after Leibnitz's death. Sir David Brewster's account of +the matter, according to the German authorities, Gerhardt, Guhrauer, +and others, is one-sided, and sins by _suppressio veri_, ignoring +important documents, particularly Leibnitz's letter to Oldenburg, +August 27, 1676. Gerhardt has published Leibnitz's own history of +the Calculus as a counter-statement. [10] But even from Brewster's +account, as we remember it, (we have it not by us at this writing.) +there is no more reason to doubt that Leibnitz's discovery was +independent of Newton's than that Newton's was independent of +Leibnitz's. The two discoveries, in fact, are not identical; the end +and application are the same, but origin and process differ, and the +German method has long superseded the English. The question in debate +has been settled by supreme authority. Leibnitz has been tried by his +peers. Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and Biot have honorably +acquitted him of plagiarism, and reinstated him in his rights as true +discoverer of the Differential Calculus. + +[Footnote 10: Historia et Oriffo Calculi Differenttalis, a G. G. +LEIBNITIO conscripts.] + +[Transcriber's note: this controversy rages in academia to this day.] + +The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one +predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: +polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger +in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but +the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite another +kind. He was more actor than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at +the instigation of others, or to meet some pressing demand of the +time. Besides occupying himself with mechanical inventions, some of +which (in particular, his improvement of Pascal's Calculating Machine) +were quite famous in their day,--besides his project of a universal +language, and his labors to bring about a union of the churches,-- +besides undertaking the revision of the laws of the German Empire, +superintending the Hanoverian mines, experimenting in the culture of +silk, directing the medical profession, laboring in the promotion of +popular education, establishing academies of science, superintending +royal libraries, ransacking the archives of Germany and Italy to +find documents for his history of the House of Brunswick, a work of +immense research [11],--besides these, and a multitude of similar and +dissimilar avocations, he was deep in politics, German and European, +and was occupied all his life long with political negotiations. He was +a courtier, he was a _diplomat_, was consulted on all difficult +matters of international policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at +Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial +governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult +commissions,--matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and +appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man +would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety +of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary +brain. And to these were added private studies not less multifarious. +"I am distracted beyond all account," he writes to Vincent Placcius. +"I am making extracts from archives, inspecting ancient documents, +hunting up unpublished manuscripts; all this to illustrate the +history of Brunswick. Letters in great number I receive and write. +Then I have so many discoveries in mathematics, so many speculations +in philosophy, so many other literary observations, which I am +desirous of preserving, that I am often at a loss what to take hold +of first, and can fairly sympathize in that saying of Ovid, 'I am +straitened by my abundance.' [12]" + +[Footnote 11: _Annals Imperii Occidents Brunsvicensis_. Leibnitz +succeeded in discovering at Modena the lost traces of that +connection between the lines of Brunswick and Esto which had been +surmised, but not proved.] + +[Footnote 12: "Quam mirifice sim distractus dici non potest. Varia ex +archivis eruo, antiquas chartns inspicio, manuscripta inedita +conquiro. Ex hic lucem dare conor Brunsvicensi historiae. Magno +numero litteras et accipio et dimitto. Habeo vero tam multa nova in +mathematicis, tot cogitationes in philosophicis, tot alias +literarias observationes, quas vellem non perire, ut saepe inter +agenda anceps haeream et prope illud Ovidianum sentiam: _Iniopem me +copia facit_."] + +His diplomatic services are less known at present than his literary +labors, but were not less esteemed in his own day. When Louis XIV., +in 1688, declared war against the German Empire, on the pretence +that the Emperor was meditating an invasion of France, Leibnitz drew +up the imperial manifesto, which repelled the charge and triumphantly +exposed the hollowness of Louis's cause. Another document, prepared +by him at the solicitation, it is supposed, of several of the courts +of Europe, advocating the claims of Charles of Austria to the vacant +throne of Spain, in opposition to the grandson of Louis, and setting +forth the injurious consequences of the policy of the French monarch, +was hailed by his contemporaries as a masterpiece of historical +learning and political wisdom. By his powerful advocacy of the cause +of the Elector of Brandenburg he may be said to have aided the birth +of the kingdom of Prussia, whose existence dates with the +commencement of the last century. In the service of that kingdom he +wrote and published important state-papers; among them, one relating +to a point of contested right to which recent events have given +fresh significance: "Traite: Sommaire du Droit de Frederic I. Roi de +Prusse a la Souverainete de Neufchatel et de Vallengin en Suisse." + +In Vienna, as at Berlin, the services of Leibnitz were subsidized by +the State. By the Peace of Utrecht, the house of Habsburg had been +defeated in its claims to the Spanish throne, and the foreign and +internal affairs of the Austrian government were involved in many +perplexities, which, it was hoped, the philosopher's counsel might +help to untangle. He was often present at the private meetings of +the cabinet, and received from the Emperor the honorable distinction +of Kaiserlicher Hofrath, in addition to that, which had previously +been awarded to him, of Baron of the Empire. The highest post in the +gift of government was open to him, on condition of renouncing his +Protestant faith, which, notwithstanding his tolerant feeling toward +the Roman Church, and the splendid compensations which awaited such +a convertite, he could never be prevailed upon to do. + +A natural, but very remarkable consequence of this manifold activity +and lifelong absorption in public affairs was the failure of so +great a thinker to produce a single systematic and elaborate work +containing a complete and detailed exposition of his philosophical, +and especially his ontological views. For such an exposition +Leibnitz could find at no period of his life the requisite time and +scope. In the vast multitude of his productions there is no complete +philosophic work. The most arduous of his literary labors are +historical compilations, made in the service of the State. Such were +the "History of the House of Brunswick," already mentioned, the +"Accessiones Historiae," the "Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium +Illustrationi inservientes," and the "Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus";-- +works involving an incredible amount of labor and research, but +adding little to his posthumous fame. His philosophical studies, +after entering the Hanoverian service, which he did in his thirtieth +year, were pursued, as he tells his correspondent Placcius, by +stealth,--that is, at odd moments snatched from official duties and +the cares of state. Accordingly, his metaphysical works have all a +fragmentary character. Instead of systematic treatises, they are +loose papers, contributions to journals and magazines, or sketches +prepared for the use of friends. They are all occasional productions, +elicited by some external cause, not prompted by inward necessity. +The "Nouveaux Essais," his most considerable work in that department, +originated in comments on Locke, and was not published until after +his death. The "Monadology" is a series of propositions drawn up for +the use of Prince Eugene, and was never intended to be made public. +And, probably, the "Theodicee" would never have seen the light +except for his cultivated and loved pupil, the Queen of Prussia, for +whose instruction it was designed. + +It is a curious fact, and a good illustration of the state of +letters in Germany at that time, that Leibnitz wrote so little-- +almost nothing of importance--in his native tongue. In Erdmann's +edition of his philosophical works there are only two short essays +in German; the rest are all Latin or French. He had it in +contemplation at one time to establish a philosophical journal in +Berlin, but doubts, in his letter to M. La Croye on the subject, in +what language it should be conducted: "Il y a quelque tems que j'ay +pense a un journal de Savans qu'on pourroit publier a Berlin, mais +je suis un peu en doute sur la langue ... Mais soit qu'on prit le +Latin ou le Francois," [13] etc. It seems never to have occurred to him +that such a journal might be published in German. That language was +then, and for a long time after, regarded by educated Germans very much +as the Russian is regarded at the present day, as the language of vulgar +life, unsuited to learned or polite intercourse. Frederic the Great, +a century later, thought as meanly of its adaptation to literary +purposes as did the contemporaries of Leibnitz. When Gellert, at his +request, repeated to him one of his fables, he expressed his +surprise that anything so clever could be produced in German. It may +be said in apology for this neglect of their native tongue, that the +German scholars of that age would have had a very inadequate audience, +had their communications been confined to that language. Leibnitz +craved and deserved a wider sphere for his thoughts than the use of +the German could give him. It ought, however, to be remembered to +his credit, that, as language in general was one among the +numberless topics he investigated, so the German in particular +engaged at one time his special attention. It was made the subject +of a disquisition, which suggested to the Berlin Academy, in the +next century, the method adopted by that body for the culture and +improvement of the national speech. In this writing, as in all his +German compositions, he manifested a complete command of the language, +and imparted to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncommon in +his day. The German of Leibnitz is less antiquated at this moment +than the English of his contemporary, Locke. + +[Footnote 13: KORTHOLT. _Epistolae ad Diversos_, Vol. I.] + + + +LEIBNITZ'S PHILOSOPHY. + +The interest to us in this extraordinary man--who died at Hanover, +1716, in the midst of his labors and projects--turns mainly on his +speculative philosophy. It was only as an incidental pursuit that he +occupied himself with metaphysic; yet no philosopher since Aristotle-- +with whom, though claiming to be more Platonic than Aristotelian, he +has much in common--has furnished more luminous hints to the +elucidation of metaphysical problems. The problems he attempted were +those which concern the most inscrutable, but, to the genuine +metaphysician, most fascinating of all topics, the nature of +substance, matter and spirit, absolute being,--in a word, +_Ontology_. This department of metaphysic, the most interesting, +and, _agonistically_ [14], the most important branch of that study, +has been deliberately, purposely, and, with one or two exceptions, +uniformly avoided by the English metaphysicians so-called, with +Locke at their head, and equally by their Scottish successors, until +the recent "Institutes" of the witty Professor of St. Andrew's. +Locke's "Essay concerning the Human Understanding," a century and +a half ago, diverted the English mind from metaphysic proper into +what is commonly called Psychology, but ought, of right, to be termed +_Noology_, or "Philosophy of the Human Mind," as Dugald Stewart +entitled his treatise. This is the study which has usually taken the +place of metaphysic at Cambridge and other colleges,--the science that +professes to show "how ideas enter the mind"; which, considering the +rareness of the occurrence with the mass of mankind, we cannot +regard as a very practical inquiry. We well remember our +disappointment, when, at the usual stage in the college curriculum, +we were promised "metaphysics" and were set to grind in Stewart's +profitless mill, where so few problems of either practical or +theoretical importance are brought to the hopper, and where, in fact, +the object is rather to show how the upper mill-stone revolves upon +the nether, (reflection upon sensation,) and how the grist is +conveyed to the feeder, than to realize actual metaphysical flour. + +[Footnote 14: That is, as a discipline of the faculties,--the chief +benefit to be derived from any kind of metaphysical study.] + +Locke's reason for repudiating ontology is the alleged impossibility +of arriving at truth in that pursuit,--"of finding satisfaction in +a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concern us, whilst +we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of being." [15] +Unfortunately, however, as Kant has shown, the results of nooelogical +inquiry are just as questionable as those of ontology, whilst the +topics on which it is employed are of far inferior moment. If, as +Locke intimates, we can know nothing of being without first +analyzing the understanding, it is equally sure that we can know +nothing of the understanding except in union with and in action on +being. And excepting his own fundamental position concerning the +sensuous origin of our ideas,--to which few, since Kant, will assent,-- +there is hardly a theorem, in all the writings of this school, of +prime and vital significance. The school is tartly, but aptly, +characterized by Professor Ferrier: "Would people inquire directly +into the laws of thought and of knowledge by merely looking to +knowledge or to thought itself, without attending to what is known +or what is thought of? Psychology usually goes to work in this +abstract fashion; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,--as +hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits of old were +wont to typify any particularly fruitless undertaking,--namely, the +operation of milking a he-goat into a sieve. No milk comes, in the +first place, and even that the sieve will not retain! There is a loss +of nothing twice over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no +milk in the first place; and, in the second place, he loses it, +like the man holding the sieve.... Our Scottish philosophy, in +particular, has presented a spectacle of this description. Reid +obtained no result, owing to the abstract nature of his inquiry, and +the nothingness of his system has escaped through all the sieves of +his successors." [16] + +[Footnote 15: _Essay_, Book I. Chap. 1, Sect. 7.] + +[Footnote 16: _Institutes of Metaphysic_, p. 301.] + +Leibnitz's metaphysical speculations are scattered through a wide +variety of writings, many of which are letters to his contemporaries. +These Professor Erdmann has incorporated in his edition of the +Philosophical Works. Beside these we may mention, as particularly +deserving of notice, the "Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et +Ideis", the "Systeme Nouveau de la Nature", "De Primae Philosophiae +Emendatione et de Notione Substantiae", "Reflexions sur l'Essai de +l'Entendement humain", "De Rerum Originatione Radicali", "De ipsa +Natura", "Considerations sur la Doctrine d'un Esprit universel", +"Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement humain", "Considerations sur le +Principe de Vie". To these we must add the "Theodicee" (though more +theological than metaphysical) and the "Monadologie", the most +compact philosophical treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note, +that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and accidental way he +did, he not only wrote with unexampled clearness on matters the most +abstruse, but never, that we are aware, in all the variety of his +communications, extending over so many years, contradicted himself. +No philosopher is more intelligible, none more consequent. + +In philosophy, Leibnitz was a _Realist_. We use that term in the +modern, not in the scholastic sense. In the scholastic sense, as we +have seen, he was not a Realist, but, from childhood up, a Nominalist. +But the Realism of the schools has less affinity with the Realism +than with the Idealism of the present day. + +His opinions must be studied in connection with those of his +contemporaries. + +Des Cartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz, the four most +distinguished philosophers of the seventeenth century, represent +four widely different and cardinal tendencies in philosophy: Dualism, +Idealism, Sensualism, and Realism. + +Des Cartes perceived the incompatibility of the two primary +qualities of being, thought and extension, as attributes of one and +the same (created) substance. He therefore postulated two (created) +substances,--one characterized by thought without extension, the +other by extension without thought. These two are so alien and so +incongruous, that neither can influence the other, or determine the +other, or any way relate with the other, except by direct mediation +of Deity. (The doctrine of Occasional Causes.) This is Dualism,-- +that sharp and rigorous antithesis of mind and matter, which Des +Cartes, if he did not originate it, was the first to develop into +philosophic significance, and which ever since has been the +prevailing ontology of the Western world. So deeply has the thought +of that master mind inwrought itself into the very consciousness of +humanity! + +Spinoza saw, that, if God alone can bring mind and matter together +and effect a relation between them, it follows that mind and matter, +or their attributes, however contrary, do meet in Deity; and if so, +what need of three distinct natures? What need of two substances +beside God, as subjects of these attributes? Retain the middle term +and drop the extremes and you have the Spinozan doctrine of one +(uncreated) substance, combining the attributes of thought and +extension. This is Pantheism, or _objective_ idealism, as +distinguished from the _subjective_ idealism of Fichte. Strange, +that the stigma of atheism should have been affixed to a system +whose very starting-point is Deity and whose great characteristic is +the _ignoration_ of everything but Deity, insomuch that the pure and +devout Novalis pronounced the author a God-drunken man, and +Spinozism a surfeit of Deity. [17] + +[Footnote 17: Let us not be misunderstood. Pantheism is not Theism, and +the one substance of Spinoza is very unlike the one God of theology; +but neither is the doctrine Atheism in any legitimate sense.] + +Naturally enough, the charge of atheism comes from the unbelieving +Bayle, whose omnivorous mind, like the anaconda, assisted its +enormous deglutition with a poisonous saliva of its own, and whose +negative temper makes the "Dictionnaire Historique" more _Morgue_ +than _Valhalla_. + +Locke, who combined in a strange union strong religious faith with +philosophic unbelief, turned aside, as we have seen, from the +questions which had occupied his predecessors; knew little and cared +less about substance and accident, matter and spirit; but set +himself to investigate the nature of the organ itself by which truth +is apprehended. In this investigation he began by emptying the mind +of all native elements of knowledge. He repudiated any supposed +dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored +to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal +experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which +it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; +the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by +Condillac, [18] in the next century. But the same method may lead, as +in the case of Berkeley, to immaterialism, falsely called idealism. +Or it may lead, as in the case of Helveticus, to materialism. Locke +himself would probably have landed in materialism, had he followed +freely the bent of his own thought, without the restraints of a +cautious temper, and respect for the common and traditional opinion +of his time. The "Essay" discovers an unmistakable leaning in that +direction; as where the author supposes, "We shall never be able to +know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible +for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, +to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter +fitly disposed a power to perceive and think;... it being, in respect +of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive +that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, +than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty +of thinking, since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what +sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, +which cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure +and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that +the first thinking eternal Being should, if he pleased, give to +certain systems of created, senseless matter, put together as he +thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought." With +such notions of the nature of thought, as a kind of mechanical +contrivance, that can be conferred outright by an arbitrary act of +Deity, and attached to one nature as well as another, it is evident +that Locke could have had no idea of spirit as conceived by +metaphysicians,--or no belief in that idea, if conceived. And with +such conceptions of Deity and Divine operations, as consisting in +absolute power dissociated from absolute reason, one would not be +surprised to find him asserting, that God, if he pleased, might make +two and two to be one, instead of four,--that mathematical laws are +arbitrary determinations of the Supreme Will,--that a thing is true +only as God wills it to be so,--in fine, that there is no such thing +as absolute truth. The resort to "Omnipotency" in such matters is +more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, +instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination--"[Greek: Doz +d' etelevto Bonlae]"--is a maxim which settles all difficulties. +But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with this +universal solvent at hand? + +[Footnote 18: _Essai sur l'Origine du Connaissances humaines_. Book +IV. Chap. 3, Sect. 6.] + +The "contradiction" which Locke could not see was clearly seen and +keenly felt by Leibnitz. The arbitrary will of God, to him, was no +solution. He believed in necessary truths independent of the Supreme +Will; in other words, he believed that the Supreme Will is but the +organ of the Supreme Reason: "Il ne faut point s'imaginer, que les +verites eternelles, etant dependantes de Dieu, sont arbitrages et +dependent de sa volonte." He felt, with Des Cartes, the incompatibility +of thought with extension, considered as an immanent quality of +substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific propensity which +distinguishes the higher order of philosophic minds. Dualism was an +offence to him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza in his +vivid sense of individuality, of personality. The pantheistic idea +of a single, sole being, of which all other beings are mere +modalities, was also and equally an offence to him. He saw well the +illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a universe as Spinoza dreamed. +He saw it to be a vain imagination, a dream-world, "without form and +void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The philosophy of Leibnitz +is equally remote from that of Des Cartes on the one hand, and from +that of Spinoza on the other. He diverges from the former on the +question of substance, which Des Cartes conceived as consisting of +two kinds, one active (thinking) and one passive (extended), but +which Leibnitz conceives to be all and only active. He explodes +Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of matter and spirit by +positing extension as a continuous act instead of a passive mode, +substance as an active force instead of an inert mass,--matter as +substance appearing, communicating,--as the necessary band and +relation of spirits among themselves. [19] + +[Footnote 19: The following passages may serve as illustrations of +these positions:-- + +"Materia habet de so actum entitativum."--_De Princip. Indiv_. +Coroll. I. + +"Dicam interim notionem virium seu virtutis, (quam Germani vocant +_Kraft_, Galli, _la force_,) cui ego explicandae peculiarem +Dynamices scientiam destinavi, plurimum lucis afferre ad veram +notionem substantiae intelligendam."--_De Primae Philosoph. Emendat, +et de Notione Substantiae_. + +"Corpus ergo est agens extensum; dici poterit esse substantiam +extensam, modo teneatur omnem substantiam _agere, at omne agens +substantiam_ appellari." "Patebit non tantum mentes, sed etiam +substantiae omnes in loco, non nisi per _operationem_ esse."-- +_De Vera Method. Phil. et Theol_. + +"Extensionem concipere ut absolutum ex eo forte oritur quod spatium +concipimus per modum substantiae"--_Ad Des Bosses Ep_. XXIX. + +"Car l'etendue ne signifie qu'une repetition ou multiplicite continuee +de ce qui est repandu."--_Extrait d'une Lettre_, etc. + +"Et l'on peut dire que Petunduc est en quelque facon a l'espace +comme la duree est au tems."--_Exam. des Principes de Malebranche_. + +"La nature de la substance consistant a mon avis dans cette tendance +reglee de laquelle les phenomenes naissent par ordre."--_Lettre a +M. Bayle_. + +"Car rien n'a mieux marque la substance que la puissance d'agir."-- +_Reponse aux Objections du P. Lami_. + +"S'il n'y avait que des esprits, ils seraient sans la liaison +necessaire, sans l'ordre des tems et des lieux."--_Theod_. Sect. 120.] + +He parts company with Spinoza on the question of individuality. +Substance is homogeneous; but substances, or beings, are infinite. +Spinoza looked upon the universe and saw in it the undivided +background on which the objects of human consciousness are painted +as momentary pictures. Leibnitz looked and saw that background, like +the background of one of Raphael's Madonnas, instinct with +individual life, and swarming with intelligences which look out from +every point of space. Leibnitz's universe is composed of Monads, +that is, units, individual substances, or entities, having neither +extension, parts, nor figure, and, of course, indivisible. These are +"the veritable atoms of nature, the elements of things." + +The Monad is unformed and imperishable; it has no natural end or +beginning. It could begin to be only by creation; it can cease to be +only by annihilation. It cannot be affected from without or changed +in its interior by any other creature. Still, it must have qualities, +without which it would not be an entity. And monads must differ one +from another, or there would be no changes in our experience; since +all that takes place in compound bodies is derived from the simples +which compose them. Moreover, the monad, though uninfluenced from +without, is changing continually; the change proceeds from an +internal principle. Every monad is subject to a multitude of +affections and relations, although without parts. This shifting state, +which represents multitude in unity, is nothing else than what we +call _Perception_, which must be carefully distinguished from +_Apperception_, or consciousness. And the action of the internal +principle which causes change in the monad, or a passing from one +perception to another, is _Appetition_. The desire does not always +attain to the perception to which it tends, but it always effects +something, and causes a change of perceptions. + +Leibnitz differs from Locke in maintaining that perception is +inexplicable and inconceivable on mechanical principles. It is +always the act of a simple substance, never of a compound. And +"in simple substances there is nothing but perceptions and their +changes." [20] + +[Footnote 20: _Menadol_. 17.] + +He differs from Locke, furthermore, on the question of the origin of +ideas. This question, he says, "is not a preliminary one in +philosophy, and one must have made great progress to be able to +grapple successfully with it."--"Meanwhile, I think I may say, that +our ideas, even those of sensible objects, _viennent de notre propre +fond_... I am by no means for the _tabula rasa_ of Aristotle; on the +contrary, there is to me something rational (_quelque chose de solide_) +in what Plato called _reminiscence_. Nay, more than that, we have +not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts, but we have also a +_presentiment_ of all our thoughts." [21] + +[Footnote 21: _Reflexions sur l'Essai de l'Entendement humain_.] + +Mr. Lewes, in his "Biographical History of Philosophy," speaks of +the essay from which these words are quoted, as written in "a +somewhat supercilious tone." We are unable to detect any such +feature in it. That trait was wholly foreign from Leibnitz's nature. +"Car je suis des plus dociles," he says of himself, in this same +essay. He was the most tolerant of philosophers. "Je ne meprise +presque rien."--"Nemo est ingenio minus quam ego censorio."-- +"Mirum dictu: probo pleraque quae lego."--"Non admodum refutationes +quaerere aut legere soleo." + +To return to the monads. Each monad, according to Leibnitz, is, +properly speaking, a soul, inasmuch as each is endowed with +perception. But in order to distinguish those which have only +perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will +call the latter _souls_, the former _monads_ or _entelechies_. [22] + +[Footnote 22: _Entelechy_ ([Greek: entelechia]) is an Aristotelian term, +signifying activity, or more properly perhaps, self action. Leibnitz +understands by it something complete in itself ([Greek: echon to +enteles]). Mr. Butler, in his _History of Ancient Philosophy_, +lately reprinted in this country, translates it "act." _Function_, we +think would be a better rendering. (See W. Archer Butler's _Lectures_, +Last Series, Lect. 2.) Aristotle uses the word as a definition of the +soul. "The soul," he says, "is the first entelechy of an active body."] + +The naked monad, he says, has perceptions without relief, or +"enhanced flavor"; it is in a state of stupor. Death, he thinks, may +produce this state for a time in animals. The monads completely fill +the world; there is never and nowhere a void, and never complete +inanimateness and inertness. The universe is a _plenum_ of souls. +Wherever we behold an organic whole, (_unum per se_,) there monads +are grouped around a central monad to which they are subordinate, +and which they are constrained to serve so long as that connection +lasts. Masses of inorganic matter are aggregations of monads without +a regent, or sentient soul (_unum per accidens_). There can be no +monad without matter, that is, without society, and no soul without +a body. Not only the human soul is indestructible and immortal, but +also the animal soul. There is no generation out of nothing, and no +absolute death. Birth is expansion, development, growth; and death +is contraction, envelopment, decrease. The monads which are destined +to become human souls have existed from the beginning in organic +matter, but only as sentient or animal souls, without reason. They +remain in this condition until the generation of the human beings to +which they belong, and then develope themselves into rational souls. +The different organs and members of the body are also relatively +souls which collect around them a number of monads for a specific +purpose, and so on _ad infinitum_. Matter is not only infinitely +divisible, but infinitely divided. All matter (so called) is living +and active. "Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of +plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, +each member of each animal, each drop of their humors, is in turn +another such garden or pond." [23] + +[Footnote 23: _Monadol._ 67.] + +The connection between monads, consequently the connection between +soul and body, is not composition, but an organic relation,--in some +sort, a spontaneous relation. The soul forms its own body, and +moulds it to its purpose. This hypothesis was afterward embraced and +developed as a physiological principle by Stahl. As all the atoms in +one body are organically related, so all the beings in the universe +are organically related to each other and to the All. One creature, +or one organ of a creature, being given, there is given with it the +world's history from the beginning to the end. _All bodies are +strictly fluid; the universe is in flux_. + +The principle of continuity answers the same purpose in Leibnitz's +system that the single substance does in Spinoza's. It vindicates +the essential unity of all being. Yet the two conceptions are +immeasurably different, and constitute an immeasurable difference +between the two systems, considered in their practical and moral +bearings, as well as their ontological aspects. Spinoza [24] +starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-One, from which +there is no logical deduction of the individual. And in Spinoza's +system the individual does not exist except as a modality. But the +existence of the individual is one of the primordial truths of the +human mind, the foremost fact of consciousness. With this, therefore, +Leibnitz begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the Absolute +and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he begins, in pantheism; the moral +result of his system, Godward, is fatalism,--manward, indifferentism +and negation of moral good and evil. Leibnitz ends in theism; the +moral result of his system, Godward, is optimism,--manward, liberty, +personal responsibility, moral obligation. + +[Footnote 24: See Helferich's _Spinoza, und Leibnitz_, p. 76.] + +He demonstrates the being of God by the necessity of a sufficient +reason to account for the series of things. Each finite thing +requires an antecedent or contingent cause. But the supposition of +an endless sequence of contingent causes, or finite things, is absurd; +the series must have had a beginning, and that beginning cannot have +been a contingent cause or finite thing. "The final reason of things +must be found in a necessary substance in which the detail of +changes exists eminently, (_ne soit qu'eminemment_,) as in its source; +and this is what we call God." [25] + +[Footnote 25: _Monadol_. 38.] + +The idea of God is of such a nature, that the being corresponding to +it, if possible, must be actual. We have the idea; it involves no +bounds, no negation, consequently no contradiction. It is the idea +of a possible, therefore of an actual. + +"God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Substance of +which all the creatures, or original monads, are the products, and +_are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations from moment +to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature_, of whose +existence limitation is an essential condition." [26] + +[Footnote 26: Ib. 47.] + +The philosophic theologian and the Christianizing philosopher will +rejoice to find in this proposition a point of reconciliation between +the extramundane God of pure theism and the cardinal principle of +Spinozism, the immanence of Deity in creation,--a principle as dear +to the philosophic mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to +the theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-existent unit, +divine in itself, but with no Divinity behind it. That of Leibnitz +is an endless series of units from a self-existent and divine source. +The one is an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood. + +The doctrine of the _Preestablished Harmony_, so intimately and +universally associated with the name of Leibnitz, has found little +favor with his critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach calls +it his weak side, and thinks that Leibnitz's philosophy, else so +profound, was here, as in other instances, overshadowed by the +popular creed; that he accommodated himself to theology, as a highly +cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his superiority, +accommodates himself to a lady in his conversation with her, +translating his ideas into her language, and even paraphrasing them. +From this view of Leibnitz, as implying insincerity, we utterly +dissent. [27] + +[Footnote 27: See, in connection with this point, two admirable essays +by Lessing,--the one entitled _Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment_, the +other _Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the +Trinity_. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's _Defensio +Trinitatis_. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has +expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and +vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.] + +The author of the "Theodicee" was not more interested in philosophy +than he was in theology. His thoughts and his purpose did equal +justice to both. The deepest wish of his heart was to reconcile them, +not by formal treaty, but in loving and condign union. We do not, +however, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the doctrine +in question; and we quite agree with Feuerbach that the phrase +_preetablie_ does not express a metaphysical determination. +It is one thing to say, that God, by an arbitrary decree from +everlasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every motion in the +world of matter that each volition of a rational agent finds in the +constant procession of physical forces a concurrent event by which it +is executed, but which would have taken place without his volition, +just as the mail-coach takes our letter, if we have one, but goes +all the same, when we do not write,--this is the gross, exoteric +view,--and a very different thing it is to say, that the monads +composing the human system and the universe of things are so related, +adjusted, accommodated to each other, and to the whole, each being a +representative of all the rest and a mirror of the universe, that each +feels all that passes in the rest, and all conspire in every act, [28] +more or less effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the prime +agent. This is Leibnitz's idea of preestablished harmony, which, +perhaps, would be better expressed by the term "necessary consent." +"In the ideas of God, each monad has a right to demand that God, in +regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have +regard to it; for since a created monad can have no physical +influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that +one can be dependent on another."--"The soul follows its own laws +and the body follows its own, and they meet in virtue of the +preestablished harmony which exists between all substances, as +representatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according to +the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc. Bodies act according to +the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. And the two +kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, +harmonize with each other." [29] + +[Footnote 28: In this connection, Leibnitz quotes the remarkable +saying of Hippocrates, [_Greek: Sumpnoia panta_]. The universe +breathes together, conspires.--_Monadal_. 61.] + +[Footnote 29: _Monadol_. 78, 79.] + +The Preestablished Harmony, then, is to be regarded as the +philosophic statement of a fact, and not as a theory concerning the +cause of the fact. But, like all philosophic and adequate statements, +it answers the purpose of a theory, and clears up many difficulties. +It is the best solution we know of the old contradiction of +free-will and fate,--individual liberty and a necessary world. This +antithesis disappears in the light of the Leibnitian philosophy, +which resolves freedom and necessity into different points of +view and different stages of development. The principle of the +Preestablished Harmony was designed by Leibnitz to meet the +difficulty, started by Des Cartes, of explaining the conformity between +the perceptions of the mind and the corresponding affections of the +body, since mind and matter, in his view, could have no connection +with, or influence on each other. The Cartesians explained this +correspondence by the theory of _occasional causes_, that is, by +the intervention of the Deity, who was supposed by his arbitrary will to +have decreed a certain perception or sensation in the mind to go +with a certain affection of the body, with which, however, it had no +real connection. "Car il" (that is, M. Bayle) "est persuade avec les +Cartesiens modernes, que les idees des qualites sensibles que Dieu +donne, selon eux, a l'ame, a l'occasion des mouvemens du corps, +n'ont rien qui represente ces mouvemens, ou qui leur ressemble; de +sorte qu'il etoit purement arbitraire que Dieu nous donnat les idees +de la chaleur, du froid, de la lumiere et autres que nous +experimentons, ou qu'il nous en donnat de tout-autres a cette meme +occasion." [30] + +[Footnote 30: _Theodicee_. Partie II. 340.] + +If the body was exposed to the flame, there was no more reason, +according to this theory, why the soul should be conscious of pain +than of pleasure, except that God had so ordained. Such a supposition +was shocking to our philosopher, who could tolerate no arbitrariness +in God and no gap or discrepancy in nature, and who, therefore, +sought to explain, by the nature of the soul itself and its kindred +monads, the correspondence for which so violent an hypothesis was +embraced by the Cartesians. + +We have left ourselves no room to speak as we would of Leibnitz as +theosopher. It was in this character that he obtained, in the last +century, his widest fame. The work by which he is most commonly known, +by which alone he is known to many, is the "Theodicee,"--an attempt +to vindicate the goodness of God against the cavils of unbelievers. +He was one of the first to apply to this end the cardinal principle +of the Lutheran Reformation,--the liberty of reason. He was one of +the first to treat unbelief, from the side of religion, as an error +of judgment, not as rebellion against rightful authority. The latter +was and is the Romanist view. The former is the Protestant theory, +but was not then, and is not always now, the Protestant practice. +Theology then was not concerned to vindicate the reason or the +goodness of God. It gloried in his physical strength by which he +would finally crush dissenters from orthodoxy. Leibnitz knew no +authority independent of Reason, and no God but the Supreme Reason +directing Almighty Good-will. The philosophic conclusion justly +deducible from this view of God, let cavillers say what they will, +is Optimism. Accordingly, Optimism, or the doctrine of the best +possible world, is the theory of the "Theodicee." Our limits will +not permit us to analyze the argument of this remarkable work. Bunsen +says, "It necessarily failed because it was a not quite honest +compound of speculation and divinity." [31] + +[Footnote 31: _Outlines of the Philos. of Univ. Hist_. Vol. I. Chap. 6.] + +Few at the present day will pretend to be entirely satisfied with +its reasoning, but all who are familiar with it know it to be a +treasury of wise and profound thoughts and of noble sentiments and +aspirations. Bonnet, the naturalist, called it his "Manual of +Christian Philosophy"; and Fontenelle, in his eulogy, speaks +enthusiastically of its luminous and sublime views, of its reasonings, +in which the mind of the geometer is always apparent, of its perfect +fairness toward those whom it controverts, and its rich store of +anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was _not_ familiar with +it, and who, as might be expected, strangely misconceives and +misrepresents the author, is compelled to echo the general sentiment. +He pronounces it a work in which are combined together in an +extraordinary degree "the acuteness of the logician, the imagination +of the poet, and the _impenetrable yet sublime darkness_ of the +metaphysical theologian." The Italics are ours. Our reason for +doubting Stewart's familiarity with the "Theodicee," and with +Leibnitz in general, is derived in part from these phrases. We do +not believe that any sincere student of Leibnitz has found him dark +and impenetrable. Be it a merit or a fault, this predicate is +inapplicable. Never was metaphysician more explicit and more +intelligible. Had he been disposed to mysticize and to shroud +himself in "impenetrable darkness," he would have found it difficult +to indulge that propensity in French. Thanks to the strict regime +and happy limitations of that idiom, the French is not a language in +which philosophy can hide itself. It is a tight-fitting coat, which +shows the exact form, or want of form, of the thought it clothes, +without pad or fold to simulate fulness or to veil defects. It was a +Frenchman, we are aware, who discovered that "the use of language is +to conceal thought"; but that use, so far as French is concerned, +has been hitherto monopolized by diplomacy. + +Another reason for questioning Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz +is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to +ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is +strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. +Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of +Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which he +uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism." [32] + +[Footnote 32: _General View of the Prog. of Metaph. Eth. and Polit. +Phil_. Boston: 1822. p. 75.] + +Now it happens that "the zeal of Leibnitz" was exerted in precisely +the opposite direction. A considerable section of the "Theodicee" +(34-75) is occupied with the illustration and defence of the Freedom +of the Will. It was a doctrine on which he laid great stress, and +which forms an essential part of his system; [33] in proof of which, +let one declaration stand for many: "Je suis d'opinion que notre +volonte n'est pas seulement exempte de la contrainte, mais encore +de la necessite." How far he succeeded in establishing that doctrine +in accordance with the rest of his system is another question. +That he believed it and taught it is a fact of which there can be +no more doubt with those who have studied his writings, than there +is that he wrote the works ascribed to him. But the freedom of will +maintained by Leibnitz was not indeterminism. It was not the +indifference of the tongue of the balance between equal weights, +or that of the ass between equal bundles of hay. Such an +equilibrium he declares impossible. "Cet equilibre en tout sens +est impossible." Buridan's imaginary case of the ass is a fiction +"qui ne sauroit avoir lieu dans l'univers." [34] + +[Footnote 33: "Numquam Leibnitio in mentem venisse libertatem velle +evertere, in qua defendenda quam maxime fuit occupatus, omnia scripta, +precipue autem Theodicaea ejus, clamitant."--KORTHOLT, Vol. IV. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 34: Leibnitz seems to have been of the same mind with +Dante:-- + + "Intra duo cibi distanti e moventi + D' un modo, prima si morria di fame + Che liber' uomo l'un recasse a' denti." + _Parad_, iv. 1.] + +The will is always determined by motives, but not necessarily +constrained by them. This is his doctrine, emphatically stated and +zealously maintained. We doubt if any philosopher, equally profound +and equally sincere, will ever find room in his conclusions for a +greater measure of moral liberty than the "Theodicee" has conceded +to man. "In respect to this matter," says Arthur Schopenhauer, +"the great thinkers of all times are agreed and decided, just as +surely as the mass of mankind will never see and comprehend the +great truth, that the practical operation of liberty is not to be +sought in single acts, but in the being and nature of man." [35] + +[Footnote 35: _Ueber den Willen in der Natur_. FRANKFURT A.M. 1854. +p. 22.] + +Leibnitz's construction of the idea of a possible liberty consistent +with the preestablished order of the universe is substantially that +of Schelling in his celebrated essay on this subject. We must not +dwell upon it, but hasten to conclude our imperfect sketch. + +The ground-idea of the "Theodicee" is expressed in the phrase, +"Best-possible world." Evil is a necessary condition of finite being, +but the end of creation is the realization of the greatest possible +perfection within the limits of the finite. The existing universe is +one of innumerable possible universes, each of which, if actualized, +would have had a different measure of good and evil. The present, +rather than any other, was made actual, as presenting to Divine +Intelligence the smallest measure of evil and the greatest amount of +good. This idea is happily embodied in the closing apologue, designed +to supplement one of Laurentius Valla, a writer of the fifteenth +century. Theodorus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that god +has permitted to Sextus the evil will which was destined to bring so +much misery on himself and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter +Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to lie down in the temple of +Pallas, and is there visited with a dream. The vision takes him to +the Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all possible +worlds. He examines one plan after another; in each the same Sextus +plays a different part and experiences a different fate. The plans +improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon one whose +superior excellence enchants him with delight. After revelling awhile +in the contemplation of this perfect world, he is told that this is +the actual world in which he lives. But in this the crime of Sextus +is a necessary constituent; it could not be what it is as a whole, +were it other than it is in its single parts. + +Whatever may be thought of Leibnitz's success in demonstrating his +favorite doctrine, the theory of Optimism commends itself to piety +and reason as that view of human and divine things which most +redounds to the glory of God and best expresses the hope of man,--as +the noblest and _therefore_ the truest theory of Divine rule and +human destiny. + +We recall at this moment but one English writer of supreme mark who +has held and promulged, in its fullest extent, the theory of Optimism. +That one is a poet. The "Essay on Man," with one or two exceptions, +might almost pass for a paraphrase of the "Theodicee"; and Pope, +with characteristic vigor, has concentrated the meaning of that +treatise in one word, which is none the less true, in the sense +intended, because of its possible perversion,--"Whatever is, is right." + + * * * * * + + + + +LOO LOO. + +A FEW SCENES FROM A TRUE HISTORY. [Concluded.] + + +SCENE IV. + +They had lived thus nearly a year, when, one day as they were riding +on horseback, Alfred saw Mr. Grossman approaching. "Drop your veil," +he said, quickly, to his companion; for he could not bear to have +that Satyr even look upon his hidden flower. The cotton-broker +noticed the action, but silently touched his hat, and passed with a +significant smile on his uncomely countenance. A few days afterward, +when Alfred had gone to his business in the city, Loo Loo strolled +to her favorite recess on the hill-side, and, lounging on the rustic +seat, began to read the second volume of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She +was so deeply interested in the adventures of the noble Pole, that +she forgot herself and all her surroundings. Masses of glossy dark +hair fell over the delicate hand that supported her head; her +morning-gown, of pink French muslin, fell apart, and revealed a +white embroidered skirt, from beneath which obtruded one small foot, +in an open-work silk stocking; the slipper having fallen to the +ground. Thus absorbed, she took no note of time, and might have +remained until summoned to dinner, had not a slight rustling +disturbed her. She looked up, and saw a coarse face peering at her +between the pine boughs, with a most disgusting expression. She at +once recognized the man they had met during their ride; and starting +to her feet, she ran like a deer before the hunter. It was not till +she came near the house, that she was aware of having left her +slipper. A servant was sent for it, but returned, saying it was not +to be found. She mourned over the loss, for the little pink kid +slippers, embroidered with silver, were a birth-day present from +Alfred. As soon as he returned, she told him the adventure, and went +with him to search the arbor of pines. The incident troubled him +greatly. "What a noxious serpent, to come crawling into our Eden!" +he exclaimed. "Never come here alone again, dearest; and never go +far from the house, unless Madame is with you." + +Her circle of enjoyments was already small, excluded as she was from +society by her anomalous position, and educated far above the caste +in which the tyranny of law and custom so absurdly placed her. But +it is one of the blessed laws of compensation, that the human soul +cannot miss that to which it has never been accustomed. Madame's +motherly care, and Alfred's unvarying tenderness, sufficed her +cravings for affection; and for amusement, she took refuge in books, +flowers, birds, and those changes of natural scenery for which her +lover had such quickness of eye. It was a privation to give up her +solitary rambles in the grounds, her inspection of birds' nests, and +her readings in that pleasant alcove of pines. But she more than +acquiesced in Alfred's prohibition. She said at once, that she would +rather be a prisoner within the house all her days than ever see +that odious face again. + +Mr. Noble encountered the cotton-broker, in the way of business, a +few days afterward; but his aversion to the unclean conversation of +the man induced him to conceal his vexation under the veil of common +courtesy. He knew what sort of remarks any remonstrance would elicit, +and he shrank from subjecting Loo Loo's name to such pollution. For a +short time, this prudent reserve shielded him from the attacks he +dreaded. But Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the +sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously +intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered +slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, +"I reckon you have seen this before, Mr. Noble." + +Alfred felt an impulse to seize him by the throat, and strangle him +on the spot. But why should he make a scene with such a man, and +thus drag Loo Loo's name into painful notoriety? The old _roue_ was +evidently trying to foment a quarrel with him. Thoroughly animal in +every department of his nature, he was boastful of brute courage, +and prided himself upon having killed several men in duels. Alfred +conjectured his line of policy, and resolved to frustrate it. He +therefore coolly replied, "I have seen such slippers; they are very +pretty"; and turned away, as if the subject were indifferent to him. + +"Coward!" muttered Grossman, as he left the counting-house. Mr. Noble +did not hear him; and if he had, it would not have altered his course. +He could see nothing enviable in the reputation of being ever ready +for brawls, and a dead-shot in duels; and he knew that his life was +too important to the friendless Loo Loo to be thus foolishly risked +for the gratification of a villain. This incident renewed his old +feelings of remorse for the false position in which he had placed the +young orphan, who trusted him so entirely. To his generous nature, +the wrong seemed all the greater because the object was so +unconscious of it. "It is I who have subjected her to the insolence +of this vile man," he said within himself. "But I will repair the +wrong. Innocent, confiding soul that she is, I will protect her. The +sanction of marriage shall shield her from such affronts." + +Alas for poor human nature! He was sincere in these resolutions, but +he was not quite strong enough to face the prejudices of the society +in which he lived. Their sneers would have fallen harmless. They +could not take from him a single thing he really valued. But he had +not learned to understand that the dreaded power of public opinion +is purely fabulous, when unsustained by the voice of conscience. So +he fell into the old snare of moral compromise. He thought the best +he could do, under the circumstances, was to hasten the period of +his departure for the North, to marry Loo Loo in Philadelphia, and +remove to some part of the country where her private history would +remain unknown. + +To make money for this purpose, he had more and more extended +his speculations, and they had uniformly proved profitable. If +Mr. Grossman's offensive conduct had not forced upon him a painful +consciousness of his position with regard to the object of his +devoted affection, he would have liked to remain in Mobile a few +years longer, and accumulate more; but, as it was, he determined to +remove as soon as he could arrange his affairs satisfactorily. He +set about this in good earnest. But, alas! the great pecuniary crash +of 1837 was at hand. By every mail came news of failures where he +expected payments. The wealth, which seemed so certain a fact a few +months before, where had it vanished? It had floated away, like a +prismatic bubble on the breeze. He saw that his ruin was inevitable. +All he owned in the world would not cancel his debts. And now he +recalled the horrible recollection that Loo Loo was a part of his +property. Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not +manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare. In the +fulness of his prosperity and happiness, he did not comprehend the +risk he was running by delay. He rarely thought of the fact that she +was legally his slave; and when it did occur to him, it was always +accompanied with the recollection that the laws of Alabama did not +allow him to emancipate her without sending her away from the State. +But this never troubled him, because there was always present with +him that vision of going to the North and making her his wife. So +time slipped away, without his taking any precautions on the subject; +and now it was too late. Immersed in debt as he was, the law did not +allow him to dispose of anything without consent of creditors; and he +owed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Grossman. Oh, agony! sharp agony! + +There was a meeting of the creditors. Mr. Noble rendered an account +of all his property, in which he was compelled to include Loo Loo; +but for her he offered to give a note for fifteen hundred dollars, +with good endorsement, payable with interest in a year. It was known +that his attachment to the orphan he had educated amounted almost to +infatuation; and his proverbial integrity inspired so much respect, +that the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not +incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the +proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl +should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant +condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between +them was very different from the merely convenient connections which +were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and modest, and so +sensitive by nature, that exposure to public sale would nearly kill +her. The selfish creditor remained inexorable. The very fact that +this delicate flower had been so carefully sheltered from the mud +and dust of the wayside rendered her a more desirable prize. He +coolly declared, that ever since he had seen her in the arbor, he +had been determined to have her; and now that fortune had put the +chance in his power, no money should induce him to relinquish it. + +The sale was inevitable; and the only remaining hope was that some +friend might be induced to buy her. There was a gentleman in the +city whom I will call Frank Helper. He was a Kentuckian by birth, +kind and open-hearted,--a slave-holder by habit, not by nature. Warm +feelings of regard had long existed between him and Mr. Noble; and to +him the broken merchant applied for advice in this torturing +emergency. Though Mr. Helper was possessed of but moderate wealth, +he had originally agreed to endorse his friend's note for fifteen +hundred dollars; and he now promised to empower some one to expend +three thousand dollars in the purchase of Loo Loo. + +"It is not likely that we shall be obliged to pay so much," said he. +"Bad debts are pouring in upon Grossman, and he hasn't a mint of +money to spare just now, however big he may talk. We will begin with +offering fifteen hundred dollars; and she will probably be bid off +for two thousand." + +"Bid off! O my God!" exclaimed the wretched man. He bowed his head +upon his outstretched arms, and the table beneath him shook with his +convulsive sobs. His friend was unprepared for such an overwhelming +outburst of emotion. He did not understand, no one but Alfred +himself _could_ understand, the peculiarity of the ties that bound +him to that dear orphan. Recovering from this unwonted mood, he +inquired whether there was no possible way of avoiding a sale. + +"I am sorry to say there is no way, my friend," replied Mr. Helper. +"The laws invest this man with power over you; and there is nothing +left for us but to undermine his projects. It is a hazardous business, +as you well know. _You_ must not appear in it; neither can I; for I +am known to be your intimate friend. But trust the whole affair to me, +and I think I can bring it to a successful issue." + +The hardest thing of all was to apprise the poor girl of her +situation. She had never thought of herself as a slave; and what a +terrible awakening was this from her dream of happy security! Alfred +deemed it most kind and wise to tell her of it himself; but he +dreaded it worse than death. He expected she would swoon; he even +feared it might kill her. But love made her stronger than he thought. +When, after much cautious circumlocution, he arrived at the crisis +of the story, she pressed her hand hard upon her forehead, and +seemed stupefied. Then she threw herself into his arms, and they wept, +wept, wept, till their heads seemed cracking with the agony. + +"Oh, the avenging Nemesis!" exclaimed Alfred, at last. "I have +deserved all this. It is all my own fault. I ought to have carried +you away from these wicked laws. I ought to have married you. Truest, +most affectionate of friends, how cruelly I have treated you! you, +who put the welfare of your life so confidingly into my hands!" + +She rose up from his bosom, and, looking him lovingly in the face, +replied,-- + +"Never say that, dear Alfred! Never have such a thought again! You +have been the best and kindest friend that woman ever had. If +_I_ forgot that I was a slave, is it strange that _you_ should +forget it? But, Alfred, I will never be the slave of any other man,-- +never! I will never be put on the auction-stand. I will die first." + +"Nay, dearest, you must make no rash resolutions," he replied. +"I have friends who promise to save you, and restore us to each other. +The form of sale is unavoidable. So, for my sake, consent to the +temporary humiliation. Will you, darling?" + +He had never before seen such an expression in her face. Her eyes +flashed, her nostrils dilated, and she drew her breath like one in +the agonies of death. Then pressing his hand with a nervous grasp, +she answered,-- + +"For _your_ sake, dear Alfred, I will." + +From that time, she maintained outward calmness, while in his +presence; and her inward uneasiness was indicated only by a fondness +more clinging than ever. Whenever she parted from him, she kept him +lingering, and lingering, on the threshold. She followed him to the +road; she kissed her hand to him till he was out of sight; and then +her tears flowed unrestrained. Her mind was filled with the idea +that she should be carried away from the home of her childhood, as +she had been by the rough Mr. Jackson,--that she should become the +slave of that bad man, and never, never see Alfred again. "But I can +die," she often said to herself; and she revolved in her mind +various means of suicide, in case the worst should happen. + +Madame Labasse did not desert her in her misfortunes. She held +frequent consultations with Mr. Helper and his friends, and +continually brought messages to keep up her spirits. A dozen times a +day, she repeated,-- + +"Tout sera bien arrange. Soyez tranquille, ma chere! Soyez tranquille!" + +At last the dreaded day arrived. Mr. Helper had persuaded Alfred to +appear to yield to necessity, and keep completely out of sight. He +consented, because Loo Loo had said she could not go through with +the scene, if he were present; and, moreover, he was afraid to trust +his own nerves and temper. They conveyed her to the auction-room, +where she stood trembling among a group of slaves of all ages and +all colors, from iron-black to the lightest brown. She wore her +simplest dress, without ornament of any kind. When they placed her +on the stand, she held her veil down, with a close, nervous grasp. + +"Come, show us your face," said the auctioneer. "Folks don't like to +buy a pig in a poke, you know." + +Seeing that she stood perfectly still, with her head lowered upon +her breast, he untied the bonnet, pulled it off rudely, and held up +her face to public view. There was a murmur of applause. + +"Show your teeth," said the auctioneer. But she only compressed her +mouth more firmly. After trying in vain to coax her, he exclaimed,-- + +"Never mind, gentlemen. She's got a string of pearls inside them +coral lips of hern. I can swear to that, for I've seen 'em. No use +tryin' to trot her out. She's a leetle set up, ye see, with bein' +made much of. Look at her, gentlemen! Who can blame her for bein' a +bit proud? She's a fust-rate fancy-article. Who bids?" + +Before he had time to repeat the question, Mr. Grossman said, in a +loud voice, "Fifteen hundred dollars." + +This was rather a damper upon Mr. Helper's agent, who bid sixteen +hundred. + +A voice from the crowd called out, "Eighteen hundred." + +"Two thousand," shouted Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand two hundred," said another voice. + +"Two thousand five hundred," exclaimed Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand eight hundred," said the incognito agent. + +The prize was now completely given up to the two competitors; and +the agent, excited by the contest, went beyond his orders, until he +bid as high as four thousand two hundred dollars. + +"Four thousand five hundred," screamed the cotton-broker. + +There was no use in contending with him. He was evidently willing to +stake all his fortune upon victory. + +"Going! Going! Going!" repeated the auctioneer, slowly. There was a +brief pause, during which every pulsation in Loo Loo's body seemed +to stop. Then she heard the horrible words, "Gone, for four thousand +five hundred dollars! Gone to Mr. Grossman!" + +They led her to a bench at the other end of the room. She sat there, +still as a marble statue, and almost as pale. The sudden cessation +of excited hope had so stunned her, that she could not think. +Everything seemed dark and reeling round her. In a few minutes, +Mr. Grossman was at her side. + +"Come, my beauty," said he. "The carriage is at the door. If you +behave yourself, you shall be treated like a queen. Come, my love!" + +He attempted to take her hand, but his touch roused her from her +lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow +in the face that made him stagger,--so powerful was it, in the +vehemence of her disgust and anger. + +His coaxing tones changed instantly. + +"We don't allow niggers to put on such airs," he said. "I'm your +master. You've got to live with me; and you may as well make up your +mind to it first as last." + +He glowered at her savagely for a moment; and drawing from his pocket +an embroidered slipper, he added,-- + +"Ever since I picked up this pretty thing, I've been determined to +have you. I expected to be obliged to wait till Noble got tired of +you, and wanted to take up with another wench; but I've had better +luck than I expected." + +At the sight of that gift of Alfred's in his hated hand, at the +sound of those coarse words, so different from _his_ respectful +tenderness, her pride broke down, and tears welled forth. Looking up +in his stern face, she said, in tones of the deepest pathos,-- + +"Oh, Sir, have pity on a poor, unfortunate girl! Don't persecute me!" + +"Persecute you?" he replied. "No, indeed, my charmer! If you'll be +kind to me, I'll treat you like a princess." + +He tried to look loving, but the expression was utterly revolting. +Twelve years of unbridled sensuality had rendered his countenance +even more disgusting than it was when he shocked Alfred's youthful +soul by his talk about "Duncan's handsome wench." + +"Come, my beauty," he continued, persuasively, "I'm glad to see you +in a better temper. Come with me, and behave yourself." + +She curled her lip scornfully, and repeated,-- + +"I will never live with you! Never!" + +"We'll see about that, my wench," said he. "I may as well take you +down a peg, first as last. If you'd rather be in the calaboose with +niggers than to ride in a carriage with me, you may try it, and see +how you like it. I reckon you'll be glad to come to my terms, before +long." + +He beckoned to two police-officers, and said, "Take this wench into +custody, and keep her on bread and water, till I give further orders." + +The jail to which Loo Loo was conveyed was a wretched place. The +walls were dingy, the floor covered with puddles of tobacco-juice, +the air almost suffocating with the smell of pent-up tobacco-smoke, +unwashed negroes, and dirty garments. She had never seen any place so +loathsome. Mr. Jackson's log-house was a palace in comparison. The +prison was crowded with colored people of all complexions, and +almost every form of human vice and misery was huddled together +there with the poor victims of misfortune. Thieves, murderers, and +shameless girls, decked out with tawdry bits of finery, were mixed +up with modest-looking, heart-broken wives, and mothers mourning for +the children that had been torn from their arms in the recent sale. +Some were laughing, and singing lewd songs. Others sat still, with +tears trickling down their sable cheeks. Here and there the fierce +expression of some intelligent young man indicated a volcano of +revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily +upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the +level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were +roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, +"By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotch _her_ here?" +"She be white lady ob quality, _she_ be." + +The tenderly-nurtured daughter of the wealthy planter remained in +this miserable place two days. The jailer, touched by her beauty and +extreme dejection, offered her better food than had been prescribed +in his orders. She thanked him, but said she could not eat. When he +invited her to occupy, for the night, a small room apart from the +herd of prisoners, she accepted the offer with gratitude. But she +could not sleep, and she dared not undress. In the morning, the +jailer, afraid of being detected in these acts of indulgence, told +her, apologetically, that he was obliged to request her to return to +the common apartment. + +Having recovered somewhat from the stunning effects of the blow that +had fallen on her, she began to take more notice of her companions. +A gang of slaves, just sold, was in keeping there, till it suited +the trader's convenience to take them to New Orleans; and the +parting scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never +forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have +been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? +What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and +prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten +years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day +before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her +from that vile man's power. + +She was roused from her reverie by the entrance of a white gentleman, +whom she had never seen before. He came to inspect the trader's gang +of slaves, to see if any one among them would suit him for a +house-servant; and before long, he agreed to purchase a +bright-looking mulatto lad. He stopped before Loo Loo, and said, +"Are you a good sempstress?" + +"She's not for sale," answered the jailer. "She belongs to Mr. +Grossman, who put her here for disobedience." The man smiled, as he +spoke, and Loo Loo blushed crimson. + +"Ho, ho," rejoined the stranger. "I'm sorry for that. I should like +to buy her, if I could." + +He sauntered round the room, and took from his pocket oranges and +candy, which he distributed among the black picaninnies tumbling +over each other on the dirty floor. Coming round again to the place +where she sat, he put an orange on her lap, and said, in low tones, +"When they are not looking at you, remove the peel"; and, touching +his finger to his lip, significantly, he turned away to talk with +the jailer. + +As soon as he was gone, she asked permission to go, for a few minutes, +to the room she had occupied during the night. There she examined +the orange, and found that half of the skin had been removed unbroken, +a thin paper inserted, and the peel replaced. On the scrap of paper +was written: "When your master comes, appear to be submissive, and +go with him. Plead weariness, and gain time. You will be rescued. +Destroy this, and don't seem more cheerful than you have been." Under +this was written, in Madame Labasse's hand, "Soyez tranquille, ma chere." + +Unaccustomed to act a part, she found it difficult to appear so sad +as she had been before the reception of the note. But she did her +best, and the jailer observed no change. + +Late in the afternoon, Mr. Grossman made his appearance. "Well, my +beauty," said he, "are you tired of the calaboose? Don't you think +you should like my house rather better?" + +She yawned listlessly, and, without looking up, answered, "I am very +tired of staying here." + +"I thought so," rejoined her master, with a chuckling laugh. +"I reckoned I should bring you to terms. So you've made up your mind +not to be cruel to a poor fellow so desperately in love with you,-- +haven't you?" + +She made no answer, and he continued: "You're ready to go home with +me,--are you?" + +"Yes, Sir," she replied, faintly. + +"Well, then, look up in my face, and let me have a peep at those +devilish handsome eyes." + +He chucked her under the chin, and raised her blushing face. She +wanted to push him from her, he was so hateful; but she remembered +the mysterious orange, and looked him in the eye, with passive +obedience. Overjoyed at his success, he paid the jailer his fee, +drew her arm within his, and hurried to the carriage. + +How many humiliations were crowded into that short ride! How she +shrank from the touch of his soft, swabby hand! How she loathed the +gloating looks of the old Satyr! But she remembered the orange, and +endured it all stoically. + +Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber +elegantly furnished. + +"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will +keep my word." + +He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying, +"I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if +you will please to grant it." + +"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything +reasonable." + +She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison; +and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow." + +"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It +grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to +convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent. +But you must reward me with a kiss before I go." + +This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of +exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much +ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her +manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly +tired; indeed I am!" + +He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again +urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up +some refreshments for you, before you sleep." + +He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she +heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! +With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and +washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one +no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly +bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame. + +In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face, +entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade. + +"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly. + +"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind, +motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus' +breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I +hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come. +Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de +sake ob yer friends." + +Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you +know I _have_ any friends?" + +"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows +nottin'." + +The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She +felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had +excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but +it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet. + +"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said. + +"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly. + +"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant. + +"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply. + +Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered, +"Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers." +She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was +wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye +pleasant dreams." + +Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo +eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words: +"Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked. +Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word. +Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labasse had added, "Ne craigner +rien, ma chere." + +Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her +cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she +sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the +apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs, +tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and +lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The +tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of +pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds, +and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were +embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as +the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated +with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass +illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet +before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson +velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and +repeated to herself: + + "He bought me somewhat high; + Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy." + +She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with +patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. +What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master +should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the +windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank +within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out +and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable. +She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud +snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so +near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the +door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They +passed out together,--the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the +door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs, +through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen +with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled +away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the +gentlemen alighted and handed the women out. + +"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, Frank +Helper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant." + +"And Alfred,--Mr. Noble, I mean,--where is he?" asked Loo Loo. + +"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now." + +The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on +their way to the North by an express-train. + +It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured +from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until +he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in +ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended +to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been +endangered, had not Madame Labasse brought cheering messages, from +time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and +success nearly certain. + +When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had +escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars +for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any +one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an +indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant +from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any +connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the +exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, +for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. +He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of +Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England +opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not +understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse +than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, +and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious +wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. +But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was +compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before +leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston, +Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were +posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled; +but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had +travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers +reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to +Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case +the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote: +"I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this +you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter +likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in +charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my +affairs." + +After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained +the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the +rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly +sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling +in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of +whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a +slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo. +Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs, +opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both +her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans. +Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment, +and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last +remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman +who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, +according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and +Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him +before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said +the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. +I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of +Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to +return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing +would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own +protection. + + + +SCENE V. + +Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible, +eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started, +Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome +slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your +reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under +these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake +of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight +hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her." + +The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first," +he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging +over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending +ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee." + +Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and +cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by +reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their +marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an +article of property, according to American law, they did not venture +to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a +commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and +embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals +through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness +of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the +slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries +of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above +the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to +feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall +not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help +_you_, who have done so much for _me_! And Alfred, dear, I want to +give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying +to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and +sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to +be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have. +Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn +thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice +saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be +grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my +good Alfred." + +They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter +from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co. +had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction, +and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance +of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid +sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property, +until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend. + +Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree, +Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk, +and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization +unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had +imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof +from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New +Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of +fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend." +As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who +had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants +in Northern hotels. Madame Labasse was invited to spend the remainder +of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being +unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms. + +Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her +appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her +out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble. +She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had +a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the +financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret, +locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the +youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful +mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a +gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little +white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her. +Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and +presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes +moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up +in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me." + + + + +LETTER-WRITING. + +A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is +constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties +to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but +never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of +fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,--unless, in a word, +real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in +which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other +circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom +his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own +communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He +will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at +him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long +while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a +fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery, +and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,--adding, +that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence. +If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and +affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed +with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty +of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is +nothing to say. + +That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an +unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone +through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown. + +I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in +Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds +me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and +really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week. +New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and +mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their +interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth +little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed +to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday. + +Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar +conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of +mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary +conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with +you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has +forgotten what her _bon mot_ was, and has another, every whit as good, +upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber; +you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as +is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the +night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can +be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the +friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not +answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The +bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate +upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve +them up unseasonably. + +For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself +back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when +he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a +limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will +keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be +shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the +post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even +they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what +they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which +it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or +European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose +want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and +his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an +answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; +to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and +truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its +own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of +pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless +drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed +time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment +of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular +weakness, have gilded,--"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it +with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its +questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis +for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order; +but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and +contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the +writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse +of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct +one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party. + +Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger +postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic +of interest is always with them, and the _billet-doux_, after having +been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the +post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night +of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written +next week as well, since next week they two will stand in +substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet +sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks +she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are +constant changes, delicate tones of color, each + + 'Shade so finely touched love's sense must + seize it.' + +The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again. +Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never +must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence +between our natures." + +But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these +fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from +those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first +moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may +supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would +Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for +another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the +Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the +distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of +us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish +young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to +attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed. +Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who +could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who +would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the +postmen, for fear of the next discharge? + +In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps, +be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers, +school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy, +day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in +the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A +"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence, +is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number, +invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted +company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of +the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as +naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to +stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but +conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most +pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into +words. + +To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through +the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which +people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily +applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters +should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one +feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend, +although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as +absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him +who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making +the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last +word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a +correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the +larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue. +When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who +is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to +open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to +previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or +be protracted for a week or a month. + +Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my +eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, +baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, +born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed +by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in +an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like +the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor, +or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's +distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects +each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of +this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might +be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and +complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits +of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door. + +The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one +feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and +temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of +disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned +hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured +her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are +now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has +nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has +he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it +cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to +decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or +speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already +surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's +epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present, +and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he +would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table. +He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and +flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone, +with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large +hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet, +instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had +something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly +sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for +love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But +"LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well. + +I should not dare to describe the productions of my female +correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them +contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger +proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque +description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. +They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater +task to read them. + +My "fair readers"--as the snobs who write for magazines call women-- +have not, I trust, misapprehended my meaning and lost patience with +me. I would not be understood as expressing a preference for one +description of letters over another. Every person to his tastes and +his talents. But a letter, which does not represent the writer's +real mood, reflect what is uppermost in his or her mind, deal with +things and thoughts rather than with words, and express, if not +strengthen, the peculiar ties between the person writing and the +person written to,--a letter which is not genuine,--is no letter, +but a sham and a lie. A real letter, on the other hand, whatever its +topic, cannot fail to be worth reading. Great thoughts, profound +speculations, matters of experience, bits of observation, delicate +fancies, romantic sentiments, humorous criticisms on people and +things, funny stories, dreams of the future, memories of the past, +pictures of the present, the merest gossip, the veriest trifling, +everything, nothing, may form the theme, if naturally spoken of, not +hunted up to fill out a page. + +No reason for modifying my conclusions occurs to me. It may be said, +that, after all, a poor letter is better than none, because advices +from distant friends are always welcome. But would not a glance at +the well-known handwriting supply this want as fully as the perusal +of a lengthy epistle, written with the hand, but not with the heart? +Does not our chagrin at finding so little of our friends in their +letters more than counterbalance our gratification that they have +been (presumably) kind and thoughtful enough to write? Would we not +gladly give four of their ordinary letters for one of their best? +But the instant they strike off the shackles of regular +correspondence, and despatch letters only when they feel inclined, +replies only while they are fresh, and formulas at other times, if +need be, we have our wish; the miles between our friends and +ourselves shorten, they are really with us now and then, and we take +solid pleasure in chatting with them. + +Am I told, that, until these ideas find general acceptance, it is +dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to +go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a +stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they +would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of +what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the +consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. +The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular +voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence of +character or of conduct, the fewer one has of them, the better. + +Such suggestions as have been thrown out are too obvious to have +escaped any one who has given the subject a moment's thought. But +who has time for that? People live too fast, in these days, to pay +such attention as should be paid to those who are more valuable as +individuals than as parts of the great world. The good offices of +friendship, which are the fulfilment of the highest social duties, +are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of +those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom +and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the +ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and +vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for +the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and +good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion +habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, neglect their +observance. + +I know men, distinguished in the walks of literature, famed for a +beautiful style of composition, who do not write a tolerable letter +nor answer a note of invitation with propriety. Their sentences are +slipshod, their punctuation and spelling beyond criticism, and their +manuscript repulsive. A lady, to whose politeness such an answer is +given, has a right to feel offended, and may very properly ask +whether she be not entitled to as choice language as the promiscuous +crowd which the "distinguished gentleman" addresses from pulpit or +desk. + +How the distinguished gentleman would open his eyes at the question! +He is sure that what he sent her was well enough for a letter. As +though a letter, especially a letter to a lady, should not be as +perfect in its kind as a lecture or sermon in its kind! as though +one's duties toward an individual were less stringent than one's +duties toward an audience! Would the distinguished gentleman be +willing to probe his soul in search of the true reason for the +difference in his treatment of the two? Is he sure that it is not an +outgrowth from a certain "mountainous me," which seeks approbation +more ardently from the one source than from the other? + +There are those who indite elegant notes to comparative strangers, +but, probably upon the principle that familiarity breeds or should +breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate +friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the +numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but +neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their +husbands' houses. + +Pericles, according to Walter Savage Landor, once wrote to Aspasia +as follows:-- + +"We should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in +little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of +our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I +think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly +letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. +Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes +in its efforts to please." + +The London Pericles, the Athenian gentleman,--and there are a few +such as he still extant,--writes to his nearest and dearest friend +none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say +stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. +He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. +He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to +the preparation of a speech. We may feel sure, that, unless he acted +counter to his own maxims, he never wrote a line more or a line less +than he felt an impulse to write, and that he had no "regular +correspondents." + +It is not every one that can write such letters as are in that +delightful book of Walter Savage Landor, or as charmed the friends +of Charles Lamb, the poet Gray, and a few famous women, first, and +the world afterwards. It is not every one who can, with the utmost +and wisest painstaking, produce a thoroughly excellent letter. The +power to do that is original and not to be acquired. The charm of it +will not, cannot, disclose its secret. Like the charm of the finest +manners, of the best conversation, of an exquisite style, of an +admirable character, it is felt rather than perceived. But every +person, who will be simply true to his or her nature, can write a +letter that will be very welcome to a friend, because it will be +expressive of the character which that friend esteems and loves. The +bunch of flowers, hastily put together by her who gathered them, +speaks as plainly of affection, although not in so delicate tones, +as the most tastefully-arranged bouquet. But who desires to be +presented with a nosegay of artificial flowers? Who can abide dead +blossoms or violent discords of color? Freshness, sweetness, and an +approach to harmony, that shall bring to mind the living, growing +plants, and the bountiful Nature from whose embrace flowers are born, +the acceptable gift must have. + +To attempt a closer definition of a good letter than has been given +would be a fruitless, as well as difficult task. "Complete +letter-writers" are chiefly useful for the formulas--notes of +invitation, answers to them, and the like--which they contain, and +for their lessons in punctuation, spelling, and criticism. Their +efforts to instruct upon other points are and must be worse than +useless, because their precepts cramp without inspiring. A few good +examples are more valuable, but a little practice is worth them all. +Letter-writing is, after all, a _pas seul_, as it were; the novice +has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or +to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he +must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and +his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must +be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, +roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his +letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if +not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times and +places and ceremonial retards this process of growth and advance, +which is slow enough, at best. + +But, although most correspondence is, from want of truthfulness, +thoughtfulness, life, good judgment, and good breeding, very +unsatisfactory, it cannot be denied that many good letters are +written every day. Between lovers, parents and children, real and +hearty friends, they pass. Young men on the threshold of life, while +discussing together the grave questions then encountered, write them. +Women, before their time to love and to be loved has come, or after +it is passed,--women, who, disappointed in the great hope of every +woman's life, turn to one another for support and shelter,--are +sending them by every post. Mr. De Quincey somewhere says, that in +the letters of English women, almost alone, survive the pure and racy +idioms of the language; and the German Wolf is said to have asserted, +that in corresponding with his betrothed he learnt the mysteries of +style. + +Such letters as these are worth one's reading, because the utterance +is genuine and genial. The writers feel and express in every line an +interest in what they are writing, and do not recognize the +conventional rules which obtain where people rely less upon +inspirations from within than upon fixed general maxims for their +guidance. As in the drawing-room the gentleman or lady behaves +naturally, and not according to the dancing-master, so in their +correspondence the best-bred people act from nature, and not from +instruction. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. [Continued.] + + Novit etiam pictura tacens in parietibus loqni. + +ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA. + + +IV. + +Christian art began in the catacombs. Under ground, by the feeble +light of lanterns, upon the ceilings of crypts, or in the +semicircular spaces left above some of the more conspicuous graves, +the first Christian pictures were painted. Imperfect in design, +exhibiting often the influence of pagan models, often displaying +haste of performance and poverty of means, confined for the most part +within a limited circle of ideas, and now faded in color, changed by +damp, broken by rude treatment, sometimes blackened by the smoke of +lamps,--they still give abundant evidence of the feeling and the +spirit which animated those who painted them, a feeling and spirit +which unhappily have too seldom found expression in the so-called +religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a +purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to +be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,-- +although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic +skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest +arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and +their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early +Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so +much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy, +as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons, +easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give +consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial. +"The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,-- +restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high +spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting." + +With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these +mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is +impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the +Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It +was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second +century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which +have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries +were probably executed before Christianity had become the +established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in +painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of +simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the +native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying +embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff +conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle. + +In the pictures of the most interesting period, that is, of the +second and third centuries, there is no attempt at literal +portraiture or historic accuracy. They were to be understood only by +those who had the key to them in their minds, and they mostly +arranged themselves in four broad classes. 1st. Representations of +personages or scenes from the Old Testament regarded as types of +those of the New. 2d. Literal or symbolic representations of +personages or scenes from the New Testament. 3d. Miscellaneous +figures, chiefly those of persons in the attitude of prayer. 4th. +Ornamental designs, often copied from pagan examples, and sometimes +with a symbolic meaning attached to them. + +It is a noteworthy and affecting circumstance, that, among the +immense number of the pictures in the catacombs which may be +ascribed to the first three centuries, scarcely one has been found +of a painful or sad character. The sufferings of the Saviour, his +passion and his death, and the martyrdoms of the saints, had not +become, as in after days, the main subjects of the religious Art of +Italy. On the contrary, all the early paintings are distinguished by +the cheerful and trustful nature of the impressions they were +intended to convey. In the midst of external depression, uncertainty +of fortune and of life, often in the midst of persecution, the Roman +Christians dwelt not on this world, but looked forward to the +fulfilment of the promises of their Lord. Their imaginations did not +need the stimulus of painted sufferings; suffering was before their +eyes too often in its most vivid reality; they had learned to regard +it as belonging only to earth, and to look upon it as the gateway to +heaven. They did not turn for consolation to the sorrows of their +Lord, but to his words of comfort, to his miracles, and to his +resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the +one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a +greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The +figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type +that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, +is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the +commonest scenes chosen for representation from the story of the New +Testament. Nor is this strange. The assurance of immortality was to +the world of heathen converts the central fact of Christianity, from +which all the other truths of religion emanated, like rays. It gave +a new and infinitely deeper meaning than it before possessed to all +human experience; and in its universal comprehensiveness, it taught +the great and new lessons of the equality of men before God, and of +the brotherhood of man in the broad promise of eternal life. For us, +brought up in familiarity with Christian truth, surrounded by the +accumulated and constant, though often unrecognized influences of +the Christian faith upon all our modes of thought and feeling, the +imagination itself being more or less completely under their control,-- +for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of +the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he +revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were +constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly +temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad +tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of +example and devotion,--faith in Christ and in his teachings must, +among the sincere, have been always connected with a sense of wonder +and of joy at the change wrought in their views of life and of +eternity. Their thoughts dwelt naturally upon the resurrection of +their Lord, as the greatest of the miracles which were the seal of +his divine commission, and as the type of the rising of the +followers of Him who brought life and immortality to light. + +The troubles and contentions in the early Church, the disputes +between the Jew and the Gentile convert, the excesses of spiritual +excitement, the extravagances of fanciful belief, of which the +Epistles themselves furnish abundant evidence, ceased to all +appearance at the door of the catacombs. Within them there is +nothing to recall the divisions of the faithful; but, on the contrary, +the paintings on the walls almost universally relate to the simplest +and most undisputed truths. It was fitting that among these the +types of the Resurrection should hold a first place. + +But the spiritual needs of life were not to be supplied by the +promises and hopes of immortality alone. There were wants which +craved immediate support, weaknesses that needed present aid, +sufferings that cried for present comfort, and sins for which +repentance sought the assurance of direct forgiveness. And thus +another of the most often-repeated of the pictures in the catacombs +is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No +emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been +found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian +paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with +peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, +it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting +suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed to +desecration or insult from them; and under emblems of this kind, +whose inner meaning was hidden to all but themselves, the first +Christians were often forced to conceal the expression of their faith. +This figure recalled to them many of the sacred words and most +solemn teachings of their Lord: "I am the Good Shepherd; the good +shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Often the good shepherd was +represented as bearing the sheep upon his shoulders; and the picture +addressed itself with touching and effective simplicity to him whom +fear of persecution or the force of worldly temptations had led away. +When one of his sheep is lost, doth not the shepherd go after it +until he find it? "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his +shoulders, rejoicing." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of +God over one sinner that repenteth." How often, before this picture, +has some saddened soul uttered the words of the Psalm: "I have gone +astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy +commandments"! And as if to afford still more direct assurance of the +patience and long-suffering tenderness of the Lord, the Good +Shepherd is sometimes represented in the catacombs as bearing, not a +sheep, but a goat upon his shoulders. It was as if to declare that +his forgiveness and his love knew no limit, but were waiting to +receive and to embrace even those who had turned farthest from him. +In a picture of very early date in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the +Good Shepherd stands between a goat and a sheep, "as a shepherd +divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his +right hand and the goats on his left." But in this picture the order +is reversed,--the goat is on his right hand and the sheep on his left. +It was the strongest type that could be given of the mercy of God. +Sometimes the Good Shepherd is represented, not bearing the sheep on +his shoulders, but leaning on his crook, and with a pipe in his hands, +while his flock stand in various attitudes around him. Here again +the reference to Scripture is plain: "He calleth his own sheep by +name, and leadeth them out;... and the sheep follow him, for they +know his voice." Thus, under various forms and with various meanings, +full of spiritual significance, and suggesting the most invigorating +and consoling thoughts, the Good Shepherd appears oftener than any +other single figure on the vaults and the walls of the catacombs. It +is impossible to look at these paintings, poor in execution and in +external expression as they are, without experiencing some sense, +faint it may be, of the force with which they must have appealed to +the hearts and consciences of those who first looked upon them. It +is as if the inmost thoughts and deepest feeling of the Christians of +those early times had become dimly visible upon the walls of their +graves. The effect is undoubtedly increased by the manner in which +these paintings are seen, by the unsteady light of wax tapers, in +the solitude of long-deserted passages and chapels. In such a place +the dullest imagination is roused, troop on troop of associations +and memories pass in review before it, and the fading colors and +faint outlines of the paintings possess more power over it than the +glow of Titian's canvas, or the firm outline of Michel Angelo's +frescoes. + +Another symbol of the Saviour which is frequently found in the works +of the first three centuries, and which soon afterwards seems to +have fallen almost entirely into disuse, is that of the Fish. It is +not derived, like that of the Good Shepherd, immediately from the +words of Scripture; though its use undoubtedly recalled several +familiar narratives. It seems to have been early associated with the +well-known Greek formula, [Greek: iaesous christos theon uios sotaer], +Jesus Christ the Saviour Son of God, arranged acrostically, so that +the first letters of its words formed the word [Greek: ichthus], fish. +The first association that its use would suggest was that of +Christ's call to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me, and I will make you +fishers of men,"--and thus we find, among the early Christian writers, +the name of "little fish," _pisciculi_, applied to the Christian +disciples of their times. But it would serve also to bring to memory +the miracle that the multitude had witnessed, of the multiplication +of the fishes; and it would recall that last solemn and tender +farewell meeting between the Apostles and their Lord on the shore of +the Sea of Tiberias, in the early morning, when their nets were +filled with fish,--and "Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and +giveth them, and fish likewise." And with this association was +connected, as we learn from the pictures in the catacombs, a still +deeper symbolic meaning, in which it represented the body of our +Lord as given to his apostles at the Last Supper. In the Cemetery of +Callixtus, very near the recently discovered crypt of Pope Cornelius, +are two square sepulchral chambers, adorned with pictures of an +early date. Those of the first chamber have almost utterly perished, +but on the wall of the second may be seen the image of a fish +swimming in the water, and bearing on his back a basket filled with +loaves of the peculiar shape and color used by the Jews as an +offering of the first fruits to their priests; beneath the bread +appears a vessel which shows a red color, like a cup filled with wine. +"As soon as I saw this picture," says the Cavaliere de Rossi, in his +account of the discovery, "the words of St. Jerome came to my mind,-- +'None is richer than he who bears the body of the Lord in an osier +basket and his blood in a glass.'" + +In the same cemetery, very near the crypt of St. Cecilia, there is a +passage wider than common, upon whose side is a series of sepulchral +cells of similar form, and ornamented with similar pictures. In one +of them a table is represented, with four baskets of bread on the +ground, on one side, and three on the other, while upon it three +loaves and a fish are lying. In another of the chambers is a picture +of a single loaf and of a fish upon a plate lying on a table, at one +side of which a man stands with his hands stretched out towards it, +while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It +seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures +the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for +his followers,--a service which has rarely been celebrated under +circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken +in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting +memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were +partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels +of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the +days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for +his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice +was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him +at the table in the upper chamber. [1] + +[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract, +_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_, +expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and +simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic +doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he +considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical +symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least +doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and +the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that +have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their +original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the +date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative +unimportance.] + +There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a +symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture, +but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his +lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his +strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction +of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and +some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind +revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered +indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of +the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of +Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long +period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen +prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs +took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven, +as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that +should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan +eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient +poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the +music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and +compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in +the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow +him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the +lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell, +and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen +story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and +beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths. + +A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which +was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the +man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words, +"Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs, +according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects +that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained +by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They +understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning, +"Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward +to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely +congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in +many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist +writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the +doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called +the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay +stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," +and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated +power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the +painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the +narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting +assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but +there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any +reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures +themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to +contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent +the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet +and bearing his bed. [2] + +[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes +is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance +"represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both +knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not +seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It +is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before +accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the +possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one +figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act +of giving absolution expressed?] + +Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the +life of Moses,--his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord, +his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of +the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first +and the last are most common, and the truths which they were +intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was +regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation, +of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to +Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the +promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land +of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be +seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through +faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage. +Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou +standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard +the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the +Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance. +Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and +the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we +may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in +connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised +even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it +should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says +that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of +Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but +of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another +instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the +thought of immortality with the presence of death. + +So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth +abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the +living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ," +said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary +interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as +typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this +miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures +in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing +dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one +of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of +this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a +similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands +of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a +curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now +current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and +fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in +his hands,--emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being +the Vicegerent of Christ,--and on the bottom of a glass vessel of +late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of +the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not +of Moses, but of Peter,--for the Church had by this time advanced +far in its assumptions. + +The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the +walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet +appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the +great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth, +lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series; +but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted, +according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing +of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has +already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of +the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd, +(which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to +represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may +perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to +come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to +deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief +those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither, +so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and +wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter +dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows +as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was +one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the +long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were +enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the +Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon +those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new +commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with +rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth. +It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not +Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more +than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their +right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some, +at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may +have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more +subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic +meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later +fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations +of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell, +the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education +often led them. + +Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear +a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the +Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel +in the lions' den,--the other that of the Three Children of Israel +in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of +deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will +deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of +prayer,--the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with +arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached +to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They +were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them, +figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture +is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of +these figures with names inscribed above them,--as, for instance, +"HILARA IN PACE." + +Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old +Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the +middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with +the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the +type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the +midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider +signification, it was the type of the world saved through the +revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St. +Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that +is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even +baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." +Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more +literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes, +perhaps, by still other types. + +Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which +the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later +masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham, +in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the +Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a +common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling, +of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated +symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their +typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the +catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition +to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the +miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated, +with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight +to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new +picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is +continually receiving interesting additions. + +There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the +combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are +generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a +different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the +central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller +compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with +Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his +sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault +are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling +are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely +ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on +heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful +character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers, +crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed +more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and +other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church +delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in +the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on +their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put +these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual +significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner +meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus, +the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of +triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the +joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit, +and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the +emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor +of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the +anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol +of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for +the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life; +the lamb, of the Saviour himself. + +Many of these symbols were, it is plain, derived from the Scripture, +but many also had a heathen origin, and were adopted by the +Christians with a new or an additional significance. It was not +strange that this should be so, for many associations still bound +the Christians of the early centuries to the things they had turned +away from. Thus, the horse is frequently found upon the funeral vases +and marbles of the ancients; the peacock, the bird of Juno, was the +emblem of the apotheosis of the Roman empresses; the palm and the +crown had long been in use; and the funeral genii of the heathen +Romans were in some sort the type of the later Christian angels. But +although this adoption of ancient symbols is to be noticed, it is +also to be observed that there is in the Christian cemeteries on the +whole a remarkable absence of heathen imagery,--less by far than +might have been expected in the works of those surrounded by heathen +modes of thought and expression. The influence of Christianity, +however, so changed the current of ideas, and so affected the +feelings of those whom it called to new life, that heathenism became +to them, as it were, a dead letter, devoid of all that could rouse +the fancy, or affect the inner thought. A great gulf was fixed +between them and it,--a gulf which for three centuries, at least, +charity alone could bridge over. It was not till near the fourth +century that heathenism began, to any marked extent, to modify the +character and to corrupt the purity of Christianity. + +And with this is connected one of the most important historic facts +with regard to the Art of the catacombs. In no one of the pictures +of the earlier centuries is support or corroboration to be found of +the distinctive dogmas and peculiar claims of the Roman Church. We +have already spoken of the pictures that have been supposed to have +symbolic reference to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the +Eucharist, and have shown how little they require such an +interpretation. The exaltation of St. Peter above the other Apostles +is utterly unknown in the works of the first three centuries; in +instances in which he is represented, it is as the companion of St. +Paul. The Virgin never appears as the subject of any special +reverence. Sometimes, as in pictures of the Magi bringing their gifts, +she is seen with the child Jesus upon her lap. No attempt to +represent the Trinity (an irreverence which did not become familiar +till centuries later) exists in the catacombs, and no sign of the +existence of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be met with in them, +unless in works of a very late period. Of the doctrines of Purgatory +and Hell, of Indulgences, of Absolution, no trace is to be found. Of +the worship of the saints there are few signs before the fourth +century,--and it was not until after this period that figures of the +saints, such as those spoken of heretofore, in the account of the +crypt of St. Cecilia, became a common adornment of the sepulchral +walls. The use of the _nimbus_, or glory round the head, was not +introduced into Christian Art before the end of the fourth century. +It was borrowed from Paganism, and was adopted, with many other +ideas and forms of representation, from the same source, after +Romanism had taken the place of Paganism as the religion of the +Western Empire. The faith of the catacombs of the first three +centuries was Christianity, not Romanism. + +In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought +outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. +Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the +spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of +expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The +Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its +lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the +personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having +passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the +crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and +the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and +bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles, +beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of +feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works +disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves +were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom +they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves +hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr +became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or +_retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most +precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from +its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts +utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two +men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and +if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the +dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the +showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is +listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on +another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less +abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head +bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has +turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this +parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its +now rifled and forlorn graves. + +But the Art of the catacombs, after its first age, was not confined +to painting. Many sculptured sarcophagi have been found within the +crypts, and in the crypts of the churches connected with the +cemeteries. Here was again the adoption of an ancient custom; and in +many instances, indeed, the ancient sarcophagi themselves were +employed for modern bodies, and the old heathens turned out for the +new Christians. Others were obviously the work of heathen artists +employed for Christian service; and others exhibit, even more +plainly than the later paintings, some of the special doctrines of +the Church. The whole character of this sculpture deserves fuller +investigation than we can give to it here. The collection of these +first Christian works in marble that has recently been made in the +Lateran Museum affords opportunity for its careful study,--a study +interesting not only in an artistic, but in an historic and +doctrinal point of view. + +The single undoubted Christian statue of early date that has come +down to us is that of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, which was +found in 1551, near the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, it +was much mutilated, and has been greatly restored; but it is still +of uncommon interest, not only from its excellent qualities as a +work of Art, but also from the engraving upon its side of a list of +the works of the Saint, and of a double paschal cycle. This, too, is +now in the Christian Museum at the Lateran. + +Another branch of early Christian Art, which deserves more attention +than it has yet received, is that of the mosaics of the catacombs. +Their character is widely different from that of those with which a +few centuries afterwards the popes splendidly adorned their favorite +churches. But we must leave mosaics, gems, lamps, and all the lesser +articles of ornament and of common household use that have been +found in the graves, and which bring one often into strange +familiarity with the ways and near sympathy with the feelings of +those who occupied the now empty cells. Most of these trifles seem +to have been buried with the dead as the memorials of a love that +longed to reach beyond death with the expressions of its constancy +and its grief. Among them have been found the toys of little children,-- +their jointed ivory dolls, their rattles, their little rings, and +bells,--full, even now, of the sweet sounds of long-ago household +joys, and of the tender recollections of household sorrows. In +looking at them, one is reminded of the constant recurrence of the +figure of the Good Shepherd bearing his lamb, painted upon the walls +of these ancient chapels and crypts. + +It was thus that the dawn of Christian Art lighted up the darkness +of the catacombs. While the Roman nobles were decorating their +villas and summer-houses with gay figures, scenes from the ancient +stories, and representations of licentious fancies,--while the +emperors were paving the halls of their great baths with mosaic +portraits of the famous prize-fighters and gladiators,--the +Christians were painting the walls of their obscure cemeteries with +imagery which expressed the new lessons of their faith, and which +was the type and the beginning of the most beautiful works that the +human imagination has conceived, and the promise of still more +beautiful works yet to be created for the delight and help of the +world. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +BEATRICE + + How was I worthy so divine a loss, + Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? + Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, + Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns? + + And when she came, how earned I such a gift? + Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, + The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, + The hourly mercy of a woman's soul? + + Ah, did we know to give her all her right, + What wonders even in our poor clay were done! + It is not Woman leaves us to our night, + It is our earth that grovels from her sun. + + Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes + We whirl too oft from her who still shines on + To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes + Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. + + Still must this body starve our souls with shade; + But when Death makes us what we were before, + Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, + And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor. + + + + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. + + "The sense of the world is short,-- + Long and various the report,-- + To love and be beloved: + Men and gods have not outlearned it; + And how oft soe'er they've turned it, + 'Tis not to be improved!"--EMERSON. + + +Mr. Vane and Mr. Payne both were eagerly describing to me their +arrangements for an excursion to the Lake. I did not doubt it would +be charming, but neither of these two gentlemen would be endurable +on such a drive, and each was determined to ask me first. I stood +pushing apart the crushed flowers of my bouquet, in which all the +gardener's art vindicated itself by making the airy grace of Nature +into a flat, unmeaning mosaic. + +In the next room the passionate melancholy of a waltz was mocked and +travestied by the frantic and ungrateful whirl that only Americans +are capable of executing; the music lived alone in upper air; of men +and dancing it was all unaware; the involved cadences rolled away +over the lawn, shook the dew-drooped roses on their stems, and went +upward into the boundless moonlight to its home. Through all, Messrs. +Vane and Payne harangued me about the splendid bowling-alley at the +Lake, the mountain-strawberries, the boats, the gravel-walks! At +last it became amusing to see how skilfully they each evaded and +extinguished the other; it was a game of chess, and he was to be +victor who should first ask me; if one verged upon the question, the +other quickly interposed some delightful circumstance about the +excursion, and called upon the first to corroborate his testimony; +neither, in Alexander's place, would have done anything but assure +the other that the Gordian knot was very peculiarly tied, and quite +tight. + +Presently Harry Tempest stood by my side. I became aware that he had +heard the discussion. He took my bouquet from my hand, and stood +smelling it, while my two acquaintance went on. I was getting +troubled and annoyed; Mr. Tempest's presence was not composing. I +played with my fan nervously; at length I dropped it. Harry Tempest +picked it up, and, as I stooped, our eyes met; he gave me the fan, +and, turning from Messrs. Vane and Payne, said, very coolly,-- + +"The Lake is really a charming place; I think, Miss Willing, you +would find a carriage an easier mode of conveyance, so far, than +your pony; shall I bring one for you? or do you still prefer to ride?" + +This was so quietly done, that it seemed to me really a settled +affair of some standing that I was to go to the Lake with Mr. Tempest. +Mr. Vane sauntered off to join the waltzers; Mr. Payne suddenly +perceived Professor Rust at his elbow and began to talk chemistry. I +said, as calmly as I had been asked,-- + +"I will send you word some time tomorrow; I cannot tell just now." + +Here some of my friends came to say good night; my duties as hostess +drew me toward the door; Harry Tempest returned my bouquet and +whispered, or rather said in that tone of society that only the +person addressed can hear,-- + +"Clara! let it be a drive!" + +My head bent forward as he spoke, for I could not look at him; when +I raised it, he was gone. + +The music still soared and floated on through the windows into the +moonlight; one by one the older part of my guests left me; only a +few of the gayest and youngest still persevered in that indefatigable +waltz, the oval room looking as if a score of bubbles were playing +hop and skip,--for in the crinoline expansions the gentlemen's black +pen-and-ink outlines were all lost. At length even these went; the +music died; its soul went up with a long, broken cry; its body was +put piecemeal into several green bags, shouldered by stout Germans, +and carried quite out of sight. The servants gathered and set away +such things as were most needful to be arranged, put out the lights, +locked the doors and windows, and went to bed. Mrs. Reading, my good +housekeeper, begged me to go up stairs. + +"You look so tired, Miss Clara!" + +"So I am, Delia!" said I. "I will rest. Go to bed you, and I shall +come presently." + +I heard her heavy steps ascend the stairs; I heard the door of her +room close, creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the +coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. +I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I +needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous +question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found +in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, +was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out +upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked eyes and fat +cheeks had eyed me a thousand times when Elsie's arm was clasped +over my neck, and with her head upon my shoulder we lay and laughed, +when we should have been dressing, at those Chinese chintz curtains. +Elsie was gone; if she had been here, I had been at once counselled. +Rest there, dead Past!--I could not go to my bedroom. + +The green-house opened from the large parlor by a sash-door. At this +season of the year the glazed roof and sides were withdrawn or +lowered, but at night the lower sashes were drawn up and fastened, +lest incursive cats or dogs should destroy my flowers. The great +Newfoundland that was our guard slept on the floor here, since it +was the weakest spot for any ill-meaning visitors to enter at. + +I drew the long skirt of my lace dress up over my hair, and quietly +went into the green-house. The lawn and its black firs tempted me, +but there was moonlight on the lawn, and moonlight I cannot bear; it +burns my head more fiercely than any noon sun; it scorches my eyelids; +it exhausts and fevers me; it excites my brain, and now I looked for +calm. This the odor of the flowers and their pure expression +promised me. A tall, thick-leaved camellia stood half-way down the +border, and before it was a garden-chair. The moonlight shed no ray +there, but through the sashes above streamed cool and fair over the +blooms that clung to the wall and adorned the parterres and vases; +for this house was set after a fashion of my own, a winter-garden +under glass; no stages filled the centre. It was laid out with no +stiff rule, but here and there in urns of stone, or in pyramidal +stands, gorgeous or fragrant plants ran at their own wild will, while +over all the wall and along the woodwork of the roof trailed +passion-flowers, roses, honeysuckles, fragrant clematis, ivy, and +those tropic vines whose long dead names belie their fervid +luxuriance and fantastic growth; great trees of lemon and orange +interspaced the vines in shallow niches of their own, and the languid +drooping tresses of a golden acacia flung themselves over and across +the deep glittering mass of a broad-leaved myrtle. + +As I sat down in the chair, Pan reared his dusky length from his mat, +and came for a recognition. It was wont to be something more +positive than caresses; but to-night neither sweet biscuit nor +savory bit of confectionery appeared in the hand that welcomed him; +yet he was as loving as ever, and, with a grim sense of protection, +flung himself at my feet, drew a long breath, and slept. I dared not +yet think; I rested my head against the chair, and breathed in the +odor of the flowers: the delicate scent of tea-roses; the Southern +perfume, fiery and sweet, like Greek wine, of profuse heliotropes,--a +perfume that gives you thirst, and longing, and regret. I turned my +head toward the orange-trees; Southern, also, but sensuous and tropic, +was the breath of those thick white stars,--a tasted odor. Not so +the cool air that came to me from a diamond-shaped bed of Parma +violets, kept back so long from bloom that I might have a succession +of them; these were the last, and their perfume told it, for it was +at once a caress and a sigh. I breathed the gale of sweetness till +every nerve rested and every pulse was tranquil as the air without. + +I heard a little stir. I looked up. A stately calla, that reared one +marble cup from its gracious cool leaves, was bending earthward with +a slow and voluntary motion; from the cup glided a fair woman's shape; +snowy, sandalled feet shone from under the long robe; hair of +crisped gold crowned the Greek features. It was Hypatia. A little +shiver crept through a white tea-rose beside the calla; its delicate +leaves fluttered to the ground; a slight figure, a sweet, sad face, +with melancholy blue eyes and fair brown hair, parted the petals. La +Valliere! She gazed in my eyes. + +"Poor little child!" said she. "Have you a treatise against love, +Hypatia?" + +The Greek of Egypt smiled and looked at me also. "I have discovered +that the steps of the gods are upon wool," answered she; "if love +had a beginning to sight, should not we also foresee its end?" + +"And when one foresees the end, one dies," murmured La Valliere. + +"Bah!" exclaimed Marguerite of Valois, from the heart of a rose-red +camellia,--"not at all, my dear; one gets a new lover!" + +"Or the new lover gets you," said a dulcet tone, tipped with satire, +from the red lips of Mary of Scotland,--lips that were just now the +petals of a crimson carnation. + +"Philosophy hath a less troubled sea wherein to ride than the stormy +fluctuance of mortal passion; Plato is diviner than Ovid," said a +puritanic, piping voice from a coif that was fashioned out of the +white camellia-blooms behind my chair, and circled the prim beauty +of Lady Jane Grey. + +"Are you a woman, or one of the Sphinx's children?" said a stormy, +thrilling, imperious accent, from the wild purple and scarlet flower +of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous +Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and +slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,--sallow, thin, but more +graceful than any bending bough of the desert acacia, and with eyes +like midnight, deep, glowing, flashing, melting into dew, as she +looked at the sedate lady of England. + +"You do not know love!" resumed she. "It is one draught,--a jewel +fused in nectar; drink the pearl and bring the asp!" + +Her words brought beauty; the sallow face burnt with living scarlet +on lip and cheek; the tiny pearl-grains of teeth flashed across the +swarth shade above her curving, passionate mouth; the wide nostrils +expanded; the great eyes flamed under her low brow and glittering +coils of black hair. + +"Poor Octavia!" whispered La Valliere. Lady Jane Grey took up her +breviary and read. + +"After all, you died!" said Hypatia. + +"I lived!" retorted Cleopatra. + +"Lived and loved," said a dreamy tone from the hundred leaves of a +spotless La Marque rose; and the steady, "unhasting, unresting" soul +of Thekla looked out from that centreless flower, in true German +guise of brown braided tresses, deep blue eyes like forget-me-nots, +sedate lips, and a straight nose. + +"I have lived, and loved, and cut bread and butter," solemnly +pronounced a mountain-daisy, assuming the broad features of a +fraeulein. + +Cleopatra used an Egyptian oath. Lady Jane Grey put down her breviary +and took up Plato. Marguerite of Valois laughed outright. Hypatia +put a green leaf over Charlotte, with the air of a high-priestess, +and extinguished her. + +"Who does not love cannot lose," mused La Valliere. + +"Who does not love neither has nor gains," said Hypatia. "The dilemma +hath two sides, and both gain and loss are problematic. It is the +ideal of love that enthralls us, not the real." + +"Hush! you white-faced Greek! It was not an ideal; it was Mark Antony. +By Isis! does a dream fight, and swear, and kiss?" + +"The Navarrese did; and France dreamed he was my master,--not I!" +laughed Marguerite. + +"This is most weak stuff for goodly and noble women to foster," +grimly uttered a flame-colored hawk's-bill tulip, that directly +assumed a ruff and an aquiline nose. + +Mary of Scotland passed her hand about her fair throat. "Where is +Leicester's ring?" said she. + +The Queen did not hear, but went on. "Truly, you make as if it was +the intent of women to be trodden under foot of men. She that +ruleth herself shall rule both princes and nobles, I wot. Yet I had +done well to marry. Love or no love, I would the house of Hanover +had waged war with one of mine own blood; I hate those fair, fat +Guelphs!" + +"Love hath sometimes the thorn alone, the rose being blasted in bud," +uttered a sweet and sonorous voice with a little nasal accent, out +of the myrtle-boughs that starred with bloom her hair, and swept the +hem of her green dress. + +"Sweet soul, wast thou not, then, sated upon sonnets?" said Mary of +Scotland, in a stage aside. + +"Do not the laurels overgrow the thorn?" said La Valliere, with a +wistful, inquiring smile. + +Laura looked away. "They are very green at Avignon," said she. + +Out of two primroses, side by side, Stella and Vanessa put forth +pale and anxious faces, with eyes tear-dimmed. + +"Love does not feed on laurels," said Stella; "they are fruitless." + +"That the clergy should be celibate is mine own desire," broke in +Queen Elizabeth. "Shall every curly fool's-pate of a girl be turning +after an anointed bishop? I will have this thing ended, certes! and +that with speed." + +Vanessa was too deep in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. +"I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and +veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto age and +learning." + +"Ciel!" muttered Marguerite; "is it, then, that in this miserable +England one cherishes a grand passion for one's grandfather?" + +The heliotrope-clusters melted into a face of plastic contour, rich +full lips, soft interfused outlines, intense purple eyes, and heavy +waving hair, dark indeed, but harmonized curiously with the narrow +gold fillet that bound it. "It is no pain to die for love," said the +low, deep voice, with an echo of rolling gerunds in the tone. + +"That depends on how sharp the dagger is," returned Mary of Scotland. +"If the axe had been dull"---- + +From the heart of a red rose Juliet looked out; the golden centre +crowned her head with yellow tresses; her tender hazel eyes were +calm with intact passion; her mouth was scarlet with fresh kisses, +and full of consciousness and repose. "Harder it is to live for love," +said she; "hardest of all to have ever lived without it." + +"How much do you all help the matter?" said a practical Yankee voice +from a pink hollyhock. "If the infinite relations of life assert +themselves in marriage, and the infinite I merges its individuality +in the personality of another, the superincumbent need of a passional +relation passes without question. What the soul of the seeker asks +from itself and the universe is, whether the ultimate principle of +existent life is passional or philosophic." + +"Your dialectic is wanting in purity of expression," calmly said +Hypatia; "the tongue of Olympus suits gods and their ministers only." + +"Plato hath no question of the matter in hand," observed Lady Jane +Grey, with a tone of finishing the subject. + +"I know nothing of your questions and philosophies," scornfully +stormed Cleopatra. "Fire seeks fire, and clay, clay. Isis send me +Antony, and every philosopher in Alexandria may go drown in the Nile! +Shall I blind my eyes with scrolls of papyrus when there is a goodly +Roman to be looked upon?" + +From the deep blue petals of a double English violet came a delicate +face, pale, serene, sad, but exceeding tender. "Love liveth when the +lover dies," said Lady Rachel Russell. "I have well loved my lord in +the prison; shall I cease to affect him when he is become one of the +court above?" + +"You are cautious of speech, Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. +"Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you has +carried cap and bell." + +They all turned toward the hawk's-bill tulip; it was not there. + +"Gone to Kenilworth," demurely sneered Mary of Scotland. + +A pond-lily, floating in a tiny tank, opened its clasped petals; and +with one bare pearly foot upon the green island of leaves, and the +other touching the edge of the marble basin, clothed with a rippling, +lustrous, golden garment of hair, that rolled downward in glittering +masses to her slight ankles, and half hid the wide, innocent, blue +eyes and infantile, smiling lips, Eve said, "I was made for Adam," +and slipped silently again into the closing flower. + +"But we have changed all that!" answered Marguerite, tossing her +jewel-clasped curls. + +"They whom the saints call upon to do battle for king and country +have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear +voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and +flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless +lips of a woman. + +"There have been cloistered nuns," timidly breathed La Valliere. + +"There is a monk's-hood in that parterre without," said Marguerite. + +The white clematis shivered. It was a veiled shape in long robes, +that hid face and figure, who clung to the wall and whispered, +"Paraclete!" + +"There are tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of +Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint +outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red +roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine +streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially +obscured, that ran, "Utque talis Rosa nulli alteri plantae adhaereret"---- + +"But the girl there is no saint; I think, rather, she is of mine own +land," said a purple passion-flower, that hid itself under a black +mantilla, and glowed with dark beauty. The Spanish face bent over me +with ardent eyes and lips of sympathetic passion, and murmured, +"Do not fear! Pedro was faithful unto and after death; there are some +men"---- + +Pan growled! I rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me +in very extempore costume, holding a night-lamp:-- + +"Goodness me, Miss Clara!" said she, "I never was more scared. I +happened to wake up, and I thought I see your west window open +across the corner; so I roused up to go and see if you was sick; and +you wasn't in bed, nor your frock anywhere. I was frighted to pieces; +but when I come down and found the greenhouse door open, I went in +just for a chance, and, lo and behold! here you are, sound asleep in +the chair, and Pan a-lying close onto that beautiful black lace frock! +Do get up, Miss Clara! you'll be sick to-morrow, sure as the world!" + +I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla +breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and +perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant. + +"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?" + +Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed. + +"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a +pretty good feller; but seein' things was as they was, if I'd had +means and knowed what I know now, I shouldn't never have married him." + +"May-be you'd have married somebody else, though," suggested I. + +"Like enough, Miss Clara; girls are unaccountable perverse when they +get in love. But do get up and go to bed. A'n't you goin' to the +Lake to-morrow?" + +That put my speculation to flight. Up I rose and meekly followed +Delia to my room; this time she staid to see me fairly disrobed. But +I had had sleep enough. I was also quiet; I could think. The future +lay at my feet, to be planned and patterned at my will; or so I +thought. I had not permitted myself to think much about Harry Tempest, +from an instinctive feeling of danger; I did not know then that + + "En songeant qu'il faut oublier + On s'en souvient!" + +I was young, rich, beautiful, independent; I came and went as I would, +without question, and did my own pleasure. If I married, all this +power must be given up; possibly I and my husband would tire of each +other,--and then what remained but fixed and incurable disgust and +pain? I thought over my strange dream. Cleopatra, the enchantress, +and the scorn of men: that was not love, it was simple passion of +the lowest grade. Lady Jane Grey: she was only proper. Marguerite de +Valois: profligate. Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. +Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Paetus dying, she could not +love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side +of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they +satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the +distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the +half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before +the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly +resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no +opportunity to speak to me alone. But I slept too long; it was noon +before I woke, and I had sent no message about my preference of the +pony, as I promised, to Mr. Tempest. I had only time to breakfast +and dress. At three o'clock he came,--with his carriage, of course. +So I rode to the Lake! + +It's all very well to make up one's mind to say a certain thing; it +is better if you say it; but, somehow or other,--I really was +ashamed afterward,--I forgot all my good reasons. I found I had taken +a great deal of pains to no purpose. In short, after due time, I +married Harry Tempest; and though it is some time since that happened, +I am still much of Eve's opinion,-- + + "I WAS MADE FOR ADAM." + + * * * * * + + + + +CRAWFORD AND SCULPTURE. + +There is as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, +the palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the +versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste +severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. +The simplicity, directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace +of Sculpture have analogies in literature and character: the terse +despatch of a brave soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, +some proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic lines, that have become +household words, puritanic consistency, silent fortitude, are but so +many vigorous outlines, and impress us by virtue of the same +colorless intensity as a masterpiece of the statuary. How +sculpturesque is Dante, even in metaphor, as when he writes,-- + + "Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa; + Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, + A guisa di leon quando si posa." + +Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints are covered +with snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and mountain are clearly +defined by the universal whiteness. Death, in its pale, still, fixed +image,--always solemn, sometimes beautiful,--would have inspired +primeval humanity to mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. Even +New Zealanders elaborately carve their war-clubs; and from the +"graven images" prohibited by the Decalogue as objects of worship, +through the mysterious granite effigies of ancient Egypt, the brutal +anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and gilded figures on a +ship's prow,--whether emblems of rude ingenuity, tasteless caprice, +retrospective sentiment, or embodiments of the highest physical and +mental culture, as in the Greek statues,--there is no art whose +origin is more instructive and progress more historically significant. +The vases of Etruria are the best evidence of her degree of +civilization; the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood ware redeem the +economical art of England; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the +Roman Capitol are the most venerable local insignia; the carvings of +Gibbons, in old English manor-houses, outrival all the luxurious +charms of modern upholstery; Phidias is a more familiar element in +Grecian history than Pericles; the moral energy of the old Italian +republics is more impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the +bold and vigorous creations of Michel Angelo than in the political +annals of Macchiavelli; and it is the massive, uncouth sculptures, +half-buried in sylvan vegetation, which mythically transmit the +ancient people of Central America. + +We confess a faith in, and a love for, the "testimony of the rocks,"-- +not only as interpreted by the sagacious Scotchman, as he excavated +the "old red sandstone," but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, +and power by the hand of man through all generations. We love to +catch a glimpse of these silent memorials of our race, whether as +Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with summer foliage in a garden, or +as Heroes gleaming with startling distinctness in the moonlit +city-square; as the similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the +halls of nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone +effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm without the +respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim, with the +enamored gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the asp had done its work,-- + + "She looks like sleep, + As she would catch another Antony + In her _strong toil of grace_." + +Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture,--partly because of an +inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its +greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its +awe-inspiring influence in "the monumental caves of death," as +described by Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that "all arts +address themselves to the sensibility and imagination"; and no one +thus alive to the appeal of sculpture will marvel that the +infuriated mob spared the statues of the Tuileries at the bloody +climax of the French Revolution,--that a "love of the antique" knit +in bonds of life-long friendship Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani,-- +that among the most salient of childhood's memories should be +Memnon's image and the Colossus of Rhodes,--that an imaginative girl +of exalted temperament died of love for the Apollo Belvidere,--and +that Carrara should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have +peopled earth with grace. + +To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing tableaux than a +gifted sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!--standing +erect by the mass of clay,--with graduated touch, moulding into +delicate undulations or expressive lines the inert mass,--now +stepping back to see the effect,--now bending forward, almost +lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a thin layer,--and so, +hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action, each perception +active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual approximation, under +patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap of +earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. When such a man +departs from the world, after having thus labored in love and with +integrity so as to bequeathe memorable and cherished trophies of +this beautiful art,--when he dies in his prime, his character as a +man endeared by the ties of friendship, and his fame as an artist +made precious by the bond of a common nativity, we feel that the art +he loved and illustrated and the fame he won and honored demand a +coincident discussion. + +Thomas Crawford was born in New York, March 22, 1813, and died in +London, October 16, 1857. His lineage, school education, and early +facilities indicate no remarkable means or motive for artistic +development; they were such as belong to the average positions of +the American citizen; although a bit of romance, which highly amused +the young sculptor, was the visit of a noble Irish lady to his studio, +who ardently demonstrated their common descent from an ancient house. +At first contented to experiment as a juvenile draughtsman, to gaze +into the windows of print-shops, to collect what he could obtain in +the shape of casts, to carve flowers, leaves, and monumental designs +in the marble-yard of Launitz,--then adventuring in wood sculptures +and portraits, until the encouragement of Thorwaldsen, the nude +models of the French Academy at Rome, and copies from the +Demosthenes and other antiques in the Vatican disciplined his eye +and touch,--thus by a healthful, rigorous process attaining the +manual skill and the mature judgment which equipped him to venture +wisely in the realm of original conception,--there was a thoroughness +and a progressive application in his whole initiatory course, +prophetic, to those versed in the history of Art, of the ultimate +and secure success so legitimately earned. + +If Rome yields the choicest test, in modern times, of individual +endowment in sculpture, by virtue of her unequalled treasures and +select proficients in Art,--Munich affords the second ordeal in +Europe, because of the cultivated taste and superior foundries for +which that capital is renowned; and it is remarkable that both the +great statues there cast from Crawford's models by Mueller inspired +those impromptu festivals which give expression to German enthusiasm. +The advent of the Beethoven statue was celebrated by the adequate +performance, under the auspices of both court and artists, of that +peerless composer's grandest music. When, on the evening of his +arrival, Crawford went to see, for the first time, his Washington in +bronze, he was surprised at the dusky precincts of the vast arena; +suddenly torches flashed illumination on the magnificent horse and +rider, and simultaneously burst forth from a hundred voices a song +of triumph and jubilee: thus the delighted Germans congratulated +their gifted brother, and hailed the sublime work,--to them typical +at once of American freedom, patriotism, and genius. The king warmly +recognized the original merits and consummate effect of the work; +the artists would suffer no inferior hands to pack and despatch it to +the sea-side; peasants greeted its triumphal progress;--the people +of Richmond were emulous to share the task of conveying it from the +quay to the Capitol hill; mute admiration, followed by ecstatic +cheers, hailed its unveiling, and the most gracious native eloquence +inaugurated its erection. + +Descriptions of works of Art, especially of statues, are +proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, +to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, +intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing +Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious +labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;--we +might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the +concentration of his thoughtful brow, and the loving serenity of his +expression,--a kind of embodied musical self-absorption, yet an +accurate portrait of the man in his inspired mood; so might he have +stood when gathering into his serene consciousness the pastoral +melodies of Nature, on a summer evening, to be incorporated into +immortal combinations of harmonious sound;--we might descant upon +the union of majesty and spirit in the figure of Washington and the +vital truth of action in the horse, the air of command and of +rectitude, the martial vigor and grace, so instantly felt by the +popular heart, and so critically praised by the adept in statuary +cognizant of the difficulties to be overcome and the impression to +be absolutely evolved from such a work, in order to make it at once +true to Nature and to character;--we might repeat the declaration, +that no figure, ancient or modern, so entirely illustrates the +classic definition of oratory, as consisting in action, as the +statue of Patrick Henry, which seems instinct with that memorable +utterance, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The inventive +felicity of the design for one of the pediments of the Capitol might +be unfolded as a vivid historic poem; and it requires no imagination +to show that Jefferson looks the author of the Declaration of +Independence. The union of original expression and skill in statuary +and of ingenious constructiveness in monumental designs, which +Crawford exhibited, may be regarded as a peculiar excellence and a +rare distinction. + +Much has been said and written of the limits of sculpture; but it is +the sphere, rather than the art itself, which is thus bounded; and +one of its most glorious distinctions, like that of the human form +and face, which are its highest subject, is the vast possible +variety within what seems, at first thought, to be so narrow a field. +That the same number and kind of limbs and features should, under the +plastic touch of genius, have given birth to so many and totally +diverse forms, memorable for ages and endeared to humanity, is in +itself an infinite marvel, which vindicates, as a beautiful wonder, +the statuary's art from the more Protean rivalry of pictorial skill. +If we call to mind even a few of the sculptured creations which are +"a joy forever," even to retrospection,--haunting by their pure +individuality the temple of memory, permanently enshrined in +heartfelt admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and +woman, significant in history, powerful in expression, or +irresistible in grace,--we feel what a world of varied interest is +hinted by the very name of Sculpture. Through it the most just and +clear idea of Grecian culture is revealed to the many. The solemn +mystery of Egyptian and the grand scale of Assyrian civilization are +best attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies the land +of the Pyramids and all its associations, mythological, scientific, +natural, and sacred,--its reverence for the dead, and its dim and +portentous traditions! and what a reflex of Nineveh's palmy days are +the winged lions exhumed by Layard! What more authentic tokens of +Mediaeval piety and patience exist than the elaborate and grotesque +carvings of Albert Duerer's day? The colossal Brahma in the temple of +Elephanta, near Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic superstition. +And can an illustration of the revival of Art, in the fifteenth +century, so exuberant, aspiring, and sublime, be imagined, to +surpass the Day and Night, the Moses, and other statues of Angelo?-- +But such general inferences are less impressive than the personal +experience of every European traveller with the least passion for +the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is there any sphere of +observation and enjoyment to such a one, more prolific of individual +suggestions than this so-called limited art? From the soulful glow +of expression in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the +womanly contours, so exquisite, in the armless figure of the Venus +de Milo,--from the aerial posture of John of Bologna's Mercury, to +the inimitable and firm dignity in the attitude of Aristides in the +Museum of Naples,--from the delicate lines which teach how grace can +chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the +embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici +Chapel,--from the stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all +bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning +gesture, to the _abandon_ gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing +Faun,--from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding +frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written forever the inhumanities +of ancient civilization, to the triumphant beauty and firm, light, +enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's Ariadne,--from the unutterable joy +of Cupid and Psyche's embrace, to the grand authority of Moses,--how +many separate phases of human emotion "live in stone"! What greater +contrast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge of facts and in our +consciousness of sentiment, can be exemplified, than those so +distinctly, memorably, and gracefully moulded in the apostolic +figures of Thorwaldsen, the Hero and Leander of Steinhaueser, the +lovely funereal monument, inspired by gratitude, which Rauch reared +to Louise of Prussia, Chantrey's Sleeping Children, Canova's Lions +in St. Peter's, the bas-reliefs of Ghiberti on the Baptistery doors +at Florence, and Gibson's Horses of the Sun? + +Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a pleasant +afternoon, along the Zurich road, to the old General's garden, where +stands the colossal lion designed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the +brave renown of the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the royal +family of France during the massacre of the Revolution? Carved from +the massive sandstone, the majestic animal, with the fatal spear in +his side, yet loyal in his vigil over the royal shield, is a grand +image of fidelity unto death. The stillness, the isolation, the +vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the clear mirror of the basin, +into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting the vast proportions +of the enormous lion, the veteran Swiss, who acts as _cicerone_, the +adjacent chapel with its altar-cloth wrought by one of the fair +descendants of the Bourbon king and queen for whom these victims +perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Nature and Art, +convey a unique impression, in absolute contrast with such white +effigies, for instance, as in the dusky precincts of Santa Croce +droop over the sepulchre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar +in the Mercato Nuevo of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness of that +sweet scion of the English nobility, moulded by Chantrey in all the +soft and lithe grace of childhood, holding a contented dove to her +bosom. + +Even as the subject of taste, independently of historical diversities, +sculpture presents every degree of the meretricious, the grotesque, +and the beautiful,--more emphatically, because more palpably, than +is observable in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an +immortal precedent; the Mediaeval carvings embody the rude Teutonic +truthfulness; where Canova provoked comparison with the antique, as +in the Perseus and Venus, his more gross ideal is painfully evident. +How artificial seems Bernini in contrast with Angelo! How minutely +expressive are the terra-cotta images of Spain! What a climax of +absurdity teases the eye in the monstrosities in stone which draw +travellers in Sicily to the eccentric nobleman's villa, near Palermo! +Who does not shrink from the French allegory and horrible melodrama +of Roubillac's monument to Miss Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey? +How like Horace Walpole to dote on Ann Conway's canine groups! We +actually feel sleepy, as we examine the little black marble Somnus +of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the first sight of the +Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in the presence of Nymphs, Graces, +and the Goddess of Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of genius, they +seem the ethereal types of that + + ----"common clay ta'en from the common earth, + Moulded by God and tempered by the tears + Of angels to the perfect form of woman." + +Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is +tranquillity,--a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe +chastens admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we +echo the poet's sentiment,-- + + "I do feel a mighty calmness creep + Over my heart, which can no longer borrow + Its hues from chance or change,--those children of to-morrow." + +It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate, +death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial +as commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like +those in St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked +beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venerable +associations of a Mediaeval tomb; while marble figures, typifying +Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding over the lineaments of the +illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral decorations, the most apt +and impressive. We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on +an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in which the brave +young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the scene and +story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form +of a recumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of the old +city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown forever +the gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In +Cathedral and Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the +sequestered parish church or the rural cemetery, what image so +accords with the sad reality and the serene hope of humanity, as the +adequate marble personification on sarcophagus and beneath shrine, +in mausoleum or on turf-mound? + + "His palms infolded on his breast, + There is no other thought express'd + But long disquiet merged in rest." + +In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so +readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is +in the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and +expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities +we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of +diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it +is the statues of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic +charm of her history; abstractly, we regard them with the poet:-- + + "Their gods? what were their gods? + There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules, + Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker + Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns + At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode + Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell + Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief; + Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best; + And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers; + Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer, + Sat in the circle of his starry power + And frowned 'I will!' to all." + +Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,--but calm, +fair, strong, and immortal. "They seem," wrote Hazlitt, "to have no +sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless +excellence they appear sufficient to themselves." + +In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the +most glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by +torchlight endears even these poor traditional deities forever. + + On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow, + Auroras beam, + The steeds of Neptune through the waters go, + Or Sibyls dream. + + As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved + Illusions wild, + Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved + And Juno smiled. + + Aerial Mercuries in bronze upspring, + Dianas fly, + And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling + Without a sigh. + +To this variety in unity, this wealth of antique genius, Crawford +brought the keen relish of an observant and the aptitude of a +creative mind. His taste in Art was eminently catholic; he loved the +fables and the personages of Greece because of this very diversity +of character,--the freedom to delineate human instincts and passions +under a mythological guise,--just as Keats prized the same themes as +giving broad range to his fanciful muse. A list of our prolific +sculptor's works is found to include the entire circle of subjects +and styles appropriate to his art--first, the usual classic themes, +of which his first remarkable achievement was the Orpheus; then a +series of Christian or religious illustrations, from Adam and Saul +to Christ at the Well of Samaria; next, individual portraits; a +series of domestic figures, such as the "Children in the Wood," or +"Truant Boys"; and, finally, what may be termed national statuary, +of which Beethoven and Washington are eminent exemplars. Like +Thorwaldsen, Crawford excelled in _basso-rilievo_, and was a +remarkable pictorial sculptor. Having made early and intense +studies of the antique, he as carefully observed Nature; few +statuaries have more keenly noted the action of childhood or +equestrian feats, so that the limbs and movement of the sweetest of +human and the noblest of brute creatures were critically known to him. +In sculpture, we believe that a great secret of the highest success +lies in an intuitive eclecticism, whereby the faultless graces of the +antique are combined with just observation of Nature. Without +correct imitative facility, a sculptor wanders from the truth and +the fact of visible things; without ideality, he makes but a +mechanical transcript; without invention, he but repeats +conventional traits. The desirable medium, the effective principle, +has been well defined by the author of "Scenes and Thoughts in Europe":-- +"Art does not merely copy Nature; it _cooeperates_ with her, it makes +palpable her finest essence, it reveals the spiritual source of the +corporeal by the perfection of its incarnations." That Crawford +invariably kept himself to "the height of this great argument" it +were presumptuous to assert; but that he constantly approached such +an ideal, and that he sometimes seized its vital principle, the +varied and expressive forms yet conserved in his studio at Rome +emphatically attest. He had obtained command of the vocabulary of +his art; in expressing it, like all men who strive largely, he was +unequal. Some of his creations are far more felicitous than others; +he sometimes worked too fast, and sometimes undertook what did not +greatly inspire him; but when we reflect on the limited period of his +artist-life, on the intrepid advancement of its incipient stages +under the pressure of narrow means and comparative solitude, on the +extraordinary progress, the culminating force, the numerous trophies, +and the acknowledged triumphs of a life of labors, so patiently +achieved, and suddenly cut off in mid career,--we cannot but +recognize a consummate artist and the grandest promise yet +vouchsafed to the cause of national Art. + +Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good a judge of +sculpture as the best academician or anatomist. It is this direct +appeal, this elemental simplicity, which constitutes the great +distinction and charm of the art. There is nothing evasive and +mysterious; in dealing with form and expression through features and +attitude, average observation is a reliable test. The same English +poet was right in declaring that the Greek sculptors did not find +their inspiration in the dissecting-room; yet upon no subject has +criticism displayed greater insight on the one hand and pedantry on +the other, than in the discussion of these very _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of +antiquity. While Michel Angelo, who was at Rome when the Laocooen was +discovered, hailed it as "the wonder of Art," and scholars +identified the group with a famous one described by Pliny, Canova +thought that the right arm of the father was not in its right +position, and the other restorations in the work have all been +objected to. Goethe recognized a profound sagacity in the artist: +"If," he wrote, "we try to place the bite in some different position, +the whole action is changed, and we find it impossible to conceive +one more fitting; the situation of the bite renders necessary the +whole action of the limbs";--and another critic says, "In the group +of the Laocooen, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to +show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." +In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth +to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American +back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked why the +figures were seated in a row on a dry-goods box, and declared that +the serpent was not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the +child's, without breaking its vertebrae. So disgusted was Titian with +the critical pedantry elicited by this group, that, in ridicule +thereof, he painted a caricature,--three monkeys writhing in the +folds of a little snake. + +Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against which Byron, +while contemplating the Venus de Medici, utters so eloquent an +invective, sculpture is a grand, serene, and intelligible art,--more +so than architecture and painting,--and, as such, justly consecrated +to the heroic and the beautiful in man and history. It is predominantly +commemorative. How the old cities of Europe are peopled to +the imagination, as well as the eye, by the statues of their +traditional rulers or illustrious children, keeping, as it were, a +warning sign, or a sublime vigil, silent, yet expressive, in the +heart of busy life and through the lapse of ages! We could never +pass Duke Cosmo's imposing effigy in the old square of Florence +without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of the +Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local +association,--nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, +with hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars +in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of +Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with +infamy. There was always a gleam of poetry,--however sad,--on the +most foggy day, in the glimpse afforded from our window, in +Trafalgar Square, of that patient horseman, Charles the Martyr. How +alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by moonlight, in Rome, as we +passed his plashing fountain! And those German poets,--Goethe, +Schiller, and Jean Paul,--what to modern eyes were Frankfort, +Stuttgart, and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms? The +most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of the Bourbon +dynasty was that inspired by Jeanne d'Arc, graceful in her marble +sleep, as sculptured by Marie d'Orleans; and the most impressive +token of Napoleon's downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image +intended for the square of Leghorn, but thrown permanently on the +sculptor's hands by the waning of his proud star. The statue of Heber, +to Christian vision, hallows Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini +breathes of the months of artistic suspense, inspiration, and +experiment, so graphically described in that clever egotist's memoirs. +One feels like blessing the grief-bowed figures at the tomb of +Princess Charlotte, so truly do their attitudes express our sympathy +with the love and the sorrow her name excites. Would not Sterne have +felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau of the Widow +Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially embodied by Ball Hughes? What more +spirited symbol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the +gilded horses of St. Mark's? How natural was Michel Angelo's +exclamation, "March!" as he gazed on Donatello's San Giorgio, in the +Church of San Michele,--one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, +complete armor, and the foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the +challenge, or a knight listening for the charge! Tenerani's +"Descent from the Cross," in the Torlonia Chapel, outlives in +remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that financial house. The +outlines of Flaxman, essentially statuesque, seem alone adequate to +illustrate to the eye the great Mediaeval poet, whose verse seems +often cut from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How grandly +sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement's tomb! + +It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these permanent +trophies of the sculptor's art may now be mingled our national fame. +Twenty years ago, the address in Murray's Guide-Book,--_Crawford, an +American Sculptor, Piazza Barberini_,--would have been unique; now +that name is enrolled on the list of the world's benefactors in the +patrimony of Art. Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel, +gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture and architecture +not destined soon to pass away; no more eloquent and original +advocate of the beautiful and the true in the higher social economies +has blest our day; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the poetry +of form; his essays are a valuable legacy of philosophic thought. +The Greek Slave of Powers was invariably surrounded by visitors at +the London World's Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Palmer has +sent forth from his isolated studio at Albany a series of ideal busts, +of a pure type of original and exquisite beauty. Others might be +named who have honorably illustrated an American claim to +distinction in an art eminently republican in its perpetuation of +national worth and the identity of its highest achievements with +social progress. + +Facility of execution and prolific invention were the essential +traits of Crawford's genius. For some years his studio has been one +of the shrines of travellers at Rome, because of the number and +variety as well as excellence of its trophies. The idea has been +suggested, and it is one we hope to see realized, that this complete +series of casts should be permanently conserved in such a temple as +Copenhagen reared to the memory of her great sculptor. It was on +account of this facility and fecundity that Crawford advocated +plaster as an occasional substitute for bronze and marble, where +elaborate compositions were proposed. He felt capable of achieving +so much, his mind teemed with so many panoramic and single +conceptions,--historical, allegorical, ideal, and illustrative of +standard literature or classical fable,--that only time and expense +presented obstacles to unlimited invention. Perhaps no one can +conceive this peculiar creativeness of his fancy and aptitude of hand, +who has not had occasion to talk with Crawford of some projected +monument or statue. No sooner was he possessed of the idea to be +embodied, the person or occasion to be commemorated, than he +instantly conceived a plan and drew a model, invariably possessing +some felicitous thought or significant arrangement. His sketch-book +was quite as suggestive of genius as his studio. The "Sketch of a +Statue to crown the Dome of the United States Capitol"--a photograph +of which is before us as we write, dated two years ago--is an +instance in point. A more grand figure, original and symbolic, +graceful and sublime, in attitude, aspect, drapery, accessories, and +expression, or one more appropriate, cannot be imagined; and yet it +is only one of hundreds of national designs, more or less mature, +which that fertile brain, patriotic heart, and cunning hand devised. +We are justified in regarding the appropriation by the State of +Virginia, for a monument to Washington by such a man, as an epoch in +the history of national Art. Crawford hailed it as would a confident +explorer the ship destined to convey him to untracked regions, the +ambitious soldier tidings of the coming foe, or any brave aspirant a +long-sought opportunity. It is one of the drawbacks to elaborate +achievement in sculpture, that the materials and the processes of +the art require large pecuniary facilities. To plan and execute a +great national monument, under a government commission, was +precisely the occasion for which Crawford had long waited. Happening +to read the proposals in a journal, while on a visit to this country, +he repaired immediately to Richmond, submitted his views, and soon +received the appointment. + +The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is +always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of +men have we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One +lovely evening in spring, we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse +of a beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation +of its own, and the afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue +of her loved and lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of +death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner +did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and +filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands, +and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in +contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. +"How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside, +with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity +of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the standard +of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of +beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the lips of +a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is the cognizance this +noble art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would +unfold by the hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty, +organization and use,--tracing therein a profound law and an +illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than +Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon receptions;--his white hair, kindly +smile, urbane manners, and unpretending simplicity gave an added +charm to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art,-- +reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in which +Humboldt cultivates science, and Sismondi history. Nor less +indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we +have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the +problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured +reproduction; or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the +treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. During Crawford's last +visit to America, we accompanied him to examine a portrait of +Washington by Wright. It boasts no elegance of arrangement or +refinement of execution; at a glance it was evident that the artist +had but a limited sense of beauty and lacked imagination; but, on +the other hand, he possessed what, for a sculptor's object,--namely, +facts of form and feature,--is more important,--conscience. +Crawford declared this was the only portrait of Washington which +literally represented his costume; having recently examined the +uniform, sword, etc., he was enabled to identify the strands of the +epaulette, the number of buttons, and even the peculiar seal and +watch-key. A man so faithful to details, so devoted to authenticity, +Crawford argued, was reliable in more essential things. He remarked, +that one of his own greatest difficulties in the equestrian statue +had been to reconcile the shortness of the neck in Stuart's portrait +and Houdon's statue (the body of which was not taken from life) with +the stature of Washington,--there being an anatomical incongruity +therein. "I had determined," he continued, "to follow what the laws +of Nature and all precedent indicate as the right proportion,-- +otherwise it would be impossible to make a graceful and impressive +statue; but in this picture, bearing such remarkable evidence of +authenticity, I find the correct distance between chin and breast." + +American travellers in Italy will sometimes be repelled by a certain +narrowness in the critical estimate of modern sculptors; though of +all arts sculpture demands and justifies the most liberal eclecticism. +Thus, a broad line of demarcation has been arbitrarily drawn between +high finish and prolific invention, originality and superficial skill; +as if these merits could not be united, or were incompatible with +each other,--and that, invariably, works of "outward skill elaborate" +are "of inward less exact." A Boston critic denominates Powers +"a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in +his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is +unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such +subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso +charming creations,--in attitude and feature true to the moment and +the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their +popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his +portrait busts and statues are, in many instances, unrivalled for +character as well as execution. A letter to one of his friends lies +before us, in which he responds to an amicable remonstrance at his +apparent slowness of achievement. The reasoning is so cogent, the +principle asserted of such wide application, and the artistic +conscience so nobly evident, that we venture to quote a passage. + +"It is said, that works designed to adorn buildings need not be done +with much care, being only architectural sculptures. This is quite a +modern idea. The Greeks did not entertain it, as is proved by those +gems which Lord Elgin sawed away from the walls of the Parthenon. I +cannot admit that a noble art should ever be prostituted to purposes +of mere show. They do not make rough columns, coarse and uneven +friezes, jagged mouldings, etc., for buildings. These are always +highly finished. Are figures in marble less important? But speed, +speed, is the order of the day,--'quick and cheap' is the cry; and +if I prefer to linger behind and take pains with the little I do, +there are some now, and there will be more hereafter, to approve it. +I cannot consent to model statues at the rate of three in six months, +and a clear conscience will reward me for not having yielded to the +temptation of making money at the sacrifice of my artistic reputation. +Art is, or should be, poetry, in its various forms,--no matter what +it is written upon,--parchment, paper, canvas, or marble. Milton +employed his daughter to write his 'Paradise Lost,' not to compose it; +her hand was moved by his soul; she was his modelling-tool,--nothing +more. But to employ another to model for you, and go away from him, +is not analogous. He then composes for you; modelling is composition. +And whom did Shakspeare get to do this for him? Whom did Gray employ +to arrange in words that immortal wreath set with diamond thoughts +which he has thrown upon a country churchyard? Whom did Michel +Angelo get to model his Moses? How many young men did Ghiberti employ +during the forty years he was engaged upon the Gates of Paradise? I +cannot yield my convictions of what is proper in Art. I will do my +work as well as I know how, and necessity compels me to demand ample +payment for it." + +We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic philosopher has not +analyzed the vital relation of the arts to each other and given a +popular exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the +antique has long been an acknowledged initiation for the limner, and +Campbell, in his terse description of the histrionic art, says that +therein "verse ceases to be airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb." +How much of their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe +to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean +adopted the "dying fall" of General Abercrombie's figure in St. +Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the memorable scenes and +votaries of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor's art,-- +as, for instance, the last act of "Don Giovanni," wherein the +expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in connection +with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare has +availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting +scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the +"Winter's Tale,"-- + + "Her natural posture! + Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed, + Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she + In thy not chiding: for she was as tender + As infancy and grace." + +Garrick imitated to the life, in "Abel Drugger," a vacant stare +peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was +a devotee of the chisel and adorned Chatsworth with free-stone +Sea-Nymphs. + +Crawford's interest in portrait-busts was secondary, owing to his +inventive ardor; the study he bestowed upon the lineaments of +Washington, however, gave a zest and a special insight to his +endeavor to represent his head in marble, and, accordingly, this +specimen of his ability, which arrived in this country after his +decease, is remarkable for its expressive, original, and finished +character. For ourselves, in view of the great historical value, +comparative authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of +this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm. +The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard +to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the +Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal +development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are +best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has +spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and +distinctness of impression associate most of our illustrious moderns +with their sculptured features: the ironical grimace of Voltaire is +perpetuated by Houdon's bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of +Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's countenance is familiar through +the elaborate chisel of Roubillac; Nollekens moulded Sterne's +delicate and unimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and Chantrey the +lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed the rude but +conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare preserved at +Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is +Albert Duerer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of Alexander +Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of him +by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for +Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in +marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never +more convinced of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of +"counterfeit presentment" than when exploring the Bacioechi _palazzo_ +at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, lighted from above, +and draped as well as carpeted with purple, stood on a simple +pedestal the bust of Napoleon's sister, thus enshrined after death +by her husband. The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated +head against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent emphatic +individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a holy place, where +communion with the departed, so spiritually represented by the +exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our +countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible +excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of +detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and with these, in many cases, +the highest characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute +artistic value, independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck +or Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achievements in this +regard are memorable, and fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty +and meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as +wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which +so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as +the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument +in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the +more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks +melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb? + + "The lips, as Cumae's cavern close, + The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, + The rigid front, almost morose, + But for the patient hope within, + Declare a life whose course hath been + Unsullied still, though still severe, + Which, through the wavering days of sin, + Kept itself icy chaste and clear." + +National characters become, as it were, household gods through the +sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon +seem as appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the +heads of Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images +of Scipio Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in +London. + +There is no phase of modern life so legitimate in its enjoyment and +so pleasing to contemplate as the life of the true artist. Endowed +with a faculty and inspired by a love for creative beauty, work is +to him at once a high vocation and a generous instinct. Imagine the +peace and the progress of those years at Rome when Crawford toiled +day after day in his studio,--at first without encouragement and for +bread, then in a more confident spirit and with some definite triumph, +and at last crowned with domestic happiness and artistic renown,--his +mind filled with ideal tasks more and more grand in their scope, and +the coming years devoted in prospect to the realization of his +noblest aspirations. From early morning to twilight, with rare and +brief interruptions, he thus designed, modelled, chiselled, +superintended, every day adding something permanent to his trophies. +This self-consecration was entire, and in his view indispensable. Few +and simple were the recreative interludes: a reunion of +brother-artists or fellow-countrymen and their families,--an +occasional journey, almost invariably with a professional intent,--a +summer holiday or a winter festival; but, methodical in pastime as +in work, his family and his books were his cherished resources. +Often so weary at night that he returned home only to recline on a +couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable +volume provided by his vigilant companion,--the best energies of his +mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art. +This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or +dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much; +but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of +character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human +experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine of many a +dreamer, the haunt of countless inefficient enthusiasts. But there, +as elsewhere, will must intensify thought, action control imagination, +or both are fruitless. Those melancholy ruins, those grand temples +of religion, the immortal forms and hues that glorify palace and +chapel, square, mausoleum, and Vatican, the dreamy murmur of +fountains, the aroma of violets and pine-trees, the pensive relics +of imperial sway, the sublime desolation of the Campagna, the mystery +of Nature and Art, when both are hallowed by time, the social zest +of an original brotherhood like the artists, the freedom and +loveliness, the ravishment of spring and the soft radiance of sunset, +all that there captivates soul and sense, must be resisted as well +as enjoyed;--self-control, self-respect, self-dedication are as +needful as susceptibility, or these peerless local charms will only +enchant to betray the artist. Crawford carried to Rome the ardor of +an Irish temperament and the vigor of an American character. +Hundreds have passed through a like ordeal of privation, ungenial +because conventional work, and slow approach to the goal of +recognized power and remunerated sacrifice; but few have emerged +from the shadow to the sunshine, by such manly steps and patient, +cheerful trust. It was not the voice of complaint that first +attracted towards him intelligent sympathy,--it was brave achievement; +and from the day when a remittance from Boston enabled him to put +his Orpheus in marble, to the day when, attended by his devoted +sister, he paid the last visit to his crowded studio, and looked, +with quivering eyelids, but firm heart, on the silent but eloquent +offspring of his brain and hand, the Artist in him was coincident +with the Man,--clear, unswerving, productive, the sphere extending, +the significance multiplying, and the mastery becoming more and more +complete through resolute practice, vivid intuition, and candid +search for truth. + +In the fifteenth century, and earlier, the lives of artists were +adventurous; political relations gave scope to incident; and Michel +Angelo, Salvator Rosa, and Benvenuto Cellini furnish almost as many +anecdotes as memorials of genius. In modern times, however, +vicissitude has chiefly diversified the uniform and tranquil +existence of the artist; his struggles with fortune, and not his +relations to public events, have given external interest to his +biography. It is the mental rather than the outward life which is +fraught with significance to the painter and sculptor; consciousness +more than experience affords salient points in his career. How the +executive are trained to embody the creative powers, through what +struggles dexterity is attained, and by what reflection and earnest +musing and observant patience and blest intuitions original +achievements glimmer upon the fancy, grow mature by thought, correct +through the study of Nature, and are finally realized in action,-- +these and such as these inward revelations constitute the actual +life of the artist. The mere events of Crawford's existence are +neither marvellous nor varied; his early love of imitative pastime, +his fixed purpose, his resort to stone-cutting as the nearest +available expedient for the gratification of that instinct to copy +and create form which so decidedly marks an aptitude for sculpture, +his visit to Rome, the self-denial and the lonely toil of his +novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and +his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise +enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity. +Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to +these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his +professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost +as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel +therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal +interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as +the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of +his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, he +long occupied an isolated position. The qualities of the man,--his +patient industry,--the new and unexpected superiority in different +branches of his art, so constantly exhibited,--the loyal, generous, +and frank spirit of his domestic and social life,--the freedom, the +faith, and the assiduity that endeared him to so large and +distinguished a circle, were individual claims often noted by +foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his +country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now +cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a +musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with +sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of +fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every +nation of Europe was represented, and the most illustrious of living +English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to +his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently +contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of +his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as +insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of +its victims,--by no violent epidemic, like those which have again +and again devastated the cities of Europe,--by no illusive decline, +whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations, +and which, in that soft clime, has peopled with the dust of +strangers the cemetery which the pyramid of Cestius overshadows and +the heart of Shelley consecrates,--by none of these familiar gates +of death did Crawford pass on; but, in the meridian of his powers +and his fame, in the climax of his artistic career, in the noontide +of his most genial activity, a corrosive tumor on the inner side of +the orbit of the eye encroached month by month, week by week, hour +by hour, upon the sources of life. Medical skill freed the brain +from its deadly pressure, but could not divert its organic affinity. +The mind's integrity was thus preserved intact; consciousness and +self-possession lent their dignity to waning strength; but the alert +muscles were relaxed; the busy hands folded in prayer; what Michel +Angelo uttered in his eighty-sixth Crawford was called upon to echo +in his forty-fifth year:-- + + "Wellnigh the voyage now is overpast, + And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude, + Draws nigh that common haven where at last, + Of every action, be it evil or good, + Must due account be rendered. Well I know + How vain will then appear that favored art, + Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart; + For all is vain that man desires below." + +The cheerful voice was often hushed by pain; but conjugal and +sisterly love kept vigil, a long, a bitter year, by that couch of +suffering in the heart of multitudinous Paris and London; hundreds +of sympathizing friends, in both hemispheres, listened and prayed +and hoped through a dreary twelvemonth. With the ripe autumn closed +the quiet struggle; and "in the bleak December" the mortal remains +were followed from the temple where his youth worshipped, to the +snow-clad knoll at Greenwood; garlands and tears, the ritual and the +requiem, eulogy and elegy, consecrated the final scene. By a singular +coincidence, the news of his decease reached the United States +simultaneously with the arrival of the ship in James River with the +colossal bronze statue of Washington, his crowning achievement. + +One would imagine, from the eagerness and intensity exhibited by +Crawford, that he anticipated a brief career. Work seemed as +essential to his comfort as rest is to less determined natures. He +was a thorough believer in the moral necessity of absolute +allegiance to his sphere; and differed from his brother-artists +chiefly in the decisive manner in which he kept aloof from extrinsic +and incidental influences. If Art ever made labor delectable, it was +so with him. He seemed to go through with the ordinary processes of +life with but a half consciousness thereof,--save where his personal +affections were concerned. One of the first works for which he +expressed a sympathetic admiration was Thorwaldsen's "Triumph of +Alexander,"--one of the most elaborate and suggestive of modern +friezes. He early contemplated an entire series of illustrations of +Ovid. He alternated, with infinite relish, between the extreme phases +of his art,--a delicate Peri and a majestic Colossus, an extensive +array of basso rilievo figures, a sublime ideal of manhood and an +exquisite image of infancy. His alacrity of temper was co-equal with +his steadiness of purpose; and the cheerfulness of an active mind, +sanguine temperament, and great nervous energy did not abandon him, +even in the state of forced passivity so intolerable to such habitude; +for hilarious words and, once or twice, the old ringing laugh +startled the fond watchers of his declining hours. The events of his +life are but a few expressive outlines; his works embody his most +real experience; and the thoughts and feelings, the observation and +the sentiment, not therein moulded or sketched, happily found +adequate record in the ample and ingenuous letters he wrote to his +beloved sister, from the time of his first arrival in Europe to that +of his last arrival in America,--embracing a period of twenty-two +years. Each work he conceived and executed, each process of study, +the impressions he gained and the convictions at which he arrived in +relation to ancient and modern art,--each journey, achievement, plan, +opinion,--what he saw, and imagined, and hoped, and did,--was +frankly and fondly noted; and the time may come when these epistles, +inspired by love and dictated by intelligent sympathy and insight, +will be compiled into a priceless memorial of artist-life. + + + + +ASIRVADAM THE BRAHMIN. + +Who put together the machinery of the great Indian revolt, and set +it going? Who stirred up the sleeping tiger in the Sepoy's heart, +and struck Christendom aghast with the dire devilries of Meerut and +Cawnpore? + +Asirvadam the Brahmin! + +Asirvadam is nimble with mace or cue; at the billiard-table, it is +hinted, he can distinguish a kiss from a carom; at the sideboard +(and here, if I were Mr. Charles Reade, I would whisper, in small +type) he confounds not cocktails with cobblers; when, being in trade, +he would sell you saltpetre, he tries you with flax-seed; when he +would buy indigo, he offers you indigo at a sacrifice. Yet, in +Asirvadam, if any quality is more noticeable than the sleek +respectability of the Baboo, it is the jealous orthodoxy of the +Brahmin. If he knows in what presence to step out of his slippers, +and when to pick them up again with his toes, in jaunty dandyisms of +etiquette, he also makes the most of his insolent order and its +patent of privilege, and wears the rue of his triple cord with a +demure and dignified difference. High, low, or jack, it is always +"the game" with him; and the game is--Asirvadam the Brahmin,--free +tricks and Brahmins' rights,--Asirvadam for his caste, and +everything for Asirvadam. + +The natural history of our astute and accomplished friend is worth a +page or two. And first, as to his color. Asirvadam comes from the +northern provinces, and calls the snow-turbaned Himalayas cousin; +consequently his complexion is the brightest among Brahmins. By some +who are uninitiated in the chemical mysteries of our metropolitan +milk-trade, it has been likened to chocolate and cream, with plenty +of cream; but the comparison depends, for the idea it conveys, so +much on the taste of the ethnological inquirer, as to the proportion +of cream, and still so much more, as in the case of Mr. Weller's +weal pies, on the reputation of "the lady as makes it," that it will +hardly serve the requirements of a severe scientific statement. +Copper-color has an excess of red, and sepia is too brown; the tarry +tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even +that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, +and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits +of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time +being. The flipper of your legitimate shiver-my-timbery old salt, +whose most amiable office is piping all hands to witness punishment, +has long since acquired the hue of a seven-years' meerschaum; while +the dandy cockswain of a forty-gun frigate lying off the navy-yard, +who brings the third cutter ship-shapely alongside with a pretty +girl in the stern-sheets, lends her--the pretty girl--a hand at the +gangway, that has been softened by fastidious applications of +solvent slush to the tint of a long envelope "on public service." +"Law sheep," when we come to the binding of books, is too sallow for +this simile; a little volume of "Familiar Quotations," in limp calf, +(Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855,) might answer,--if the cover of the +January number of the "Atlantic Monthly" were not exactly the thing. + +Simplicity, convenience, decorum, and picturesqueness distinguish +the costume of Asirvadam the Brahmin. Three yards of yard-wide fine +cotton cloth envelope his loins, in such a manner, that, while one +end hangs in graceful folds in front, the other falls in a fine +distraction behind. Over this, a robe of muslin, or silk, or pina +cloth--the latter in peculiar favor, by reason of its superior purity, +for high-caste wear--covers his neck, breast, and arms, and descends +nearly to his ankles. Asirvadam borrowed this garment from the +Mussulman; but he fastens it on the left side, which the follower of +the Prophet never does, and surmounts it with an ample and elegant +waistband, beside the broad Romanesque mantle that he tosses over +his shoulder with such a senatorial air. His turban, also, is an +innovation,--not proper to the Brahmin,--pure and simple, but, like +the robe, adopted from the Moorish wardrobe, for a more imposing +appearance in Sahib society. It is formed of a very narrow strip, +fifteen or twenty yards long, of fine stuff, moulded to the orthodox +shape and size by wrapping it, while wet, on a wooden block; having +been hardened in the sun, it is worn like a hat. As for his feet, +Asirvadam, uncompromising in externals, disdains to pollute them +with the touch of leather. Shameless fellows, Brahmins though they be, +of the sect of Vishnu, go about, without a blush, in thonged sandals, +made of abominable skins; but Asirvadam, strict as a Gooroo when the +eyes of his caste are on him, is immaculate in wooden clogs. + +In ornaments, his taste, though somewhat grotesque, is by no means +lavish. A sort of stud or button, composed of a solitary ruby, in +the upper rim of the cartilage of either ear,--a chain of gold, +curiously wrought, and intertwined with a string of small pearls, +around his neck,--a massive bangle of plain gold on his arm,--a +richly jewelled ring on his thumb, and others, broad and shield-like, +on his toes,--complete his outfit in these vanities. + +As often as Asirvadam honors us with his morning visit of business +or ceremony, a slight yellow line, drawn horizontally between his +eyebrows, with a paste composed of ground sandal-wood, denotes that +he has purified himself externally and internally, by bathing and +prayers. To omit this, even by the most unavoidable chance to appear +in public without it, were to incur a grave public scandal; only +excepting the reason of mourning, when, by an expressive Oriental +figure, the absence of the caste-mark is accepted for the token of a +profound and absorbing sorrow, which takes no thought even for the +customary forms of decency. The disciple of Siva crossbars his +forehead with ashes of cow-dung or ashes of the dead; the sectary of +Vishnu adorns his with a sort of trident, composed of a central +perpendicular line in red, and two oblique lines, white or yellow. +But the true Brahmin knows no Siva or Vishnu, no sectarian +distinctions or preferences; Indra has set no seal upon his brow, nor +Krishna, nor Devendra. For, ignoring celestial personalities, it is +the Trimurti that he grandly adores,--Creation, Preservation, +Destruction triune,--one body with three heads; and the right line +alone, or _pottu_, the mystic circle, describes the sublime +simplicity of his soul's aspiration. + +When Asirvadam was but seven years old, he was invested with the +triple cord, by a grotesque, and in most respects absurd, extravagant, +and expensive ceremony, called the _Upanayana_, or Introduction to +the Sciences, because none but Brahmins are freely admitted to their +mysteries. This triple cord consists of three thick strands of cotton, +each composed of several finer threads; these three strands, +representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, are not twisted together, but +hang separately, from the left shoulder to the right hip. The +preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest +hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies. +Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card +and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great +cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions +from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of +priests and masters of ceremonies. + +It is a noticeable fact in the natural history of the always +insolent Asirvadam, that, unlike Shatriya, the warrior, Vaishya, the +cultivator, or Soodra, the laborer, he is not born into the full +enjoyment of his honors, but, on the contrary, is scarcely of more +consideration than a Pariah, until by the Upanayana he has been +admitted to his birthright. Yet, once decorated with the ennobling +badge of his order, our friend became from that moment something +superior, something exclusive, something supercilious, arrogant, +exacting,--Asirvadam, the high Brahmin,--a creature of wide strides +without awkwardness, towering airs without bombast, Sanscrit +quotations without pedantry, florid phraseology without hyperbole, +allegorical illustrations and proverbial points without +sententiousness, fanciful flights without affectation, and formal +strains of compliment without offensive adulation. + +When Asirvadam meets Asirvadam in the way, compliments pass: each +touches his forehead with his right hand, and murmurs twice the +auspicious name of Rama. But the passing Vaishya or Soodra elevates +reverently his joined palms above his head, and, stepping out of his +slippers, salutes the descendant of the Seven Holy Penitents with +_namaskaram_, the pious obeisance. _Andam arya_! "Hail, exalted +Lord!" he cries; and the exalted lord, extending the pure lilies of +his hands lordliwise, as one who condescends to accept an humble +offering, mutters the mysterious benediction which only Gooroos and +high Brahmins may bestow,--_Asirvadam_! + +The low-caste slave who may be admitted to the distinguished +presence of our friend, to implore indulgence, or to supplicate +pardon for an offence, must thrice touch the ground, or the honored +feet, with both his hands, which immediately he lays upon his +forehead; and there are occasions of peculiar humiliation which +require the profound prostration of the _sashtangam_, or abasement of +the eight members, wherein the suppliant extends himself face +downward on the earth, with palms joined above his head. + +If Asirvadam--having concluded a visit in which he has deferentially +reminded me of the peculiar privilege I enjoy in being admitted to +social converse with so select a being--is about to withdraw the +light of his presence, he retires backward, with many humbly gracious +salaams. If, on the other hand, I have had the honor to be his +distinguished guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking +my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, +that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, +so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares +me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from +mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, +who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to +Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning or the end of +that. + +When Asirvadam crosses my threshold, he leaves his slippers at the +door. I am flattered by the act into a self-appreciative complacency, +until I discover that he thereby simply puts me on a level with his +cow. When he converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and +gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his +hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding, +forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one, +the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,--forgetting that he +is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from +his palanquin,--to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons +the broad highway,--the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted +of men, and adored of himself,--Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +"They, the Brahmin Asirvadam, to him, Phaldasana, who is obedient, +who is true, who has every faithful quality, who knows how to serve +with cheerfulness, to submit in silence, who by the excellent +services he renders the Brahmins has become like unto the stone +Chintamani, the bringer of good, who by the number and variety and +acceptableness of his gifts shall attain, without further trials, to +the paradise of Indra: _Asirvadam_! + +"The year Vikarj, the tenth of the month Phalguna: we are at Benares +in good health; bring us word of thine. It shall be thy privilege to +make sashtangam at the feet--which are the true lilies of Nilufar-- +of us the Lord Brahmin, who are endowed with all the virtues and all +the sciences, who are great as Mount Meru, to whom belongs +illustrious knowledge of the four Vedas, the splendor of whose +beneficence is as the noon-flood of the sun, who are renowned +throughout the fourteen worlds, whom the fourteen worlds admire. + +"Having received with both hands that which we have abased ourself +by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head, +thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful +alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict +letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened +to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our +presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed, +thine eyes cast down,--thou who art as though thou wert not,--until +we shall vouchsafe to perceive thee. And when thou hast obtained our +leave, then, and not sooner, shalt thou make sashtangam at our +blessed feet, which are the pure flowers of Nilufar, and with many +lowly kisses shalt lay down before them thy unworthy offering,--ten +rupees, as thou knowest,--more, if thou art wise,--less, if thou +darest. + +"This is all we have to say to thee. _Asirvadam_!" + +In the epistolary style of Asirvadam the Brahmin we are at a loss +which to admire most,--the flowers or the force, the modesty or the +magnificence. + +Among the cloistral cells of the women's quarter, which surround the +inner court of Asirvadam's domestic establishment, is a dark and +narrow chamber which is the domain of woman's rights. It is called +"the Room of Anger," because, when the wife of the bosom has been +tempted by inveigling box-wallahs with a love of a pink coortee, or +a pair of chased bangles, "such darlings, and so cheap," and has +conceived a longing for the same, her way is, without a word +beforehand, to go shut herself up in the Room of Anger, and pout and +sulk till she gets them; and seeing that the wife of the bosom is +also the pure concocter of the Brahminical curry and server of the +Brahminical rice, that she is the goddess of the sacred kitchen and +high-priestess of pots and pans, it is easy to see that her success +is certain. Poor little brown fool! that twelve feet square of +curious custom is all, of the world-wide realm of beauty and caprice, +that she can call her own. + +When the enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the +lover's presents,--the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the +loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the +fruits,--the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal +lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of +his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not +eat,--she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, +nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, +she does not dream,--she feeds. + +Around her neck a strange ornament of gold, having engraved upon it +the likeness of Lakshmee, is suspended by a consecrated string of +one hundred and eight threads of extreme fineness, dyed yellow with +saffron. This is the Tahli, the wife's badge,--"Asirvadam the Brahmin, +his chattel." They brought it to her on a silver salver garnished +with flowers, she sitting with her betrothed on a great cushion; and +ten Brahmins, holding around the happy pair a screen of silk, +invoked for them the favor of the three divine couples,--Brahma with +Sarawastee, Vishnu with Lakshmee, Siva with Paravatee. Then they +offered incense, to the Tahli, and a sacrifice of fire, and they +blessed it with many mantras, or holy texts; and as the bride turned +her to the east, and fixed her inmost thought on the "Great Mountain +of the North," Asirvadam the Brahmin clasped his collar on her neck, +never to be loosened till he, dying, shall leave her to be burned, +or spurned. + +No man, when he meets Asirvadam the Brahmin, presumes to ask, +"How is the little brown fool today?" No man, when he visits him, +ventures to inquire if she is at home; it is not the etiquette. +Should the little brown fool, having a mind of her own, and being +resolved not to endure this any longer, suddenly make Asirvadam +ridiculous some day, the etiquette is to hush it up among their +friends. + +As Raja, the warrior, sprang from the right arm of Brahma, and +Vaishya, the cultivator, from his belly, and Soodra, the laborer, +from his feet,--so Asirvadam the Brahmin was conceived in the head +and brought forth from the mouth of the Creator; and he is above the +others by so much as the head is above arms, belly, and feet; he is +wiser than the others, inasmuch as he has lain among the thoughts of +the god, has played with his inventions, and made excursions through +the universe with his speech. Therefore, if it be true, as some say, +that Asirvadam is an ant-hill of lies, he is also a snake's-nest of +wisdom, and a beehive of ingenuity. Let him be respected, for his +rights are plain. + +It is his right to be taught the Vedas and the mantras, all the +tongues of India, and the sciences; to marry a child-wife, no matter +how old he may be,--or a score of wives, if he be a Kooleen Brahmin, +so that he may drive a lively business in the way of dowries; to +peruse the books of magic, and perform the awful sacrifice of the +Yajna; to receive presents without limit, levy taxes without law, +and beg with insolence. + +It is his duty to study diligently; to conform rigorously to the +rules of his caste; to honor and obey his superiors without question +or hesitation; to insult his inferiors, for the magnifying of his +office; to get him a wife without loss of time, and a male child by +all means. During his religious minority he is expected to bathe and +sacrifice twice a day, to abstain from adorning his forehead or his +breast with sandal, to wear no flowers in his hair, to chew no betel, +to regard himself in no mirrors. + +Under Hindoo law, which is his own law, Asirvadam the Brahmin pays no +taxes, tolls, or duties; corporal punishment can in no case be +inflicted upon him; if he is detected in defalcation or the taking +of bribes, partial restitution is the worst penalty that can befall +him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite +his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe, +is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a +monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is +as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your +portion with Karta, the Fox, as the good Abbe Dubois relates. + +"Karta, Karta!" screamed an Ape, one day, when he saw a fox feeding +on a rotten carcass, "thou must, in a former life, have committed +some dreadful crime, to be doomed to a new state in which thou +feedest on such garbage." + +"Alas!" replied the Fox, "I am not punished more severely than I +deserve. I was once a man, and then I promised something to a Brahmin, +which I never gave him. That is the true cause of my being +regenerated in this shape. Some good works, which I did have, won for +me the indulgence of remembering what I was in my former state, and +the cause for which I have been degraded into this." + +Asirvadam has choice of a hundred callings, as various in dignity +and profit as they are numerous. Under native rule he makes a good +cooly, because the officers of the revenue are forbidden to search a +Brahmin's baggage, or anything that he carries. He is an expeditious +messenger, for no man may stop him; and he can travel cheaply for +whom there is free entertainment on every road. "For the belly one +will play many tricks"; and Asirvadam, in financial straits, may +teach dancing to nautch-girls; or he may play the mountebank or the +conjurer, and with a stock of mantras and charms proceed to the +curing of murrain in cattle, pip in chickens, and short-windedness +in old women,--at the same time telling fortunes, calculating +nativities, finding lost treasure, advising as to journeys and +speculations, and crossing out crosses in love for any pretty dear +who will cross the poor Brahmin's palm with a rupee. He may engage +in commercial pursuits; and in that case, his bulling and bearing at +the opium-sales will put Wall Street to the blush. He may turn his +attention to the healing art; and allopathically, homoeopathically, +hydropathically, electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck +through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of +charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the +army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the +shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making +mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, +fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, +he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,--sleekest of lackeys, most +servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of +hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most +versatile of adventurers, most inventive of charlatans, most +restless of schemers, most insidious of jesuits, most treacherous of +confidants, falsest of friends, hardest of masters, most arrogant of +patrons, cruelest of tyrants, most patient of haters, most +insatiable of avengers, most gluttonous of ravishers, most infernal +of devils,--pleasantest of fellows. + +Superlatively dainty as to his fopperies of orthodoxy, Asirvadam is +continually dying of Pariah roses in aromatic pains of caste. If in +his goings and comings one of the "lilies of Nilufar" should chance +to stumble upon a bit of bone or rag, a fragment of a dish, or a +leaf from which some one has eaten,--should his sacred raiment be +polluted by the touch of a dog or a Pariah,--he is ready to faint, +and only a bath can revive him. He may not touch his sandals with +his hand, nor repose in a strange seat, but is provided with a mat, +a carpet, or an antelope's skin, to serve him for a cushion in the +houses of his friends. With a kid glove you may put his +respectability in peril, and with your patent-leather pumps affright +his soul within him. To him a pocket-handkerchief is a sore offence, +and a tooth-pick monstrous. All the Vedas could not save the Giaour +who "chews"; nor burnt brandy, though the Seven Penitents distilled +it, purify the mouth that a tooth-brush has polluted. Beware how you +offer him a wafered letter; and when you present him with a copy of +your travels, let it be bound in cloth. + +He has the Mantalini idiosyncrasy as to dem'd unpleasant bodies; and +when he hears that his mother is dead, he straight-way jumps into a +bath with his clothes on. Many mantras and much holy-water, together +with incense of sandal-wood, and other perfumery, regardless of +expense, can alone relieve his premises of the deadness of his wife. + +For a Soodra even to look upon the earthen vessels wherein his rice +is boiled implies the necessity of a summary smash of the infected +crockery; and his kitchen is his holy of holies. When he eats, the +company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent +thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a +complexity of dangers;--a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might +have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have +turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and +impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his +repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous +duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the +heaven of his mouth. When he would quench his thirst, he disdains to +apply the earth-born beaker to his lips, but lets the water fall +into his solemn swallow from on high,--a pleasant feat to see, and +one which, like a whirling dervis, diverts you by its agility, while +it impresses you by its devotion. + +It is easy to perceive, that, if our friend Asirvadam were not one +of the "Young Bengal" lights who do not fash themselves with trifles, +his orthodox sensibilities would be subjected to so many and gross +affronts from the indiscriminate contacts of a mixed community, that +he would shortly be compelled to take refuge in one of those +Arcadias of the triple cord, called _Agragramas_, where pure +Brahmins are met in all the exclusiveness of high caste, and where +the more a man rubs against his neighbor the more he is sanctified. +True, the Soodras have an irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at +the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra +when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are +saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers. + +There was once a foolish Brahmin, to whom a rich and charitable +merchant presented two pieces of cloth, the finest that had ever +been seen in the Agragrama. He showed them to the other Brahmins, +who all congratulated him on so fortunate an acquisition; they told +him it was the reward of some deed that he had done in a previous +life. Before putting them on, he washed them, according to custom, +in order to purify them from the pollution of the weaver's touch, +and hung them up to dry, with the ends fastened to two branches of a +tree. Presently a dog, happening to pass that way, ran under them, +and the Brahmin could not decide whether the unclean beast was tall +enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who +were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to +settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him. +Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog, +he crawled under the precious cloths. + +"Did I touch it?" + +"No!" cried all the children; and his soul was filled with joy. + +But the next moment the terrible conviction took possession of his +mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing +under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement +must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He +called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his +breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then +resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth, +and conscientiously, and anxiously, wagged. + +"A touch! a touch!" cried all the children, and the Brahmin groaned, +for he knew that his beautiful raiment was ruined. Thrice he wagged, +and thrice the children cried, "A touch! a touch!" + +So the strict Brahmin leaped to his feet, in a frightful rage, and, +tearing the precious cloth from the tree, rent it in a hundred shreds, +while he cursed the abominable dog and the master that owned him. +And the children admired and were edified, and they whispered among +themselves,-- + +"Now, surely, it behooveth us to take heed to our ways, for our +father is particular." + +Moral: And the Brahmin winked. + +The Samaradana is an institution for which our friend Asirvadam +entertains peculiar veneration. This is simply an abundant feast of +Brahminical good things, to which the "fat and greasy citizens" of +the caste are bidden by some zealous or manoeuvring Soodra,--on +occasion of the dedication of a temple, perhaps, or in a season of +drought, or when a malign constellation is to be averted, or to +celebrate the birth or marriage of some exalted personage. From all +the country round about, the Brahmins flock to the feasting, singing +Sanscrit hymns and obscene songs, and shouting, _Hara! hara! Govinda!_ +The low fellow who has the honor to entertain so select a company is +not suffered to seat himself in the midst of his guests, much less +to partake of the viands he has been permitted to provide; but in +consideration of his "deed of exalted merit," and his expensive +appreciation of the beauties and advantages of high-caste society, +as expressed in all the delicacies of the season, he may come, when +the last course has been discussed, and, prostrating himself in the +sashtangam posture, receive the unanimous asirvadam of the company. + +If, in taking leave of his august guests, he should also signify his +sense of the honor they have done him, by presenting each with a +piece of cloth or a sum of money, he is assured that he is altogether +superior in mind and person to the gods, and that, if he is wise, he +will not neglect to remind his friends of his munificence by another +exhibition of it within a reasonable time. + +In the creed of Asirvadam the Brahmin, the drinker of strong drink +is a Pariah, and the eater of cow's flesh is damned already. If, then, +he can tell a cocktail from a cobbler, and scientifically +discriminate between a julep and a gin-sling, it must be because the +Vedas are unclasped to him; for in the Vedas all things are taught. +It is of Asirvadam's father that the story is told, how, when a fire +broke out in his house once, and all the pious neighbors ran to +rescue his effects, the first articles saved were a tub of pickled +pork and a jar of arrack. But this, also, no doubt, is the malicious +invention of some satirical rogue of a Soodra. Asirvadam, as is well +known, recoils with horror from the abomination of eating aught that +has once lived and moved and had a being; but if, remembering that, +you should seek to fill his soul with consternation by inviting him +to inspect a fig under a microscope, he would quietly advise you to +break your nasty glass and "go it blind." + +But there is one custom which Asirvadam the Brahmin observes in +common with the Pariah, and that is the solemn ceremonial of Death. +When his time comes, he dies, is burned, and presently forgotten; +and it is a consolation for his ever having been at all, that some +one is sure to be the richer and happier and freer for his ceasing +to be. True, he may assume new earthly conditions, may pass into +other vexatious shapes of life; but the change must ever be for the +better in respect of the interests of those who have suffered by the +powers and capabilities of the shape which he relinquishes. He may +become a snake; but then he is easily scotched, or fooled out of his +fangs with a cunning charmer's tom-tom;--he may pass into the foul +feathers of an indiscriminately gluttonous adjutant-bird; but some +day a bone will choke him;--his soul may creep under the mangy skin +of a Pariah dog, and be kicked out of compounds by scullions; he may +be condemned to the abominable offices of a crow at the burning +ghauts, a jackal by the wells of Thuggee, or a rat in sewers; but he +can never again be such a nuisance, such a sore offence to the minds +and hearts of men, as when he was Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +Fortunate indeed will he be, if the low, deep curses of all whom he +has oppressed, betrayed, insulted, shall not have availed against +him in his last hour. "Mayest thou never have a friend to lay thee +on the ground when thou diest!"--no imprecation so fierce, so fell, +as that; even Asirvadam the Brahmin abates his cruel greed, when +some poor Soodra client, bled of his last anna, thinks of his sick +wife, and the darling cow that must be sold at last, and grows +desperate. "Mayest thou have no wife to sprinkle the spot with +cow-dung where thy corpse shall lie, and to spread the unspotted +cloth; nor any cow, her horns tipped with rings of brass, and her +neck garlanded with flowers, to lead thee, holding by her tail, +through pleasant paths to the land of Yama! May no Purohita come to +strew thy bier with the holy herb, nor any next of kin be near to +whisper the last mantra!" + +Horrid Soodra! But though thy words make the soul of Asirvadam shiver, +they are but the voice of a dog, after all, and nothing can come of +them. Asirvadam the Brahmin has raised up lusty boys to himself, as +every good Brahmin should; and they shall bind together his thumbs +and his great toes, and lay him on the ground, when his hour is come,-- +lest the bed or the mat cling to his ghost, whithersoever it go, and +torment it eternally. His wife shall spread beneath him a cloth that +the hands of Kooleen Brahmins have woven. Lilies of Nilufar shall +garland the neck of the happy cow that is to lead him safely beyond +the fiery river, and the rings shall be golden wherewith her horns +are tipped. A mighty concourse of clients shall follow him to the +place of burning,--to "Rudra, the place of tears,"--whither ten +Kooleen Brahmins will bear him; and as often as they set down the +bier to feed the dead with a morsel of moistened rice, other +Brahmins shall sing his wisdom and his virtues, and celebrate his +meritorious deeds. When his funeral pyre is lighted, his sons, and +his sons' sons, and his daughters' husbands, and his nephews, shall +beat their breasts and rend the air with lamentations; and when his +body has been consumed, his ashes shall be given to the Ganges,--all +save a certain portion, which shall be made into a paste with milk, +and moulded into an image; and the image shall be set up in his house, +that the Brahmins and all his people may offer sacrifices before it. + +On the tenth day, his wife shall adorn her forehead with a scarlet +emblem, blacken the edges of her eyelids with soorma, deck her hair +with scarlet flowers, her neck and bosom with sandal, stain her face, +arms, and legs with turmeric, and array her in her choicest robes +and all her jewels, and follow her eldest son, in full procession, +to the tank hard by the "land of Rudra." And the heir shall take +three little stones, that were planted there in a row by the +Purohitas, and, going down into the water as deep as his neck, shall +turn his face to the sun and say, "Until this day these three stones +have stood for my father, that is dead. Henceforth let him cease to +be a carcass; let him enter into the joys of Swarga, the paradise of +Devendra, to be blessed with all conceivable blessings so long as +the waters of Ganges shall continue to flow;--so shall the dead +Brahmin not prowl through the universe, afflicting with evil tricks +stars, men, and trees; so shall he be laid." + +But who shall lay the quick Asirvadam, than whom there walks not a +sprite more cunning, more malign? + +Ever since the Solitaries, odious by their black arts to princes and +people, were slain or driven out,--fifteen centuries and more,-- +Asirvadam the Brahmin has been selfish, wicked, and mischievously +busy,--corrupting the hearts, bewildering the minds, betraying the +hopes, exhausting the moral and physical strength of the Hindoos. He +has taught them the foolish tumult of the Hooly, the fanatical +ferocities of the Yajna, the unwhisperable obscenities of the Saktis, +the fierce and ruinous extravagances of the Doorga Pooja, the +mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of +the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious +debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of +Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,--all the +fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral +epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or a Cawnpore. + +Of the outrageous insolence of the Seven Penitents he omits nothing +but their sincerity; of the enlightened simplicity of the anchoret +philosophers he retains nothing but their selfishness; of the +intellectual influence of the Gooroo pontiffs he covets nothing but +their dissimulation. He has taught his gaping disciples that a +skilfully compounded and plausibly administered lie is a goodly thing,-- +except it be told against the cause of a Brahmin, in which case no +oxyhydrogeneralities of earthly combustion can afford an idea of the +particular hotness of the hell devised for such a liar. He has +solemnly impressed them with the mysterious sacredness of the Ganges, +and its manifold virtues of a supernatural order; to swear falsely +by its waters, he says, is a crime for which Indra the Dreadful has +provided an eternity of excruciations,--except the false oath be +taken in the interest of a Brahmin, in which case the perjurer may +confidently expect a posthumous good time. For the rich to extort +money from the poor, says Asirvadam, is an affront to the Gooroos +and the Gods, which must be punished by forfeiture to the Brahmins +of the whole sum extorted, the poor client to pay an additional +charge for the trouble his protectors have incurred; the same when +fines are recovered; and in cases of enforced payment of debts, +three-fourths of the sum collected are swallowed up in costs. Being +a Brahmin, to pay a bribe is a foolish act; to receive one--a +necessary circumstance, perhaps. Not being a Brahmin, to offer or +accept a bribe is a disgraceful transaction, requiring that both +parties shall be made an example of;--the bribe is forfeited to the +Brahmins, and the poorer party fined; if the fine exceed his means, +the richer party to pay the excess. + +As the Brahminical interpretation of an oath is not always clear to +prisoners and witnesses of other castes, it is usual to illustrate +the definition to the obtuser or more scrupulous unfortunates by the +old-fashioned machinery of ordeals: such as compelling the +conscientious or obdurate inquirer to promenade without sandals over +burning coals; or to grasp, and hold for a time, a bar of red-hot +iron; or to plunge the hands into boiling oil, and keep them there +for several minutes. The party receiving these illustrations and +practical definitions of the Brahminical nature of an oath, without +discomfort or scar, is frankly adjudged innocent and reasonable. + +Another pretty trick of ordeal, which borrows its more striking +features from the department of natural history, is that in which +the prisoner or witness is required to grope about for a trinket or +small coin in a basket or jar already occupied by a lively cobra. +Should the groper not be bitten, our courtly friend, Asirvadam, is +satisfied there has been some mistake here, and gallantly begs the +gentleman's pardon. To force the subject to swallow water, cup by cup, +until it burst from mouth and nose, is also a very neat ordeal, but +requiring practice. + +Formerly, Asirvadam the Brahmin "farmed" the offences of his district;-- +that is, he paid a certain sum to government for the right to try, +and to punish, all the high crimes and misdemeanors that should be +committed in his "section" for a year. Of course, fines were his +favorite penalties; and although most of the time, expenses for +meddlers and perjurers being heavy, the office did not pay more than +a fair living profit, there would now and then come a year when, +rice being scarce and opium cheap, with the aid of a little extra +exasperation, he cut it pretty fat. "Take it year in and year out," +said Asirvadam the Brahmin, "a fellow couldn't complain." + +Asirvadam the Brahmin is among the Sepoys. He sits by the well of +Barrackpore, a comrade on either side, and talks, as only he can +talk to whom no books are sealed. To one, a rigid statue of thrilled +attention, he speaks of the time when Arab horsemen first made +flashing forays down upon Mooltan; he tells of Mahmoud's mace, that +clove the idol of Somnath, and of the gold and gems that burst from +the treacherous wood, as water from the smitten rock in the +wilderness; he tells of Timour, and Baber the Founder, and the long +imperial procession of the Great Moguls,--of Humayoon, and Akbar, +and Shah Jehan, and Aurengzebe,--of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan,-- +of Moorish splendor and the Prophet's sway; and the swarthy Mussulman +stiffens in lip-parted listening. + +To the other, a fiery enthusiast, fretting for the acted moral of a +tale he knows too well, he whispers of British blasphemy and +insolence,--of Brahmins insulted, and gods derided,--of Vedas +violated, and the sacred Sanscrit defiled by the tongues of +Kaffirs,--of Pariahs taught and honored,--of high and low castes +indiscriminately mingled, an obscene herd, in schools and regiments,-- +of glorious institutions, old as Mount Meru, boldly overthrown,--of +suttee suppressed, and infanticide abated,--of widows re-married, +and the dowries of the brides of Brahmins limited,--of high-caste +students handling dead bodies, and Soodra beggars drinking from +Brahminical wells,--of the triple cord broken in twain, and +Brahminee bulls slain in the streets, and cartridges greased with the +fat of cows, and Christian converts indemnified, and property not +confiscated for loss of caste,--and a frightful falling off in the +benighting business generally; and the fierce Rajpoot grinds his +white teeth, while Asirvadam the Brahmin plots, and plots, and plots. + +Incline your ears, my brothers, and I will sing you softly, and low, +a song to make Moor and Rajpoot bite, with their very hearts: + +"Bring Soma to the adorable Indra, the lord of all, the lord of +wealth, the lord of heaven, the perpetual lord, the lord of men, the +lord of earth, the lord of horses, the lord of cattle, the lord of +water!" + +"Offer adoration to Indra, the overcomer, the destroyer, the +munificent, the invincible, the all-endowing, the creator, the +all-adorable, the sustainer, the unassailable, the ever-victorious!" + +"I proclaim the mighty exploits of that Indra who is ever victorious, +the benefactor of man, the overthrower of man, the caster-down, the +warrior, who is gratified by our libations, the grantor of desires, +the subduer of enemies, the refuge of the people!" + +"Unequalled in liberality, the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, +profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of +prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, +Indra has given birth to the light of the morning!" + +"Indra, bestow upon us most excellent treasures, the reputation of +ability, prosperity, increase of wealth, security of person, +sweetness of speech, and auspiciousness of days!" + +"Offer worship quickly to Indra; recite hymns; let the outpoured +drops exhilarate him; pay adoration to his superior strength!" + +"When, Indra, thou harnessest thy horses, there is no such +charioteer as thou; none is equal to thee in strength; none, +howsoever well horsed, has overtaken thee!" + +"He, who alone bestows wealth upon the man who offers him oblations, +is the undisputed sovereign: Indra, ho!" + +"When will he trample with his foot upon the man who offers no +oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our +praises? Indra, ho!" + +"Indra grants formidable strength to him who worships him, having +libations prepared: Indra, ho!" + +The song that was chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the +maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the +well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and +mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red +knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene. + +When Asirvadam the Brahmin conjured the wild demon of revolt to light +the horrid torch and bare the greedy blade, he tore a chapter from +the Book of Menu:-- + +"Let no man, engaged in combat, smite his foe with concealed weapons, +nor with arrows mischievously barbed, nor with poisoned arrows, nor +with darts blazing with fire." + +"Nor let him strike his enemy alighted on the ground; nor an +effeminate man, nor one who sues for life with closed palms, nor one +whose hair is loose, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am +thy captive.'" + +"Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one +who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, +but no combatant, nor one who is fighting with another man." + +"Calling to mind the duty of honorable men, let him never slay one +who has broken his weapon, nor one who is afflicted, nor one who +has been grievously wounded, nor one who is terrified, nor one who +turns his back." + +But Asirvadam the Brahmin, like the Thug of seven victims, has +tasted the sugar of blood, sweeter upon his tongue than to the lips +of an eager babe the pearl-tipped nipple of its mother. Henceforth +he must slay, slay, slay, mutilate and ravish, burn and slay, in the +name of the queen of horrors.--Karlee, ho! + +Now what shall be done with our dangerous friend? Shall he be blown +from the mouths of guns? or transported to the heart-breaking +Andamans? or lashed to his own churruck-posts, and flayed with cats +by stout drummers? or handcuffed with Pariahs in chain-gangs, to +work on his knees in foul sewers? or choked to death with raw +beefsteaks and the warm blood of cows? or swinged by stout Irish +wenches with bridle-ends? or smitten on the mouth with kid gloves by +English ladies, his turban trampled under foot by every Feringhee +brat in Bengal?--Wanted, a poetical putter-down for Asirvadam the +Brahmin. + +"Devotion is not in the ragged garment, nor in the staff, nor in +ashes, nor in the shaven head, nor in the sounding of horns. + +"Numerous Mahomets there have been and multitudes of Brahmas, Vishnus, +and Sivas; + +"Thousands of seers and prophets, and tens of thousands of saints +and holy men: + +"But the chief of lords is the one Lord, the true name of God!" + + * * * * * + + + + +WHAT ARE WE GOING TO MAKE? + +It would be easy to collect a library of lamentations over the +mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many +people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do +nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest +detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would +have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree +to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, +they think, argues degeneracy from the good old times of abstract +philosophy and spiritual dogmatism. But what do we better know of +the Infinite Spirit than that he is an infinite mechanic? Whence do +we get worthier or sublimer conceptions of him than from the +machinery with which he works? Are we ourselves less godlike +building mills than sitting in pews?--less in the image of our Maker, +endeavoring to subdue matter than endeavoring to ignore its existence? +Without questioning that the moral nature within us is superior to +the mechanical, we think it quite susceptible of proof that the +moral condition of the world depends on the mechanical, and that it +has advanced and will advance at equal pace with the progress of +machinery. To prove this, or anything else, however, is by no means +the purpose of this article, but only to take the general reader +around a little among mechanical people and ideas, to see what lies +ahead. + +"Papa, what are you going to make?" was doubtless the question of +Tubal-Cain's little boy, when he saw his ingenious father hammering +a red-hot iron, with a stone for a hammer, and another for an anvil. +Little boys have often since asked the same question in blacksmiths' +shops, and we now have shops in which the largest boys may well ask +it. It might be answered in a general way, that the smiths or smiters, +black and white, were and are going to make what our Maker left +unmade in making the human race. The lower animals were all sent +into the world in appropriate, finished, and well-fitting costume, +provided with direct and effective means of subsistence and defence. +The eagle had his imperial plumage, beak, and talons; the elephant +his leathern roundabout and travelling trunk, with its convenient +air-pump; and the beaver, at once a carpenter and a mason, had his +month full of chisels and his tail a trowel. The _bipes implumis_, on +the contrary, was hatched nude, without even the embryo of a +pin-feather. There was nothing for him but the recondite capabilities +of his two talented, but talonless hands, and a large brain almost +without instinct. Nothing was ready-made, only the means of making. +He was brought into the infinite world a finite deity, an +infinitesimal creator,--the first being of that class, to our +knowledge. His most urgent business as a creator was to make tools +for himself, and especially for the purpose of supplying his own +pitiful destitution of feathers. From the aprons of fig-leaves, +stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has +made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other +animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, +lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and +birds-of-paradise; and it only remains that what can be done shall +be done more extensively,--we do not mean for the individual, but +for the masses. Man has created not only tools, but servants,-- +animals all but alive. We may soon say that he has created great +bodies politic and bodies corporate, with heads, hands, feet, claws, +tails, lungs, digestive organs, and perhaps other viscera. What is +remarkable, having at first failed to furnish them with nerves, he +has lately supplied that deficiency,--a token that he will supply +some others. + +Let not the reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not +preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine +with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good +city of Lynn,--where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in +making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be +either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that +human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more +than the rudest semblance of that self-directing vitality which +characterizes the most servile of God-created machinery. The human +mechanic must be content, if he can approach as near to the creation +of life as the painter and sculptor have done. The soul of the +man-made horse-power is primarily the horse, and secondarily the +small boy who stands by to "cut him up" occasionally. Maelzel +created excellent chess-players, with the exception of intelligence, +which he was obliged to borrow of the original Creator and conceal +in a closet under the table. + +But let us not undervalue ourselves--which would, in fact, be to +undervalue our Creator--for such shortcomings. Though into our iron +horse's skull or cab we have to put one or two living men to supply +its deficiency of understanding, it is nevertheless a recognizable +animal, of a very grand and somewhat novel type. Its respiratory, +digestive, and muscular systems are respectable; and in the nature +and articulation of its organs of motion it is clearly original. The +wheel, typical of eternity, is nowhere to be found among living +organisms, unless we take the brilliant vision of Ezekiel in a +literal sense. The idea of attributing life or spirit to wheels, +organs by their nature detached or discontinuous from the living +creatures of which they were parts, was worthy of a prophet or poet; +but to no such prophetic vision were the first wheelwrights indebted +for their conception of so great an improvement upon animal +locomotion. For if they had not made chariots before Noah's flood, +they certainly had done it before Pharaoh's smaller affair in the +Red Sea. On that occasion, the chariot-wheels of the Egyptians were +taken off; but this does not seem to have produced effects so +decisive as would result from a similar disorganization in Broadway +or Washington Street; for the charioteers still "drave them heavily." +Hence we may infer that the wheels were of rude workmanship, making +the chariots little less liable to the infirmity of friction than +those Western vehicles called mud-boats, used to navigate semi-fluid +regions which pass on the map for _terra firma_. + +Yet, notwithstanding the rudeness of the primitive chariot, made of +two or three sticks and two rings cut from a hollow tree, it was the +germ of human inventions, and embosomed the world's destiny. It was +the most original as well as the most godlike of human thoughts. The +ship may have been copied from the nautilus, or from the embarked +squirrel trimming his tail to the breeze; or it may have been +blundered upon by the savage mounted on a drift-log, accidentally +making a sail of his sheepskin cloak while extending his arms to +keep his balance. But the cart cannot be regarded either as a +plagiarism from Nature, or the fruit of accident. The inventor must +have unlocked Nature's private closet with the key of mathematical +principle, and carried off the wheel and axle, the only mechanical +power she had not used in her physical creation, as patent to our +senses. Of course, she meant it should be stolen. She had, it is true, +made a show of punishing her little Prometheus for running off with +her match-box and setting things on fire, but she must have felt +proud of the theft. In well-regulated families children are not +allowed to play with fire, though the passion to do it is looked on +as a favorable mental indication. When the good dame saw that her +infant _chef-d'oeuvre_ had got hold of her reserved mechanical +element, the wheel, she foresaw his use of the stolen fire would be +something more than child's play. The cart, whether two-wheeled, or, +as our Hibernian friends will have it, one-wheeled, was an infinite +success, an invention of unlimited capabilities. Yet the inventor +obtained no record. Neither his name nor his model is to be found in +any patent-office. + +The tool-making animal, having obtained this marvellous means of +multiplying, or rather treasuring and applying, mechanical force, +went on at least some thousands of years before waking up to its +grand significance. Among the nations that first obtained excellence +in textile fabrics, very little use has ever been made of the wheel. +The spinning-girl of Dacca, who twists, and for ages has twisted, a +pound of cotton into a thread two hundred and fifty miles long, +beating Manchester by ninety miles, has no wheel, unless you so call +a ball of clay, of the size of a pea, stuck fast on one end of her +spindle, by means of which she twists it between her thumb and +finger. But this wonderful mechanical feat costs her many months of +labor, to say nothing of previous training; while the Manchester +factory-girl, aided by the multiplying power of the wheel, easily +makes as much yarn, though not quite so fine, in a day. If it were +an object to rival the tenuity of the finest India muslin, machinery +could easily accomplish it. But that spider-web fabric is carried so +nearly to transparency, that the Emperor Aurengzebe is said to have +reproved his daughter for the indelicacy of her costume while she +wore seven thicknesses of it. She might have worn twelve hundred +yards without burdening herself with more than a pound weight; what +she did wear did not, probably, weigh two ounces. The Chinese and +Japanese have spinning-wheels hardly equal to those brought over by +our pilgrim fathers in the Mayflower. But they have also, what +Western civilization has not, praying-wheels. In Japan the +praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it +is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a +mill. The Japanese, however, have mills for hulling rice, turned by +very respectable water-wheels. The Egyptians and Greeks had +water-wheels, and in fact understood all the mechanical powers. +Archimedes, all the world knows, astounded the Romans by mechanical +combinations which showered rocks on the besiegers of Syracuse, and +boasted he could make a projectile of the world itself, if he could +only find a standing-place outside of it. + +The present civilization of Europe very properly began with the clock, +a machine which a monk, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, was supposed +to have borrowed from Satan, though he was probably indebted for it +to the Saracens. For nearly nine hundred years after his day, the +best ingenuity of Italian, German, Swiss, French, and English +mechanics was devoted to perfecting this noble creation, and it +became at last a part of the civilized man, a sort of additional or +supplementary sense. The savage may well be excused for mistaking +the watch for a living creature. It could not serve us better, if it +were. True, it does not perform its function by its own force, but by +a stock of extraneous force which is from time to time put into a +little store-house called a spring. Neither does the living creature +perform its functions by any other force than that which is developed +by the chemical action within it, or the _quasi_ combustion of its +food. Its will does but direct the application of its mechanical +power. It creates none. You may weigh the animal and all the food it +is to consume, and thence calculate the utmost ounce of work, of a +given kind, which it can thereafter perform. It may do less, but +cannot do more. Having consumed all of its food and part of itself, +it dies. Its chemical organs have oxydated or burned up all the +combustibles submitted to them, thus developing a definite amount of +heat, a part of which, at the dictation of the will, by the +mechanism of nerves and muscles, has been converted into mechanical +motion. When the chemical function ceases, for the want of materials +to act upon, the development of heat ceases. There is no more either +to be converted into motion or to maintain the temperature of the +body; and self-consumption having already taken the place of +self-repair, there is no article left but the _articulus mortis_. + +But of all the force or motion produced by, or rather passing through, +a living animal, or any other organism, none is ever, so far as we +know, annihilated. The motion which has apparently ceased or been +destroyed has in reality passed into heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, or other effect,--itself, perhaps, nothing but motion, to +keep on, in one form or another, indefinitely. The fuel which we put +into the stomach of the horse, of iron or of flesh, first by its +oxydation raises heat, a part of which it is the function of the +individual to convert into motion, to be expended on friction and +resistance, or, in other words, to be reconverted into heat. What +becomes of this heat, then? If the fuel were to be replaced or +deoxydated, the heat that originally came from the oxydation would be +precisely reabsorbed. But this heat of itself cannot overcome the +stronger affinity which now chains the fuel to the oxygen. It must +go forward, not backward, about its business, forever and ever. It +may pass, but not cease. The sharp-eyed Faraday has been following +far away this Proteus, with a strong suspicion that it changes at +last into gravity, in which shape it returns straight to the sun, +carrying down with it, probably, those flinty showers of meteors +which, striking fire in the atmosphere of the prime luminary, +replenish its overflowing fountain of life. But we are not aware +that he has yet discovered the anastomosis of this conversion, or +quite established the fact. We are therefore not yet quite ready to +resolve the universe of physical forces into the similitude of the +mythical mill-stream, which, flowing round a little hill, came back +and fed its own pond. Nevertheless, we believe the physicists have +pretty generally agreed to assume as a law of Nature what they call +the conservation of force, the principle we have been endeavoring to +explain. + +Under the lead of this law, theory, or assumption, discoveries have +been made that deeply and practically interest the most abject +mortal who anywhere swings a hoe or shoulders a hod, as well as the +lords of the land. For example, it has been ascertained that heat is +converted into motion, or motion into heat, according to a fixed or +constant ratio or equivalent. To be more particular, the heat which +will raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree of +Fahrenheit's scale, when converted into mechanical motion, is +equivalent to the force which a weight of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds would exert by falling one foot. This is a +wonderfully small quantity of heat to balance so heavy a blow, but +the careful experiments of Mr. Joule of Manchester, the discoverer, +confirmed by Regnault, Thomson, Rankine, Clausius, Mayer, Rennie, +and others, have, we believe, satisfied scientific men that it is +not far from the correct measure. Were the same, or a far less +amount of heat, concentrated on a minute chip of steel struck off by +collision with a flint, it would be visible to the eye as a spark, +and show us how motion is converted into light as well as heat. + +It is not our vocation to dive into the infinities, either upward or +downward, in search, on the one hand, of the ultimate atoms of the +rarest ether, by whose vibrations the luminous waves run through +space at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute, or, +on the other, of the nebulous systems, worlds in the gristle, so far +off that the light just now arriving from them tells only how they +looked two hundred thousand years ago. All we have to say is, that, +if we do not now absolutely know, we do reasonably suspect, that heat +and light are mere mechanical motions, alike in nature and +interconvertible in fact. The luminiference seems to behave itself, +not like infinitely small bullets projected from Sharpe's rifles of +proportionately small bore, as was once supposed, but rather after +the manner of the sound-waves, which we know travel through the air +from the sonorous body to the ear. They have also a resemblance, not +so close, to the waves which run in all directions along the surface +of a pond of water from the point where a stone falls into it. These +three classes of waves, differing so immensely in magnitude and +velocity, all agree in this,--that it is the wave that travels, and +not the fluid or medium. The rapidity of the luminous wave is about +nine hundred million times that of the sound-wave; hence we may +suppose that the ether in which it moves is about as many times +rarer or lighter than air, and the retina of the eye which it +impresses as many times more delicate and sensitive than the drum of +the ear. It can hardly be unreasonable to suppose that a fluid so +rare as this luminiferous ether will readily interflow the particles +of all other matter, gaseous, liquid, or solid, and that in such +abundance that its vibrations or agitations may be propagated through +them. Yet even the rarest gases must considerably obstruct and +modify the vibratory waves, while liquids and solids, according to +their density and structural arrangement of atoms, must do it far +more. The luminiferous ether, in which all systems are immersed, +kept hereabout in an incessant quiver through its complete and +perhaps three-fold gamut of vibrations by the sun, strikes the aerial +ocean of the earth about an average of five hundred million millions +of blows per second, for each of the seven colors, or luminous notes, +not to speak of the achromatic vibrations, whose effects are other +than vision or visionary. The aerial ocean is such open-work, that +these infinitesimal billows are not much, though somewhat, broken by +it; but when they reach the terraqueous globe itself, they dash into +foam which goes whirling and eddying down into solids and liquids, +among their wild caverns of ultra-microscopic littleness, and this +foam or whirl-storm of ethereal substance is heat, if we are not +much mistaken. According to its intensity, it expands by its own mere +motion all grosser material. + +The quantity of this ethereal foam, yeast, whirlwind, hubbub, or +whatever else you please to call it, which is got up or given up by +the combustion of three pounds of good bituminous coal, according to +Mr. Joule's experiments, is more than equivalent to a day's labor +of a powerful horse. With our best stationary steam-engines, at +present, we get a day's horse-power from not less than twenty-four +pounds of coal. At this rate, the whole supply of mineral coal in +the world, as it may be roughly estimated, is equivalent only to the +labor of one thousand millions of horses for fifteen hundred years. +With the average performance of our present engines, it would +support that amount of horse-power for only one thousand years. But +could we obtain the full mechanical duty of the fuel by our engines, +it would be equal to the work of a thousand millions of horses for +sixteen thousand years, or of about fifteen times as many men for +the same time. This would materially postpone the exhaustion of the +coal, at which one so naturally shudders,--to say nothing of the +saving of having to dig but one eighth as much of the mineral to +produce the same effect. Hence some of the interest that attaches to +this discovery of Mr. Joule, which has given a new impulse to the +labor of inventors in pushing the steam-engine towards perfection. + +But if the whole available mechanical power, laid in store in the +coal mines, in addition to all the unimproved wind and water power, +should seem to any one insufficient to work out this world's manifest +destiny, the doctrine of the essential unity or conservation of +force is not exhausted of consolation. All the coal of which we have +spoken is but the result of the action of sun-light in past ages, +decomposing carbonic acid in the vegetative process. The combustion +of the carbon reproduces a force exactly equivalent to that of the +sun-light which was absorbed or consumed in its vegetative separation. +Supposing the whole estimated stock of coal in the world to be +consumed at once, it would cover the entire globe with a stratum of +carbonic acid about seventy-two feet deep. And if all the energy of +sun-light which this globe receives or encounters in a year were to +be devoted to its decomposition, according to Pouillet's estimate of +the strength of sunshine,--and he probably knows, if any one does,-- +deducting all that would be wasted on rock or water, there would be +enough to complete the task in a year or two. A marvellous growth of +forest, that would be! But the coal is not to be burned up at once. +When we get our steam-engines in motion to the amount of two or +three thousand millions of horse-power, and are running off the coal +at the rate of one tenth of one per cent per annum, the simple and +inevitable consequence will be that the wood will be growing enough +faster to keep good the general stock of fuel. Doubtless the forests +are now limited in their growth and stunted from their ante-Saurian +stature, not so much for want of soil, moisture, or sunshine as for +want of carbonic acid in the air, to be decomposed by the foliage, +the great deposition of coal in the primitive periods having +exhausted the supply. Our present havoc of wood only changes the +locality of wood-lots, and our present consumption of coal, rapid +enough to exhaust the entire supply in about seventy-seven thousand +years, is sure to increase the aggregate cordage of the forests. By +the time we have brought our locomotive steam-cultivators to such +perfection as to plough up and pulverize the great central deserts, +we may see trees flourish where it would have been useless to plant +the seed before we had converted so much of the earth's entrails +into smoke. + +There was a time, before we had harnessed the powers of Nature to +found, forge, spin, weave, print, and drudge for us generally, that +in every civilized country the strong-headed men used their +strong-handed brethren as machines. Only he could be very knowing who +owned many scribes, or he very rich who owned many hewers of wood +and drawers of water. With our prodigious development of mechanical +inventions, iron and coal, our mighty steam-driven machinery for +making machines, the time for chattelizing men, or depending mainly +on animal power of any sort for the production of wealth, has passed +by. Abrogate the golden rule, if you will, and establish the creed +of caste,--let the strongest of human races have full license to +enslave the weakest, and let it have the pick of soil and staples,-- +still, if you do not abolish the ground rules of arithmetic, and the +fact that a pound of carbon costs less than a pound of corn, and must +cost less for at least a thousand years to come, chattelism of man +will cease in another generation, and the next century will not dawn +on a human slave. At present, a pound of carbon does not cost so +much as a pound of corn in any part of the United States, and in no +place visited by steam-transportation does it cost one fifth as much. +We are already able to get as much work out of a pound of carbon as +can be got from a pound of corn fed to the faithfullest slave in the +world. Mr. Joule has shown us that there is really in a pound of +carbon more than twice as much work as there is in a pound of corn. +The human corn-consuming machine comes nearer getting the whole +mechanical duty or equivalent out of his fuel than our present +steam-engine does, but the former is all he ever will be, while the +latter is an infant and growing. + +We shall doubtless soon see engines that will get the work of two +slaves out of the coal that just balances one slave's food in the +scales. Our iron-boned, coal-eating slave, with the advantage of +that peculiar and almost infinitely applicable mechanical element, +the wheel, may be made to go anywhere and do any sort of work, and, +as we have seen, he will do it for one tenth of the cost of any +brute or human slave. + +But will not our artificial slave be more liable to insurrection? +Everybody admits that he already accomplishes incalculable drudgery +in the huge mill, on the ocean, and on the iron highway. But almost +everybody looks upon him as a sleeping volcano, which must sooner or +later flare up into irresistible wrath and do frightful mischief. +Underwriters shake their prudent heads at him. Coroners' inquests, +sitting solemnly over his frequent desolations, find only that some +of his ways are past finding out. Can such a creature be +domesticated so as to serve profitably and comfortably on by-roads +as well as high-roads, on farms, in gardens, in kitchens, in mines, +in private workshops, in all sorts of places where steady, +uncomplaining toil is wanted? Can we ever trust him as we trust +ourselves, or our humble friends, the horse and the ox? The law of +the conservation of force, now so nearly developed, will perhaps +throw some light on this inquiry. + +Boiler explosions have a sort of family resemblance to the freaks of +lightning or the thunderbolt. Indeed, so striking is the similarity, +that people have been prone to think, that, previously to an +explosion, the steam in the boiler must have become in some +inexplicable way charged with electricity like a thunder-cloud, and +that the discharge must have occasioned the catastrophe. It is +needless to say to those who understand a Leyden jar, that nothing +of the sort takes place. The friction of the watery globules, carried +along by the steam in blowing off, is found to disturb the +electrical equilibrium, as any other friction does; but the +circumstances in the case of a boiler are always so favorable to its +restoration, that an electrical thunderbolt cannot possibly be +raised there that would damage a gnat. Yet a boiler explosion may, +after all, depend on the same immediate cause as the mechanical +effect which is frequently noticed after an electrical discharge in a +thunder-storm. Let us hypothetically analyze what takes place in a +thunder-storm. For the sake of illustration, and nothing more, we +will suppose the existence, throughout all otherwise void space, of +three interflowing ethers, the atoms of each of which are, in regard +to each other, repellant, negative, or the reverse of ponderable, +and that these ethers differ in a series by vast intervals as to +size and distance of atoms, that each neither repels nor attracts +the other, that only the rarest is everywhere, and that the denser +ones, while self-repellant, have affinities, more or less, which +draw them from the interplanetary spaces towards the ponderable +masses. Let the rarest of these ethers be that whose vibrations +cause the phenomena of light,--the next denser that which, either by +vibration or translatory motion, causes the electrical phenomena,-- +and the most dense of the three that which by its motions, of +whatever sort, causes the phenomena of heat. The solar impulse +propagated through the luminiferous ether towards any mass encounters +in its neighborhood the electrical and calorific ethers, and sets +them into motions which may be communicated from one to the other, +but which are communicated to ponderable matter, or result in +mechanical action, only or chiefly by the impulse of the denser or +calorific ether. When the sun shines on land and water, as we have +already said, there is a violent ethereal commotion in the +interstices of the superficial matter, which we will now suppose to +be that of the calorific ether; and by virtue of this motion, +together with whatever affinities this ether may be supposed to have +for ponderable matter, we may account for evaporation, and the +production of those vast aerial currents by which the evaporated +water is diffused. In the production of aerial currents, heat is +converted into force, and hence vapor is converted into watery +globules mechanically suspended on clouds, which, by their friction, +sweep the electrical ether into excessive condensation in the great +Leyden-jar arrangement of the sky. Whatever it may be that gives +relief to this condensation, the relief itself consists in motion, +either translatory or vibratory, of the electrical ether or ethers. +As this motion, if it be such, often takes place through gases, +liquids, and solids, without any sensible mechanical effect, and at +other times is contemporary with phenomena of intense heat, we may, +till otherwise informed, suppose, that, whenever it produces a +mechanical effect, it is by so impinging on the calorific ether as +to produce the motion of heat, which is instantly thereafter +converted into mechanical force. It is not so much the greatness of +the amount of this mechanical force which gives it its peculiar +destructiveness, as the inequality of its strain; not so much the +quantity of matter projected, as the velocity of the blow. One may +have his brains blown out by a bullet of air as well as one of lead, +if the air only blows hard enough and to one point. Whatever its +material, the edge of the thunder-axe is almost infinitely sharp, +and its blow is as destructive as it is timeless. But it is always +heat, not electrical discharge, which only sometimes causes heat, +that strikes the blow. + +Now in the case of a steam-boiler, when the water, having been +reduced too low, is allowed suddenly to foam up on the overheated +crown-sheet of the furnace, there must be just that sudden or +instantaneous conversion of heat into force which may take place +when the current of the electrical discharge passes through the +gnarled fibres of an oak. The boiler and the oak are blown to shivers +in equally quick time. The only difference seems to be, that in one +case electricity stood immediately, in point of time, behind the heat, +and in the other it stood away back beyond the crocodiles, playing +its _role_ more genially in the growth of the monster forests whose +remains we are now digging from the bowels of the earth as coal. In +the normal action of a steam-boiler, the steam-generating surfaces +being all under water, however unequally the fire may act in +different localities, the water, by its rapid circulation, if not by +its heat-absorbing power, diffuses the heat and constantly equalizes +the strain resulting from its conversion into mechanical force. The +increase of pressure takes place gradually and evenly, and may +easily be kept far within safe limits. It is quite otherwise when +the conductivity of the boiler-plate is not aided and controlled by +the distributiveness of the water, as it is not whenever the plate +is in contact with the fire on one side without being also in contact +with the water on the other. Everybody knows that boilers explode +under such circumstances, but everybody does not know why. + +A cylinder of plate-iron will withstand a gradually applied, evenly +distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, +acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or +establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the +sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be +nothing very serious in itself,--no more so than a rent produced by +the hydraulic press,--if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of +a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not take instant +advantage of it to enlarge the breach and blow the whole structure +to fragments, or, in other words, if it did not permit nearly the +whole of the accumulated heat in the boiler to be at once converted +into mechanical motion. For example, a boiler whose ordinary working +pressure is one hundred pounds to the square inch, which may give an +aggregate on the whole surface of five millions of pounds, would not +give way, perhaps, if that pressure were gradually and evenly +increased to thirty millions. But if the water is allowed to get so +low that some part of the plate exposed to the fire is no longer +covered with it, that part will directly become far hotter than the +water or the mass of the steam,--dry steam having no more power to +carry away the excess of heat than so much air. After that, when the +water rises again, the first wave or wallop that strikes the +overheated plate absorbs the excess of heat, and its conversion into +steam of higher pressure than that already existing is so sudden +that it may be regarded as instantaneous. It is to be remembered +that for every pound of water raised one degree, or heat to that +amount absorbed in generating steam, a force of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds is created. In this case a new or additional +force is created, which, acting in all directions from one point, +first takes effect on the line which joins that point with the +nearest opposite point in the wall of the boiler. If it is not like +smiting with the edge of a ponderous battle-axe, it is at least as +dangerous as a cannon ball shot along that line. If the local heat +so suddenly absorbed be but enough to raise ten pounds of water ten +degrees, it is equivalent to the force acquired by seventy-seven +thousand two hundred pounds falling through a foot, or of a +cannon-ball of one hundred pounds flying at the rate of more than a +mile per second. If by any miracle the boiler should stand this +shock or series of shocks, the pressure becomes equalized, and the +overheated plate having parted with its excess of heat, safety is +restored. But if cohesion is anywhere overcome by the sudden blow, +the wild horses stampede in all directions. The boiler, minus the +water and boiler-head perhaps, goes through ceiling, roof, and brick +walls, as if they were cobwebs, and, surrounded with fragments of +men and things, is seen descending like a comet through the +neighboring air. + +To get rid of this liability to have a Thor-hammer or thunderbolt +generated in the stomach of a steam-engine, at any moment when the +vigilance of the engineer happens to be at fault, something is going +to be done. No safety-valve or fusible plug is adequate. The boiler +cannot be all safety-valve. The trouble is, the hammer is not more +likely to strike the first of its terrible series of blows on the +valve than anywhere else. A safety-valve, in good order, is a +sovereign precaution against the excess of an equally distributed +strain, but it is not an adequate protection against a shock or +unequal strain. The old-fashioned gaugecocks, which are by no means +to be dispensed with, reveal the state of the water in the boiler to +the watchful engineer about as surely as the stethoscope reveals to +the doctor the condition of his patient's lungs. A surer and more +convenient indication is the tubular glass gauge, on the fountain +principle, which in its best form is both trustworthy and durable. +No well-informed proprietor suffers his boiler to be without one; +but it is not a cure for carelessness. It is only a window for the +vigilant eye to look through, not the eye itself. Steam-boilers will +have to be constructed so that when the subsidence of the water +fails to check itself by enlarging the supply, it shall, before the +point of danger is reached, infallibly check the combustion, let off +the steam, and blow a whistle or ring a bell, which the proprietor +may, if he pleases, regard as the official death-knell of the +careless engineer. Human vigilance must not be superseded, but +fortified,--as in the case of the watchman watched by the tell-tale +clock. The steam-creature must be so constituted as to refuse to +work itself down to the zone where alone unequal strains are possible; +it must cry out in horror and strike work. Mechanically the solution +of the problem is easy, and the enhancement in cost of construction +will be nothing, compared to the risk of loss from these explosions. +With this guard against the deficiency of water, steam-power will +become the safest, as it is the most manageable, of all forces that +have hitherto been subsidized by the civilized man. + +But there is one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great +injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical +way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy or +the laws of dietetics. + +Our creature has no regular meals, especially if he is one of the +fast kind; but a grimy nurse stands by, and, opening his mouth every +few minutes, crams in a few spoonfuls of the black pudding. The +natural consequence is more or less indigestion and inequality of +strength. We have not yet taken full advantage of the laws of +combustion, or adapted our apparatus to the peculiarities of the +best and cheapest fuel. Nature manages more wisely in her machinery. +Combustion, the union of fuel with oxygen, ceases for want of air as +well as for want of fuel. In the case of fuels compounded of carbon +and hydrogen, if the air be withheld when the mass is in rapid +combustion, the heat will cause a portion of the fuel to pass off by +distillation, unconsumed, and this portion will be lost. But from +the best anthracite, which is nearly pure carbon concentrated, if +oxygen be entirely excluded, not much can distil away with any +degree of heat. The combustion of this fuel, therefore, admits of +very easy and economical regulation, by simply regulating the supply +of air. When the air is admitted at all, it should be admitted above +as well as below the fuel, so that the carbonic oxyde that is +generated in the mass may be burned, or converted into carbonic acid, +over the top. Why, then, should not the iron horse, before leaving +his stable, take a meal of anthracite sufficient to last him fifty +or one hundred miles? Let him swallow a ton at once, if he need it. +Before starting, let the temperature of the mass in the furnace be +got up to the point where the combustion will go on with sufficient +rapidity for the required speed by simply supplying air, which +should also be fed as hot as possible. This done, the engineer +throughout the trip will have perfect control of his force by means +of the steam-blast and air-openings. There will be no smoke nuisance, +the combustion being complete so far as it takes place at all. +There will be no need of loading the furnace with firebrick to +equalize the heat,--the mass of incandescent fuel serving that +purpose; and no waste or inequality will occur from opening the door +to throw in a cold collation. + +What are we going to make? First, we are going to finish up, and +carry out into all desirable species, our great idea of an iron slave, +the illustrious Man Friday of our modern civilization. Whether we +put water, air, or ether into his aorta, as the medium of converting +heat into force, we shall at last have a safe subject, available for +all sorts of drudgery, that will do the work of a man without eating +more than half as much weight of coal as a man eats of bread and meat. +Next, carrying into all departments of human industry, in its +perfect development, this new creature, which has already, as a mere +infant, made so stupendous a change in some of them, we shall make +the human millions all masters, from being nearly all slaves. We +shall make both idleness and poverty nearly impossible. Human labor, +as a general thing, is a positive pleasure only when the hand and +brain work in concert. Hence, the more you increase well-devised and +efficient machinery, which requires and rewards intelligent +oversight and skilful direction, the more you increase the love of +labor. We have already manufacturing communities so well supplied +with tasks for brains and hands, that everybody works, or would do +so but for Circe and her seductive hollow-ware. We are beginning to +push machinery into agriculture, where it will have still greater +scope. With the means we now have, in the enormously increased +production of iron, our almost omnipresent and omnipotent +machine-shops, our railroads leading everywhere, another century, or +perhaps half of it, will see every arable rood of the earth and +every rood that can be made arable, ploughed, sowed, and the crops +harvested by iron horses, iron oxen, or iron men, under the free and +intelligent supervision of people who know how to feed, drive, doctor, +and make the most of them. + +One island, which would hardly be missed from the map of the world, +so small that its rivers all fall into the sea mere brooks, with not +more than one-thirteenth as much coal as we have in the United States, +and perhaps not one-hundredth as much iron ore, by the use of +steam-driven machinery produces as much iron and perhaps weaves as +much cloth yearly as all the rest of the world. If it does not the +latter, it would do it, if it could find enough of the raw material +and paying customers. But agriculture, which supplies the raw +material, though it is the first and most universal form of human +labor, lags behind the world's present manufacturing power. One cause +of the late, and perhaps of the previous commercial revulsion, was +this disproportion. The more rapid enlargement of manufacturing +industry, multiplied in power by its machinery, caused the raw +material to rise in price and the manufactured article to fall, till +the operations could not be supported from the profits at the same +time that contracts were fulfilled with capitalists. Manufactures +must pause till agriculture overtakes. Steam-machinery applied to +agriculture is the only thing that can correct this disproportion, +and this is what we are going to make. The world is not to be much +longer dependent for its cotton on the compulsory labor of the Dark +Ages, nor for its flax and corn on blistered free hands or +overworked cattle. The laborer, in either section of our country, +will be transformed into an ingenious gentleman or lady, comfortably +mounted on a migratory steam-cultivator to direct its gigantic +energies,--or, at least, occasionally so occupied. Under this system, +it must be plain enough, to all persons prophetically inclined, that +the Northern valleys will greatly multiply their products, while the +Southern cotton-fields will whiten with heavier crops than human +chattelism ever produced, and the mountains of both latitudes, now +hardly notched with civilization, will roll down the wool of sheep +in clouds. + +Finally, with important and fruitful mechanical ideas which the +world did not have twenty years ago, with machinery which no one +could have believed possible one hundred years ago, and which has, +since that time, quintupled the power of every free laborer in +Christendom, we are going to make man what his Creator designed him +to be,--always and everywhere a sub-creator. By the press we are +making the knowledge of the past the knowledge of the present, the +knowledge of one the knowledge of all. By the telegraph the senses +of sight and hearing are to be extended around the globe. If we do +not make ships to navigate the air, for ourselves, our wives, and +our little ones, it will not be because we cannot, but because, being +lords of land and sea, with power to traverse either with all +desirable speed, we are too wise to waste force either in beating +the air for buoyancy, battling with gravity like birds, on the one +hand, or in paddling huge balloons against the wind, on the other. +The steam-driven wheel leaves us no occasion to envy even that +ubiquitous denizen of the universe, the flying-fish. We have in it +the most economical means of self-transportation, as well as of +mechanical production. It only remains to make the most of it. This, +to be sure, will not be achieved without infinite labor and +innumerable failures. The mechanical genius of the race is like the +polypus anxiously stretching its tentacles in every direction, and +though frustrated thousands of times, it grasps something at last. + +One of the most significant structures in the world, by the way, is +the United States Patent Office at Washington. No other building in +that novel city means a hundredth part as much, or shows so clearly +what the world's most cunning thoughts and hands are chiefly engaged +with. Not that the Patent Office contains so many miracles of +mechanical success; rather the contrary. Take a just appraisal of +its treasures, and you will regard it rather as the chief tomb in the +Pere la Chaise of human hopes. What multitudes of long-nursed and +dearly-cherished inventions there repose in a common grave, useful +only as warnings to future inventors! One great moral of the survey +is, that inventive talent is shamefully wasted among us, for want of +proper scientific direction and suitable encouragement. The mind +that comprehends general principles in all their relations, and sees +what needs to be done and what is possible and profitable to be done, +is of necessity not the one to arrange in detail the means of doing. +The man of science and the mechanical inventor are distinct persons, +speaking of either in his best estate; and the maximum success of +machinery depends on their acting together with a better +understanding than they have hitherto had. It were less difficult +than invidious to point to living examples of the want of +cooperation and co-appreciation between our knowing and our doing men; +but, for the sake of illustrating our idea, we will run the risk of +quoting a minute from the proceedings of one of our scientific +societies, premising that we know nothing more of the parties than +we learn from the minute itself,--to wit, that one is, or was, an +ingenious mechanic, and the other a promoter of science. + +"Dr. Patterson gave an account of an automaton speaking-machine +which Mr. Franklin Peale and himself had recently inspected. The +machine was made to resemble as nearly as possible, in every respect, +the human vocal organs; and was susceptible of varied movements by +means of keys. Dr. Patterson was much struck by the distinctness with +which the figure could enunciate various letters and words. The +difficult combination _three_ was well pronounced,--the _th_ less +perfectly, but astonishingly well. It also enumerated diphthongs, +and numerous difficult combinations of sounds. Sixteen keys were +sufficient to produce all the sounds. In enunciating the simple +sounds, the movements of the mouth could be seen. The parts were +made of gum elastic. The figure was made to say, with a peculiar +intonation, but surprising distinctness, 'Mr. Patterson, I am glad to +see you.' It sang, 'God save Victoria,' and 'Hail Columbia,'--the +words and air combined. Dr. Patterson had determined to visit the +maker of the machine, Mr. Faber, in private, in order to obtain +further interesting information; but, on the following day, Dr. P. +was distressed to learn, that, in a fit of excitement, he had +destroyed every particle of a figure which had taken him seventeen +years to construct." + +It is quite probable that the world lost very little by the +destruction of this curious figure, whatever the nature or cause of +the "excitement" that led to it. All we have to say is, that it does +lose much, when the genius that can create such things is not set +upon the right tasks, and encouraged to success by the "high +consideration" of scientific men, who alone of all the world can +appreciate the difficulties it has to contend with. It is by setting +the right mechanical problems before the men who can make dumb matter +talk, that we are to bring about the resurrection of the black Titan +who has lain buried under the mountains for thousands of millenniums, +and constitute him the efficient sub-gardener of the world's Paradise +Regained. + + + * * * * * + + + + +SHIPWRECK + + We who by shipwreck only find the shores + Of divine wisdom can but kneel at first, + Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, + That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, + The shock and sustenance of solid earth: + Inland afar we see what temples gleam + Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, + And we conjecture shining shapes therein; + Yet for a space 'tis good to wonder here + Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + + [Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the + end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at + once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh + verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your + audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people + can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off + without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into + the saddle again, at every parenthesis.] + +----The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had +fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street. +It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable +exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayley. +When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face, +and complained that he had been "made sport of." By sympathizing +questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him "old daddy," +and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed. + +This incident led me to make some observations at table the next +morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this +record. + +----The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I +learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of +Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were +usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native +town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a +"Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, +and the following dialogue ensued. + +_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, did you know there was g-on-to +be a race to-morrah? + +_Myself_. No. Who's g-on-to run, 'n'wher's't g-on-to be? + +_The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico and Doctor Williams, round the brim +o' your hat. + +These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at +that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, +the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, +I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to +make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress +ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. + +A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, +is never itself again afterwards. + +It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary. + +Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is +always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, +suggestive of a wet brush. + +The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing +its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of +"respectability." + +----The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very +pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French, +except the word for potatoes,--_pummies de tare_.--_Ultimum moriens_, +I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With +this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I +saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the +white one in his hand. + +----I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor +for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think +and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many +respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this +time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing, and therefore +I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a +word or two about my friends. + +The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful +and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small +technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and +though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand +airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting +on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet I +am sure he has a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its +cultivators. + +But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other day.-- +My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, because I +keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into +the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your +customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them +off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher +a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, +the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew +all this very well when he advised every literary man to have a +profession. + +----Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with +the other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of +intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have +found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other +amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my +carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest +possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to +tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work +immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, +and got so interested in it, that, when we were set loose, I +"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished. + +There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and +others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my +winter's work is over, and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn +to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life than +he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says,-- +yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he can sing +least. + +Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed, sometimes,-- +said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst songs fall below +my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to others who +have told me so, that they ought to be _all best_,--if not in actual +execution, at least in plan and motive. I am grateful--he continued-- +for all such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have his most +serious efforts praised, and the highest aspect of his nature get the +most sunshine. + +Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change +their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing +their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant by +complementary colors? You know the effect, too, that the prolonged +impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your +eyes after looking steadily at a _red_ object, you see a _green_ +image. + +It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking at +one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or truth, +when they turn away, the _complementary_ aspect of the same object +stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. Shall +they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not? + +When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite largeness +of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote +the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, +I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from +time to time, and come down from its noblest condition,--never, of +course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, +but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise +themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the +bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble +friends in the basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet +and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple adornments, but befitting the +station of those who wear them--show themselves to the crowd, who +think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs +know that they are cheap and perishable? + +----I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or +other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you +what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me, +one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ. Life +turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come +under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my +_adagio_ movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play us so +always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, +the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. How +easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must be no end of +just such melodies in him,--I will open the poor machine for you one +moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note marks where a spur of +steel has been driven in. It is easy to grind out the song, but to +plant these bristling points which make it was the painful task of +time. + +I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no +larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them +piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect. +The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their +turn! + +So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest songs, +and after it a gay _chanson_, and then a string of epigrams. All true,-- +he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the corolla spread, +and another with its disk half opened, and the third with the +heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two showing its tip +through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of the poet's soul,-- +he told me. + +----What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the +souls of poets most fully? + +Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus. +Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark, and +a fern will not flower anywhere. + +What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's corolla?-- +I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am afraid; or at +least they shine on a good many that never come to anything. + +Who are _they_?--said the schoolmistress. + +Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his +best reward. + +The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I +really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have +pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, +but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true +poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,--to a +woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, +so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.-- +Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,--what color +would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed +whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's praises! I should +have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- + + "Lilies without; roses within!" + +But then,--he added,--we all think, _if_ so and so, we should have +been this or that, as you were saying, the other day, in those +rhymes of yours. + +----I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but +of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in +soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and +sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own hands +the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts the +over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. + +There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. +[Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please to tell us +about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are +blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,-- +_negative_ or _washed_ blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to +become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with +golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,-- +_positive_ or _stained_ blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as +unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike a +snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a +sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline +fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her +quick, glittering glances. + +Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, +and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of +moonlight genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of +nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to +those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. +Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with melancholy. +There is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of +compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact that +some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest songs are the +growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for the rougher +duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or +of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, sweet natures, +born to weakness, and mostly dying before their time,--one cannot +help thinking that the human race dies out singing, like the swan in +the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hotel Dieu, +at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by a key in his throat, which he +had swallowed when delirious in consequence of a fall,)--this poor +fellow was a very good example of the poet by excess of sensibility. +I found, the other day, that some of my literary friends had never +heard of him, though I suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know +the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed +in the great hospital of Paris. + + "Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, + J'apparus un jour, et je meurs; + Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive, + Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." + + At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, + One day I pass, then disappear; + I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest + No friend shall come to shed a tear. + +You remember the same thing in other words somewhere in Kirke +White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these +sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world +will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have loved! +how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes +grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner and thinner, +until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, +they drop it and pass onward. + +----Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them +up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the +hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. + +Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; +they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only +makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, +seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence +at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so +long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. + +If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the +dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring +through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, +uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow +up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us +sometimes for silence and rest!--that this dreadful mechanism, +unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral +figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can +wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?-- +that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters +beneath?--that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to +utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is +shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that +building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where +neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which +a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. +There is nothing for it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling +of its wheels, but to spring against the stone wall and silence them +with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,-- +and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise +as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and +serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of +a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid +automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would +the world give for the discovery? + +----From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place +and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they call +John. + +You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will +maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot stop, +but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at +the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. They clap +on the breaks by means of opium; they change the maddening monotony +of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It is because the brain +is locked up and we cannot touch its movement directly, that we +thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice by which they may +reach the interior, and so alter its rate of going for a while, and +at last spoil the machine. + +Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work +independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who +follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of +keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their +reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the mechanical +appliances to help them govern their intellects. + +----He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded +to by name. + +Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of +inebriating fluids?--said the divinity-student. + +If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,-- +I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are +the things that some foolish people call _dangerous_ subjects,--as if +these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea-worm +burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more +mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal +with these obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of +them, and no bigger than a horse-hair, is to get a piece of silk +round their _heads_, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only +break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the +person that has the misfortune of harboring one of them. Whence it +is plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head +lies. + +Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of +intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For you +may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has not a +head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain virtue, I +was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. I +have heard an immense number of moral physicians lay down the +treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority of them would +always insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all body +and tail. So I have found a very common result of their method to be +that the string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature was +broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The truth +is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make +the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on +behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the +influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is. For the +arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that +the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The way to argue down a vice +is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions, +when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its +case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then +meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel +did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him +with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape. +If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to +deal with him. + +That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear. +Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with religious +excitement,--oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said she was so +easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents have +been made tipsy by a beef-steak. + +There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation, which, in +themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be +considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When +the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the +cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging +spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused, or +the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment when +the whole human zooephyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is +ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution box,--it would +be hard to say that a man was at that very time, worse, or less to +be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits +about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic virtues don't wash; +but until the water takes their colors out, the tints are very much +like those of the true celestial stuff. + +[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to +report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine +these records to commit to their candor.] + +A _person_ at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady +drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I +restrained myself, and answered thus:-- + +Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to the +product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the +vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne, +"the foaming wine of Eastern France," is rum. Hock, which our friend, +the Poet, speaks of as: + + "The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, + Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," + +is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the +first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address +myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, almost in +abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise +both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into +which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and +sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I +thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober. + +Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by +drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before +they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no +doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost irresistible +hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but oftenest of all +a _punishment_. + +Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and +sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,-- +ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control +of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their +owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we +have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or +ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it is +simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or +aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, +and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings +into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled +being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no chance +to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught the +lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an +_ad valorem_ scale for them,--and all of us. + +But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more +prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,--the +reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine +frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once explained +to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great picture. The +creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only +put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that +blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of +creative genius is allied to _reverie_, or dreaming. If mind and +body were both healthy, and had food enough and fair play, I doubt +whether any men would be more temperate than the imaginative classes. +But body and mind often flag,--perhaps they are ill-made to begin +with, underfed with bread or ideas, over-worked, or abused in some +way. The automatic action, by which genius wrought its wonders, fails. +There is only one thing which can rouse the machine; not will,--that +cannot reach it; nothing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the +wheels awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The +dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, because their mode +of action can be imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning +ones are safe, because they imply continued voluntary effort. + +I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on a +man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and +fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious +parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is +already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that +he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to +stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face +which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy +there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude +of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in +their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to +labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination of +the seeds of intemperance. + +Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,--no +steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,-- +he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the +maelstrom. + +----I wonder if you know the _terrible smile_? [The young fellow +whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the +sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word +_smile_. The company was curious to know what I meant.] + +There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you +than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth, +which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and +thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about +themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of +self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, +which are betrayed by the cowardly behavior of the eye and the +tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate +beings. + +----Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the +divinity-student. + +Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or +other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't +think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have known a +number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing conveys +the idea of _underbreeding_ more than this self-betraying smile. Yet +I think this peculiar habit, as well as that of _meaningless blushing_, +may be fallen into by very good people who meet often, or sit +opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's face is infinitely +removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I think +Titian understood the look of a gentleman as well as anybody that +ever lived. The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his hand, +in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have seen that collection, +will remind you of what I mean. + +----Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I +cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if +they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one meets +one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same manifestation. +The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence of the +_platysma myoides_, which is called the _risorius Santorini_. + +----Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above. + +The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's +laughing-muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were born +with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am +uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you +of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they +are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally +recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet +three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. + +----There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar +to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are +some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't +understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature +and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the +right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female +countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the +sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the +person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any +unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient +apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an +appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may +inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how +morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest +demonstration of this kind. When a _lady_ walks the streets, she +leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well +enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces +framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a +right to see them. + +----When we observe how the same features and style of person and +character descend from generation to generation, we can believe that +some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. Little +snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us--before they +are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in +the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the age of --2 or +--3 months. + +----My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This +remark excited a burst of hilarity, which I did not allow to +interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the +great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-turtles +mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested +several odd analogies enough. + +There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the +_ovarian eggs_ of the next generation's or century's civilization. +These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet; +some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But +as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and +these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are not +good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian +eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the minds of +others. One must be in the _habit_ of talking with such persons to +get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their development is +necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, which +must be long and closely studied. But these are the men to talk with. +No fresh truth ever gets into a book. + +"----A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow",--said one of the company. + +I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my +friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its +materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and +been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one +mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be +milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something +which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man +instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in +print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it +lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his +intellect. + +----Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of +thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of thought, +who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and the +retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in the +popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to separate +them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of +opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few +generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of +its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of +it or even with it; the world calls him hard names probably; but if +you would find the man of the future, you must look into the folds +of his cerebral convolutions. + +[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as +if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed +his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few +corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and +witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as the old +gentleman opposite says.] + +----Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about. + +SPRING HAS COME. + _Intra Muros_. + + The sunbeams, lost for half a year, + Slant through my pane their morning rays; + For dry Northwesters cold and clear, + The East blows in its thin blue haze. + + And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, + Then close against the sheltering wall + The tulip's horn of dusky green, + The peony's dark unfolding ball. + + The golden-chaliced crocus burns; + The long narcissus-blades appear; + The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, + And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. + + The willow's whistling lashes, wrung + By the wild winds of gusty March, + With sallow leaflets lightly strung, + Are swaying by the tufted larch. + + The elms have robed their slender spray + With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; + Wide o'er the clasping arch of day + Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + + --See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, + That flames in glory for an hour,-- + Behold it withering,--then look up,-- + How meek the forest-monarch's flower!-- + + When wake the violets, Winter dies; + When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; + When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, + "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + + The windows blush with fresh bouquets, + Cut with the May-dew on their lips; + The radish all its bloom displays, + Pink; as Aurora's finger-tips. + + Nor less the flood of light that showers + On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- + The walks are gay as bridal bowers + With rows of many-petalled maids. + + The scarlet shell-fish click and clash + In the blue barrow where they slide; + The horseman, proud of streak and splash, + Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + + Here comes the dealer's awkward string, + With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- + Rough colts, with careless country-swing, + In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + --Wild filly from the mountain-side, + Doomed to the close and chafing thills, + Lend me thy long, untiring stride + To seek with thee thy western hills! + + I hear the whispering voice of Spring, + The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, + Like some poor bird with prisoned wing + That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + + Oh for one spot of living green,-- + One little spot where leaves can grow,-- + To love unblamed, to walk unseen, + To dream above, to sleep below! + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PRESIDENT'S PROPHECY OF PEACE. + +There was joy in the national palace on the eve of May-day. The +heart of the Chief of Thirty Millions was full of gladness. It was a +high holiday at the capital of the nation. Jubilant processions +crowded the streets. The boom of cannon told to the heavens that some +great event, full of glory and of blessing, was just happily born +into the history of the world. Strains of triumphant music at once +expressed and stirred afresh the rapture which the new fruition of a +deferred and doubting hope had kindled in myriad breasts. Rejoicing +multitudes swarmed before the palace gate, and with congratulatory +shouts compelled the presence of the Nation's Head. He stood before +them proud and happy, and answered to the transports of their joy +with a responsive sympathy. He rejoiced in the prospect of the peace +and prosperity with which the occasion of this jubilee was to cheer +and bless the land in all its borders. His chosen friends and +counsellors surrounded him and echoed his prophecies of good. A +kindred homage was next paid to the virtuous artificers of the +new-wrought blessing, without whose shaping hands it would have +perished before the sight, or taken some dreadful form of mischief +and of horror. Their words of cheer and exultation, too, swelled the +surging tide of patriotic emotion till it overflowed again. Thus with +the thunder of artillery, with the animating sound of drum and +trumpet, with the more persuasive music of impassioned words, with +shoutings and with revelry, these jocund compeers, from the highest +to the lowest, mingled into one by the alchemy of a common joy, +chased the hours of that memorable night and gave strange welcome to +the morn of May. + +What great happiness had just befallen, which should thus transport +with joy the chief magistrate of a mighty nation, and send an +answering pulse of rapture through all the veins of his capital? The +armies of the Republic had surely just returned in triumph from some +dubious battle joined with a barbarian invader who threatened to +trample all her cherished rights, and the institutions which are +their safeguard, under his iron heel. Perhaps the Angel of Mercy had +at length set again the seals upon some wide-wasting pestilence +which had long been walking in darkness, with Terror going before +her and Death following after. Or was it the desolating course of +Famine that had been stayed, as it swept, gaunt and hungry, over the +land, and consumed its inhabitants from off its face? Peradventure, +the prayers of holy men had prevailed, and the heavens which had +been as brass were melted, and the earth which had been but ashes +revived again, a living altar, crowned afresh with flowers, and +prophetic of the thank-offerings of harvests. Or it might be that a +great discoverer had added a new world to the domain of human +happiness, by some invention which should lighten the toils and +multiply the innocent satisfactions of mankind. Or had virtue and +intelligence won some signal victory over barbarism and ignorance, +and blessed with liberty and knowledge regions long abandoned to +despotism and to darkness? These had been, indeed, occasions on +which the chief ruler of a great people might fitly lead the anthem +of a nation's thanksgiving. + +But the joy which thus overflowed the hearts of President and people +at the metropolis of our politics, and which has sprinkled with its +cordial drops kindred spirits scattered far and wide over the land, +welled up from no wholesome sources such as these. It was no +deliverance from barbarous enemies, from pestilential disease, from +meagre famine, that moved those raptures,--no joy at ignorance +dissipated, barbarism dispelled, or tyranny put down. The "peace" +and the "prosperity," the prophecy of which was so sweet to the +souls that took sweet counsel together on that night, were of a kind +which only souls tuned to such unison and so subtly trained could +fully comprehend and rightly estimate. This gentle peace, thus +joyfully presaged, is to be won by the submission of an inchoate +State to a form of government subjecting its inhabitants to +institutions abhorrent to their souls and fatal to their prosperity, +forced upon them at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of +the revolver by hordes of sordid barbarians from a hostile soil, +their natural and necessary enemies. And the sweet harbinger of this +blessed peace, the halcyon which broods over the stormy waves and +tells of the calm at hand, is a bribe so cunningly devised that its +contrivers firmly believe it will buy up the souls of these +much-injured men, and reconcile them to the shame and infamy of +trading away their lights and their honor as the boot of a dirty +bargain in the land-market. And the "prosperity" which is to wait +upon this happy "peace" glows with a like golden promise. It is a +prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North +Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the +Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the +intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever +follows after the footsteps of Slavery,--a prosperity which is to +blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish +the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, +if the joy of the President and his directors is to be made full. +Such is the message of peace and good-will which thrilled with +prophetic raptures the hearts which flowed together on that happy +night, and such the blessed prospects which made the air of +Washington vocal with the ecstasies of triumph. + +The history of the world is full enough of illustrations of +"the Art of making a Great Kingdom a Small One." The art of +degrading the imperial idea of a true republic from its just +preeminence among the polities of mankind, of quenching the +principles of eternal right which are the star-points of its divine +crown, of trailing the shining whiteness of its robes in the dust, +and making it an object of contempt rather than of adoration, has +never been taught more emphatically than in the examples furnished +by our own later annals. If Mr. Buchanan and his predecessor had set +themselves to work, of good set purpose, to bring republican +institutions into derision, and to prove that the American +experiment was a dead failure, they could not have proceeded more +cunningly with their task. Their aim has been, as it has seemed, to +give the lie to all the principles on which it has been assumed that +these institutions rest, and to show that their real object is to +subject the many to the government of the few, as the manner is of +the nations round about. The thin veil of decent falsehood, under +which the caution of earlier time had decorously hid this fact, has +been torn aside by the rude intrepidity of assurance which +long-continued success had fostered. The problem to be solved being +to prove the chief axiom of our political science, that the people +have a right to self-government and to the choice of their own +institutions, to be a lie, it is worked out in the presence of an +admiring world, after this fashion. + +The old Ordinance--which set limits to Slavery, and which, as it +preceded the Constitution, should in honor and equity be taken as a +condition precedent to it, and the later pledge of the South, that +this contract should be sacredly kept on the other side of a certain +parallel of latitude, having both been infamously violated for the +sake of extending the domain of Slavery into regions solemnly +dedicated to Liberty, the entire energies of the General Government +and of the political party it represented were put forth to +crystallize this double lie into the institutions of Kansas, and +thus take it out of the category of theory and reduce it into that +of fact. The reluctance of the inhabitants of the young Territory +went for nothing, and provision was soon effectually made to +overcome their resistance. Every form of terrorism, to which tyrants +all alike instinctively resort to disarm resistance to their will, +was launched at the property, the lives, and the happiness of the +defenceless settlers. Hordes of barbarians, as we have said before, +from every part of the Southern hive, but especially from the savage +tribes of the bordering Missouri, poured themselves over the devoted +land. Murder, arson, robbery, every outrage that could be offered to +man or woman, waited on their footsteps and stalked abroad with them +in their forays against Freedom. When the first steps were to be +taken towards the organization of a government, they precipitated +themselves upon the Territory in fiercer numbers. They made +themselves masters of the polling-places; they drove away by +violence and threats the peaceable inhabitants and lawful voters, +and by open force and unblushing fraud elected themselves or their +creatures the lawgivers of the commonwealth about to be created. So +outrageous were the crimes of these miscreants at this and +subsequent periods, that even the very creatures of Pierce and +Buchanan, chosen especially for their supposed fitness to assist in +these villanies, turned away, one after another, sickened at the +sight of them, and forfeited forever the favor of their masters by +shrinking from an unqualified and unhesitating obedience. + +The Constitution, contrived by the wretches thus nefariously clothed +in the stolen sovereignty of the true inhabitants of Kansas, of +course made Slavery an integral part of the institutions of the State. +A code of laws was enacted absolutely without parallel in the history +of the world for insolent trampling down of rights and for bloody +cruelty of penalties,--laws so abominable as even to call down upon +them, from his place in the Senate, the emphatic condemnation of so +veteran a soldier in the service of Slavery as General Cass, now +Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of State. These Territorial laws, thus +infamously vile, thus made in defiance of the well-known will of the +great majority of the people of Kansas, Mr. Pierce hastened to +recognize as the authentic expression of the mind of the people there, +and exerted all the moral and all the physical force of the +government to maintain them in their authority. Since that magistrate +was kicked aside as no longer available for the uses of Slavery, +because of the very infamy he had won in its service, Mr. Buchanan, +unlessoned by his fate, has adopted his views and carried out his +policy. + +We do not propose to follow this march of shameful events step by +step, nor to speak of them in their exact chronological order, nor +yet to specify to which of these magistrates the credit of any one +of them belongs, inasmuch as the philosophy and method of the policy +of the one and the other are absolutely identical. We have space +only to glance at unquestionable facts, and to trace them to their +necessary motives. To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and +the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons +of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to +what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no +more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of +China. When the actual inhabitants of the Territory had met in +Convention and framed a Constitution excluding Slavery, and had +adopted it, and the legislature authorized by it met, its members +were dispersed by national soldiers, detailed to compel submission +to the behests of the Slavemastery of the Government and of the +nation. These troops have been kept on foot ever since, to intimidate +the people, to assist as special police in the arrest and detention +of political prisoners charged with crimes against the Usurpation, +and to sustain the Federal governors and judges in carrying out +their instructions for the Subjugation of the majority by legal +chicane or by military violence. + +Such was the genesis of the Lecompton Constitution, and such the +nursing it had received at the hands of the paternal government at +Washington. In due course of time it was presented to Congress as +the charter under which the people of Kansas asked to receive the +concession of their right of State government; and the scene of war +was forthwith transferred from those distant fields to the chambers +of national legislation, under the immediate eye of the chief of the +state. This high officer soon dispelled any delusive doubts which, +for the purpose of securing his election, he had permitted to be +ventilated during the late Presidential campaign, that he would at +least see fair play in the struggle between Slavery and Freedom in +Kansas. With indecent zeal and unscrupulous partisanship, he +concentrated all the energies of his administration, and employed +the whole force of the influence and the patronage of the nation, to +obtain the indorsement by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, and +thus to compel the people of Kansas to pass under the yoke of their +Slaveholding invaders. The true origin and character of that vile +fabrication had been made plain to every eye that was willing to see, +and the abhorrence in which it was held by nearly the entire +population of the Territory put beyond question by more than one +trial vote. Yet it was embraced as the test measure of the +Administration to prove the unbroken fealty of the President to the +Power which is mightier than he. Victory was reckoned upon in advance, +as certain and easy. A servile, or rather a commanding majority in +the Senate,--nearly half of that body being of the class that rules +the rulers,--was ready to do whatever dirty and detestable work was +demanded of them. A majority of more than thirty in the House, +elected as supporters of the Administration, seemed to make success +there also an inevitable necessity. But by reason of the vastly +larger proportion of members from the Free States in that body, and +their greater nearness to their constituents, these reasonable +expectations were disappointed. Men who had taken service in the +Democratic ranks, and had been faithful unto that day, refused to +obey the word of command when it took this tone and was informed +with this purpose. And for a season the plague was stayed, and +sanguine hearts trusted that it was stayed forever. + +We are willing to believe that the bulk of the Democrats in both +Houses of Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and +cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was +demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed +to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, +and of which their party had always professed to be the special +defence and guard. But the mantle of our charity is not wide enough +to cover up the base treachery of those men who, acknowledging and +demonstrating the right, devised or consented to the villany which +was to crush or to cripple it. That the final shape which the +Lecompton juggle took was an invention of the enemy, cunningly +contrived to win by indirection what was too dangerous to be +attempted by open violence, is a conclusion from which no candid +mind can escape, after a full consideration of the case. The +defection of so large a body of Northern Democrats from the side of +the Slaveholding Directory was doubtless a significant and startling +fact, suggestive of dangerous insubordination on the part of allies +who had ever been found sure and steadfast in every jeopardy of +Slavery. And it made a resort to guile necessary to carry the point +which it was not prudent to press to the extremity of force. The +Slaveholders are not fastidious as to the means by which they reach +their end. Though they might have preferred to hew their way to their +design with a high hand, and to put down all opposition by bought or +bullied majorities, backed by the strong arm of the nation, yet they +never refuse to compromise and palter when the path to success lies +through stratagems or frauds. The skill in this instance, as in all +others, by which they propose to win everything under the show of +yielding somewhat, is worthy of Machiavel or of Lucifer, and is far +above the capacity of the paltry Northern tool who is permitted to +enjoy the infamy of the invention which he was employed to utter. +The Slaveholders, like other despots, do their dirty work by proxy, +and scorn the wretched instruments they use, and then fling from +them in disgust. + +The Lecompton cheat having been defeated in the House after it had +received the indorsement of the Senate, the two coordinates were at +issue, and it seemed for a brief time to have met with the fate it +merited. But cunning and treachery combined to put it into the hands +of a Committee of Conference to be manipulated afresh, and, if +possible, moulded into a shape that might give Democratic recusants +an excuse for treason to the North and submission to the Power that +demanded it. And the invention was worthy of the diabolical sagacity +and ingenuity which have always marked the politics of Slavery. The +maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to +men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the +hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, +was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And +to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens +them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. +They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or +dissent as to the Constitution held over their heads. Their enemies +know too well what its fate would be, if offered, pure and simple, +to their acceptance or refusal. They are only to say whether or not +they will accept five million acres of land that Congress +munificently offers them for the construction of their railways. If +they say, "Yes, thank you," to this simple question, the Chief +Conjurer of the nation, the great Medicine Man of our tribe, the +Head Magician of our Egypt, will only have to say, "Presto pass," +and they will find themselves a Slave State in the glorious Union, +under a solemn contract, struck by this same act, to endure Slavery +for six years to come. If they say, "No, we won't," the door of the +Union is shut in their faces, and they are told to wait without in +all the bleakness of Territorial dependency, subject to the laws now +afflicting them, with a satrap sent down from Washington to rule over +them, and with Lecomptes and Catos to decree justice for them, until +swindling tools of the Administration shall be instructed to allow +the presence of a sufficient population to entitle a State to a +Representative. + +If they consent to be erected into a Slave State by accepting the +bribe, they will come into the Union by a puff of Presidential breath, +though having only forty thousand inhabitants, with two Senators and +a Representative, and all the advantages incident to Federal +connection and patronage. Should they reject it, they will be left, +it may be, to years of Territorial annoyance, and the annoyance of a +Slave Territory, too, till Government officials shall discover their +numbers to amount to near a hundred thousand, and possibly to much +more, after the next census has newly apportioned the House. With +Slavery, they have proffered to them broad lands to help cover their +wide expanse with an iron reticulation of railways, developing their +resources and multiplying their material prosperity, at the slight +cost of their consistency and their honor. Without it, they may have +to stand shivering at the gate of the Union, blasted by the +"cold shade" of our American aristocracy, and far removed from the +genial sunshine of national favor and bounty. Truly did Senator +Wilson say that Congress approached Kansas at once with a bribe and +a threat. Never was the devilish cunning of Slaveholding politics +more strikingly illustrated than by the insidious vileness of this +proposition. It had been bad enough, surely, had we been called upon +to rejoice, as over a great triumph of the right, at the concession +to Kansas of the sovereignty of settling her own institutions in her +own way, had such been granted. Nothing could be more simple and +natural, in a case of conflicting assertions and opposite beliefs as +to the state of opinion there, than to remit the decision of the +doubt to a fresh vote. Had any other interest than that in human +beings been involved, such a disposition of the whole matter would +have excited neither remark nor opposition. Nothing, perhaps, could +exemplify the control Slavery has obtained over the affairs of the +country more strongly than the power it has had to hinder this +simple remedy of an alleged wrong or error,--and this, by procuring +the defection of sordid Northern Representatives from what they +confessed to be the right, to this corrupt evasion,--an evasion +designed to fit the people of Kansas for servitude by tempting them +to sacrifice their self-respect and their honor. Let these +miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before +popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight +into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for +the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the +people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it +would have been humiliating enough to have had to exult over it as a +victory of Freedom. With what depth of shame, then, should we +contemplate the compassing of their end by the Slavocrats, through +the venal surrender of the rights so long and so manfully asserted, +for so paltry a temptation! + +But we do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. +We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse +to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will +reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their +reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their +circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the +post of honor they have sought in the great fight for freedom and +maintained so long and so well, disappointing and throwing into +confusion the distant allies who have stood behind them in their most +evil hours, for all the lands that President and Congress have to +give. It is, indeed, a momentous crisis for them, and we have faith +to believe that they will not be wanting to its demands. The eyes of +the lovers of liberty everywhere are earnestly watching to see how +they will come out from the ordeal by fire and by gold to which they +are subjected. What Boston was in 1775, and Paris in 1789, is Kansas +now,--the field on which a great battle for the right is to be fought. +Honor or infamy attends the issue of her action in the dilemma in +which the crafty malice of her enemies has placed her. If she agree +to take the dirty acres which are proffered to her as the price of +her integrity, she consents to take the yoke of Slavery upon her +neck and not even to attempt to shake herself free from it for six +years to come. We know that shuffling Democrats, and even +temporizing Republicans, represent that the people, after accepting +the Lecompton Constitution, can forthwith summon a Convention and +substitute another scheme of government in its stead. But this could +be initiated only by a breach of the promise they would have just +pledged, and could be carried through only by a revolution. Such a +course would be a direct violation of the philosophy of +Constitutional Government, which assumes as its fundamental axiom, +that Constitutions can be altered only in the way and according to +the conditions prescribed in themselves. Such a proceeding would be +a _coup d'etat_, not as flagitious certainly as that of Bonaparte, +but to the full as revolutionary and illegal. And we may be sure +that the arm of the United States Government would not be shortened +so that it should not interpose and hinder such a defiance of itself +and the Power whose instrument it is. With servile and corrupt +judges at its beck and a majority in Congress within its purchase, +the occasion and means of such an interference would be readily +devised and supplied. + +We believe that this line of policy would lead to an armed collision +with the General Government. It is for the oppressed inhabitants of +any country to say when their wrongs have reached the height which +justifies the drawing of the civil sword. We have neither the right +nor the disposition to advise the people of Kansas in a matter so +emphatically their own. But there is another way of coming to this +arbitrament,--inevitable, if they deviate a hair's-breadth from the +strict line of law,--should they deem there is no other remedy for +their wrongs. The admirable Constitution just framed at Leavenworth, +one well worthy of a free people that has been tried as with fire, +will be adopted before these lines are before the public eye. Let +them reject the Buchanan-English swindle, put their heel on the +Lecompton fraud, set up the Leavenworth Constitution, and erect a +State government under it in defiance of the Territorial Usurpation, +and they will soon find themselves face to face with the tyranny at +Washington. But is there not reason to hope that firmness and +patience may yet win the battle for freedom without resorting to so +serious an alternative? Is it indeed inevitable that Kansas must +remain out of the pale of the Union, under the oppression of the +Territorial laws, until the hirelings of the Government shall have +determined that slaves enough have been poured in to decide the +complexion of the new State, and shall authorize her to ask for +admission? We are told that the joy at Washington and elsewhere over +this "settlement" of the Kansas difficulty was because it was taken +out of Congress, and "Agitation" at an end. But what is to hinder +its being brought into Congress again?--and whose fault will it be, +if Agitation do not survive and grow mightier unto the victory? If +the present Congress can shut its doors against this intruder, its +power dies with itself, and it greatly lies with the people of Kansas +to make the next Congress one that shall rehabilitate them in their +rights. Their conduct at this pregnant moment may settle the +proximate destiny of the Republic, and decide whether the Slave +Power is to rule us by its underlings for four years more, or +whether its pride is to have a fall and its insolence a rebuke in +1860. + +We all remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has +been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again +to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the +blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had +hoped to look upon it no more. It would come back: + + "With twenty mortal murders on its head + _To push them from their stools_!" + +And this dreaded spectre, though a beneficent angel with healing on +his wings in truth, will push yet many traitorous or cowardly +sycophants from the stools they disgrace, and substitute in their +stead men who will quiet Agitation by Justice. Let the men of Kansas +remember that a yet greater trust than that of providing for their +own interests and rights is in their hands. The battle they are to +fight in this quarrel is for the whole North, for the whole country, +for the world. Let them address themselves unto it with calmness, +with prudence, with watchfulness, with courage. They are beset on +every side by crafty and desperate enemies. Greedy land-jobbers, in +haste to be rich, will try to persuade them that not to be innocent +is to be wise. Timid timeservers will urge a submission which +promises peace, though it be but a solitude that is called so. +Rampant Pro-slavery will exalt its horn against Righteousness and +try again the virtue of ruffianism to prevail against civilization. +The barbarians will hang anew upon the borders, ready to complete +the conquest they began so well. And above all, a majority of the men +who are to pass upon the votes are the creatures of the +Administration, who know, by the example of their predecessors, that +the suspicion of honesty will be fatal to all their hopes of +preferment, and that they can purchase reward only by procuring, +_quocunque modo_, the acceptance of the proposition of Congress. +But still the power is in the hands of the Free-State men, if they +choose to put it forth. Let them organize such a scrutiny everywhere, +that fraud and violence cannot escape detection and exposure. Let +them observe most rigidly all the technical rules imposed upon the +electors, that no vote may be lost. Let them come to the polls by +thousands, and trample under their feet the shabby bribe for which +they are asked to trade away their independence and their virtue. +Let them be thus faithful, and never be weary of maintaining the +Agitation, which is proved, by the very dread their enemies have of +it, to be the way to their victory. Thus they will be sure to triumph, +conquering their right to create their own government, and erect a +free commonwealth on the ruins of the tyranny they have overthrown. +And Kansas, at no distant period, will be welcomed by her Free +Sisters to her place among them, with no stain of bribes in her hands, +and with no soil of meanness upon her garments. And then the +"peace" and "prosperity," which President Buchanan saw in vision on +the eve of May-day, will indeed prevail and be established, while +the blackness of infamy will brood forever over the memory of the +magistrate who used the highest office of the Republic to perpetuate +the wrongs of the Slave by the sacrifice of the rights of the Citizen. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Library of Old Authors.--Works of John Webster_. London: John + Russell Smith. 1856-57. + +We turn now to Mr. Hazlitt's edition of Webster. We wish he had +chosen Chapman; for Mr. Dyce's Webster is hardly out of print, and, +we believe, has just gone through a second and revised edition. +Webster was a far more considerable man than Marston, and infinitely +above him in genius. Without the poetic nature of Marlowe, or +Chapman's somewhat unwieldy vigor of thought, he had that +inflammability of mind which, untempered by a solid understanding, +made his plays a strange mixture of vivid expression, incoherent +declamation, dramatic intensity, and extravagant conception of +character. He was not, in the highest sense of the word, a great +dramatist. Shakspeare is the only one of that age. Marlowe had a +rare imagination, a delicacy of sense that made him the teacher of +Shakspeare and Milton in versification, and was, perhaps, as purely +a poet as any that England has produced; but his mind had no +balance-wheel. Chapman abounds in splendid enthusiasms of diction, +and now and then dilates our imaginations with suggestions of +profound poetic depth. Ben Jonson was a conscientious and intelligent +workman, whose plays glow, here and there, with the golden pollen of +that poetic feeling with which his age impregnated all thought and +expression; but his leading characteristic, like that of his great +namesake, Samuel, was a hearty common sense, which fitted him rather +to be a great critic than a great poet. He had a keen and ready +sense of the comic in situation, but no humor. Fletcher was as much a +poet as fancy and sentiment can make any man. Only Shakspeare wrote +comedy and tragedy with truly ideal elevation and breadth. Only +Shakspeare had that true sense of humor which, like the universal +solvent sought by the alchemists, so fuses together all the elements +of a character, (as in _Falstaff_,) that any question of good or evil, +of dignified or ridiculous, is silenced by the apprehension of its +thorough humanity. Rabelais shows gleams of it in _Panurge_; but, in +our opinion, no man ever possessed it in an equal degree with +Shakspeare, except Cervantes; no man has since shown anything like +an approach to it, (for Moliere's quality was comic power rather +than humor,) except Sterne, Fielding, and Richter. Only Shakspeare +was endowed with that healthy equilibrium of nature whose point of +rest was midway between the imagination and the understanding,-- +that perfectly unruffled brain which reflected all objects with +almost inhuman impartiality,--that outlook whose range was ecliptical, +dominating all zones of human thought and action,--that power of +verisimilar conception which could take away _Richard III_ from +History, and _Ulysses_ from Homer,--and that creative faculty whose +equal touch is alike vivifying in _Shallow_ and in _Lear_. He alone +never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the risks +and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a +jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot. He is never, like +many of his fellow-dramatists, confronted with unnatural +Frankensteins of his own making, whom he must get off his hands as +best he may. Given a human foible, he can incarnate it in the +nothingness of Slender, or make it loom gigantic through the tragic +twilight of _Hamlet_. We are tired of the vagueness which classes +all the Elizabethan playwrights together as "great dramatists,"--as +if Shakspeare did not differ from them in kind as well as in degree. +Fine poets some of them were; but though imagination and the power of +poetic expression are, singly, not uncommon gifts, and even in +combination not without secular examples, yet it is the rarest of +earthly phenomena, to find them joined with those faculties of +perception, arrangement, and plastic instinct in the loving union +which alone makes a great dramatic poet possible. We suspect that +Shakspeare will long continue the only specimen of the genus. His +contemporaries, in their comedies, either force what they call +"a humor" till it becomes fantastical, or hunt for jokes, like +rat-catchers, in the sewers of human nature and of language. In +their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or +mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too +often do. Every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist is but the +putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility +of Shakspeare's stand-point as poet and artist. + +Webster's most famous works are "The Duchess of Malfy" and "Vittoria +Corombona," but we are strongly inclined to call "The Devil's +Law-Case" his best play. The two former are in a great measure +answerable for the "spasmodic" school of poets, since the +extravagances of a man of genius are as sure of imitation as the +equable self-possession of his higher moments is incapable of it. +Webster had, no doubt, the primal requisite of a poet, imagination, +but in him it was truly untamed, and Aristotle's admirable +distinction between the _Horrible_ and the _Terrible_ in tragedy was +never better illustrated and confirmed than in the "Duchess" and +"Vittoria." His nature had something of the sleuth-hound quality in +it, and a plot, to keep his mind eager on the trail, must be +sprinkled with fresh blood at every turn. We do not forget all the +fine things that Lamb has said of Webster, but, when Lamb wrote, the +Elizabethan drama was an El Dorado, whose micacious sand, even, was +treasured as auriferous,--and no wonder, in a generation which +admired the "Botanic Garden." Webster is the Gherardo della Notte of +his day, and himself calls his "Vittoria Corombona" a "night-piece." +Though he had no conception of Nature in its large sense, as +something pervading a whole character and making it consistent with +itself, nor of Art, as that which dominates an entire tragedy and +makes all the characters foils to each other and tributaries to the +catastrophe, yet there are flashes of Nature in his plays, struck +out by the collisions of passion, and dramatic intensities of phrase +for which it would be hard to find the match. The "prithee, undo +this button" of _Lear_, by which Shakspeare makes us feel the +swelling of the old king's heart, and that the bodily results of +mental anguish have gone so far as to deaden for the moment all +intellectual consciousness and forbid all expression of grief, is +hardly finer than the broken verse which Webster puts into the mouth +of _Ferdinand_ when he sees the body of his sister, murdered by +his own procurement,-- + + "Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young." + +He has not the condensing power of Shakspeare, who squeezed meaning +into a phrase with an hydraulic press, but he could carve a +cherry-stone with any of the _concellisti_, and abounds in +imaginative quaintnesses that are worthy of Donne, and epigrammatic +tersenesses that remind us of Fuller. Nor is he wanting in poetic +phrases of the purest crystallization. Here are a few examples:-- + + "Oh, if there be another world i' th' moon, + As some fantastics dream, I could wish all _men_, + The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, + Sent thither to people that!" + +(Old Chaucer was yet slier. After saying that Lamech was the first +faithless lover, he adds,-- + + "And he invented _tents_, unless men lie,"-- + +implying that he was the prototype of nomadic men.) + + "Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds: + In the trenches, for the soldier; in the wakeful study, + For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea, + For men of our profession [merchants]; all of which + Arise and spring up honor." + +("Of all which," Mr. Hazlitt prints it.) + + "Poor Jolenta! should she hear of this, + She would not after the report keep fresh + So long as flowers on graves." + + "For sin and shame are ever tied together + With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, + They cannot without violence be undone." + "One whose mind + Appears more like a ceremonious chapel + Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence." + "Gentry? 'tis nought else + But a superstitious relic of time past; + And, sifted to the true worth, it is nothing + But ancient riches." + "What is death? + The safest trench i' th' world to keep man free + From Fortune's gunshot." + + "It has ever been my opinion + That there are none love perfectly indeed, + But those that hang or drown themselves for love," + + says _Julio_, anticipating Butler's + + "But he that drowns, or blows out's brains, + The Devil's in him, if he feigns." + +He also anticipated La Rochefoucauld and Byron in their apophthegm +concerning woman's last love. In "The Devil's Law-Case," _Leonora_ +says: + + "For, as we love our youngest children best, + So the last fruit of our affection, + Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, + Most violent, most unresistible; + Since 'tis, indeed, our latest harvest-home, + Last merriment 'fore winter." + +In editing Webster, Mr. Hazlitt had the advantage (except in a +single doubtful play) of a predecessor in the Rev. Alexander Dyce, +beyond all question the best living scholar of the literature of the +times of Elizabeth and James I. If he give no proof of remarkable +fitness for his task, he seems, at least, to have been diligent and +painstaking. His notes are short and to the point, and--which we +consider a great merit--at the foot of the page. If he had added +a glossarial index, we should have been still better pleased. +Mr. Hazlitt seems to have read over the text with some care, and he +has had the good sense to modernize the orthography, or, as he says, +has "observed the existing standard of spelling throughout." Yet--for +what reason we cannot imagine--he prints "I" for "ay," taking the pains +to explain it every time in a note, and retains "banquerout" and +"coram" apparently for the sake of telling us that they mean +"bankrupt" and "quorum." He does not seem to have a quick ear for +scansion, which would sometimes have assisted him to the true reading. +We give an example or two: + + "The obligation wherein we all stood bound + Cannot be concealed [_cancelled_] without great + reproach." + + "The realm, not they, + Must be regarded. Be [we] strong and bold, + We are the people's factors." + + "Shall not be o'erburdened [_overburdened_] in + our reign." + + "A merry heart + And a good stomach to [a] feast are all." + + "Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and + ruffians." [_dele_ "up."] + + "Brother or father + In [a] dishonest suit, shall be to me." + + "What's she in Rome your greatness cannot awe, + Or your rich purse purchase + Promises and threats." [_dele_ the second "your."] + + "Through clouds of envy and disast [rous] change." + + "The Devil drives; 'tis [it is] full time to go." + +He has overlooked some strange blunders. What is the meaning of + + "Laugh at your misery, as foredeeming you + An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth + Would soon be lost i' the air"? + +We hardly need say that it should be + +"An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth, would," &c. + +"_For_wardness" for "_fro_wardness," (Vol. II. p. 87,) "tennis-balls +struck and ban_ded_" for "ban_died_," (Ib. p. 275,) may be errors of +the press; but: + + "Come, I'll love you wisely: + That's jealousy," + +has crept in by editorial oversight for "wisely, that's jealously." +So have: + + "Ay, the great emperor of [_or_] the mighty Cham"; + +and: + + "This wit [_with_] taking long journeys"; + +and: + + "Virginius, thou dost but supply my place, + I thine: Fortune hath lift me [_thee_] to my chair, + And thrown me headlong to thy pleading bar"; + +and: + + "I'll pour my soul into my daughter's belly, [_body_,] + And with my soldier's tears embalm her wounds." + +We suggest that the change of an _a_ to an _r_ would make sense of +the following:-- + + "Come, my little punk, with thy two compositors, + to this unlawful painting-house," + +[printing-house,] which Mr. Hazlitt awkwardly endeavors to explain by +this note on the word _compositors_:--"i.e. (conjecturally), +making up the composition of the picture"! Our readers can decide for +themselves;--the passage occurs Vol. I. p. 214. + +We think Mr. Hazlitt's notes are, in the main, good; but we should +like to know his authority for saying that _pench_ means "the hole +in a bench by which it was taken up,"--that "descant" means +"look askant on,"--and that "I wis" is equivalent to "I surmise, +imagine," which it surely is not in the passage to which his note is +appended. On page 9, Vol. I., we read in the text, + + "To whom, my lord, bends thus your awe," + +and in the note, "i.e. submission." The original has _aue_, which, +if it mean _ave_, is unmeaning here. Did Mr. Hazlitt never see a +picture of the Annunciation with _ave_ written on the scroll +proceeding from the bending angel's mouth? We find the same word in +Vol. III. p. 217,-- + + "Whose station's built on avees and applause." + +Vol. III. pp. 47-48:-- + + "And then rest, gentle bones; yet pray + That when by the precise you are view'd, + A supersedeas be not sued + To remove you to a place more airy, + That in your stead they may keep chary + Stockfish or seacoal, for the abuses + Of sacrilege have turned graves to viler uses." + +To the last verse Mr. Hazlitt appends this note, "Than that of +burning men's bones for fuel." There is no allusion here to burning +men's bones, but simply to the desecration of graveyards by building +warehouses upon them, in digging the foundations for which the bones +would be thrown out. The allusion is, perhaps, to the "Churchyard of +the Holy Trinity";--see Stow's _Survey_, ed. 1603, p. 126. Elsewhere +in the same play, Webster alludes bitterly to "begging church-land." + +Vol. I. p. 73, "And if he walk through the street, he ducks at the +penthouses, like an ancient that dares not flourish at the oathtaking +of the praetor for fear of the signposts." Mr. Hazlitt's note is, +"_Ancient_ was a standard or flag; also an _ensign_, of which +Skinner says it is a corruption. What the meaning of the simile is +the present editor cannot suggest." We confess we find no difficulty. +The meaning plainly is, that he ducks for fear of hitting the +penthouses, as an ensign on the Lord Mayor's day dares not flourish +his standard for fear of hitting the signposts. We suggest the query, +whether _ancient_, in this sense, be not a corruption of the Italian +word _anziano_. + +Want of space compels us to leave many other passages, which we had +marked for comment, unnoticed. We are surprised that Mr. Hazlitt, +(see his Introduction to "Vittoria Coromboma,") in undertaking to +give us some information concerning the Dukedom and Castle of +Bracciano, should uniformly spell it _Brachiano_. Shakspeare's +_Petruchio_ might have put him on his guard. We should be glad +also to know in what part of Italy he places _Malfi_. + +Mr. Hazlitt's General Introduction supplies us with no new +information, but this was hardly to be expected where Mr. Dyce had +already gone over the field. We wish that he had been able to give +us better means of distinguishing the three almost contemporary John +Websters one from the other, for we think the internal evidence is +enough to show that all the plays attributed to the author of the +"Duchess" and "Vittoria" could not have been written by the same +author. On the whole, he has given us a very respectable, and +certainly a very pretty, edition of an eminent poet. + +In leaving the subject, we cannot but express our satisfaction in +comparing with these examples of English editorship the four volumes +of Ballads recently published by Mr. Child. They are an honor to +American scholarship and fidelity. Taste, learning, and modesty, the +three graces of editorship, seem to have presided over the whole work. +We hope soon, also, to be able to chronicle another creditable +achievement in Mr. White's Shakspeare, which we look for with great +interest. + + + + _History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to + the Present Time_. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., + Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition, + with Additions. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1858. + 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 566, 648. + +We are heartily glad to welcome this reprint of the "History of the +Inductive Sciences," from an improved edition. From an intimate +acquaintance with the first edition, we should cordially recommend +these volumes to those who wish to take a general survey of this +department of human learning. The various subjects are, for the most +part, treated in a manner intelligible and agreeable to the +unlearned reader. As an authority, Whewell is generally trustworthy, +and as a critic usually fair. But in a work going over so much +ground it would be unreasonable to expect perfect accuracy, and +uniformly just estimates of the labors of all scientific men. +Dr. Whewell's scientific philosophy naturally affects his ability as +an historian and critic. In his Bridgewater Treatise, he indulged in +a fling at mathematics, for which we have never wholly forgiven him; +and in the present volume we see repeated evidence of his +underestimate of the value of the sciences of Space and Time. He says, +Vol. I. p. 600, that it was an "erroneous assumption" in Plato to +hold mathematical truths as "Realities more real than the Phenomena." +But to us it seems impossible to understand any work of Nature aright, +except by taking this view of Plato. The study of natural science is +deserving of the contempt which Samuel Johnson bestowed upon it, if +it be not a study of the thoughts of the Divine Mind. And as +phenomena are subject to laws of space and time as their essential +condition, they are primarily a revelation of the mathematical +thoughts of the Creator. Those mathematical ideas are, in Erigena's +phrase, the created creators of all that can appear. + +This false view of the mathematics lies at the foundation of +Whewell's view of a type in organized nature. He conceives a genus +to consist of those species which resemble the typical species of +the genus more than they resemble the typical species of any other +genus. It follows from this view that a species might be created +that would not belong to any genus, but resemble equally the types of +two or three genera. Thus, our little rue-leaved anemone might +belong to the meadow rues or to the wind-flowers, at the pleasure of +the botanist. We believe that classification is vastly more real than +this, real as geometry itself. Another instance of a similar want of +idealism in Dr. Whewell may be found in Vol. II. p. 643:--"Nothing +is added to the evidence of design by the perception of a unity of +plan which in no way tends to promote the design." Now to one who +believes, with us, that a thought is as real as the execution of the +thought, the perception of a unity of plan is the highest evidence +of design. No more convincing evidence of the existence of an +Intelligent Designer is to be found than in the unity of plan,--and +his design, thus proved, is the completion of the plan. For what +purpose he would complete it, is a secondary question. + +In this third edition many valuable additions have been made; and no +tales of Oriental fancy could be more wonderful than some of these +records of the discoveries in exact science made by our +contemporaries. What more magical than the miracles performed every +day in our telegraphic offices?--unless it be the transmission of +human speech in that manner under the waves of the Mediterranean +from Africa to Europe. What more like the dreams of alchemy than +taking metallic casts, in cold metal, with infinitely more delicacy +and accuracy than by melted metals,--taking them, too, from the most +fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than +to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the +compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more +improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? +What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human +measurement than the relative velocities of light in air and in water, +since the velocity in each is probably not less than a hundred +thousand miles a second? Yet two different experimenters arrived, +according to Whewell, in the same year, 1850, at the same result,-- +that the motion is slower in water; thus supplying the last link of +experimental proof to establish the undulatory theory of light. +While the records of science are strewn on every page with accounts +of such triumphs of human skill and intellect, we see no need of +resorting to fiction or to necromancy for the gratification of a +natural taste for the marvellous. + +It is true, Dr. Whewell does not give these discoveries, in the +spirit of an alchemist, as marvels,--but in the spirit of a +philosopher, as intellectual triumphs. Few men of our times have +shown a more active and powerful mind, a more earnest love of truth +for truth's sake, than the author of this History,--and few men have +had a wider or more thorough knowledge of the achievements of other +scientific men. Yet we are surprised, in reading this improved +edition, written scarce a twelvemonth ago, to find how ignorant +Dr. Whewell appears to have been of the existence or value of the +contributions to knowledge made on this side the Atlantic. The +chapter on Electro-Magnetism does not allude to the discoveries of +Joseph Henry, in regard to induced currents, and the adaptation of +varying batteries to varying circuits,--discoveries second in +importance only to those of Faraday,--and which were among the direct +means of leading Morse to the invention of the telegraph. The +chapters on Geology do not mention Professor Hall, and only allude in +a patronizing way to the labors of American geologists, and to the +ease of "reducing their classification to its synonymes and +equivalents in the Old World," as though the historian were not +aware that Hall's nomenclature is adopted on the continent of Europe +by the most eminent men in that department of science. In Geological +Dynamics Dr. Whewell speaks slightingly of glacial action, and +approves of Forbes's semifluid theory, in utter ignorance, it would +seem, of the labors of the Swiss geologists who now honor America +with their presence. The chapters on Zoology, and on Classifications +of Animals, make no allusion to Agassiz's introduction of Embryology +as an element in classification, which was published several years +before the "close of 1856." The history of Neptune gives no hint of +the fact, that its orbit was first determined through the labors of +American astronomers, with all the accuracy that fifty years of +observation might otherwise have been required to secure. Nor does +Dr. Whewell allude to the fact, that Peirce alone has demonstrated +the accuracy of Le Verrier's and Adams's computations, and shown +that a planet in the place which they erroneously assigned to +Neptune would produce the same perturbations of Uranus as those +which Neptune produced. Much less does he allude to that wonderful +demonstration by Peirce of the younger Bond's hypothesis, that the +rings of Saturn are fluid; or to Peirce's remark, that the belt of +the asteroids lies in the region in which the sun could most nearly +sustain a ring. Yet all these points are more important than many of +those which he introduces, and more to the purpose of his chapters. + +Notwithstanding these deficiencies in Whewell's scholarship and in +his philosophy, his History is a valuable addition to our modern +literature, and gives a better sketch of the whole ground than can be +found in any other single work. It is particularly valuable to those +whose ordinary pursuits lead them into other fields than those of +science, and we have known such to acknowledge their great +obligations to these clearly written and most suggestive volumes. + + + + _The Life of George Stephenson, Railway Engineer_. + By SAMUEL SMILES. From the + Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor + & Fields. + +There is something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall +we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The +world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and +other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to +win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and +what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, +manifestly somebody, within a generation or two, has done something +quite as memorable. Whether the world is quite awake to the fact or +not, it has lately entered on a new order of ages. Formerly it +hovered about shores, and built its Tyres, Venices, Amsterdams, and +London only near navigable waters, because it was easier to traverse +a thousand miles of fluid than a hundred miles of solid surface. Now +the case is nearly reversed. The iron rail is making the continent +all coast, anywhere near neighbor to everywhere, and central cities +as populous as seaports. Not only is all the fertility of the earth +made available, but fertility itself can be made by our new power of +transportation. + +Who more than other man or men has done this? Is there any chance +for a new mythology? Can we make a Saturn of Solomon de Caus, who +caught a prophetic glimpse of the locomotive two hundred years ago, +and went to a mad-house, without going mad, because a cardinal had +the instinct to see that the hierarchy would get into hot water by +allowing the French monarch to encourage steam? Can we make a +Jupiter of Mr. Hudson, one bull having been plainly sacrificed to him? +and shall Robert Schuyler serve us for Pluto? Shall we find Neptune, +with his sleeves rolled up, on the North River, commanding the first +practical steamboat, under the name of Robert Fulton? However this +may be, we think Mr. Smiles has made out a quite available demigod +in his well-sketched Railway Engineer. George Stephenson did not +invent the railway or the locomotive, but he did first put the +breath of its life into the latter. He built the first locomotive +that could work more economically than a horse, and by so doing +became the actual father of the railroad system. In 1814, he found +out and applied the steam-blast, whereby the waste steam from the +cylinders is used to increase the combustion, so that the harder the +machine works, the greater is its power to work. From that moment he +foresaw what has since happened, and fought like a Titan against the +world--the men of land, the men of science, and the men of law--to +bring it about. + +But before we go farther, who was this George Stephenson? A +collier-boy,--his father fireman to an old pumping-engine which +drained a Northumbrian coal-mine,--his highest ambition of boyhood to +be "taken on" to have something to do about the mine. And he was +taken on to pick over the coal, and finally to groom the engine, +which he did with the utmost care and veneration, learning how to +keep it well and doctor it when ill. He took wonderfully to +steam-engines, and finally, for their sake, to his letters, at the +age of seventeen! He became steam-engineer to large mines. Of his +own genius and humanity, he studied the nature of fire-damp +explosions, and, what is not more wonderful than well proven, +invented a miner's safety-lamp, on the same principle as Sir +Humphrey Davy's, and tested it at the risk of his life, a month or +two before Sir Humphrey invented his, or published a syllable about +it to the world! He engineered the Stockton and Darlington Railway. +He was thereupon appointed engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester +Railway. Though the means of transportation between those cities, +some thirty miles, were so inadequate that it took longer to get +cotton conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester than from New York to +Liverpool, yet it was with the utmost difficulty that a grant of the +right to build a railway could be obtained from Parliament. There +was little faith in such roads, and still less in steam-traction. +The land-owners were opposed to its passage through their domains, +and obliged Mr. Stephenson to survey by stealth or at the risk of a +broken head. So great was this opposition, that the projectors were +fain to lay out their road for four miles across a remarkable Slough +of Despond, called Chat Moss, where a scientific civil-engineer +testified before Parliament that he did not think it practicable to +make a railway, or, if practicable, at not less cost than L270,000 +for cutting and embankment. George Stephenson, after being almost +hooted out of the witness-box for testifying that it could be done, +and that locomotives could draw trains over it and elsewhere at the +rate of twelve miles an hour,--for which last extravagance his own +friends rebuked him,--carried the road over Chat Moss for L28,000, +and his friends over that at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Thus +he broke the back of the war, and lived to fill England with +railroads as the fruits of his victory; all which, and a great deal +more of the same sort, the reader will find admirably told by +Mr. Smiles,--albeit we cannot but smile too, that, when addressing the +universal English people, he expects them to understand such +provincialisms as _wage_ for wages, _leading coals_ for carrying coal, +and the like. But, nevertheless, his freedom from literary pretence +is really refreshing, and his thoroughness in matters of fact is +worthy of almost unlimited commendation. On the important question, +Who invented the locomotive steam-blast? had Mr. Smiles made in his +book as good use of his materials as he has since elsewhere, he +would have saved some engineers and one or two mechanical editors +from putting their feet into unpleasant places. Our Railroad Manuals, +that have adopted the error of attributing this great invention to +"Timothy Hackworth, in 1827," should be made to read, "George +Stephenson, in 1814." Their authors, and all others, should read +Samuel Smiles, the uppermost, by a whole sky, of all railway +biographers. + + + + + _A Volume of Vocabularies, illustrating the Condition and Manners + of our Forefathers, as well as the History of the Forms of + Elementary Education and of the Languages spoken in this Island, + from the Tenth Century to the Fifteenth_. Edited, from MSS. in + Public and Private Collections, by THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., etc. + Privately printed. [London.] 1857. 8vo. pp. 291. + +Mr. Wright, in editing this handsome volume, has done another +service to the lovers and students of English glossology. Their +thanks are also due to Mr. Joseph Mayer, who generously bore the +expense of printing the book. + +A great deal that is interesting to the student of general history +lies imbedded in language, and Mr. Wright, in a very agreeable +Introduction, has summarized the chief matters of value in the +collection before us, which comprises the printed copies of sixteen +ancient MSS. of various dates. As far as we have had time to examine +it, the book seems to have been edited with care and discretion, and +Mr. Wright has added much to its value by timely and judicious notes. + +Most of the vocabularies here printed (many of them for the first +time) were intended for the use of schoolmasters, and throw great +light on the means and methods of teaching during the periods at +which they were compiled. Mr. Wright tells us that there exist very +few MSS. of educational treatises of the fourteenth century, (during +which teaching would accordingly seem to have been neglected,) in +comparison with the thirteenth and fifteenth, when such works were +abundant. To all who would trace the history of education in England +and follow up our common-school system to its source, the editor's +Introduction will afford valuable hints. + +The following extracts from Mr. Wright's Introduction will give some +notion of the archaeological and philological value of the volume. + + "It is this circumstance of grouping the + words under different heads which gives these + vocabularies their value as illustrations of the + conditions and manners of society. It is evident + that the compiler gave, in each case, the + names of all such things as habitually presented + themselves to his view, or, in other + words, that he presents us with an exact list + and description of all the objects which were + in use at the time he wrote, and no more. + We have, therefore, in each a sort of measure + of the fashions and comforts and utilities of + contemporary life, as well as, in some cases, of + its sentiments. Thus, to begin with a man's + habitation, his house,--the words which describe + the parts of the Anglo-Saxon house are + few in number, a _heal_ or hall, a _bur_ or bedroom, + and in some cases a _cicen_ or kitchen, + and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, + laths, and plaster. But when we come to + the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, + we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic + buildings which William of Malmsbury + assures us that the Normans introduced + into this island; the house becomes more + massive, and the rooms more numerous, and + more diversified in their purposes. When we + look at the furniture of the house, the difference + is still more apparent. The description + given by Alexander Neckam of the hall, the + chambers, the kitchen, and the other departments + of the ordinary domestic establishment, + in the twelfth century, and the furniture + of each, almost brings them before our + eyes, and nothing could be more curious than + the account which the same writer gives us + of the process of building and storing a castle." + p. xv. + +"The philologist will appreciate the tracts printed in the following +pages as a continuous series of very valuable monuments of the +languages spoken in our island during the Middle Ages. It is these +vocabularies alone which have preserved from oblivion a very +considerable and interesting portion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and +without their assistance our Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be far +more imperfect than they are. I have endeavored to collect together +in the present volume all the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies that are +known to exist, not only on account of their diversity, but because +I believe that their individual utility will be increased by thus +presenting them in a collective form. They represent the Anglo-Saxon +language as it existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and, as +written no doubt in different places, they may possibly present some +traces of the local dialects of that period. The curious semi-Saxon +vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in +its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. +The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on +John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language +which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the +Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. In +the partial vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we +have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then +emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become +early English. We are again introduced to the English language more +generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose +treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the +fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given here belong, +as far as the language is concerned, to the fifteenth century. As +written in different parts of the country, they bear evident marks +of dialect; one of them--the vocabulary in Latin verse--is a very +curious relic of the dialect of the West of England at a period of +which such remains are extremely rare."--p. xix. + + + + + _Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton_. By the late REV. + FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Second Series. From + the Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +The biography of Robertson, prefixed to this volume, will gratify +the curiosity which every sympathetic reader of the first series of +his sermons must have felt regarding the incidents of his career. It +was evident to a close observer that the peculiar charm and power of +the preacher came from peculiarities of character and individual +experience, as well as from peculiarities of mind. There was +something so close and searching in his pathos, so natural in his +statements of doctrine, so winning in his appeals,--his simplest +words of consolation or rebuke touched with such subtile certainty +the feelings they addressed,--and his faith in heavenly things was +so clear, deep, intense, and calm,--that the reader could hardly +fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in +the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the +spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His +biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried +in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward +struggle with suffering and calamity,--a character sensitive, tender, +magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly +cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a +sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at +work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to +the decay of strength and the need of repose. He had no time to be +happy. + +The most striking mental characteristic of his sermons is the +originality of his perceptions of religious truth. He takes up the +themes and doctrines of the Church, the discussion of which has +filled libraries with books of divinity which stand as an almost +impregnable wall around the simple facts and teachings of the +Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, +and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and +heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a +man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, +and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in +their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the +truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in +which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, he often tells us +more of the essentials of a subject, and exhibits more clearly the +religious significance of a doctrine, than other writers have done in +labored volumes of exposition and controversy. This power of +simplifying spiritual truth without parting with any of its depth +accounts for the interest with which his sermons are read by persons +of all degrees of age and culture. His method of arrangement is also +admirable; his thoughts are not only separately excellent, but are +all in their right places, so that each is an efficient agent in +deepening the general impression left by the whole. The singular +refinement and beauty of his mind lend a peculiar charm to its +boldness; we have the soul of courage without the rough outside +which so often accompanies it; and his diction, being on a level +with his themes, never offends that fine detecting spiritual taste +which instinctively takes offence when spiritual things are viewed +through unspiritual moods and clothed in words which smack of the +senses. Combine all his characteristics, his intrepidity of +disposition and intellect, his deep experience of religious truth, +the sad earnestness of his faith, his penetration of thought, his +direct, executive expression, and the beauty which pervades and +harmonizes all,--and it is hazarding little to say, that his volumes +will take the rank of classics in the department of theology to +which they belong. + + + + _The Church and the Congregation_. A Plea + for their Unity. By C. A. BARTOL. + Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. + +As church-membership is in some respects the aristocracy of +Congregationalism, and as it is considered by many minds to be as +necessary for the safety of theology as the old distinction of +_esoteric_ and _exoteric_ was for the safety of philosophy, the +publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose +clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and +certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open +communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of +Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the +meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the +Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other +ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps +exaggerates its importance, he thinks that its most beneficent +effects will be seen when it is the symbol of unity, and not of +division. The usual distinction between Church and Congregation he +considers invidious and mischievous, as not indicating a +corresponding distinction in religious character, and as separating +the body of Christian worshippers into two parts by a mechanical +rather than spiritual process. Though he meets objections with +abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due +not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative +statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of +that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly +beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the +expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to +the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common +sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. +This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that +the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also +much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the +practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the +objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in +earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free +from the repellent qualities which are apt to embitter theological +controversies, that even when his ideas come into conflict with the +most obstinate prejudices and rooted convictions, there is nothing +in his mode of stating or enforcing them to give offence. The book +will win its way by the natural force of what truth there is in it, +and the most that an opponent can say is, that the author is in error; +it cannot be said that he is arrogant, contemptuous, self-asserting, +or that he needlessly shocks the opinions he aims to change. + +Mr. Bartol's style is bold, fervid, and figurative, exhibiting a +wide command of language and illustration, and at times rising into +passages of singular beauty and eloquence. The fertility of his mind +in analogies enables him to strengthen his leading conception with a +large number of related thoughts, and the whole subject of vital +Christianity is thus continually in view, and connected with the +special theme he discusses. This characteristic will make his volume +interesting and attractive to many readers who are either opposed to +his views of the Lord's Supper, or are unable to agree with him in +regard to the importance of the change he proposes. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. II, NO. 8, JUNE 1858 *** + +This file should be named 702a810.txt or 702a810.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 702a811.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 702a810a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8903] +[This file was first posted on August 22, 2003] +[Date last updated: June 4, 2005] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. II, NO. 8, JUNE 1858 *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +American Tract Society, The +Ann Potter's Lesson +Asirvadam the Brahmin +Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The +Autocrat's Landlady, A Visit to the +Autocrat, The, gives a Breakfast to the Public + +Birds of the Garden and Orchard, The +Birds of the Pasture and Forest, The +Bulls and Bears +Bundle of Irish Pennants, A + +Catacombs of Rome, The +Catacombs of Rome, Note to the +Chesuncook +Colin Clout and the Faėry Queen +Crawford and Sculpture + +Daphnaļdes, +Denslow Palace, The +Dot and Line Alphabet, The + +Eloquence +Evening with the Telegraph-Wires, An + +Farming Life in New England +Faustus, Doctor, The German Popular Legend of + +Gaucho, The +Great Event of the Century, The + +Her Grace, the Drummer's Daughter +Hour before Dawn, The + +Ideal Tendency, The +Illinois in Spring-time + +Jefferson, Thomas + +Kinloch Estate, The + +Language of the Sea, The +Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von +Letter-Writing +Loo Loo + +Mademoiselle's Campaigns +Metempsychosis +Minister's Wooing, The +Miss Wimple's Hoop + +New World, The, and the New Man + +Obituary +Old Well, The +Our Talks with Uncle John + +Perilous Bivouac, A +Physical Courage +Pintal +Pocket-Celebration of the Fourth, The +President's Prophecy of Peace, The +Prisoner of War, A +Punch + +Railway-Engineering in the United States +Rambles in Aquidneck +Romance of a Glove, The + +Salons de Paris, Les +Sample of Consistency, A +Singing-Birds and their Songs, The +Songs of the Sea +Subjective of it, The +Suggestions + +Three of Us + +Water-Lilies +What are we going to make? +Whirligig of Time, The + +Youth + + +POETRY + +All's Well + +Beatrice +Birth-Mark, The +"Bringing our Sheaves with us" + +Cantatrice, La +Cup, The + +Dead House, The +Discoverer of the North Cape, The + +Evening Melody, An + +Fifty and Fifteen + +House that was just like its Neighbors, The + +Jolly Mariner, The + +Keats, the Poet + +Last Look, The + +Marais du Cygne, Le +My Children +Myrtle Flowers + +Nature and the Philosopher +November +November.--April + +Shipwreck +Skater, The +Spirits in Prison +Swan-Song of Parson Avery, The + +Telegraph, The +To ----- +Trustee's Lament, The + +Waldeinsamkeit +"Washing of the Feet," The, on Holy Thursday, in St. Peter's +What a Wretched Woman said to me +Work and Rest + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + +American Cyclopedia, The New +Annual Obituary Notices, by N. Crosby +Aquarium, The, by P. H. Gosse + +Belle Brittan on a Tour +Bigelow, Jacob, Brief Expositions of Rational Medicine by +Black's Atlas of North America + +Chapman's American Drawing-Book +Church and Congregation, The, by C. A. Bartel +Crosby's Annual Obituary, for 1857 +Curiosities of Literature, by Disraeli +Cyclopedia of Drawing, The, by W. E. Worthen +Cyclopaedia, The New American + +Dana's Household Book of Poetry +Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature +Drawing-Book, The American, by J.G. Chapman +Drawing, The Cyclopedia of + +Ewbank, Thomas, Thoughts on Matter and Force by +Exiles of Florida, The, by J. E. Giddings + +Fitch, John, Westcott's Life of + +Giddings, Joshua R., The Exiles of Florida by +Goadby, Henry, A Text-Book of Animal and Vegetable Physiology by +Gray's Botanical Series + +Household Book of Poetry, by C. A. Dana + +Inductive Sciences, History of the, by Whewell + +Journey due North, A, by G. A. Sala + +Kingsley, Charles, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time, with other Papers by + +Library of Old Authors +Life beneath the Waters + +New Priest in Conception Bay, The + +Pascal, Études sur, par M. Victor Cousin +Pellico, Silvio, Lettres de +Physiology, Animal and Vegetable, by Henry Goadby +Poe's Poetical Works + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his Time, with other Papers, by C. Kingsley +Rational Medicine, Brief Expositions of, by Jacob Bigelow +Robertson, Rev. F. W., Sermons by + +Sea-Shore, Common Objects of the, by J. G. Wood +Stephenson, George, Smiles's Life of +Summer Time in the Country + +Thoughts on Matter and Force, by Thomas Ewbank + +Vocabularies, A Volume of, by T. Wright + +Webster, John, Dramatic Works of +Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences +Wright, Thomas, A Volume of Vocabularies by + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +VOL. II.--JUNE, 1858.--NO. VIII. + + + + +CHESUNCOOK. + + +At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I left Boston in the steamer for +Bangor by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,--warmer, +probably, on the water than on the land,--and the sea was as smooth +as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went +singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock. We passed a +vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the islands, and some +of us thought that she was the "rapt ship" which ran + + "on her side so low + That she drank water, and her keel ploughed air," + +not considering that there was no wind, and that she was under bare +poles. Now we have left the islands behind and are off Nahant. We +behold those features which the discoverers saw, apparently unchanged. +Now we see the Cape Ann lights, and now pass near a small +village-like fleet of mackerel fishers at anchor, probably off +Gloucester. They salute us with a shout from their low decks; but I +understand their "Good evening", to mean, "Don't run against me, Sir." +From the wonders of the deep we go below to get deeper sleep. And +then the absurdity of being waked up in the night by a man who wants +the job of blacking your boots! It is more inevitable than +seasickness, and may have something to do with it. It is like the +ducking you get on crossing the line the first time. I trusted that +these old customs were abolished. They might with the same propriety +insist on blacking your face. I heard of one man who complained that +somebody had stolen his boots in the night; and when he found them, +he wanted to know what they had done to them,--they had spoiled them,-- +he never put that stuff on them; and the boot-black narrowly escaped +paying damages. + +Anxious to get out of the whale's belly, I rose early, and joined +some old salts, who were smoking by a dim light on a sheltered part +of the deck. We were just getting into the river. They knew all +about it, of course. I was proud to find that I had stood the voyage +so well, and was not in the least digested. We brushed up and +watched the first signs of dawn through an open port; but the day +seemed to hang fire. We inquired the time; none of my companions had +a chronometer. At length an African prince rushed by, observing, +"Twelve o'clock, gentlemen!" and blew out the light. It was moon-rise. +So I slunk down into the monster's bowels again. + +The first land we make is Manheigan Island, before dawn, and next St. +George's Islands, seeing two or three lights. Whitehead, with its +bare rocks and funereal bell, is interesting. Next I remember that +the Camden Hills attracted my eyes, and afterward the hills about +Frankfort. We reached Bangor about noon. + +When I arrived, my companion that was to be had gone up river, and +engaged an Indian, Joe Aitteon, a son of the Governor, to go with us +to Chesuncook Lake. Joe had conducted two white men a-moose-hunting +in the same direction the year before. He arrived by cars at Bangor +that evening, with his canoe and a companion, Sabattis Solomon, who +was going to leave Bangor the following Monday with Joe's father, by +way of the Penobscot, and join Joe in moose-hunting at Chesuncook, +when we had done with him. They took supper at my friend's house and +lodged in his barn, saying that they should fare worse than that in +the woods. They only made Watch bark a little, when they came to the +door in the night for water, for he does not like Indians. + +The next morning Joe and his canoe were put on board the stage for +Moosehead Lake, sixty and odd miles distant, an hour before we +started in an open wagon. We carried hard bread, pork, smoked beef, +tea, sugar, etc., seemingly enough for a regiment; the sight of +which brought together reminded me by what ignoble means we had +maintained our ground hitherto. We went by the Avenue Road, which is +quite straight and very good, north-westward toward Moosehead Lake, +through more than a dozen flourishing towns, with almost every one +its academy,--not one of which, however, is on my General Atlas, +published, alas! in 1824; so much are they before the age, or I +behind it! The earth must have been considerably lighter to the +shoulders of General Atlas then. + +It rained all this day and till the middle of the next forenoon, +concealing the landscape almost entirely; but we had hardly got out +of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the +sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive +evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the +sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy. He who rides and keeps the +beaten track studies the fences chiefly. Near Bangor, the fence-posts, +on account of the frost's heaving them in the clayey soil, were not +planted in the ground, but were mortised into a transverse horizontal +beam lying on the surface. Afterwards, the prevailing fences were +log ones, with sometimes a Virginia fence, or else rails slanted +over crossed stakes,--and these zigzagged or played leap-frog all +the way to the lake, keeping just ahead of us. After getting out of +the Penobscot Valley, the country was unexpectedly level, or +consisted of very even and equal swells, for twenty or thirty miles, +never rising above the general level, but affording, it is said, a +very good prospect in clear weather, with frequent views of Katadin,-- +straight roads and long hills. The houses were far apart, commonly +small and of one story, but framed. There was very little land under +cultivation, yet the forest did not often border the road. The stumps +were frequently as high as one's head, showing the depth of the snows. +The white hay-caps, drawn over small stacks of beans or corn in the +fields, on account of the rain, were a novel sight to me. We saw +large flocks of pigeons, and several times came within a rod or two +of partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in one journey +out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty partridges from his +buggy. The mountain-ash was now very handsome, as also the +wayfarer's-tree or hobble-bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed +with red. The Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the +prevailing weed all the way to the lake,--the road-side in many +places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as +with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. There were also +whole fields full of ferns, now rusty and withering, which in older +countries are commonly confined to wet ground. There were very few +flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It chanced +that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for fifty miles, though +they were so abundant then in Massachusetts,--except in one place +one or two of the aster acuminatus,--and no golden-rods till within +twenty miles of Monson, where I saw a three-ribbed one. There were +many late buttercups, however, and the two fire-weeds, erechthites +and epilobium, commonly where there had been a burning, and at last +the pearly everlasting. I noticed occasionally very long troughs +which supplied the road with water, and my companion said that three +dollars annually were granted by the State to one man in each +school-district, who provided and maintained a suitable water-trough +by the road-side, for the use of travellers,--a piece of +intelligence as refreshing to me as the water itself. That +legislature did not sit in vain. It was an Oriental act, which made +me wish that I was still farther down East,--another Maine law, +which I hope we may get in Massachusetts. That State is banishing +bar-rooms from its highways, and conducting the mountain-springs +thither. + +The country was first decidedly mountainous in Garland, Sangerville, +and onwards, twenty-five or thirty miles from Bangor. At Sangerville, +where we stopped at mid-afternoon to warm and dry ourselves, the +landlord told us that he had found a wilderness where we found him. +At a fork in the road between Abbot and Monson, about twenty miles +from Moosehead Lake, I saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of +moose-horns, spreading four or five feet, with the word "Monson" +painted on one blade, and the name of some other town on the other. +They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with +deers' horns, in front entries; but, after the experience which I +shall relate, I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing +a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached Monson, +fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the lake, after dark. + +At four o'clock the next morning, in the dark, and still in the rain, +we pursued our journey. Close to the academy in this town they have +erected a sort of gallows for the pupils to practise on. I thought +that they might as well hang at once all who need to go through such +exercises in so new a country, where there is nothing to hinder +their living an outdoor life. Better omit Blair, and take the air. +The country about the south end of the lake is quite mountainous, +and the road began to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, +it is calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In many +places the road was in that condition called _repaired_, having just +been whittled into the required semi-cylindrical form with the +shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, +like a hog's back with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to +keep astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the bare +sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to behold,--a vast +hollowness, like that between Saturn and his ring. At a tavern +hereabouts the hostler greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, +though he did not remember the driver. He said that he had taken +care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two before, at +the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was not in as good condition +as then. Every man to his trade. I am not acquainted with a single +horse in the world, not even the one that kicked me. + +Already we had thought that we saw Moosehead Lake from a hill-top, +where an extensive fog filled the distant lowlands, but we were +mistaken. It was not till we were within a mile or two of its south +end that we got our first view of it,--a suitably wild-looking +sheet of water, sprinkled with small low islands, which were covered +with shaggy spruce and other wild wood,--seen over the infant port +of Greenville, with mountains on each side and far in the north, and +a steamer's smoke-pipe rising above a roof. A pair of moose-horns +ornamented a corner of the public-house where we left our horse, and +a few rods distant lay the small steamer Moosehead, Captain King. +There was no village, and no summer road any farther in this +direction,--but a winter road, that is, one passable only when deep +snow covers its inequalities, from Greenville up the east side of the +lake to Lily Bay, about twelve miles. + +I was here first introduced to Joe. He had ridden all the way on the +outside of the stage the day before, in the rain, giving way to +ladies, and was well wetted. As it still rained, he asked if we were +going to "put it through." He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four +years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a +broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and +more turned-up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the +description of his race. Beside his under-clothing, he wore a red +flannel shirt, woollen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary +dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the +Penobscot Indian. When, afterward, he had occasion to take off his +shoes and stockings, I was struck with the smallness of his feet. He +had worked a good deal as a lumberman, and appeared to identify +himself with that class. He was the only one of the party who +possessed an India-rubber jacket. The top strip or edge of his canoe +was worn nearly through by friction on the stage. + +At eight o'clock, the steamer with her bell and whistle, scaring the +moose, summoned us on board. She was a well-appointed little boat, +commanded by a gentlemanly captain, with patent life-seats, and +metallic life-boat, and dinner on board, if you wish. She is chiefly +used by lumberers for the transportation of themselves, their boats, +and supplies, but also by hunters and tourists. There was another +steamer, named Amphitrite, laid up close by; but, apparently, her +name was not more trite than her hull. There were also two or three +large sail-boats in port. These beginnings of commerce on a lake in +the wilderness are very interesting,--these larger white birds that +come to keep company with the gulls. There were but few passengers, +and not one female among them: a St. Francis Indian, with his canoe +and moose-hides, two explorers for lumber, three men who landed at +Sandbar Island, and a gentleman who lives on Deer Island, eleven +miles up the lake, and owns also Sugar Island, between which and the +former the steamer runs; these, I think, were all beside ourselves. +In the saloon was some kind of musical instrument, cherubim or +seraphim, to soothe the angry waves; and there, very properly, was +tacked up the map of the public lands of Maine and Massachusetts, a +copy of which I had in my pocket. + +The heavy rain confining us to the saloon awhile, I discoursed with +the proprietor of Sugar Island on the condition of the world in Old +Testament times. But at length, leaving this subject as fresh as we +found it, he told me that he had lived about this lake twenty or +thirty years, and yet had not been to the head of it for twenty-one +years. He faces the other way. The explorers had a fine new birch on +board, larger than ours, in which they had come up the Piscataquis +from Howland, and they had had several messes of trout already. They +were going to the neighborhood of Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes, or +the head-waters of the St. John, and offered to keep us company as +far as we went. The lake to-day was rougher than I found the ocean, +either going or returning, and Joe remarked that it would swamp his +birch. Off Lily Bay it is a dozen miles wide, but it is much broken +by islands. The scenery is not merely wild, but varied and +interesting; mountains were seen, farther or nearer, on all sides +but the north-west, their summits now lost in the clouds; but Mount +Kineo is the principal feature of the lake, and more exclusively +belongs to it. After leaving Greenville, at the foot, which is the +nucleus of a town some eight or ten years old, you see but three or +four houses for the whole length of the lake, or about forty miles, +three of them the public-houses at which the steamer is advertised +to stop, and the shore is an unbroken wilderness. The prevailing +wood seemed to be spruce, fir, birch, and rock-maple. You could +easily distinguish the hard wood from the soft, or "black growth," +as it is called, at a great distance,--the former being smooth, +round-topped, and light green, with a bowery and cultivated look. + +Mount Kineo, at which the boat touched, is a peninsula with a narrow +neck, about midway the lake on the east side. The celebrated +precipice is on the east or land side of this, and is so high and +perpendicular that you can jump from the top many hundred feet into +the water which makes up behind the point. A man on board told us +that an anchor had been sunk ninety fathoms at its base before +reaching bottom! Probably it will be discovered ere long that some +Indian maiden jumped off it for love once, for true love never could +have found a path more to its mind. We passed quite close to the +rock here, since it is a very bold shore, and I observed marks of a +rise of four or five feet on it. The St. Francis Indian expected to +take in his boy here, but he was not at the landing. The father's +sharp eyes, however, detected a canoe with his boy in it far away +under the mountain, though no one else could see it. "Where is the +canoe?" asked the captain, "I don't see it"; but he held on +nevertheless, and by and by it hove in sight. + +We reached the head of the lake about noon. The weather had in the +mean while cleared up, though the mountains were still capped with +clouds. Seen from this point, Mount Kineo, and two other allied +mountains ranging with it north-easterly, presented a very strong +family likeness, as if all cast in one mould. The steamer here +approached a long pier projecting from the northern wilderness and +built of some of its logs,--and whistled, where not a cabin nor a +mortal was to be seen. The shore was quite low, with flat rocks on it, +overhung with black ash, arbor-vitae, etc., which at first looked as +if they did not care a whistle for us. There was not a single cabman +to cry "Coach!" or inveigle us to the United States Hotel. At length +a Mr. Hinckley, who has a camp at the other end of the "carry," +appeared with a truck drawn by an ox and a horse over a rude +log-railway through the woods. The next thing was to get our canoe +and effects over the carry from this lake, one of the heads of the +Kennebec, into the Penobscot River. This railway from the lake to +the river occupied the middle of a clearing two or three rods wide +and perfectly straight through the forest. We walked across while +our baggage was drawn behind. My companion went ahead to be ready +for partridges, while I followed, looking at the plants. + +This was an interesting botanical locality for one coming from the +South to commence with; for many plants which are rather rare, and +one or two which are not found at all, in the eastern part of +Massachusetts, grew abundantly between the rails,--as Labrador tea, +kalmia glauca, Canada blueberry, (which was still in fruit, and a +second time in bloom,) Clintonia and Linnęa Borealis, which last a +lumberer called _moxon_, creeping snowberry, painted trillium, +large-flowered bell-wort, etc. I fancied that the aster radula, +diplopappus umbellatus, solidago lanceolatus, red trumpetweed, and +many others which were conspicuously in bloom on the shore of the +lake and on the carry, had a peculiarly wild and primitive look there. +The spruce and fir trees crowded to the track on each side to +welcome us, the arbor-vitę with its changing leaves prompted us to +make haste, and the sight of the canoe-birch gave us spirits to do so. +Sometimes an evergreen just fallen lay across the track with its +rich burden of cones, looking, still, fuller of life than our trees +in the most favorable positions. You did not expect to find such +_spruce_ trees in the wild woods, but they evidently attend to +their toilets each morning even there. Through such a front-yard did +we enter that wilderness. + +There was a very slight rise above the lake,--the country appearing +like, and perhaps being, partly a swamp,--and at length a gradual +descent to the Penobscot, which I was surprised to find here a large +stream, from twelve to fifteen rods wide, flowing from west to east, +or at right angles with the lake, and not more than two and a half +miles from it. The distance is nearly twice too great on the Map of +the Public Lands, and on Colton's Map of Maine, and Russell Stream +is placed too far down. Jackson makes Moosehead Lake to be nine +hundred and sixty feet above high water in Portland harbor. It is +higher than Chesuncook, for the lumberers consider the Penobscot, +where we struck it, twenty-five feet lower than Moosehead,--though +eight miles above it is said to be the highest, so that the water +can be made to flow either way, and the river falls a good deal +between here and Chesuncook. The carry-man called this about one +hundred and forty miles above Bangor by the river, or two hundred +from the ocean, and fifty-five miles below Hilton's on the Canada +road, the first clearing above, which is four and a half miles from +the source of the Penobscot. + +At the north end of the carry, in the midst of a clearing of sixty +acres or more, there was a log camp of the usual construction, with +something more like a house adjoining, for the accommodation of the +carryman's family and passing lumberers. The bed of withered +fir-twigs smelled very sweet, though really very dirty. There was +also a store-house on the bank of the river, containing pork, flour, +iron, bateaux, and birches, locked up. + +We now proceeded to get our dinner, which always turned out to be tea, +and to pitch canoes, for which purpose a large iron pot lay +permanently on the bank. This we did in company with the explorers. +Both Indians and whites use a mixture of rosin and grease for this +purpose,--that is, for the pitching, not the dinner. Joe took a +small brand from the fire and blew the heat and flame against the +pitch on his birch, and so melted and spread it. Sometimes he put +his mouth over the suspected spot and sucked, to see if it admitted +air; and at one place, where we stopped, he set his canoe high on +crossed stakes, and poured water into it. I narrowly watched his +motions, and listened attentively to his observations, for we had +employed an Indian mainly that I might have an opportunity to study +his ways. I heard him swear once mildly, during this operation, +about his knife being as dull as a hoe,--an accomplishment which he +owed to his intercourse with the whites; and he remarked, "We ought +to have some tea before we start; we shall be hungry before we kill +that moose." + +At mid-afternoon we embarked on the Penobscot. Our birch was +nineteen and a half feet long by two and a half at the widest part, +and fourteen inches deep within, both ends alike, and painted green, +which Joe thought affected the pitch and made it leak. This, I think, +was a middling-sized one. That of the explorers was much larger, +though probably not much longer. This carried us three with our +baggage, weighing in all between five hundred and fifty and six +hundred pounds. We had two heavy, though slender, rock-maple paddles, +one of them of bird's-eye maple. Joe placed birch bark on the bottom +for us to sit on, and slanted cedar splints against the cross-bars +to protect our backs, while he himself sat upon a cross-bar in the +stern. The baggage occupied the middle or widest part of the canoe. +We also paddled by turns in the bows, now sitting with our legs +extended, now sitting upon our legs, and now rising upon our knees; +but I found none of these positions endurable, and was reminded of +the complaints of the old Jesuit missionaries of the torture they +endured from long confinement in constrained positions in canoes, in +their long voyages from Quebec to the Huron country; but afterwards I +sat on the cross-bars, or stood up, and experienced no inconvenience. + +It was dead water for a couple of miles. The river had been raised +about two feet by the rain, and lumberers were hoping for a flood +sufficient to bring down the logs that were left in the spring. Its +banks were seven or eight feet high, and densely covered with white +and black spruce,--which, I think, must be the commonest trees +thereabouts,--fir, arbor-vitę, canoe, yellow, and black birch, rock, +mountain, and a few red maples, beech, black and mountain ash, the +large-toothed aspen, many civil-looking elms, now imbrowned, along +the stream, and at first a few hemlocks also. We had not gone far +before I was startled by seeing what I thought was an Indian +encampment, covered with a red flag, on the bank, and exclaimed, +"Camp!" to my comrades. I was slow to discover that it was a red +maple changed by the frost. The immediate shores were also densely +covered with the speckled alder, red osier, shrubby willows or +sallows, and the like. There were a few yellow-lily-pads still left, +half drowned, along the sides, and sometimes a white one. Many fresh +tracks of moose were visible where the water was shallow, and on the +shore, and the lily-stems were freshly bitten off by them. + +After paddling about two miles, we parted company with the explorers, +and turned up Lobster Stream, which comes in on the right, from the +south-east. This was six or eight rods wide, and appeared to run +nearly parallel with the Penobscot. Joe said that it was so called +from small fresh-water lobsters found in it. It is the Matahumkeag of +the maps. My companion wished to look for moose signs, and intended, +if it proved worth the while, to camp up that way, since the Indian +advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up +this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. +The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were +now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, +the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and +chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee +_kecunnilessu_ in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling +of what possibly was never spelt before, but I pronounced after him +till he said it would do. We passed close to a woodcock, which stood +perfectly still on the shore, with feathers puffed up, as if sick. +This, Joe said, they called _nipsquecohossus_. The kingfisher was +_skuscumonsuck_; bear was _wassus_; Indian Devil, _lunxus_; the +mountain-ash, _upahsis_. This was very abundant and beautiful. +Moose-tracks were not so fresh along this stream, except in a small +creek about a mile up it, where a large log had lodged in the spring, +marked "W-cross-girdle-crow-foot." We saw a pair of moose-horns on +the shore, and I asked Joe if a moose had shed them; but he said +there was a head attached to them, and I knew that they did not shed +their heads more than once in their lives. + +After ascending about a mile and a half, to within a short distance +of Lobster Lake, we returned to the Penobscot. Just below the mouth +of the Lobster we found quick water, and the river expanded to +twenty or thirty rods in width. The moose-tracks were quite numerous +and fresh here. We noticed in a great many places narrow and +well-trodden paths by which they had come down to the river, and +where they had slid on the steep and clayey bank. Their tracks were +either close to the edge of the stream, those of the calves +distinguishable from the others, or in shallow water; the holes +made by their feet in the soft bottom being visible for a long time. +They were particularly numerous where there was a small bay, or +_pokelogan_, as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or +separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, +wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten +the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, +where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, +Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then +asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes +had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my +companion obtained it. I now began to notice the bright red berries +of the tree-cranberry, which grows eight or ten feet high, mingled +with the alders and cornel along the shore. There was less hard wood +than at first. + +After proceeding a mile and three quarters below the mouth of the +Lobster, we reached, about sundown, a small island at the head of +what Joe called the Moosehorn Dead-water, (the Moosehorn, in which +he was going to hunt that night, coming in about three miles below), +and on the upper end of this we decided to camp. On a point at the +lower end lay the carcass of a moose killed a month or more before. +We concluded merely to prepare our camp, and leave our baggage here, +that all might be ready when we returned from moose-hunting. Though +I had not come a-hunting, and felt some compunctions about +accompanying the hunters, I wished to see a moose near at hand, and +was not sorry to learn how the Indian managed to kill one. I went as +reporter or chaplain to the hunters,--and the chaplain has been +known to carry a gun himself. After clearing a small space amid the +dense spruce and fir trees, we covered the damp ground with a +shingling of fir-twigs, and, while Joe was preparing his birch-horn +and pitching his canoe,--for this had to be done whenever we stopped +long enough to build a fire, and was the principal labor which he +took upon himself at such times,--we collected fuel for the night, +large wet and rotting logs, which had lodged at the head of the +island, for our hatchet was too small for effective chopping; but we +did not kindle a fire, lest the moose should smell it. Joe set up a +couple of forked stakes, and prepared half a dozen poles, ready to +cast one of our blankets over in case it rained in the night, which +precaution, however, was omitted the next night. We also plucked the +ducks which had been killed for breakfast. + +While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, +from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a +woodchopper's axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude. We are +wont to liken many sounds, heard at a distance in the forest, to the +stroke of an axe because they resemble each other under those +circumstances, and that is the one we commonly hear there. When we +told Joe of this, he exclaimed, "By George, I'll bet that was moose! +They make a noise like that." These sounds affected us strangely, +and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably +had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and +wildness. + +At starlight we dropped down the stream, which was a dead-water for +three miles, or as far as the Moosehorn; Joe telling us that we must +be very silent, and he himself making no noise with his paddle, +while he urged the canoe along with effective impulses. It was a +still night, and suitable for this purpose,--for if there is wind, +the moose will smell you,--and Joe was very confident that he should +get some. The harvest moon had just risen, and its level rays began +to light up the forest on our right, while we glided downward in the +shade on the same side, against the little breeze that was stirring. +The lofty spiring tops of the spruce and fir were very black against +the sky, and more distinct than by day, close bordering this broad +avenue on each side; and the beauty of the scene, as the moon rose +above the forest, it would not be easy to describe. A bat flew over +our heads, and we heard a few faint notes of birds from time to time, +perhaps the myrtle-bird for one, or the sudden plunge of a musquash, +or saw one crossing the stream before us, or heard the sound of a +rill emptying in, swollen by the recent rain. About a mile below the +island, when the solitude seemed to be growing more complete every +moment, we suddenly saw the light and heard the crackling of a fire +on the bank, and discovered the camp of the two explorers; they +standing before it in their red shirts, and talking aloud of the +adventures and profits of the day. They were just then speaking of a +bargain, in which, as I understood, somebody had cleared twenty-five +dollars. We glided by without speaking, close under the bank, within +a couple of rods of them; and Joe, taking his horn, imitated the +call of the moose, till we suggested that they might fire on us. +This was the last we saw of them, and we never knew whether they +detected or suspected us. + +I have often wished since that I was with them. They search for +timber over a given section, climbing hills and often high trees to +look off,--explore the streams by which it is to be driven, and the +like,--spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a +hundred miles or more from any town,--roaming about, and sleeping on +the ground where night overtakes them,--depending chiefly on the +provisions they carry with them, though they do not decline what game +they come across,--and then in the fall they return and make report +to their employers, determining the number of teams that will be +required the following winter. Experienced men get three or four +dollars a day for this work. It is a solitary and adventurous life, +and comes nearest to that of the trapper of the West, perhaps. They +work ever with a gun as well as an axe, let their beards grow, and +live without neighbors, not on an open plain, but far within a +wilderness. + +This discovery accounted for the sounds which we had heard, and +destroyed the prospect of seeing moose yet awhile. At length, when +we had left the explorers far behind, Joe laid down his paddle, drew +forth his birch horn,--a straight one, about fifteen inches long and +three or four wide at the mouth, tied round with strips of the same +bark,--and standing up, imitated the call of the moose,--_ugh-ugh-ugh_, +or _oo-oo-oo-oo_, and then a prolonged _oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_, and +listened attentively for several minutes. We asked him what kind of +noise he expected to hear. He said, that, if a moose heard it, he +guessed we should find out; we should hear him coming half a mile off; +he would come close to, perhaps into, the water, and my companion +must wait till he got fair sight, and then aim just behind the +shoulder. + +The moose venture out to the riverside to feed and drink at night. +Earlier in the season the hunters do not use a horn to call them out, +but steal upon them as they are feeding along the sides of the stream, +and often the first notice they have of one is the sound of the +water dropping from its muzzle. An Indian whom I heard imitate the +voice of the moose, and also that of the caribou and the deer, using +a much longer horn than Joe's, told me that the first could be heard +eight or ten miles, sometimes; it was a loud sort of bellowing sound, +clearer and more sonorous than the lowing of cattle,--the caribou's +a sort of snort,--and the small deer's like that of a lamb. + +At length we turned up the Moosehorn, where the Indians at the carry +had told us that they killed a moose the night before. This is a +very meandering stream, only a rod or two in width, but +comparatively deep, coming in on the right, fitly enough named +Moosehorn, whether from its windings or its inhabitants. It was +bordered here and there by narrow meadows between the stream and the +endless forest, affording favorable places for the moose to feed, +and to call them out on. We proceeded half a mile up this, as +through a narrow winding canal, where the tall, dark spruce and firs +and arbor-vitae towered on both sides in the moonlight, forming a +perpendicular forest-edge of great height, like the spires of a +Venice in the forest. In two places stood a small stack of hay on +the bank, ready for the lumberer's use in the winter, looking +strange enough there. We thought of the day when this might be a +brook winding through smooth-shaven meadows on some gentleman's +grounds; and seen by moonlight then, excepting the forest that now +hems it in, how little changed it would appear! + +Again and again Joe called the moose, placing the canoe close by +some favorable point of meadow for them to come out on, but listened +in vain to hear one come rushing through the woods, and concluded +that they had been hunted too much thereabouts. We saw many times +what to our imaginations looked like a gigantic moose, with his +horns peering from out the forest-edge; but we saw the forest only, +and not its inhabitants, that night. So at last we turned about. +There was now a little fog on the water, though it was a fine, clear +night above. There were very few sounds to break the stillness of +the forest. Several times we heard the hooting of a great horned-owl, +as at home, and told Joe that he would call out the moose for him, +for he made a sound considerably like the horn,--but Joe answered, +that the moose had heard that sound a thousand times, and knew better; +and oftener still we were startled by the plunge of a musquash. Once, +when Joe had called again, and we were listening for moose, we heard +come faintly echoing, or creeping from far, through the moss-clad +aisles, a dull, dry, rushing sound, with a solid core to it, yet as +if half smothered under the grasp of the luxuriant and fungus-like +forest, like the shutting of a door in some distant entry of the +damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had +heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,-- +"Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in +the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as +if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but +worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a +boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. +If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with +the dews of the night on them are heavier than by day. + +Having reached the camp, about ten o'clock, we kindled our fire and +went to bed. Each of us had a blanket, in which he lay on the +fir-twigs, with his extremities toward the fire, but nothing over his +head. It was worth the while to lie down in a country where you +could afford such great fires; that was one whole side, and the +bright side, of our world. We had first rolled up a large log some +eighteen inches through and ten feet long, for a back-log, to last +all night, and then piled on the trees to the height of three or +four feet, no matter how green or damp. In fact, we burned as much +wood that night as would, with economy and an air-tight stove, last +a poor family in one of our cities all winter. It was very agreeable, +as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire +kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries +used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, +they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since the creation, +unless by earthquakes. It is surprising with what impunity and +comfort one who has always lain in a warm bed in a close apartment, +and studiously avoided drafts of air, can lie down on the ground +without a shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, +in a frosty autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and even come +soon to enjoy and value the fresh air. + +I lay awake awhile, watching the ascent of the sparks through the +firs, and sometimes their descent in half-extinguished cinders on my +blanket. They were as interesting as fireworks, going up in endless +successive crowds, each after an explosion, in an eager serpentine +course, some to five or six rods above the tree-tops before they +went out. We do not suspect how much our chimneys have concealed; +and now air-tight stoves have come to conceal all the rest. In the +course of the night, I got up once or twice and put fresh logs on +the fire, making my companions curl up their legs. + +When we awoke in the morning, (Saturday, September 17,) there was +considerable frost whitening the leaves. We heard the sound of the +chickadee, and a few faintly lisping birds, and also of ducks in the +water about the island. I took a botanical account of stock of our +domains before the dew was off, and found that the ground-hemlock, +or American yew, was the prevailing undershrub. We breakfasted on tea, +hard bread, and ducks. + +Before the fog had fairly cleared away, we paddled down the stream +again, and were soon past the mouth of the Moosehorn. These twenty +miles of the Penobscot, between Moosehead and Chesuncook Lakes, are +comparatively smooth, and a great part dead-water; but from time to +time it is shallow and rapid, with rocks or gravel-beds, where you +can wade across. There is no expanse of water, and no break in the +forest, and the meadow is a mere edging here and there. There are no +hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant +mountains seen in a few places. The banks are from six to ten feet +high, but once or twice rise gently to higher ground. In many places +the forest on the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light +through from some alder-swamp or meadow behind. The conspicuous +berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore were the red osier, +with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush, mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, +choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. +Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of +the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked +very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the +shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, +that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native +river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to +the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands, +as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was too late for flowers, +except a few asters, golden-rods, etc. In several places we noticed +the slight frame of a camp, such as we had prepared to set up, amid +the forest by the river-side, where some lumberers or hunters had +passed a night,--and sometimes steps cut in the muddy or clayey bank +in front of it. + +We stopped to fish for trout at the mouth of a small stream called +Ragmuff, which came in from the west, about two miles below the +Moosehorn. Here were the ruins of an old lumbering-camp, and a small +space, which had formerly been cleared and burned over, was now +densely overgrown with the red cherry and raspberries. While we were +trying for trout, Joe, Indian-like, wandered off up the Ragmuff on +his own errands, and when we were ready to start was far beyond call. +So we were compelled to make a fire and get our dinner here, not to +lose time. Some dark reddish birds, with grayer females, (perhaps +purple finches,) and myrtle-birds in their summer dress, hopped +within six or eight feet of us and our smoke. Perhaps they smelled +the frying pork. The latter bird, or both, made the lisping notes +which I had heard in the forest. They suggested that the few small +birds found in the wilderness are on more familiar terms with the +lumberman and hunter than those of the orchard and clearing with the +farmer. I have since found the Canada jay, and partridges, both the +black and the common, equally tame there, as if they had not yet +learned to mistrust man entirely. The chickadee, which is at home +alike in the primitive woods and in our wood-lots, still retains its +confidence in the towns to a remarkable degree. + +Joe at length returned, after an hour and a half, and said that he +had been two miles up the stream exploring, and had seen a moose, but, +not having the gun, he did not get him. We made no complaint, but +concluded to look out for Joe the next time. However, this may have +been a mere mistake, for we had no reason to complain of him +afterwards. As we continued down the stream, I was surprised to hear +him whistling "O Susanna," and several other such airs, while his +paddle urged us along. Once he said, "Yes, Sir-ee." His common word +was "Sartain." He paddled, as usual, on one side only, giving the +birch an impulse by using the side as a fulcrum. I asked him how +the ribs were fastened to the side rails. He answered, "I don't know, +I never noticed." Talking with him about subsisting wholly on what +the woods yielded, game, fish, berries, etc., I suggested that his +ancestors did so; but he answered, that he had been brought up in +such a way that he could not do it. "Yes," said he, "that's the way +they got a living, like wild fellows, wild as bears. By George! I +shan't go into the woods without provision,--hard bread, pork, etc." +He had brought on a barrel of hard bread and stored it at the carry +for his hunting. However, though he was a Governor's son, he had not +learned to read. + +At one place below this, on the east side, where the bank was higher +and drier than usual, rising gently from the shore to a slight +elevation, some one had felled the trees over twenty or thirty acres, +and left them drying in order to burn. This was the only preparation +for a house between the Moosehead carry and Chesuncook, but there +was no hut nor inhabitants there yet. The pioneer thus selects a +site for his house, which will, perhaps, prove the germ of a town. + +My eyes were all the while on the trees, distinguishing between the +black and white spruce and the fir. You paddle along in a narrow +canal through an endless forest, and the vision I have in my mind's +eye, still, is of the small dark and sharp tops of tall fir and +spruce trees, and pagoda-like arbor-vitęs, crowded together on each +side, with various hard woods intermixed. Some of the arbor-vitęs +were at least sixty feet high. The hard woods, occasionally +occurring exclusively, were less wild to my eye. I fancied them +ornamental grounds, with farm-houses in the rear. The canoe and +yellow birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman; but the +spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian. The soft engravings +which adorn the annuals give no idea of a stream in such a wilderness +as this. The rough sketches in Jackson's Reports on the Geology of +Maine answer much better. At one place we saw a small grove of +slender sapling white-pines, the only collection of pines that I saw +on this voyage. Here and there, however, was a full-grown, tall, and +slender, but defective one, what lumbermen call a _kouchus_ tree, +which they ascertain with their axes, or by the knots. I did not +learn whether this word was Indian or English. It reminded me of the +Greek [Greek: kogchae], a conch or shell, and I amused myself with +fancying that it might signify the dead sound which the trees yield +when struck. All the rest of the pines had been driven off. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +LA CANTATRICE. + + By day, at a high oak desk I stand, + And trace in a ledger line by line; + But at five o'clock yon dial's hand + Opens the cage wherein I pine; + And as faintly the stroke from the belfry peals + Down through the thunder of hoofs and wheels, + I wonder if ever a monarch feels + Such royal joy as mine! + + Beatrice is dressed and her carriage waits; + I know she has heard that signal-chime; + And my strong heart leaps and palpitates, + As lightly the winding stair I climb + To her fragrant room, where the winter's gloom + Is changed by the heliotrope's perfume, + And the curtained sunset's crimson bloom, + To love's own summer prime. + + She meets me there, so strangely fair + That my soul aches with a happy pain;-- + A pressure, a touch of her true lips, such + As a seraph might give and take again; + A hurried whisper, "Adieu! adieu! + They wait for me while I stay for you!" + And a parting smile of her blue eyes through + The glimmering carriage-pane. + + Then thoughts of the past come crowding fast + On a blissful track of love and sighs;-- + Oh, well I toiled, and these poor hands soiled, + That her song might bloom in Italian skies!-- + The pains and fears of those lonely years, + The nights of longing and hope and tears,-- + Her heart's sweet debt, and the long arrears + Of love in those faithful eyes! + + O night! be friendly to her and me!-- + To box and pit and gallery swarm + The expectant throngs;--I am there to see;-- + And now she is bending her radiant form + To the clapping crowd;--I am thrilled and proud; + My dim eyes look through a misty cloud, + And my joy mounts up on the plaudits loud, + Like a sea-bird on a storm! + + She has waved her hand; the noisy rush + Of applause sinks down; and silverly + Her voice glides forth on the quivering hush, + Like the white-robed moon on a tremulous sea! + And wherever her shining influence calls, + I swing on the billow that swells and falls,-- + I know no more,--till the very walls + Seem shouting with jubilee! + + Oh, little she cares for the fop who airs + His glove and glass, or the gay array + Of fans and perfumes, of jewels and plumes, + Where wealth and pleasure have met to pay + Their nightly homage to her sweet song; + But over the bravas clear and strong, + Over all the flaunting and fluttering throng, + She smiles my soul away! + + Why am I happy? why am I proud? + Oh, can it be true she is all my own?-- + I make my way through the ignorant crowd; + I know, I know where my love hath flown. + Again we meet; I am here at her feet, + And with kindling kisses and promises sweet, + Her glowing, victorious lips repeat + That they sing for me alone! + + + + +GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNITZ. + +The philosophic import of this illustrious name, having suffered +temporary eclipse from the Critical Philosophy, with its swift +succession of transcendental dynasties,--the _Wissenschaftslehre_, +the _Naturphilosophie_, and the _Encyclopädie_,--has recently +emerged into clear and respectful recognition, if not into broad and +effulgent repute. In divers quarters, of late, the attention of the +learned has reverted to the splendid optimist, whose adventurous +intellect left nothing unexplored and almost nothing unexplained. +Biographers and critics have discussed his theories,--some in the +interest of philosophy, and some in the interest of religion,--some +in the spirit of discipleship, and some in the spirit of opposition,-- +but all with consenting and admiring attestation of the vast +erudition and intellectual prowess and unsurpassed capacity [1] +of the man. + +[Footnote 1: The author of a notice of Leibnitz, more clever than +profound, in four numbers of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1852, +distinguishes between capacity and faculty. He gives his subject +credit for the former, but denies his claim to the latter of these +attributes. As if any manifestation of mind were more deserving of +that title than the power of intellectual concentration, to which +nothing that came within its focus was insoluble.] + +A collection of all the works appertaining to Leibnitz, with all his +own writings, would make a respectable library. We have no room for +the titles of all, even of the more recent of these publications. We +content ourselves with naming the Biography, by G. G. Guhrauer, the +best that has yet appeared, called forth by the celebration, in 1846, +of the ducentesimal birthday of Leibnitz,--the latest edition of his +Philosophical Works, by Professor Erdmann of Halle--the publication +of his Correspondence with Arnauld, by Herr Grotefend, and of that +with the Landgrave Ernst von Hessen Rheinfels, by Chr. von Rommel,-- +of his Historical Works, by the librarian Pertz of Berlin,--of the +Mathematical, by Gerhardt,--Ludwig Jeuerbach's elaborate dissertation, +"Darstellung, Entwickelung und Kritik der Leibnitzischen Philosophie,"-- +Zimmermann's "Leibnitz u. Herbart's Monadologie,"--Schelling's +"Leibnitz als Denker,"--Hartenstein's "De Materiae apud Leibnit. +Notione,"--and Adolph Helferich's "Spinoza u. Leibnitz: oder Das +Wesen des Idealismus u. des Realismus." To these we must add, as +one of the most valuable contributions to Leibnitian literature, +M. Foucher de Careil's recent publication of certain MSS. of Leibnitz, +found in the library at Hanover, containing strictures on Spinoza, +(which the editor takes the liberty to call "Refutation Inédite de +Spinoza,")--"Sentiment de Worcester et de Locke sur les Idées,"-- +"Correspondance avec Foucher, Bayle et Fontenelle,"--"Reflexions sur +l'Art de connaītre les Homines,"--"Fragmens Divers," etc. [2], +accompanied by valuable introductory and critical essays. + +[Footnote 2: A second collection, by the same hand, appeared in 1857, +with the title, _Nouvelles Lettres et Opuscules Inédits de Leibnitz_. +Précédés d'une Introduction. Par A. Foucher de Careil. Paris. 1857.] + +M. de Careil complains that France has done so little for the memory +of a man "qui lui a fait l'honneur d'écrire les deux tiers de ses +oeuvres en Franēais." England does not owe him the same obligations, +and England has done far less than France,--in fact, nothing to +illustrate the memory of Leibnitz; not so much as an English +translation of his works, or an English edition of them, in these +two centuries. Nor have M. de Careil's countrymen in times past +shared all his enthusiasm for the genial Saxon. The barren +Psychology of Locke obtained a currency in France, in the last +century, which the friendly Realism of his great contemporary could +never boast. Raspe, the first who edited the "Nouveaux Essais," +takes to himself no small credit for liberality in so doing, and +hopes, by rendering equal justice to Leibnitz and to Locke, to +conciliate those "who, with the former, think that their wisdom is +the sure measure of omnipotence," [3] and those who "believe, with +the latter, that the human mind is to the rays of the primal Truth +what a night-bird is to the sun." [4] + +[Footnote 3: + "Stimai gią che 'I mio saper misura + Certa fosse e infallibile di quanto + Puņ far l'alto Fattor della natura." + Tasso, _Gerus_, xiv. 45.] + +[Footnote 4: + "Augel notturno al sole + E nostra mente a' rai del primo Vero." + _Ib_. 46.] + +Voltaire pronounced him "le savant le plus universel de l'Europe," +but characterized his metaphysical labors with the somewhat +equivocal compliment of "metaphysicien assez délié pour vouloir +réconcilier la théologie avec la métaphysique." [5] + +[Footnote 5: "On sait que Voltaire n'aimait pas Leibnitz. +J'imagine que c'est le chrétien qu'il détestait en lui." + --Ch. Waddington.] + +Germany, with all her wealth of erudite celebrities, has produced no +other who fulfils so completely the type of the _Gelehrte_,--a type +which differs from that of the _savant_ and from that of the scholar, +but includes them both. Feuerbach calls him "the personified thirst +for Knowledge"; Frederic the Great pronounced him an "Academy of +Sciences"; and Fontenelle said of him, that "he saw the end of things, +or that they had no end." It was an age of intellectual adventure +into which Leibnitz was born,--fit sequel and heir to the age of +maritime adventure which preceded it. We please ourselves with +fancied analogies between the two epochs and the nature of their +discoveries. In the latter movement, as in the former, Italy took +the lead. The martyr Giordano Bruno was the brave Columbus of modern +thought,--the first who broke loose from the trammels of mediaeval +ecclesiastical tradition, and reported a new world beyond the watery +waste of scholasticism. Campanella may represent the Vespucci of the +new enterprise; Lord Bacon its Sebastian Cabot,--the "Novum Organum" +being the Newfoundland of modern experimental science. Des Cartes +was the Cortés, or shall we rather say the Ponce de Leon, of +scientific discovery, who, failing to find what he sought,--the +Principle of Life, (the Fountain of Eternal Youth,)--yet found +enough to render his name immortal and to make mankind his debtor. +Spinoza is the spiritual Magalhaens, who, emerging from the straits +of Judaism, beheld + + "Another ocean's breast immense, unknown." + +Of modern thinkers he was + + "----the first + That ever burst + Into that silent sea." + +He discovered the Pacific of philosophy,--that theory of the sole +Divine Substance, the All-One, which Goethe in early life found so +pacifying to his troubled spirit, and which, vague and barren as it +proves on nearer acquaintance, induces at first, above all other +systems, a sense of repose in illimitable vastness and immutable +necessity. + +But the Vasco de Gama of his day was Leibnitz. His triumphant +optimism rounded the Cape of theological Good Hope. He gave the +chief impulse to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted, as he +was, with Western thought, he revived the forgotten interest in the +Old and Eastern World, and brought the ends of the earth together. +Circumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he touched, he +appeared as discoverer, as conqueror, as lawgiver. In mathematics, +he discovered or invented the Differential Calculus,--the logic of +transcendental analysis, the infallible method of astronomy, without +which it could never have compassed the large conclusions of the +"Mecanique Celeste." In his "Protogaea," published in 1693, he laid +the foundation of the science of Geology. From his observations, as +Superintendent of the Hartz Mines, and those which he made in his +subsequent travels through Austria and Italy,--from an examination +of the layers, in different localities, of the earth's crust, he +deduced the first theory, in the geological sense, which has ever +been propounded, of the earth's formation. Orthodox Lutheran as he +was, he braved the theological prejudices which then, even more than +now, affronted scientific inquiry in that direction. "First among men," +says Flourens, "he demonstrated the two agencies which successively +have formed and reformed the globe,--fire and water." In the region +of metaphysical inquiry, he propounded a new and original theory of +Substance, and gave to philosophy the Monad, the Law of Continuity, +the Preėstablished Harmony, and the Best Possible World. + +Born at Leipzig, in 1646,--left fatherless at the age of six years,-- +by the care of a pious mother and competent guardians, young +Leibnitz enjoyed such means of education as Germany afforded at that +time, but declares himself, for the most part, self-taught [6]. + +[Footnote 6: "Duo, ihi profuere mirifice, (quae tamen alioqui ambigna, +et pluribus noxia esse solent,) primum quod fere essem [Greek: +autodidaktos], alterum quod quaererem nova in unaquaque scientia." + --LEIBNIT. _Opera Philosoph_. Erdmann. p. 162.] + +So genius must always be, for want of any external stimulus equal to +its own impulse. No normal training could keep pace with his +abnormal growth. No school discipline could supply the fuel +necessary to feed the consuming fire of that ravenous intellect. +Grammars, manuals, compends,--all the apparatus of the classes,-- +were only oil to its flame. The Master of the Nicolai-Schule in +Leipzig, his first instructor, was a steady practitioner of the +Martinet order. The pupils were ranged in classes corresponding to +their civil ages,--their studies graduated according to the +baptismal register. It was not a question of faculty or proficiency, +how a lad should be classed and what he should read, but of calendar +years. As if a shoemaker should fit his last to the age instead of +the foot. Such an age, such a study. Gottfried is a genius, and Hans +is a dunce; but Gottfried and Hans were both born in 1646; +consequently, now, in 1654, they are both equally fit for the +Smaller Catechism. Leibnitz was ready for Latin long before the time +allotted to that study in the Nicolai-Schule, but the system was +inexorable. All access to books cut off by rigorous proscription. +But the thirst for knowledge is not easily stifled, and genius, like +love, "will find out his way." + +He chanced, in a corner of the house, to light on an odd volume of +Livy, left there by some student boarder. What could Livy do for a +child of eight years, with no previous knowledge of Latin, and no +lexicon to interpret between them? For most children, nothing. Not +one in a thousand would have dreamed of seriously grappling with +such a mystery. But the brave Patavinian took pity on our little one +and yielded something to childish importunity. The quaint old copy +was garnished, according to a fashion of the time, with rude +wood-cuts, having explanatory legends underneath. The young +philologer tugged at these until he had mastered one or two words. +Then the book was thrown by in despair as impracticable to further +investigation. Then, after one or two weeks had elapsed, for want of +other employment, it was taken up again, and a little more progress +made. And so by degrees, in the course of a year, a considerable +knowledge of Latin had been achieved. But when, in the Nicolai order, +the time for this study arrived, so far from being pleased to find +his instructions anticipated, or welcoming such promise of future +greatness,--so far from rejoicing in his pupil's proficiency, the +pedagogue chafed at the insult offered to his system by this empiric +antepast. He was like one who suddenly discovers that he is telling +an old story where he thought to surprise with a novelty; or like +one who undertakes to fill a lamp, which, being (unknown to him) +already full, runs over, and his oil is spilled. It was "oleum +perdidit" in another sense than the scholastic one. Complaint was +made to the guardians of the orphan Gottfried of these illicit +visits to the tree of knowledge. Severe prohibitory measures were +recommended, which, however, judicious counsel from another quarter +happily averted. + +At the age of eleven, Leibnitz records, that he made, on one occasion, +three hundred Latin verses without elision between breakfast and +dinner. A hundred hexameters, or fifty distichs, in a day, is +generally considered a fair _pensum_ for a boy of sixteen at a +German gymnasium. + +At the age of seventeen, he produced, as an academic exercise, on +taking the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, his celebrated treatise +on the Principle of Individuality, "De Principle Individui," the +most extraordinary performance ever achieved by a youth of that age,-- +remarkable for its erudition, especially its intimate knowledge of +the writings of the Schoolmen, and equally remarkable for its +vigorous grasp of thought and its subtile analysis. In this essay +Leibnitz discovered the bent of his mind and prefigured his future +philosophy, in the choice of his theme, and in his vivid appreciation +and strenuous positing of the individual as the fundamental +principle of ontology. He takes Nominalistic ground in relation to +the old controversy of Nominalist and Realist, siding with Abelard +and Roscellin and Occam, and against St. Thomas and Duns Scotus. The +principle of individuation, he maintains, is the entire entity of +the individual, and not mere limitation of the universal, whether by +"Existence" or by "_Haecceity_." [7] John and Thomas are individuals +by virtue of their integral humanity, and not by fractional limitation +of humanity. Dobbin is an actual positive horse (_Entitas tota_). +Not a negation, by limitation, of universal equiety (_Negatio_). +Not an individuation, by actual existence, of a non-existent but +essential and universal horse (_Existentia_). Nor yet a horse +only by limitation of kind,--a horse minus Dick and Bessie and the +brown mare, etc. (_Haecceitas_). But an individual horse, +simply by virtue of his equine nature. Only so far as he is an actual +complete horse, is he an individual at all. (_Per quod quid est, +per id unum numero est_.) His individuality is nothing superadded +to his equiety. (_Unum supra ens nihil addit reale_.) Neither +is it anything subtracted therefrom. (_Negatio non potest producere +accidentia individualia_.) In fine, there is and can be no horse +but actual individual horses. (_Essentia et existentia non possunt +separari_.) + +[Footnote 7: "Aut enim principium individuationis ponitur _entitas +tota_, (1) aut non tota. Non totam aut negatio exprimit, (2) aut +aliquid positivum. Positivum aut pars physica est, essentiam +terminaus, _existentia_, (3) aut metaphysica, speciem terminans, +_haec ceitas_. (4)... Pono igitur: omne individuum sua tota +entitate individuatur." + --_De Princ. Indiv_. 3 et 4.] + +This was the doctrine of the Nominalists, as it was of Aristotle +before them. It was the doctrine of the Reformers, except, if we +remember rightly, of Huss. The University of Leipzig was founded +upon it. It is the current doctrine of the present day, and +harmonizes well with the current Materialism. Not that Nominalism in +itself, and as Leibnitz held it, is necessarily materialistic, but +Realism is essentially antimaterialistic. The Realists held with +Plato,--but not in his name, for they, too, claimed to be +Aristotelian, and preėminently so,--that the ideal must precede the +actual. So far they were right. This was their strong point. Their +error lay in claiming for the ideal an objective reality, an +independent being. Conceptualism was only another statement of +Nominalism, or, at most, a question of the relation of language to +thought. It cannot be regarded as a third issue in this controversy,-- +a controversy in which more time was consumed, says John of Salisbury, +"than the Caesars required to make themselves masters of the world," +and in which the combatants, having spent at last their whole stock +of dialectic ammunition, resorted to carnal weapons, passing suddenly, +by a very illogical _metabasis_, from "universals" to particulars. +Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singular fortune, a pagan +philosopher, introduced into Western Europe by Mohammedans, became +the supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristotle was the +Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther found this authority in his way +and disposed of it in short order, devoting Aristotle without +ceremony to the Devil, as "a damned mischief-making heathen." But +Leibnitz, whose large discourse looked before as well as after, +reinstated not only Aristotle, but Plato, and others of the Greek +philosophers, in their former repute;--"Car ces anciens," he said, +"étaient plus solides qu'on ne croit." He was the first to turn the +tide of popular opinion in their favor. + +Not without a struggle was he brought to side with the Nominalists. +Musing, when a boy, in the Rosenthal, near Leipzig, he debated long +with himself,--"Whether he would give up the Substantial Forms of +the Schoolmen." Strange matter for boyish deliberation! Yes, good +youth, by all means, give them up! They have had their day. They +served to amuse the imprisoned intellect of Christendom in times of +ecclesiastical thraldom, when learning knew no other vocation. But +the age into which you are born has its own problems, of nearer +interest and more commanding import. The measuring-reed of science +is to be laid to the heavens, the solar system is to be weighed in a +balance; the age of logical quiddities has passed, the age of +mathematical quantities has come. Give them up! You will soon have +enough to do to take care of your own. What with Dynamics and +Infinitesimals, Pasigraphy and Dyadik, Monads and Majesties, +Concilium Ęgyptiacum and Spanish Succession and Hanoverian cabals, +there will be scant room in that busy brain for Substantial Forms. +Let them sleep, dust to dust, with the tomes of Duns Scotus and the +bones of Aquinas! + +The "De Principio Individui" was the last treatise of any note in +the sense and style of the old scholastic philosophy. It was also +one of the last blows aimed at scholasticism, which, long undermined +by the Saxon Reformation, received its _coup de grace_ a century +later from the pen of an English wit. "Cornelius," says the author +of "Martinus Scriblerus," told Martin that a shoulder of mutton was +an individual; which Crambe denied, for he had seen it cut into +commons. 'That's true,' quoth the Tutor, 'but you never saw it cut +into shoulders of mutton.' 'If it could be,' quoth Crambe, 'it would +be the loveliest individual of the University.' When he was told +that a _substance_ was that which is subject to _accidents_: 'Then +soldiers,' quoth Crambe, 'are the most substantial people in the +world.' Neither would he allow it to be a good definition of accident, +that it could be present or absent without the destruction of the +subject, since there are a great many accidents that destroy the +subject, as burning does a house and death a man. But as to that, +Cornelius informed him that there was a _natural_ death and a +_logical_ death; and that though a man after his natural death was +incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep his +stall among the logical predicaments.... + +Crambe regretted extremely that _Substantial Forms_, a race of +harmless beings which had lasted for many years and had afforded a +comfortable subsistence to many poor philosophers, should now be +hunted down like so many wolves, without the possibility of retreat. +He considered that it had gone much harder with them than with the +_Essences_, which had retired from the schools into the apothecaries' +shops, where some of them had been advanced into the degree of +_Quintessences_. He thought there should be a retreat for poor +_substantial forms_ amongst the gentlemen-ushers at court; and that +there were, indeed, substantial forms, such as forms of prayer and +forms of government, without which the things themselves could never +long subsist.... + +Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons +which logic had put in their hands. Here Martin and Crambe used to +engage like any prizefighters. And as prize-fighters will agree to +lay aside a buckler, or some such defensive weapon, so Crambe would +agree not to use _simpliciter_ and _secundum quid_, if Martin would +part with _materialiter_ and _formaliter_. But it was found, that, +without the defensive armor of these distinctions, the arguments cut +so deep that they fetched blood at every stroke. Their theses were +picked out of Suarez, Thomas Aquinas, and other learned writers on +those subjects.... One, particularly, remains undecided to this day,-- +'An praeter _esse_ reale actualis essentiae sit alind _esse_ +necessarium quo res actualiter existat?' In English thus: 'Whether, +besides the real being of actual being, there be any other being +necessary to cause a thing to be?' [8] + +[Footnote 8: Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. Chap. VII.] + +Arrived at maturity, Leibnitz rose at once to classic eminence. He +became a conspicuous figure, he became a commanding power, not only +in the intellectual world, of which he constituted himself the centre, +but in part also of the civil. It lay in the nature of his genius to +prove all things, and it lay in his temperament to seek _rapport_ +with all sorts of men. He was infinitely related;--not an individual +of note in his day but was linked with him by some common interest +or some polemic grapple; not a _savant_ or statesman with whom +Leibnitz did not spin, on one pretence or another, a thread of +communication. Europe was reticulated with the meshes of his +correspondence. "Never," says Voltaire, "was intercourse among +philosophers more universal; _Leibnitz servait ą l'animer_." He +writes now to Spinoza at the Hague, to suggest new methods of +manufacturing lenses,--now to Magliabecchi at Florence, urging, in +elegant Latin verses, the publication of his bibliographical +discoveries,--and now to Grimaldi, Jesuit missionary in China, to +communicate his researches in Chinese philosophy. He hoped by means +of the latter to operate on the Emperor Cham-Hi with the _Dyadik_; [9] +and even suggested said _Dyadik_ as a key to the cipher of the book +"Ye Kim," supposed to contain the sacred mysteries of Fo. He +addresses Louis XIV., now on the subject of a military expedition to +Egypt, (a magnificent idea, which it needed a Napoleon to realize,) +now on the best method of promoting and conserving scientific +knowledge. He corresponds with the Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels, +with Bossuet, and with Madame Brinon on the Union of the Catholic +and Protestant Churches, and with Privy-Counsellor von Spanheim on +the Union of the Lutheran and Reformed,--with Pčre Des Bosses on +Transubstantiation, and with Samuel Clarke on Time and Space,--with +Remond de Montmort on Plato, and with Franke on Popular Education,-- +with the Queen of Prussia (his pupil) on Free-will and Predestination, +and with the Electress Sophia, her mother, (in her eighty-fourth year,) +on English Politics,--with the cabinet of Peter the Great on the +Slavonic and Oriental Languages, and with that of the German Emperor +on the claims of George Lewis to the honors of the Electorate,--and +finally, with all the _savans_ of Europe on all possible scientific +questions. + +[Footnote 9: A species of binary arithmetic, invented by Leibnitz, +in which the only figures employed are 0 and 1.--See KORTHOLT'S +_G.C. Leibnitii Epistolae ad Divarsos_, Letter XVIII.] + +[Transcriber's note: without this notation and its underlying logic, +the development of modern computers would have not been practical.] + +Of this world-wide correspondence a portion related to the sore +subject of his litigated claim to originality in the discovery of +the Differential Calculus,--a matter in which Leibnitz felt himself +grievously wronged, and complained with justice of the treatment he +received at the hands of his contemporaries. The controversy between +him and Newton, respecting this hateful topic, would never have +originated with either of these illustrious men, had it depended on +them alone to vindicate their respective claims. Officious and +ill-advised friends of the English philosopher, partly from misguided +zeal and partly from levelled malice, preferred on his behalf a +charge of plagiarism against the German, which Newton was not likely +to have urged for himself. "The new Calculus, which Europe lauds, is +nothing less," they suggested, "than your fluxionary method, which +Mr. Leibnitz has pirated, anticipating its tardy publication by the +genuine author. Why suffer your laurels to be wrested from you by a +stranger?" Thereupon arose the notorious _Commercium Epistolicum_, +in which Wallis, Fatio de Duillier, Collins, and Keill were +perversely active. Melancholy monument of literary and national +jealousy! Weary record of a vain strife! Ideas are no man's property. +As well pretend to ownership of light, or set up a claim to private +estate in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit blows where it lists. Truth +inspires whom it finds. He who knows best to conspire with it has it. +Both philosophers swerved from their native simplicity and nobleness +of soul. Both sinned and were sinned against. Leibnitz did unhandsome +things, but he was sorely tried. His heart told him that the right +of the quarrel was on his side, and the general stupidity would not +see it. The general malice, rejoicing in aspersion of a noble name, +would not see it. The Royal Society would not see it,--nor France, +until long after Leibnitz's death. Sir David Brewster's account of +the matter, according to the German authorities, Gerhardt, Guhrauer, +and others, is one-sided, and sins by _suppressio veri_, ignoring +important documents, particularly Leibnitz's letter to Oldenburg, +August 27, 1676. Gerhardt has published Leibnitz's own history of +the Calculus as a counter-statement. [10] But even from Brewster's +account, as we remember it, (we have it not by us at this writing.) +there is no more reason to doubt that Leibnitz's discovery was +independent of Newton's than that Newton's was independent of +Leibnitz's. The two discoveries, in fact, are not identical; the end +and application are the same, but origin and process differ, and the +German method has long superseded the English. The question in debate +has been settled by supreme authority. Leibnitz has been tried by his +peers. Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, and Biot have honorably +acquitted him of plagiarism, and reinstated him in his rights as true +discoverer of the Differential Calculus. + +[Footnote 10: Historia et Oriffo Calculi Differenttalis, a G. G. +LEIBNITIO conscripts.] + +[Transcriber's note: this controversy rages in academia to this day.] + +The one distinguishing trait of Leibnitz's genius, and the one +predominant fact in his history, was what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: +polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger +in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but +the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite another +kind. He was more actor than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at +the instigation of others, or to meet some pressing demand of the +time. Besides occupying himself with mechanical inventions, some of +which (in particular, his improvement of Pascal's Calculating Machine) +were quite famous in their day,--besides his project of a universal +language, and his labors to bring about a union of the churches,-- +besides undertaking the revision of the laws of the German Empire, +superintending the Hanoverian mines, experimenting in the culture of +silk, directing the medical profession, laboring in the promotion of +popular education, establishing academies of science, superintending +royal libraries, ransacking the archives of Germany and Italy to +find documents for his history of the House of Brunswick, a work of +immense research [11],--besides these, and a multitude of similar and +dissimilar avocations, he was deep in politics, German and European, +and was occupied all his life long with political negotiations. He was +a courtier, he was a _diplomat_, was consulted on all difficult +matters of international policy, was employed at Hanover, at Berlin, at +Vienna, in the public and secret service of ducal, royal, and imperial +governments, and charged with all sorts of delicate and difficult +commissions,--matters of finance, of pacification, of treaty and +appeal. He was Europe's factotum. A complete biography of the man +would be an epitome of the history of his time. The number and variety +of his public engagements were such as would have crazed any ordinary +brain. And to these were added private studies not less multifarious. +"I am distracted beyond all account," he writes to Vincent Placcius. +"I am making extracts from archives, inspecting ancient documents, +hunting up unpublished manuscripts; all this to illustrate the +history of Brunswick. Letters in great number I receive and write. +Then I have so many discoveries in mathematics, so many speculations +in philosophy, so many other literary observations, which I am +desirous of preserving, that I am often at a loss what to take hold +of first, and can fairly sympathize in that saying of Ovid, 'I am +straitened by my abundance.' [12]" + +[Footnote 11: _Annals Imperii Occidents Brunsvicensis_. Leibnitz +succeeded in discovering at Modena the lost traces of that +connection between the lines of Brunswick and Esto which had been +surmised, but not proved.] + +[Footnote 12: "Quam mirifice sim distractus dici non potest. Varia ex +archivis eruo, antiquas chartns inspicio, manuscripta inedita +conquiro. Ex hic lucem dare conor Brunsvicensi historię. Magno +numero litteras et accipio et dimitto. Habeo vero tam multa nova in +mathematicis, tot cogitationes in philosophicis, tot alias +literarias observationes, quas vellem non perire, ut sępe inter +agenda anceps hęream et prope illud Ovidianum sentiam: _Iniopem me +copia facit_."] + +His diplomatic services are less known at present than his literary +labors, but were not less esteemed in his own day. When Louis XIV., +in 1688, declared war against the German Empire, on the pretence +that the Emperor was meditating an invasion of France, Leibnitz drew +up the imperial manifesto, which repelled the charge and triumphantly +exposed the hollowness of Louis's cause. Another document, prepared +by him at the solicitation, it is supposed, of several of the courts +of Europe, advocating the claims of Charles of Austria to the vacant +throne of Spain, in opposition to the grandson of Louis, and setting +forth the injurious consequences of the policy of the French monarch, +was hailed by his contemporaries as a masterpiece of historical +learning and political wisdom. By his powerful advocacy of the cause +of the Elector of Brandenburg he may be said to have aided the birth +of the kingdom of Prussia, whose existence dates with the +commencement of the last century. In the service of that kingdom he +wrote and published important state-papers; among them, one relating +to a point of contested right to which recent events have given +fresh significance: "Traité: Sommaire du Droit de Frédéric I. Roi de +Prusse ą la Souveraineté de Neufchātel et de Vallengin en Suisse." + +In Vienna, as at Berlin, the services of Leibnitz were subsidized by +the State. By the Peace of Utrecht, the house of Habsburg had been +defeated in its claims to the Spanish throne, and the foreign and +internal affairs of the Austrian government were involved in many +perplexities, which, it was hoped, the philosopher's counsel might +help to untangle. He was often present at the private meetings of +the cabinet, and received from the Emperor the honorable distinction +of Kaiserlicher Hofrath, in addition to that, which had previously +been awarded to him, of Baron of the Empire. The highest post in the +gift of government was open to him, on condition of renouncing his +Protestant faith, which, notwithstanding his tolerant feeling toward +the Roman Church, and the splendid compensations which awaited such +a convertite, he could never be prevailed upon to do. + +A natural, but very remarkable consequence of this manifold activity +and lifelong absorption in public affairs was the failure of so +great a thinker to produce a single systematic and elaborate work +containing a complete and detailed exposition of his philosophical, +and especially his ontological views. For such an exposition +Leibnitz could find at no period of his life the requisite time and +scope. In the vast multitude of his productions there is no complete +philosophic work. The most arduous of his literary labors are +historical compilations, made in the service of the State. Such were +the "History of the House of Brunswick," already mentioned, the +"Accessiones Historię," the "Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium +Illustrationi inservientes," and the "Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus";-- +works involving an incredible amount of labor and research, but +adding little to his posthumous fame. His philosophical studies, +after entering the Hanoverian service, which he did in his thirtieth +year, were pursued, as he tells his correspondent Placcius, by +stealth,--that is, at odd moments snatched from official duties and +the cares of state. Accordingly, his metaphysical works have all a +fragmentary character. Instead of systematic treatises, they are +loose papers, contributions to journals and magazines, or sketches +prepared for the use of friends. They are all occasional productions, +elicited by some external cause, not prompted by inward necessity. +The "Nouveaux Essais," his most considerable work in that department, +originated in comments on Locke, and was not published until after +his death. The "Monadology" is a series of propositions drawn up for +the use of Prince Eugene, and was never intended to be made public. +And, probably, the "Théodicée" would never have seen the light +except for his cultivated and loved pupil, the Queen of Prussia, for +whose instruction it was designed. + +It is a curious fact, and a good illustration of the state of +letters in Germany at that time, that Leibnitz wrote so little-- +almost nothing of importance--in his native tongue. In Erdmann's +edition of his philosophical works there are only two short essays +in German; the rest are all Latin or French. He had it in +contemplation at one time to establish a philosophical journal in +Berlin, but doubts, in his letter to M. La Croye on the subject, in +what language it should be conducted: "Il y a quelque tems que j'ay +pensé ą un journal de Savans qu'on pourroit publier ą Berlin, mais +je suis un peu en doute sur la langue ... Mais soit qu'on prit le +Latin ou le Franēois," [13] etc. It seems never to have occurred to him +that such a journal might be published in German. That language was +then, and for a long time after, regarded by educated Germans very much +as the Russian is regarded at the present day, as the language of vulgar +life, unsuited to learned or polite intercourse. Frederic the Great, +a century later, thought as meanly of its adaptation to literary +purposes as did the contemporaries of Leibnitz. When Gellert, at his +request, repeated to him one of his fables, he expressed his +surprise that anything so clever could be produced in German. It may +be said in apology for this neglect of their native tongue, that the +German scholars of that age would have had a very inadequate audience, +had their communications been confined to that language. Leibnitz +craved and deserved a wider sphere for his thoughts than the use of +the German could give him. It ought, however, to be remembered to +his credit, that, as language in general was one among the +numberless topics he investigated, so the German in particular +engaged at one time his special attention. It was made the subject +of a disquisition, which suggested to the Berlin Academy, in the +next century, the method adopted by that body for the culture and +improvement of the national speech. In this writing, as in all his +German compositions, he manifested a complete command of the language, +and imparted to it a purity and elegance of diction very uncommon in +his day. The German of Leibnitz is less antiquated at this moment +than the English of his contemporary, Locke. + +[Footnote 13: KORTHOLT. _Epistolae ad Diversos_, Vol. I.] + + + +LEIBNITZ'S PHILOSOPHY. + +The interest to us in this extraordinary man--who died at Hanover, +1716, in the midst of his labors and projects--turns mainly on his +speculative philosophy. It was only as an incidental pursuit that he +occupied himself with metaphysic; yet no philosopher since Aristotle-- +with whom, though claiming to be more Platonic than Aristotelian, he +has much in common--has furnished more luminous hints to the +elucidation of metaphysical problems. The problems he attempted were +those which concern the most inscrutable, but, to the genuine +metaphysician, most fascinating of all topics, the nature of +substance, matter and spirit, absolute being,--in a word, +_Ontology_. This department of metaphysic, the most interesting, +and, _agonistically_ [14], the most important branch of that study, +has been deliberately, purposely, and, with one or two exceptions, +uniformly avoided by the English metaphysicians so-called, with +Locke at their head, and equally by their Scottish successors, until +the recent "Institutes" of the witty Professor of St. Andrew's. +Locke's "Essay concerning the Human Understanding," a century and +a half ago, diverted the English mind from metaphysic proper into +what is commonly called Psychology, but ought, of right, to be termed +_Noölogy_, or "Philosophy of the Human Mind," as Dugald Stewart +entitled his treatise. This is the study which has usually taken the +place of metaphysic at Cambridge and other colleges,--the science that +professes to show "how ideas enter the mind"; which, considering the +rareness of the occurrence with the mass of mankind, we cannot +regard as a very practical inquiry. We well remember our +disappointment, when, at the usual stage in the college curriculum, +we were promised "metaphysics" and were set to grind in Stewart's +profitless mill, where so few problems of either practical or +theoretical importance are brought to the hopper, and where, in fact, +the object is rather to show how the upper mill-stone revolves upon +the nether, (reflection upon sensation,) and how the grist is +conveyed to the feeder, than to realize actual metaphysical flour. + +[Footnote 14: That is, as a discipline of the faculties,--the chief +benefit to be derived from any kind of metaphysical study.] + +Locke's reason for repudiating ontology is the alleged impossibility +of arriving at truth in that pursuit,--"of finding satisfaction in +a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concern us, whilst +we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of being." [15] +Unfortunately, however, as Kant has shown, the results of noölogical +inquiry are just as questionable as those of ontology, whilst the +topics on which it is employed are of far inferior moment. If, as +Locke intimates, we can know nothing of being without first +analyzing the understanding, it is equally sure that we can know +nothing of the understanding except in union with and in action on +being. And excepting his own fundamental position concerning the +sensuous origin of our ideas,--to which few, since Kant, will assent,-- +there is hardly a theorem, in all the writings of this school, of +prime and vital significance. The school is tartly, but aptly, +characterized by Professor Ferrier: "Would people inquire directly +into the laws of thought and of knowledge by merely looking to +knowledge or to thought itself, without attending to what is known +or what is thought of? Psychology usually goes to work in this +abstract fashion; but such a mode of procedure is hopeless,--as +hopeless as the analogous instance by which the wits of old were +wont to typify any particularly fruitless undertaking,--namely, the +operation of milking a he-goat into a sieve. No milk comes, in the +first place, and even that the sieve will not retain! There is a loss +of nothing twice over. Like the man milking, the inquirer obtains no +milk in the first place; and, in the second place, he loses it, +like the man holding the sieve.... Our Scottish philosophy, in +particular, has presented a spectacle of this description. Reid +obtained no result, owing to the abstract nature of his inquiry, and +the nothingness of his system has escaped through all the sieves of +his successors." [16] + +[Footnote 15: _Essay_, Book I. Chap. 1, Sect. 7.] + +[Footnote 16: _Institutes of Metaphysic_, p. 301.] + +Leibnitz's metaphysical speculations are scattered through a wide +variety of writings, many of which are letters to his contemporaries. +These Professor Erdmann has incorporated in his edition of the +Philosophical Works. Beside these we may mention, as particularly +deserving of notice, the "Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et +Ideis", the "Systeme Nouveau de la Nature", "De Primę Philosophię +Emendatione et de Notione Substantię", "Reflexions sur l'Essai de +l'Entendement humain", "De Rerum Originatione Radicali", "De ipsa +Natura", "Considerations sur la Doctrine d'un Esprit universel", +"Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement humain", "Considerations sur le +Principe de Vie". To these we must add the "Théodicée" (though more +theological than metaphysical) and the "Monadologie", the most +compact philosophical treatise of modern time. It is worthy of note, +that, writing in the desultory, fragmentary, and accidental way he +did, he not only wrote with unexampled clearness on matters the most +abstruse, but never, that we are aware, in all the variety of his +communications, extending over so many years, contradicted himself. +No philosopher is more intelligible, none more consequent. + +In philosophy, Leibnitz was a _Realist_. We use that term in the +modern, not in the scholastic sense. In the scholastic sense, as we +have seen, he was not a Realist, but, from childhood up, a Nominalist. +But the Realism of the schools has less affinity with the Realism +than with the Idealism of the present day. + +His opinions must be studied in connection with those of his +contemporaries. + +Des Cartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz, the four most +distinguished philosophers of the seventeenth century, represent +four widely different and cardinal tendencies in philosophy: Dualism, +Idealism, Sensualism, and Realism. + +Des Cartes perceived the incompatibility of the two primary +qualities of being, thought and extension, as attributes of one and +the same (created) substance. He therefore postulated two (created) +substances,--one characterized by thought without extension, the +other by extension without thought. These two are so alien and so +incongruous, that neither can influence the other, or determine the +other, or any way relate with the other, except by direct mediation +of Deity. (The doctrine of Occasional Causes.) This is Dualism,-- +that sharp and rigorous antithesis of mind and matter, which Des +Cartes, if he did not originate it, was the first to develop into +philosophic significance, and which ever since has been the +prevailing ontology of the Western world. So deeply has the thought +of that master mind inwrought itself into the very consciousness of +humanity! + +Spinoza saw, that, if God alone can bring mind and matter together +and effect a relation between them, it follows that mind and matter, +or their attributes, however contrary, do meet in Deity; and if so, +what need of three distinct natures? What need of two substances +beside God, as subjects of these attributes? Retain the middle term +and drop the extremes and you have the Spinozan doctrine of one +(uncreated) substance, combining the attributes of thought and +extension. This is Pantheism, or _objective_ idealism, as +distinguished from the _subjective_ idealism of Fichte. Strange, +that the stigma of atheism should have been affixed to a system +whose very starting-point is Deity and whose great characteristic is +the _ignoration_ of everything but Deity, insomuch that the pure and +devout Novalis pronounced the author a God-drunken man, and +Spinozism a surfeit of Deity. [17] + +[Footnote 17: Let us not be misunderstood. Pantheism is not Theism, and +the one substance of Spinoza is very unlike the one God of theology; +but neither is the doctrine Atheism in any legitimate sense.] + +Naturally enough, the charge of atheism comes from the unbelieving +Bayle, whose omnivorous mind, like the anaconda, assisted its +enormous deglutition with a poisonous saliva of its own, and whose +negative temper makes the "Dictionnaire Historique" more _Morgue_ +than _Valhalla_. + +Locke, who combined in a strange union strong religious faith with +philosophic unbelief, turned aside, as we have seen, from the +questions which had occupied his predecessors; knew little and cared +less about substance and accident, matter and spirit; but set +himself to investigate the nature of the organ itself by which truth +is apprehended. In this investigation he began by emptying the mind +of all native elements of knowledge. He repudiated any supposed +dowry of original truths or innate or connate ideas, and endeavored +to show how, by acting on the report of the senses and personal +experience, the understanding arrives at all the ideas of which +it is conscious. The mode of procedure in this case is empiricism; +the result with Locke was sensualism,--more fully developed by +Condillac, [18] in the next century. But the same method may lead, as +in the case of Berkeley, to immaterialism, falsely called idealism. +Or it may lead, as in the case of Helveticus, to materialism. Locke +himself would probably have landed in materialism, had he followed +freely the bent of his own thought, without the restraints of a +cautious temper, and respect for the common and traditional opinion +of his time. The "Essay" discovers an unmistakable leaning in that +direction; as where the author supposes, "We shall never be able to +know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible +for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, +to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter +fitly disposed a power to perceive and think;... it being, in respect +of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive +that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, +than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty +of thinking, since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what +sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, +which cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure +and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that +the first thinking eternal Being should, if he pleased, give to +certain systems of created, senseless matter, put together as he +thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought." With +such notions of the nature of thought, as a kind of mechanical +contrivance, that can be conferred outright by an arbitrary act of +Deity, and attached to one nature as well as another, it is evident +that Locke could have had no idea of spirit as conceived by +metaphysicians,--or no belief in that idea, if conceived. And with +such conceptions of Deity and Divine operations, as consisting in +absolute power dissociated from absolute reason, one would not be +surprised to find him asserting, that God, if he pleased, might make +two and two to be one, instead of four,--that mathematical laws are +arbitrary determinations of the Supreme Will,--that a thing is true +only as God wills it to be so,--in fine, that there is no such thing +as absolute truth. The resort to "Omnipotency" in such matters is +more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, +instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination--"[Greek: Doz +d' etelevto Bonlae]"--is a maxim which settles all difficulties. +But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with this +universal solvent at hand? + +[Footnote 18: _Essai sur l'Origine du Connaissances humaines_. Book +IV. Chap. 3, Sect. 6.] + +The "contradiction" which Locke could not see was clearly seen and +keenly felt by Leibnitz. The arbitrary will of God, to him, was no +solution. He believed in necessary truths independent of the Supreme +Will; in other words, he believed that the Supreme Will is but the +organ of the Supreme Reason: "Il ne faut point s'imaginer, que les +vérités éternelles, étant dépendantes de Dieu, sont arbitragés et +dépendent de sa volonté." He felt, with Des Cartes, the incompatibility +of thought with extension, considered as an immanent quality of +substance, and he shared with Spinoza the unific propensity which +distinguishes the higher order of philosophic minds. Dualism was an +offence to him. On the other hand, he differed from Spinoza in his +vivid sense of individuality, of personality. The pantheistic idea +of a single, sole being, of which all other beings are mere +modalities, was also and equally an offence to him. He saw well the +illusoriness and unfruitfulness of such a universe as Spinoza dreamed. +He saw it to be a vain imagination, a dream-world, "without form and +void," nowhere blossoming into reality. The philosophy of Leibnitz +is equally remote from that of Des Cartes on the one hand, and from +that of Spinoza on the other. He diverges from the former on the +question of substance, which Des Cartes conceived as consisting of +two kinds, one active (thinking) and one passive (extended), but +which Leibnitz conceives to be all and only active. He explodes +Dualism, and resolves the antithesis of matter and spirit by +positing extension as a continuous act instead of a passive mode, +substance as an active force instead of an inert mass,--matter as +substance appearing, communicating,--as the necessary band and +relation of spirits among themselves. [19] + +[Footnote 19: The following passages may serve as illustrations of +these positions:-- + +"Materia habet de so actum entitativum."--_De Princip. Indiv_. +Coroll. I. + +"Dicam interim notionem virium seu virtutis, (quam Germani vocant +_Kraft_, Galli, _la force_,) cui ego explicandae peculiarem +Dynamices scientiam destinavi, plurimum lucis afferre ad veram +notionem substantiae intelligendam."--_De Primae Philosoph. Emendat, +et de Notione Substantiae_. + +"Corpus ergo est agens extensum; dici poterit esse substantiam +extensam, modo teneatur omnem substantiam _agere, at omne agens +substantiam_ appellari." "Patebit non tantum mentes, sed etiam +substantiae omnes in loco, non nisi per _operationem_ esse."-- +_De Vera Method. Phil. et Theol_. + +"Extensionem concipere ut absolutum ex eo forte oritur quod spatium +concipimus per modum substantiae"--_Ad Des Bosses Ep_. XXIX. + +"Car l'étendue ne signifie qu'une répétition ou multiplicité continuée +de ce qui est répandu."--_Extrait d'une Lettre_, etc. + +"Et l'on peut dire que Pétunduc est en quelque faēon ą l'espace +comme la durée est au tems."--_Exam. des Principes de Malebranche_. + +"La nature de la substance consistant ą mon avis dans cette tendance +réglée de laquelle les phénomčnes naissent par ordre."--_Lettre ą +M. Bayle_. + +"Car rien n'a mieux marqué la substance que la puissance d'agir."-- +_Réponse aux Objections du P. Lami_. + +"S'il n'y avait que des esprits, ils seraient sans la liaison +nécessaire, sans l'ordre des tems et des lieux."--_Theod_. Sect. 120.] + +He parts company with Spinoza on the question of individuality. +Substance is homogeneous; but substances, or beings, are infinite. +Spinoza looked upon the universe and saw in it the undivided +background on which the objects of human consciousness are painted +as momentary pictures. Leibnitz looked and saw that background, like +the background of one of Raphael's Madonnas, instinct with +individual life, and swarming with intelligences which look out from +every point of space. Leibnitz's universe is composed of Monads, +that is, units, individual substances, or entities, having neither +extension, parts, nor figure, and, of course, indivisible. These are +"the veritable atoms of nature, the elements of things." + +The Monad is unformed and imperishable; it has no natural end or +beginning. It could begin to be only by creation; it can cease to be +only by annihilation. It cannot be affected from without or changed +in its interior by any other creature. Still, it must have qualities, +without which it would not be an entity. And monads must differ one +from another, or there would be no changes in our experience; since +all that takes place in compound bodies is derived from the simples +which compose them. Moreover, the monad, though uninfluenced from +without, is changing continually; the change proceeds from an +internal principle. Every monad is subject to a multitude of +affections and relations, although without parts. This shifting state, +which represents multitude in unity, is nothing else than what we +call _Perception_, which must be carefully distinguished from +_Apperception_, or consciousness. And the action of the internal +principle which causes change in the monad, or a passing from one +perception to another, is _Appetition_. The desire does not always +attain to the perception to which it tends, but it always effects +something, and causes a change of perceptions. + +Leibnitz differs from Locke in maintaining that perception is +inexplicable and inconceivable on mechanical principles. It is +always the act of a simple substance, never of a compound. And +"in simple substances there is nothing but perceptions and their +changes." [20] + +[Footnote 20: _Menadol_. 17.] + +He differs from Locke, furthermore, on the question of the origin of +ideas. This question, he says, "is not a preliminary one in +philosophy, and one must have made great progress to be able to +grapple successfully with it."--"Meanwhile, I think I may say, that +our ideas, even those of sensible objects, _viennent de nōtre propre +fond_... I am by no means for the _tabula rasa_ of Aristotle; on the +contrary, there is to me something rational (_quelque chose de solide_) +in what Plato called _reminiscence_. Nay, more than that, we have +not only a reminiscence of all our past thoughts, but we have also a +_presentiment_ of all our thoughts." [21] + +[Footnote 21: _Reflexions sur l'Essai de l'Entendement humain_.] + +Mr. Lewes, in his "Biographical History of Philosophy," speaks of +the essay from which these words are quoted, as written in "a +somewhat supercilious tone." We are unable to detect any such +feature in it. That trait was wholly foreign from Leibnitz's nature. +"Car je suis des plus dociles," he says of himself, in this same +essay. He was the most tolerant of philosophers. "Je ne méprise +presque rien."--"Nemo est ingenio minus quam ego censorio."-- +"Mirum dictu: probo pleraque quae lego."--"Non admodum refutationes +quaerere aut legere soleo." + +To return to the monads. Each monad, according to Leibnitz, is, +properly speaking, a soul, inasmuch as each is endowed with +perception. But in order to distinguish those which have only +perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will +call the latter _souls_, the former _monads_ or _entelechies_. [22] + +[Footnote 22: _Entelechy_ ([Greek: entelechia]) is an Aristotelian term, +signifying activity, or more properly perhaps, self action. Leibnitz +understands by it something complete in itself ([Greek: echon to +enteles]). Mr. Butler, in his _History of Ancient Philosophy_, +lately reprinted in this country, translates it "act." _Function_, we +think would be a better rendering. (See W. Archer Butler's _Lectures_, +Last Series, Lect. 2.) Aristotle uses the word as a definition of the +soul. "The soul," he says, "is the first entelechy of an active body."] + +The naked monad, he says, has perceptions without relief, or +"enhanced flavor"; it is in a state of stupor. Death, he thinks, may +produce this state for a time in animals. The monads completely fill +the world; there is never and nowhere a void, and never complete +inanimateness and inertness. The universe is a _plenum_ of souls. +Wherever we behold an organic whole, (_unum per se_,) there monads +are grouped around a central monad to which they are subordinate, +and which they are constrained to serve so long as that connection +lasts. Masses of inorganic matter are aggregations of monads without +a regent, or sentient soul (_unum per accidens_). There can be no +monad without matter, that is, without society, and no soul without +a body. Not only the human soul is indestructible and immortal, but +also the animal soul. There is no generation out of nothing, and no +absolute death. Birth is expansion, development, growth; and death +is contraction, envelopment, decrease. The monads which are destined +to become human souls have existed from the beginning in organic +matter, but only as sentient or animal souls, without reason. They +remain in this condition until the generation of the human beings to +which they belong, and then develope themselves into rational souls. +The different organs and members of the body are also relatively +souls which collect around them a number of monads for a specific +purpose, and so on _ad infinitum_. Matter is not only infinitely +divisible, but infinitely divided. All matter (so called) is living +and active. "Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of +plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, +each member of each animal, each drop of their humors, is in turn +another such garden or pond." [23] + +[Footnote 23: _Monadol._ 67.] + +The connection between monads, consequently the connection between +soul and body, is not composition, but an organic relation,--in some +sort, a spontaneous relation. The soul forms its own body, and +moulds it to its purpose. This hypothesis was afterward embraced and +developed as a physiological principle by Stahl. As all the atoms in +one body are organically related, so all the beings in the universe +are organically related to each other and to the All. One creature, +or one organ of a creature, being given, there is given with it the +world's history from the beginning to the end. _All bodies are +strictly fluid; the universe is in flux_. + +The principle of continuity answers the same purpose in Leibnitz's +system that the single substance does in Spinoza's. It vindicates +the essential unity of all being. Yet the two conceptions are +immeasurably different, and constitute an immeasurable difference +between the two systems, considered in their practical and moral +bearings, as well as their ontological aspects. Spinoza [24] +starts with the idea of the Infinite, or the All-One, from which +there is no logical deduction of the individual. And in Spinoza's +system the individual does not exist except as a modality. But the +existence of the individual is one of the primordial truths of the +human mind, the foremost fact of consciousness. With this, therefore, +Leibnitz begins, and arrives, by logical induction, to the Absolute +and Supreme. Spinoza ends where he begins, in pantheism; the moral +result of his system, Godward, is fatalism,--manward, indifferentism +and negation of moral good and evil. Leibnitz ends in theism; the +moral result of his system, Godward, is optimism,--manward, liberty, +personal responsibility, moral obligation. + +[Footnote 24: See Helferich's _Spinoza, und Leibnitz_, p. 76.] + +He demonstrates the being of God by the necessity of a sufficient +reason to account for the series of things. Each finite thing +requires an antecedent or contingent cause. But the supposition of +an endless sequence of contingent causes, or finite things, is absurd; +the series must have had a beginning, and that beginning cannot have +been a contingent cause or finite thing. "The final reason of things +must be found in a necessary substance in which the detail of +changes exists eminently, (_ne soit qu'éminemment_,) as in its source; +and this is what we call God." [25] + +[Footnote 25: _Monadol_. 38.] + +The idea of God is of such a nature, that the being corresponding to +it, if possible, must be actual. We have the idea; it involves no +bounds, no negation, consequently no contradiction. It is the idea +of a possible, therefore of an actual. + +"God is the primitive Unity, or the simple original Substance of +which all the creatures, or original monads, are the products, and +_are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations from moment +to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature_, of whose +existence limitation is an essential condition." [26] + +[Footnote 26: Ib. 47.] + +The philosophic theologian and the Christianizing philosopher will +rejoice to find in this proposition a point of reconciliation between +the extramundane God of pure theism and the cardinal principle of +Spinozism, the immanence of Deity in creation,--a principle as dear +to the philosophic mind as that of the extramundane Divinity is to +the theologian. The universe of Spinoza is a self-existent unit, +divine in itself, but with no Divinity behind it. That of Leibnitz +is an endless series of units from a self-existent and divine source. +The one is an infinite deep, the other an everlasting flood. + +The doctrine of the _Preėstablished Harmony_, so intimately and +universally associated with the name of Leibnitz, has found little +favor with his critics, or even with his admirers. Feuerbach calls +it his weak side, and thinks that Leibnitz's philosophy, else so +profound, was here, as in other instances, overshadowed by the +popular creed; that he accommodated himself to theology, as a highly +cultivated and intelligent man, conscious of his superiority, +accommodates himself to a lady in his conversation with her, +translating his ideas into her language, and even paraphrasing them. +From this view of Leibnitz, as implying insincerity, we utterly +dissent. [27] + +[Footnote 27: See, in connection with this point, two admirable essays +by Lessing,--the one entitled _Leibnitz on Eternal Punishment_, the +other _Objections of Andreas Wissowatius to the Doctrine of the +Trinity_. Of the latter the real topic is Leibnitz's _Defensio +Trinitatis_. The sharp-sighted Lessing, than whom no one has +expressed a greater reverence for Leibnitz, emphatically asserts and +vigorously defends the philosopher's orthodoxy.] + +The author of the "Théodicée" was not more interested in philosophy +than he was in theology. His thoughts and his purpose did equal +justice to both. The deepest wish of his heart was to reconcile them, +not by formal treaty, but in loving and condign union. We do not, +however, object to an esoteric and exoteric view of the doctrine +in question; and we quite agree with Feuerbach that the phrase +_préétablie_ does not express a metaphysical determination. +It is one thing to say, that God, by an arbitrary decree from +everlasting, has so predisposed and predetermined every motion in the +world of matter that each volition of a rational agent finds in the +constant procession of physical forces a concurrent event by which it +is executed, but which would have taken place without his volition, +just as the mail-coach takes our letter, if we have one, but goes +all the same, when we do not write,--this is the gross, exoteric +view,--and a very different thing it is to say, that the monads +composing the human system and the universe of things are so related, +adjusted, accommodated to each other, and to the whole, each being a +representative of all the rest and a mirror of the universe, that each +feels all that passes in the rest, and all conspire in every act, [28] +more or less effectively, in the ratio of their nearness to the prime +agent. This is Leibnitz's idea of preėstablished harmony, which, +perhaps, would be better expressed by the term "necessary consent." +"In the ideas of God, each monad has a right to demand that God, in +regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have +regard to it; for since a created monad can have no physical +influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that +one can be dependent on another."--"The soul follows its own laws +and the body follows its own, and they meet in virtue of the +preėstablished harmony which exists between all substances, as +representatives of one and the same universe. Souls act according to +the laws of final causes by appetitions, etc. Bodies act according to +the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. And the two +kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, +harmonize with each other." [29] + +[Footnote 28: In this connection, Leibnitz quotes the remarkable +saying of Hippocrates, [_Greek: Sumpnoia panta_]. The universe +breathes together, conspires.--_Monadal_. 61.] + +[Footnote 29: _Monadol_. 78, 79.] + +The Preėstablished Harmony, then, is to be regarded as the +philosophic statement of a fact, and not as a theory concerning the +cause of the fact. But, like all philosophic and adequate statements, +it answers the purpose of a theory, and clears up many difficulties. +It is the best solution we know of the old contradiction of +free-will and fate,--individual liberty and a necessary world. This +antithesis disappears in the light of the Leibnitian philosophy, +which resolves freedom and necessity into different points of +view and different stages of development. The principle of the +Preėstablished Harmony was designed by Leibnitz to meet the +difficulty, started by Des Cartes, of explaining the conformity between +the perceptions of the mind and the corresponding affections of the +body, since mind and matter, in his view, could have no connection +with, or influence on each other. The Cartesians explained this +correspondence by the theory of _occasional causes_, that is, by +the intervention of the Deity, who was supposed by his arbitrary will to +have decreed a certain perception or sensation in the mind to go +with a certain affection of the body, with which, however, it had no +real connection. "Car il" (that is, M. Bayle) "est persuadé avec les +Cartésiens modernes, que les idées des qualités sensibles que Dieu +donne, selon eux, ą l'āme, ą l'occasion des mouvemens du corps, +n'ont rien qui représente ces mouvemens, ou qui leur ressemble; de +sorte qu'il étoit purement arbitraire que Dieu nous donnāt les idées +de la chaleur, du froid, de la lumičre et autres que nous +expérimentons, ou qu'il nous en donnāt de tout-autres ą cette mźme +occasion." [30] + +[Footnote 30: _Théodicée_. Partie II. 340.] + +If the body was exposed to the flame, there was no more reason, +according to this theory, why the soul should be conscious of pain +than of pleasure, except that God had so ordained. Such a supposition +was shocking to our philosopher, who could tolerate no arbitrariness +in God and no gap or discrepancy in nature, and who, therefore, +sought to explain, by the nature of the soul itself and its kindred +monads, the correspondence for which so violent an hypothesis was +embraced by the Cartesians. + +We have left ourselves no room to speak as we would of Leibnitz as +theosopher. It was in this character that he obtained, in the last +century, his widest fame. The work by which he is most commonly known, +by which alone he is known to many, is the "Théodicée,"--an attempt +to vindicate the goodness of God against the cavils of unbelievers. +He was one of the first to apply to this end the cardinal principle +of the Lutheran Reformation,--the liberty of reason. He was one of +the first to treat unbelief, from the side of religion, as an error +of judgment, not as rebellion against rightful authority. The latter +was and is the Romanist view. The former is the Protestant theory, +but was not then, and is not always now, the Protestant practice. +Theology then was not concerned to vindicate the reason or the +goodness of God. It gloried in his physical strength by which he +would finally crush dissenters from orthodoxy. Leibnitz knew no +authority independent of Reason, and no God but the Supreme Reason +directing Almighty Good-will. The philosophic conclusion justly +deducible from this view of God, let cavillers say what they will, +is Optimism. Accordingly, Optimism, or the doctrine of the best +possible world, is the theory of the "Théodicée." Our limits will +not permit us to analyze the argument of this remarkable work. Bunsen +says, "It necessarily failed because it was a not quite honest +compound of speculation and divinity." [31] + +[Footnote 31: _Outlines of the Philos. of Univ. Hist_. Vol. I. Chap. 6.] + +Few at the present day will pretend to be entirely satisfied with +its reasoning, but all who are familiar with it know it to be a +treasury of wise and profound thoughts and of noble sentiments and +aspirations. Bonnet, the naturalist, called it his "Manual of +Christian Philosophy"; and Fontenelle, in his eulogy, speaks +enthusiastically of its luminous and sublime views, of its reasonings, +in which the mind of the geometer is always apparent, of its perfect +fairness toward those whom it controverts, and its rich store of +anecdote and illustration. Even Stewart, who was _not_ familiar with +it, and who, as might be expected, strangely misconceives and +misrepresents the author, is compelled to echo the general sentiment. +He pronounces it a work in which are combined together in an +extraordinary degree "the acuteness of the logician, the imagination +of the poet, and the _impenetrable yet sublime darkness_ of the +metaphysical theologian." The Italics are ours. Our reason for +doubting Stewart's familiarity with the "Théodicée," and with +Leibnitz in general, is derived in part from these phrases. We do +not believe that any sincere student of Leibnitz has found him dark +and impenetrable. Be it a merit or a fault, this predicate is +inapplicable. Never was metaphysician more explicit and more +intelligible. Had he been disposed to mysticize and to shroud +himself in "impenetrable darkness," he would have found it difficult +to indulge that propensity in French. Thanks to the strict régime +and happy limitations of that idiom, the French is not a language in +which philosophy can hide itself. It is a tight-fitting coat, which +shows the exact form, or want of form, of the thought it clothes, +without pad or fold to simulate fulness or to veil defects. It was a +Frenchman, we are aware, who discovered that "the use of language is +to conceal thought"; but that use, so far as French is concerned, +has been hitherto monopolized by diplomacy. + +Another reason for questioning Stewart's familiarity with Leibnitz +is his misconception of that author, which we choose to impute to +ignorance rather than to wilfulness. This misconception is +strikingly exemplified in a prominent point of Leibnitian philosophy. +Stewart says: "The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of +Necessity is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which he +uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism." [32] + +[Footnote 32: _General View of the Prog. of Metaph. Eth. and Polit. +Phil_. Boston: 1822. p. 75.] + +Now it happens that "the zeal of Leibnitz" was exerted in precisely +the opposite direction. A considerable section of the "Théodicée" +(34-75) is occupied with the illustration and defence of the Freedom +of the Will. It was a doctrine on which he laid great stress, and +which forms an essential part of his system; [33] in proof of which, +let one declaration stand for many: "Je suis d'opinion que notre +volonté n'est pas seulement exempte de la contrainte, mais encore +de la nécessité." How far he succeeded in establishing that doctrine +in accordance with the rest of his system is another question. +That he believed it and taught it is a fact of which there can be +no more doubt with those who have studied his writings, than there +is that he wrote the works ascribed to him. But the freedom of will +maintained by Leibnitz was not indeterminism. It was not the +indifference of the tongue of the balance between equal weights, +or that of the ass between equal bundles of hay. Such an +equilibrium he declares impossible. "Cet équilibre en tout sens +est impossible." Buridan's imaginary case of the ass is a fiction +"qui ne sauroit avoir lieu dans l'univers." [34] + +[Footnote 33: "Numquam Leibnitio in mentem venisse libertatem velle +evertere, in qua defendenda quam maxime fuit occupatus, omnia scripta, +precipue autem Theodicęa ejus, clamitant."--KORTHOLT, Vol. IV. p. 12.] + +[Footnote 34: Leibnitz seems to have been of the same mind with +Dante:-- + + "Intra duo cibi distanti e moventi + D' un modo, prima si morria di fame + Che liber' uomo l'un recasse a' denti." + _Parad_, iv. 1.] + +The will is always determined by motives, but not necessarily +constrained by them. This is his doctrine, emphatically stated and +zealously maintained. We doubt if any philosopher, equally profound +and equally sincere, will ever find room in his conclusions for a +greater measure of moral liberty than the "Théodicée" has conceded +to man. "In respect to this matter," says Arthur Schopenhauer, +"the great thinkers of all times are agreed and decided, just as +surely as the mass of mankind will never see and comprehend the +great truth, that the practical operation of liberty is not to be +sought in single acts, but in the being and nature of man." [35] + +[Footnote 35: _Ueber den Willen in der Natur_. FRANKFURT A.M. 1854. +p. 22.] + +Leibnitz's construction of the idea of a possible liberty consistent +with the preėstablished order of the universe is substantially that +of Schelling in his celebrated essay on this subject. We must not +dwell upon it, but hasten to conclude our imperfect sketch. + +The ground-idea of the "Théodicée" is expressed in the phrase, +"Best-possible world." Evil is a necessary condition of finite being, +but the end of creation is the realization of the greatest possible +perfection within the limits of the finite. The existing universe is +one of innumerable possible universes, each of which, if actualized, +would have had a different measure of good and evil. The present, +rather than any other, was made actual, as presenting to Divine +Intelligence the smallest measure of evil and the greatest amount of +good. This idea is happily embodied in the closing apologue, designed +to supplement one of Laurentius Valla, a writer of the fifteenth +century. Theodorus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that god +has permitted to Sextus the evil will which was destined to bring so +much misery on himself and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter +Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to lie down in the temple of +Pallas, and is there visited with a dream. The vision takes him to +the Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all possible +worlds. He examines one plan after another; in each the same Sextus +plays a different part and experiences a different fate. The plans +improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon one whose +superior excellence enchants him with delight. After revelling awhile +in the contemplation of this perfect world, he is told that this is +the actual world in which he lives. But in this the crime of Sextus +is a necessary constituent; it could not be what it is as a whole, +were it other than it is in its single parts. + +Whatever may be thought of Leibnitz's success in demonstrating his +favorite doctrine, the theory of Optimism commends itself to piety +and reason as that view of human and divine things which most +redounds to the glory of God and best expresses the hope of man,--as +the noblest and _therefore_ the truest theory of Divine rule and +human destiny. + +We recall at this moment but one English writer of supreme mark who +has held and promulged, in its fullest extent, the theory of Optimism. +That one is a poet. The "Essay on Man," with one or two exceptions, +might almost pass for a paraphrase of the "Théodicée"; and Pope, +with characteristic vigor, has concentrated the meaning of that +treatise in one word, which is none the less true, in the sense +intended, because of its possible perversion,--"Whatever is, is right." + + * * * * * + + + + +LOO LOO. + +A FEW SCENES FROM A TRUE HISTORY. [Concluded.] + + +SCENE IV. + +They had lived thus nearly a year, when, one day as they were riding +on horseback, Alfred saw Mr. Grossman approaching. "Drop your veil," +he said, quickly, to his companion; for he could not bear to have +that Satyr even look upon his hidden flower. The cotton-broker +noticed the action, but silently touched his hat, and passed with a +significant smile on his uncomely countenance. A few days afterward, +when Alfred had gone to his business in the city, Loo Loo strolled +to her favorite recess on the hill-side, and, lounging on the rustic +seat, began to read the second volume of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She +was so deeply interested in the adventures of the noble Pole, that +she forgot herself and all her surroundings. Masses of glossy dark +hair fell over the delicate hand that supported her head; her +morning-gown, of pink French muslin, fell apart, and revealed a +white embroidered skirt, from beneath which obtruded one small foot, +in an open-work silk stocking; the slipper having fallen to the +ground. Thus absorbed, she took no note of time, and might have +remained until summoned to dinner, had not a slight rustling +disturbed her. She looked up, and saw a coarse face peering at her +between the pine boughs, with a most disgusting expression. She at +once recognized the man they had met during their ride; and starting +to her feet, she ran like a deer before the hunter. It was not till +she came near the house, that she was aware of having left her +slipper. A servant was sent for it, but returned, saying it was not +to be found. She mourned over the loss, for the little pink kid +slippers, embroidered with silver, were a birth-day present from +Alfred. As soon as he returned, she told him the adventure, and went +with him to search the arbor of pines. The incident troubled him +greatly. "What a noxious serpent, to come crawling into our Eden!" +he exclaimed. "Never come here alone again, dearest; and never go +far from the house, unless Madame is with you." + +Her circle of enjoyments was already small, excluded as she was from +society by her anomalous position, and educated far above the caste +in which the tyranny of law and custom so absurdly placed her. But +it is one of the blessed laws of compensation, that the human soul +cannot miss that to which it has never been accustomed. Madame's +motherly care, and Alfred's unvarying tenderness, sufficed her +cravings for affection; and for amusement, she took refuge in books, +flowers, birds, and those changes of natural scenery for which her +lover had such quickness of eye. It was a privation to give up her +solitary rambles in the grounds, her inspection of birds' nests, and +her readings in that pleasant alcove of pines. But she more than +acquiesced in Alfred's prohibition. She said at once, that she would +rather be a prisoner within the house all her days than ever see +that odious face again. + +Mr. Noble encountered the cotton-broker, in the way of business, a +few days afterward; but his aversion to the unclean conversation of +the man induced him to conceal his vexation under the veil of common +courtesy. He knew what sort of remarks any remonstrance would elicit, +and he shrank from subjecting Loo Loo's name to such pollution. For a +short time, this prudent reserve shielded him from the attacks he +dreaded. But Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the +sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously +intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered +slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, +"I reckon you have seen this before, Mr. Noble." + +Alfred felt an impulse to seize him by the throat, and strangle him +on the spot. But why should he make a scene with such a man, and +thus drag Loo Loo's name into painful notoriety? The old _roué_ was +evidently trying to foment a quarrel with him. Thoroughly animal in +every department of his nature, he was boastful of brute courage, +and prided himself upon having killed several men in duels. Alfred +conjectured his line of policy, and resolved to frustrate it. He +therefore coolly replied, "I have seen such slippers; they are very +pretty"; and turned away, as if the subject were indifferent to him. + +"Coward!" muttered Grossman, as he left the counting-house. Mr. Noble +did not hear him; and if he had, it would not have altered his course. +He could see nothing enviable in the reputation of being ever ready +for brawls, and a dead-shot in duels; and he knew that his life was +too important to the friendless Loo Loo to be thus foolishly risked +for the gratification of a villain. This incident renewed his old +feelings of remorse for the false position in which he had placed the +young orphan, who trusted him so entirely. To his generous nature, +the wrong seemed all the greater because the object was so +unconscious of it. "It is I who have subjected her to the insolence +of this vile man," he said within himself. "But I will repair the +wrong. Innocent, confiding soul that she is, I will protect her. The +sanction of marriage shall shield her from such affronts." + +Alas for poor human nature! He was sincere in these resolutions, but +he was not quite strong enough to face the prejudices of the society +in which he lived. Their sneers would have fallen harmless. They +could not take from him a single thing he really valued. But he had +not learned to understand that the dreaded power of public opinion +is purely fabulous, when unsustained by the voice of conscience. So +he fell into the old snare of moral compromise. He thought the best +he could do, under the circumstances, was to hasten the period of +his departure for the North, to marry Loo Loo in Philadelphia, and +remove to some part of the country where her private history would +remain unknown. + +To make money for this purpose, he had more and more extended +his speculations, and they had uniformly proved profitable. If +Mr. Grossman's offensive conduct had not forced upon him a painful +consciousness of his position with regard to the object of his +devoted affection, he would have liked to remain in Mobile a few +years longer, and accumulate more; but, as it was, he determined to +remove as soon as he could arrange his affairs satisfactorily. He +set about this in good earnest. But, alas! the great pecuniary crash +of 1837 was at hand. By every mail came news of failures where he +expected payments. The wealth, which seemed so certain a fact a few +months before, where had it vanished? It had floated away, like a +prismatic bubble on the breeze. He saw that his ruin was inevitable. +All he owned in the world would not cancel his debts. And now he +recalled the horrible recollection that Loo Loo was a part of his +property. Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not +manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare. In the +fulness of his prosperity and happiness, he did not comprehend the +risk he was running by delay. He rarely thought of the fact that she +was legally his slave; and when it did occur to him, it was always +accompanied with the recollection that the laws of Alabama did not +allow him to emancipate her without sending her away from the State. +But this never troubled him, because there was always present with +him that vision of going to the North and making her his wife. So +time slipped away, without his taking any precautions on the subject; +and now it was too late. Immersed in debt as he was, the law did not +allow him to dispose of anything without consent of creditors; and he +owed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Grossman. Oh, agony! sharp agony! + +There was a meeting of the creditors. Mr. Noble rendered an account +of all his property, in which he was compelled to include Loo Loo; +but for her he offered to give a note for fifteen hundred dollars, +with good endorsement, payable with interest in a year. It was known +that his attachment to the orphan he had educated amounted almost to +infatuation; and his proverbial integrity inspired so much respect, +that the creditors were disposed to grant him any indulgence not +incompatible with their own interests. They agreed to accept the +proffered note, all except Mr. Grossman. He insisted that the girl +should be put up at auction. For her sake, the ruined merchant +condescended to plead with him. He represented that the tie between +them was very different from the merely convenient connections which +were so common; that Loo Loo was really good and modest, and so +sensitive by nature, that exposure to public sale would nearly kill +her. The selfish creditor remained inexorable. The very fact that +this delicate flower had been so carefully sheltered from the mud +and dust of the wayside rendered her a more desirable prize. He +coolly declared, that ever since he had seen her in the arbor, he +had been determined to have her; and now that fortune had put the +chance in his power, no money should induce him to relinquish it. + +The sale was inevitable; and the only remaining hope was that some +friend might be induced to buy her. There was a gentleman in the +city whom I will call Frank Helper. He was a Kentuckian by birth, +kind and open-hearted,--a slave-holder by habit, not by nature. Warm +feelings of regard had long existed between him and Mr. Noble; and to +him the broken merchant applied for advice in this torturing +emergency. Though Mr. Helper was possessed of but moderate wealth, +he had originally agreed to endorse his friend's note for fifteen +hundred dollars; and he now promised to empower some one to expend +three thousand dollars in the purchase of Loo Loo. + +"It is not likely that we shall be obliged to pay so much," said he. +"Bad debts are pouring in upon Grossman, and he hasn't a mint of +money to spare just now, however big he may talk. We will begin with +offering fifteen hundred dollars; and she will probably be bid off +for two thousand." + +"Bid off! O my God!" exclaimed the wretched man. He bowed his head +upon his outstretched arms, and the table beneath him shook with his +convulsive sobs. His friend was unprepared for such an overwhelming +outburst of emotion. He did not understand, no one but Alfred +himself _could_ understand, the peculiarity of the ties that bound +him to that dear orphan. Recovering from this unwonted mood, he +inquired whether there was no possible way of avoiding a sale. + +"I am sorry to say there is no way, my friend," replied Mr. Helper. +"The laws invest this man with power over you; and there is nothing +left for us but to undermine his projects. It is a hazardous business, +as you well know. _You_ must not appear in it; neither can I; for I +am known to be your intimate friend. But trust the whole affair to me, +and I think I can bring it to a successful issue." + +The hardest thing of all was to apprise the poor girl of her +situation. She had never thought of herself as a slave; and what a +terrible awakening was this from her dream of happy security! Alfred +deemed it most kind and wise to tell her of it himself; but he +dreaded it worse than death. He expected she would swoon; he even +feared it might kill her. But love made her stronger than he thought. +When, after much cautious circumlocution, he arrived at the crisis +of the story, she pressed her hand hard upon her forehead, and +seemed stupefied. Then she threw herself into his arms, and they wept, +wept, wept, till their heads seemed cracking with the agony. + +"Oh, the avenging Nemesis!" exclaimed Alfred, at last. "I have +deserved all this. It is all my own fault. I ought to have carried +you away from these wicked laws. I ought to have married you. Truest, +most affectionate of friends, how cruelly I have treated you! you, +who put the welfare of your life so confidingly into my hands!" + +She rose up from his bosom, and, looking him lovingly in the face, +replied,-- + +"Never say that, dear Alfred! Never have such a thought again! You +have been the best and kindest friend that woman ever had. If +_I_ forgot that I was a slave, is it strange that _you_ should +forget it? But, Alfred, I will never be the slave of any other man,-- +never! I will never be put on the auction-stand. I will die first." + +"Nay, dearest, you must make no rash resolutions," he replied. +"I have friends who promise to save you, and restore us to each other. +The form of sale is unavoidable. So, for my sake, consent to the +temporary humiliation. Will you, darling?" + +He had never before seen such an expression in her face. Her eyes +flashed, her nostrils dilated, and she drew her breath like one in +the agonies of death. Then pressing his hand with a nervous grasp, +she answered,-- + +"For _your_ sake, dear Alfred, I will." + +From that time, she maintained outward calmness, while in his +presence; and her inward uneasiness was indicated only by a fondness +more clinging than ever. Whenever she parted from him, she kept him +lingering, and lingering, on the threshold. She followed him to the +road; she kissed her hand to him till he was out of sight; and then +her tears flowed unrestrained. Her mind was filled with the idea +that she should be carried away from the home of her childhood, as +she had been by the rough Mr. Jackson,--that she should become the +slave of that bad man, and never, never see Alfred again. "But I can +die," she often said to herself; and she revolved in her mind +various means of suicide, in case the worst should happen. + +Madame Labassé did not desert her in her misfortunes. She held +frequent consultations with Mr. Helper and his friends, and +continually brought messages to keep up her spirits. A dozen times a +day, she repeated,-- + +"Tout sera bien arrangé. Soyez tranquille, ma chčre! Soyez tranquille!" + +At last the dreaded day arrived. Mr. Helper had persuaded Alfred to +appear to yield to necessity, and keep completely out of sight. He +consented, because Loo Loo had said she could not go through with +the scene, if he were present; and, moreover, he was afraid to trust +his own nerves and temper. They conveyed her to the auction-room, +where she stood trembling among a group of slaves of all ages and +all colors, from iron-black to the lightest brown. She wore her +simplest dress, without ornament of any kind. When they placed her +on the stand, she held her veil down, with a close, nervous grasp. + +"Come, show us your face," said the auctioneer. "Folks don't like to +buy a pig in a poke, you know." + +Seeing that she stood perfectly still, with her head lowered upon +her breast, he untied the bonnet, pulled it off rudely, and held up +her face to public view. There was a murmur of applause. + +"Show your teeth," said the auctioneer. But she only compressed her +mouth more firmly. After trying in vain to coax her, he exclaimed,-- + +"Never mind, gentlemen. She's got a string of pearls inside them +coral lips of hern. I can swear to that, for I've seen 'em. No use +tryin' to trot her out. She's a leetle set up, ye see, with bein' +made much of. Look at her, gentlemen! Who can blame her for bein' a +bit proud? She's a fust-rate fancy-article. Who bids?" + +Before he had time to repeat the question, Mr. Grossman said, in a +loud voice, "Fifteen hundred dollars." + +This was rather a damper upon Mr. Helper's agent, who bid sixteen +hundred. + +A voice from the crowd called out, "Eighteen hundred." + +"Two thousand," shouted Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand two hundred," said another voice. + +"Two thousand five hundred," exclaimed Mr. Grossman. + +"Two thousand eight hundred," said the incognito agent. + +The prize was now completely given up to the two competitors; and +the agent, excited by the contest, went beyond his orders, until he +bid as high as four thousand two hundred dollars. + +"Four thousand five hundred," screamed the cotton-broker. + +There was no use in contending with him. He was evidently willing to +stake all his fortune upon victory. + +"Going! Going! Going!" repeated the auctioneer, slowly. There was a +brief pause, during which every pulsation in Loo Loo's body seemed +to stop. Then she heard the horrible words, "Gone, for four thousand +five hundred dollars! Gone to Mr. Grossman!" + +They led her to a bench at the other end of the room. She sat there, +still as a marble statue, and almost as pale. The sudden cessation +of excited hope had so stunned her, that she could not think. +Everything seemed dark and reeling round her. In a few minutes, +Mr. Grossman was at her side. + +"Come, my beauty," said he. "The carriage is at the door. If you +behave yourself, you shall be treated like a queen. Come, my love!" + +He attempted to take her hand, but his touch roused her from her +lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow +in the face that made him stagger,--so powerful was it, in the +vehemence of her disgust and anger. + +His coaxing tones changed instantly. + +"We don't allow niggers to put on such airs," he said. "I'm your +master. You've got to live with me; and you may as well make up your +mind to it first as last." + +He glowered at her savagely for a moment; and drawing from his pocket +an embroidered slipper, he added,-- + +"Ever since I picked up this pretty thing, I've been determined to +have you. I expected to be obliged to wait till Noble got tired of +you, and wanted to take up with another wench; but I've had better +luck than I expected." + +At the sight of that gift of Alfred's in his hated hand, at the +sound of those coarse words, so different from _his_ respectful +tenderness, her pride broke down, and tears welled forth. Looking up +in his stern face, she said, in tones of the deepest pathos,-- + +"Oh, Sir, have pity on a poor, unfortunate girl! Don't persecute me!" + +"Persecute you?" he replied. "No, indeed, my charmer! If you'll be +kind to me, I'll treat you like a princess." + +He tried to look loving, but the expression was utterly revolting. +Twelve years of unbridled sensuality had rendered his countenance +even more disgusting than it was when he shocked Alfred's youthful +soul by his talk about "Duncan's handsome wench." + +"Come, my beauty," he continued, persuasively, "I'm glad to see you +in a better temper. Come with me, and behave yourself." + +She curled her lip scornfully, and repeated,-- + +"I will never live with you! Never!" + +"We'll see about that, my wench," said he. "I may as well take you +down a peg, first as last. If you'd rather be in the calaboose with +niggers than to ride in a carriage with me, you may try it, and see +how you like it. I reckon you'll be glad to come to my terms, before +long." + +He beckoned to two police-officers, and said, "Take this wench into +custody, and keep her on bread and water, till I give further orders." + +The jail to which Loo Loo was conveyed was a wretched place. The +walls were dingy, the floor covered with puddles of tobacco-juice, +the air almost suffocating with the smell of pent-up tobacco-smoke, +unwashed negroes, and dirty garments. She had never seen any place so +loathsome. Mr. Jackson's log-house was a palace in comparison. The +prison was crowded with colored people of all complexions, and +almost every form of human vice and misery was huddled together +there with the poor victims of misfortune. Thieves, murderers, and +shameless girls, decked out with tawdry bits of finery, were mixed +up with modest-looking, heart-broken wives, and mothers mourning for +the children that had been torn from their arms in the recent sale. +Some were laughing, and singing lewd songs. Others sat still, with +tears trickling down their sable cheeks. Here and there the fierce +expression of some intelligent young man indicated a volcano of +revenge seething within his soul. Some were stretched out drowsily +upon the filthy floor, their natures apparently stupefied to the +level of brutes. When Loo Loo was brought in, most of them were +roused to look at her; and she heard them saying to each other, +"By gum, dat ar an't no nigger!" "What fur dey fotch _her_ here?" +"She be white lady ob quality, _she_ be." + +The tenderly-nurtured daughter of the wealthy planter remained in +this miserable place two days. The jailer, touched by her beauty and +extreme dejection, offered her better food than had been prescribed +in his orders. She thanked him, but said she could not eat. When he +invited her to occupy, for the night, a small room apart from the +herd of prisoners, she accepted the offer with gratitude. But she +could not sleep, and she dared not undress. In the morning, the +jailer, afraid of being detected in these acts of indulgence, told +her, apologetically, that he was obliged to request her to return to +the common apartment. + +Having recovered somewhat from the stunning effects of the blow that +had fallen on her, she began to take more notice of her companions. +A gang of slaves, just sold, was in keeping there, till it suited +the trader's convenience to take them to New Orleans; and the +parting scenes she witnessed that day made an impression she never +forgot. "Can it be," she said to herself, "that such things have +been going on around me all these years, and I so unconscious of them? +What should I now be, if Alfred had not taken compassion on me, and +prevented my being sent to the New Orleans market, before I was ten +years old?" She thought with a shudder of the auction-scene the day +before, and began to be afraid that her friends could not save her +from that vile man's power. + +She was roused from her reverie by the entrance of a white gentleman, +whom she had never seen before. He came to inspect the trader's gang +of slaves, to see if any one among them would suit him for a +house-servant; and before long, he agreed to purchase a +bright-looking mulatto lad. He stopped before Loo Loo, and said, +"Are you a good sempstress?" + +"She's not for sale," answered the jailer. "She belongs to Mr. +Grossman, who put her here for disobedience." The man smiled, as he +spoke, and Loo Loo blushed crimson. + +"Ho, ho," rejoined the stranger. "I'm sorry for that. I should like +to buy her, if I could." + +He sauntered round the room, and took from his pocket oranges and +candy, which he distributed among the black picaninnies tumbling +over each other on the dirty floor. Coming round again to the place +where she sat, he put an orange on her lap, and said, in low tones, +"When they are not looking at you, remove the peel"; and, touching +his finger to his lip, significantly, he turned away to talk with +the jailer. + +As soon as he was gone, she asked permission to go, for a few minutes, +to the room she had occupied during the night. There she examined +the orange, and found that half of the skin had been removed unbroken, +a thin paper inserted, and the peel replaced. On the scrap of paper +was written: "When your master comes, appear to be submissive, and +go with him. Plead weariness, and gain time. You will be rescued. +Destroy this, and don't seem more cheerful than you have been." Under +this was written, in Madame Labassé's hand, "Soyez tranquille, ma chčre." + +Unaccustomed to act a part, she found it difficult to appear so sad +as she had been before the reception of the note. But she did her +best, and the jailer observed no change. + +Late in the afternoon, Mr. Grossman made his appearance. "Well, my +beauty," said he, "are you tired of the calaboose? Don't you think +you should like my house rather better?" + +She yawned listlessly, and, without looking up, answered, "I am very +tired of staying here." + +"I thought so," rejoined her master, with a chuckling laugh. +"I reckoned I should bring you to terms. So you've made up your mind +not to be cruel to a poor fellow so desperately in love with you,-- +haven't you?" + +She made no answer, and he continued: "You're ready to go home with +me,--are you?" + +"Yes, Sir," she replied, faintly. + +"Well, then, look up in my face, and let me have a peep at those +devilish handsome eyes." + +He chucked her under the chin, and raised her blushing face. She +wanted to push him from her, he was so hateful; but she remembered +the mysterious orange, and looked him in the eye, with passive +obedience. Overjoyed at his success, he paid the jailer his fee, +drew her arm within his, and hurried to the carriage. + +How many humiliations were crowded into that short ride! How she +shrank from the touch of his soft, swabby hand! How she loathed the +gloating looks of the old Satyr! But she remembered the orange, and +endured it all stoically. + +Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber +elegantly furnished. + +"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will +keep my word." + +He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying, +"I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if +you will please to grant it." + +"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything +reasonable." + +She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison; +and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow." + +"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It +grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to +convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent. +But you must reward me with a kiss before I go." + +This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of +exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much +ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her +manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly +tired; indeed I am!" + +He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again +urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up +some refreshments for you, before you sleep." + +He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she +heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer! +With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and +washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one +no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly +bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame. + +In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face, +entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade. + +"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly. + +"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind, +motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus' +breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I +hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come. +Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de +sake ob yer friends." + +Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you +know I _have_ any friends?" + +"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows +nottin'." + +The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She +felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had +excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but +it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet. + +"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said. + +"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly. + +"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant. + +"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply. + +Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered, +"Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers." +She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was +wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye +pleasant dreams." + +Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo +eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words: +"Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked. +Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word. +Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labassé had added, "Ne craigner +rien, ma chčre." + +Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her +cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she +sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the +apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs, +tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and +lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The +tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of +pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds, +and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were +embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as +the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated +with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass +illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet +before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson +velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and +repeated to herself: + + "He bought me somewhat high; + Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy." + +She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with +patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight. +What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master +should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the +windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank +within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out +and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable. +She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud +snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so +near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the +door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They +passed out together,--the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the +door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs, +through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen +with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled +away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the +gentlemen alighted and handed the women out. + +"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, Frank +Helper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant." + +"And Alfred,--Mr. Noble, I mean,--where is he?" asked Loo Loo. + +"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now." + +The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on +their way to the North by an express-train. + +It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured +from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until +he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in +ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended +to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been +endangered, had not Madame Labassé brought cheering messages, from +time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and +success nearly certain. + +When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had +escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars +for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any +one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an +indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant +from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any +connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the +exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood, +for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it. +He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of +Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England +opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not +understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse +than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward, +and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious +wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight. +But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was +compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before +leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston, +Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were +posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled; +but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had +travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers +reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to +Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case +the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote: +"I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this +you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter +likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in +charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my +affairs." + +After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained +the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the +rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly +sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling +in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of +whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a +slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo. +Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs, +opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both +her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans. +Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment, +and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last +remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman +who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, +according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and +Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him +before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said +the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. +I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of +Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to +return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing +would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own +protection. + + + +SCENE V. + +Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible, +eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started, +Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome +slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your +reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under +these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake +of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight +hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her." + +The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first," +he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging +over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending +ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee." + +Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and +cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by +reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their +marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an +article of property, according to American law, they did not venture +to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a +commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and +embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals +through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness +of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the +slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries +of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above +the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to +feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall +not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help +_you_, who have done so much for _me_! And Alfred, dear, I want to +give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying +to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and +sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to +be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have. +Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn +thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice +saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be +grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my +good Alfred." + +They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter +from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co. +had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction, +and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance +of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid +sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property, +until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend. + +Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree, +Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk, +and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization +unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had +imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof +from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New +Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of +fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend." +As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who +had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants +in Northern hotels. Madame Labassé was invited to spend the remainder +of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being +unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms. + +Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her +appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her +out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble. +She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had +a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the +financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret, +locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the +youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful +mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a +gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little +white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her. +Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and +presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes +moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up +in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me." + + + + +LETTER-WRITING. + +A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is +constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties +to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but +never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of +fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,--unless, in a word, +real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in +which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other +circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom +his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own +communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He +will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at +him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long +while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a +fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery, +and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,--adding, +that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence. +If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and +affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed +with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty +of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is +nothing to say. + +That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an +unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone +through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown. + +I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in +Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds +me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and +really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week. +New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and +mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their +interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth +little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed +to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday. + +Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar +conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of +mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary +conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with +you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has +forgotten what her _bon mot_ was, and has another, every whit as good, +upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber; +you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as +is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the +night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can +be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the +friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not +answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The +bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate +upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve +them up unseasonably. + +For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself +back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when +he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a +limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will +keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be +shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the +post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even +they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what +they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which +it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or +European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose +want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and +his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an +answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; +to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and +truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its +own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of +pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless +drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed +time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment +of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular +weakness, have gilded,--"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it +with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its +questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis +for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order; +but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and +contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the +writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse +of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct +one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party. + +Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger +postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic +of interest is always with them, and the _billet-doux_, after having +been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the +post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night +of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written +next week as well, since next week they two will stand in +substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet +sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks +she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are +constant changes, delicate tones of color, each + + 'Shade so finely touched love's sense must + seize it.' + +The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again. +Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never +must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence +between our natures." + +But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these +fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from +those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first +moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may +supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would +Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for +another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the +Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the +distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of +us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish +young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to +attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed. +Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who +could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who +would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the +postmen, for fear of the next discharge? + +In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps, +be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers, +school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy, +day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in +the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A +"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence, +is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number, +invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted +company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of +the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as +naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to +stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but +conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most +pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into +words. + +To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through +the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which +people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily +applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters +should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one +feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend, +although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as +absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him +who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making +the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last +word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a +correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the +larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue. +When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who +is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to +open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to +previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or +be protracted for a week or a month. + +Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my +eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, +baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, +born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed +by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in +an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like +the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor, +or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's +distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects +each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of +this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might +be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and +complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits +of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door. + +The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one +feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and +temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of +disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned +hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured +her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are +now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has +nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has +he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it +cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to +decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or +speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already +surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's +epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present, +and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he +would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table. +He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and +flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone, +with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large +hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet, +instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had +something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly +sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for +love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But +"LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well. + +I should not dare to describe the productions of my female +correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them +contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger +proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque +description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. +They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater +task to read them. + +My "fair readers"--as the snobs who write for magazines call women-- +have not, I trust, misapprehended my meaning and lost patience with +me. I would not be understood as expressing a preference for one +description of letters over another. Every person to his tastes and +his talents. But a letter, which does not represent the writer's +real mood, reflect what is uppermost in his or her mind, deal with +things and thoughts rather than with words, and express, if not +strengthen, the peculiar ties between the person writing and the +person written to,--a letter which is not genuine,--is no letter, +but a sham and a lie. A real letter, on the other hand, whatever its +topic, cannot fail to be worth reading. Great thoughts, profound +speculations, matters of experience, bits of observation, delicate +fancies, romantic sentiments, humorous criticisms on people and +things, funny stories, dreams of the future, memories of the past, +pictures of the present, the merest gossip, the veriest trifling, +everything, nothing, may form the theme, if naturally spoken of, not +hunted up to fill out a page. + +No reason for modifying my conclusions occurs to me. It may be said, +that, after all, a poor letter is better than none, because advices +from distant friends are always welcome. But would not a glance at +the well-known handwriting supply this want as fully as the perusal +of a lengthy epistle, written with the hand, but not with the heart? +Does not our chagrin at finding so little of our friends in their +letters more than counterbalance our gratification that they have +been (presumably) kind and thoughtful enough to write? Would we not +gladly give four of their ordinary letters for one of their best? +But the instant they strike off the shackles of regular +correspondence, and despatch letters only when they feel inclined, +replies only while they are fresh, and formulas at other times, if +need be, we have our wish; the miles between our friends and +ourselves shorten, they are really with us now and then, and we take +solid pleasure in chatting with them. + +Am I told, that, until these ideas find general acceptance, it is +dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to +go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a +stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they +would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of +what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the +consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. +The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular +voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence of +character or of conduct, the fewer one has of them, the better. + +Such suggestions as have been thrown out are too obvious to have +escaped any one who has given the subject a moment's thought. But +who has time for that? People live too fast, in these days, to pay +such attention as should be paid to those who are more valuable as +individuals than as parts of the great world. The good offices of +friendship, which are the fulfilment of the highest social duties, +are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of +those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom +and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the +ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and +vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for +the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and +good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion +habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, neglect their +observance. + +I know men, distinguished in the walks of literature, famed for a +beautiful style of composition, who do not write a tolerable letter +nor answer a note of invitation with propriety. Their sentences are +slipshod, their punctuation and spelling beyond criticism, and their +manuscript repulsive. A lady, to whose politeness such an answer is +given, has a right to feel offended, and may very properly ask +whether she be not entitled to as choice language as the promiscuous +crowd which the "distinguished gentleman" addresses from pulpit or +desk. + +How the distinguished gentleman would open his eyes at the question! +He is sure that what he sent her was well enough for a letter. As +though a letter, especially a letter to a lady, should not be as +perfect in its kind as a lecture or sermon in its kind! as though +one's duties toward an individual were less stringent than one's +duties toward an audience! Would the distinguished gentleman be +willing to probe his soul in search of the true reason for the +difference in his treatment of the two? Is he sure that it is not an +outgrowth from a certain "mountainous me," which seeks approbation +more ardently from the one source than from the other? + +There are those who indite elegant notes to comparative strangers, +but, probably upon the principle that familiarity breeds or should +breed contempt, send the most villanous scrawls to their intimate +friends and those of their own household. They are akin to the +numerous wives, who, reserving not only silks and satins, but +neatness and courtesy, for company, are always in dishabille in their +husbands' houses. + +Pericles, according to Walter Savage Landor, once wrote to Aspasia +as follows:-- + +"We should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in +little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of +our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I +think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly +letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. +Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes +in its efforts to please." + +The London Pericles, the Athenian gentleman,--and there are a few +such as he still extant,--writes to his nearest and dearest friend +none but the best letters. It appears to him as ill-bred to say +stupid or silly things to her, as to say what he does say clownishly. +He cannot conceive of doing what is so frequently done now-a-days. +He brings as much of Pericles to the composition of a letter as to +the preparation of a speech. We may feel sure, that, unless he acted +counter to his own maxims, he never wrote a line more or a line less +than he felt an impulse to write, and that he had no "regular +correspondents." + +It is not every one that can write such letters as are in that +delightful book of Walter Savage Landor, or as charmed the friends +of Charles Lamb, the poet Gray, and a few famous women, first, and +the world afterwards. It is not every one who can, with the utmost +and wisest painstaking, produce a thoroughly excellent letter. The +power to do that is original and not to be acquired. The charm of it +will not, cannot, disclose its secret. Like the charm of the finest +manners, of the best conversation, of an exquisite style, of an +admirable character, it is felt rather than perceived. But every +person, who will be simply true to his or her nature, can write a +letter that will be very welcome to a friend, because it will be +expressive of the character which that friend esteems and loves. The +bunch of flowers, hastily put together by her who gathered them, +speaks as plainly of affection, although not in so delicate tones, +as the most tastefully-arranged bouquet. But who desires to be +presented with a nosegay of artificial flowers? Who can abide dead +blossoms or violent discords of color? Freshness, sweetness, and an +approach to harmony, that shall bring to mind the living, growing +plants, and the bountiful Nature from whose embrace flowers are born, +the acceptable gift must have. + +To attempt a closer definition of a good letter than has been given +would be a fruitless, as well as difficult task. "Complete +letter-writers" are chiefly useful for the formulas--notes of +invitation, answers to them, and the like--which they contain, and +for their lessons in punctuation, spelling, and criticism. Their +efforts to instruct upon other points are and must be worse than +useless, because their precepts cramp without inspiring. A few good +examples are more valuable, but a little practice is worth them all. +Letter-writing is, after all, a _pas seul_, as it were; the novice +has no partner to teach him manners, or the figures of the dance, or +to set his wits astir. By effort, and through numerous failures, he +must teach himself. The difficulties of the medium between him and +his distant friend, who is generally in a similar predicament, must +be surmounted. Gradually stiffness gives place to ease of composition, +roughness to elegance, awkwardness to grace and tact, until his +letters at length come to represent his mood, and to interest, if +not to delight, his correspondent. A rigid adherence to times and +places and ceremonial retards this process of growth and advance, +which is slow enough, at best. + +But, although most correspondence is, from want of truthfulness, +thoughtfulness, life, good judgment, and good breeding, very +unsatisfactory, it cannot be denied that many good letters are +written every day. Between lovers, parents and children, real and +hearty friends, they pass. Young men on the threshold of life, while +discussing together the grave questions then encountered, write them. +Women, before their time to love and to be loved has come, or after +it is passed,--women, who, disappointed in the great hope of every +woman's life, turn to one another for support and shelter,--are +sending them by every post. Mr. De Quincey somewhere says, that in +the letters of English women, almost alone, survive the pure and racy +idioms of the language; and the German Wolf is said to have asserted, +that in corresponding with his betrothed he learnt the mysteries of +style. + +Such letters as these are worth one's reading, because the utterance +is genuine and genial. The writers feel and express in every line an +interest in what they are writing, and do not recognize the +conventional rules which obtain where people rely less upon +inspirations from within than upon fixed general maxims for their +guidance. As in the drawing-room the gentleman or lady behaves +naturally, and not according to the dancing-master, so in their +correspondence the best-bred people act from nature, and not from +instruction. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. [Continued.] + + Novit etiam pictura tacens in parietibus loqni. + +ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA. + + +IV. + +Christian art began in the catacombs. Under ground, by the feeble +light of lanterns, upon the ceilings of crypts, or in the +semicircular spaces left above some of the more conspicuous graves, +the first Christian pictures were painted. Imperfect in design, +exhibiting often the influence of pagan models, often displaying +haste of performance and poverty of means, confined for the most part +within a limited circle of ideas, and now faded in color, changed by +damp, broken by rude treatment, sometimes blackened by the smoke of +lamps,--they still give abundant evidence of the feeling and the +spirit which animated those who painted them, a feeling and spirit +which unhappily have too seldom found expression in the so-called +religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a +purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to +be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,-- +although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic +skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest +arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and +their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early +Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so +much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy, +as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons, +easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give +consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial. +"The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,-- +restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high +spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting." + +With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these +mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is +impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the +Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It +was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second +century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which +have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries +were probably executed before Christianity had become the +established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in +painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of +simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the +native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying +embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff +conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle. + +In the pictures of the most interesting period, that is, of the +second and third centuries, there is no attempt at literal +portraiture or historic accuracy. They were to be understood only by +those who had the key to them in their minds, and they mostly +arranged themselves in four broad classes. 1st. Representations of +personages or scenes from the Old Testament regarded as types of +those of the New. 2d. Literal or symbolic representations of +personages or scenes from the New Testament. 3d. Miscellaneous +figures, chiefly those of persons in the attitude of prayer. 4th. +Ornamental designs, often copied from pagan examples, and sometimes +with a symbolic meaning attached to them. + +It is a noteworthy and affecting circumstance, that, among the +immense number of the pictures in the catacombs which may be +ascribed to the first three centuries, scarcely one has been found +of a painful or sad character. The sufferings of the Saviour, his +passion and his death, and the martyrdoms of the saints, had not +become, as in after days, the main subjects of the religious Art of +Italy. On the contrary, all the early paintings are distinguished by +the cheerful and trustful nature of the impressions they were +intended to convey. In the midst of external depression, uncertainty +of fortune and of life, often in the midst of persecution, the Roman +Christians dwelt not on this world, but looked forward to the +fulfilment of the promises of their Lord. Their imaginations did not +need the stimulus of painted sufferings; suffering was before their +eyes too often in its most vivid reality; they had learned to regard +it as belonging only to earth, and to look upon it as the gateway to +heaven. They did not turn for consolation to the sorrows of their +Lord, but to his words of comfort, to his miracles, and to his +resurrection. Of all the subjects of pictures in the catacombs, the +one, perhaps, more frequently repeated than any other, and under a +greater variety of forms and types, is that of the Resurrection. The +figure of Jonah thrown out from the body of the whale, as the type +that had been used by our Lord himself in regard to his resurrection, +is met with constantly; and the raising of Lazarus is one of the +commonest scenes chosen for representation from the story of the New +Testament. Nor is this strange. The assurance of immortality was to +the world of heathen converts the central fact of Christianity, from +which all the other truths of religion emanated, like rays. It gave +a new and infinitely deeper meaning than it before possessed to all +human experience; and in its universal comprehensiveness, it taught +the great and new lessons of the equality of men before God, and of +the brotherhood of man in the broad promise of eternal life. For us, +brought up in familiarity with Christian truth, surrounded by the +accumulated and constant, though often unrecognized influences of +the Christian faith upon all our modes of thought and feeling, the +imagination itself being more or less completely under their control,-- +for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of +the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he +revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were +constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly +temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad +tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of +example and devotion,--faith in Christ and in his teachings must, +among the sincere, have been always connected with a sense of wonder +and of joy at the change wrought in their views of life and of +eternity. Their thoughts dwelt naturally upon the resurrection of +their Lord, as the greatest of the miracles which were the seal of +his divine commission, and as the type of the rising of the +followers of Him who brought life and immortality to light. + +The troubles and contentions in the early Church, the disputes +between the Jew and the Gentile convert, the excesses of spiritual +excitement, the extravagances of fanciful belief, of which the +Epistles themselves furnish abundant evidence, ceased to all +appearance at the door of the catacombs. Within them there is +nothing to recall the divisions of the faithful; but, on the contrary, +the paintings on the walls almost universally relate to the simplest +and most undisputed truths. It was fitting that among these the +types of the Resurrection should hold a first place. + +But the spiritual needs of life were not to be supplied by the +promises and hopes of immortality alone. There were wants which +craved immediate support, weaknesses that needed present aid, +sufferings that cried for present comfort, and sins for which +repentance sought the assurance of direct forgiveness. And thus +another of the most often-repeated of the pictures in the catacombs +is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No +emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been +found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian +paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with +peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, +it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting +suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed to +desecration or insult from them; and under emblems of this kind, +whose inner meaning was hidden to all but themselves, the first +Christians were often forced to conceal the expression of their faith. +This figure recalled to them many of the sacred words and most +solemn teachings of their Lord: "I am the Good Shepherd; the good +shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Often the good shepherd was +represented as bearing the sheep upon his shoulders; and the picture +addressed itself with touching and effective simplicity to him whom +fear of persecution or the force of worldly temptations had led away. +When one of his sheep is lost, doth not the shepherd go after it +until he find it? "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his +shoulders, rejoicing." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of +God over one sinner that repenteth." How often, before this picture, +has some saddened soul uttered the words of the Psalm: "I have gone +astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy +commandments"! And as if to afford still more direct assurance of the +patience and long-suffering tenderness of the Lord, the Good +Shepherd is sometimes represented in the catacombs as bearing, not a +sheep, but a goat upon his shoulders. It was as if to declare that +his forgiveness and his love knew no limit, but were waiting to +receive and to embrace even those who had turned farthest from him. +In a picture of very early date in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, the +Good Shepherd stands between a goat and a sheep, "as a shepherd +divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his +right hand and the goats on his left." But in this picture the order +is reversed,--the goat is on his right hand and the sheep on his left. +It was the strongest type that could be given of the mercy of God. +Sometimes the Good Shepherd is represented, not bearing the sheep on +his shoulders, but leaning on his crook, and with a pipe in his hands, +while his flock stand in various attitudes around him. Here again +the reference to Scripture is plain: "He calleth his own sheep by +name, and leadeth them out;... and the sheep follow him, for they +know his voice." Thus, under various forms and with various meanings, +full of spiritual significance, and suggesting the most invigorating +and consoling thoughts, the Good Shepherd appears oftener than any +other single figure on the vaults and the walls of the catacombs. It +is impossible to look at these paintings, poor in execution and in +external expression as they are, without experiencing some sense, +faint it may be, of the force with which they must have appealed to +the hearts and consciences of those who first looked upon them. It +is as if the inmost thoughts and deepest feeling of the Christians of +those early times had become dimly visible upon the walls of their +graves. The effect is undoubtedly increased by the manner in which +these paintings are seen, by the unsteady light of wax tapers, in +the solitude of long-deserted passages and chapels. In such a place +the dullest imagination is roused, troop on troop of associations +and memories pass in review before it, and the fading colors and +faint outlines of the paintings possess more power over it than the +glow of Titian's canvas, or the firm outline of Michel Angelo's +frescoes. + +Another symbol of the Saviour which is frequently found in the works +of the first three centuries, and which soon afterwards seems to +have fallen almost entirely into disuse, is that of the Fish. It is +not derived, like that of the Good Shepherd, immediately from the +words of Scripture; though its use undoubtedly recalled several +familiar narratives. It seems to have been early associated with the +well-known Greek formula, [Greek: iaesous christos theon uios sotaer], +Jesus Christ the Saviour Son of God, arranged acrostically, so that +the first letters of its words formed the word [Greek: ichthus], fish. +The first association that its use would suggest was that of +Christ's call to Peter and Andrew, "Follow me, and I will make you +fishers of men,"--and thus we find, among the early Christian writers, +the name of "little fish," _pisciculi_, applied to the Christian +disciples of their times. But it would serve also to bring to memory +the miracle that the multitude had witnessed, of the multiplication +of the fishes; and it would recall that last solemn and tender +farewell meeting between the Apostles and their Lord on the shore of +the Sea of Tiberias, in the early morning, when their nets were +filled with fish,--and "Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and +giveth them, and fish likewise." And with this association was +connected, as we learn from the pictures in the catacombs, a still +deeper symbolic meaning, in which it represented the body of our +Lord as given to his apostles at the Last Supper. In the Cemetery of +Callixtus, very near the recently discovered crypt of Pope Cornelius, +are two square sepulchral chambers, adorned with pictures of an +early date. Those of the first chamber have almost utterly perished, +but on the wall of the second may be seen the image of a fish +swimming in the water, and bearing on his back a basket filled with +loaves of the peculiar shape and color used by the Jews as an +offering of the first fruits to their priests; beneath the bread +appears a vessel which shows a red color, like a cup filled with wine. +"As soon as I saw this picture," says the Cavaliere de Rossi, in his +account of the discovery, "the words of St. Jerome came to my mind,-- +'None is richer than he who bears the body of the Lord in an osier +basket and his blood in a glass.'" + +In the same cemetery, very near the crypt of St. Cecilia, there is a +passage wider than common, upon whose side is a series of sepulchral +cells of similar form, and ornamented with similar pictures. In one +of them a table is represented, with four baskets of bread on the +ground, on one side, and three on the other, while upon it three +loaves and a fish are lying. In another of the chambers is a picture +of a single loaf and of a fish upon a plate lying on a table, at one +side of which a man stands with his hands stretched out towards it, +while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It +seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures +the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for +his followers,--a service which has rarely been celebrated under +circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken +in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting +memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were +partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels +of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the +days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for +his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice +was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him +at the table in the upper chamber. [1] + +[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract, +_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_, +expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and +simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic +doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he +considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical +symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least +doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and +the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that +have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their +original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the +date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative +unimportance.] + +There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a +symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture, +but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his +lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his +strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction +of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and +some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind +revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered +indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of +the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of +Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long +period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen +prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs +took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven, +as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that +should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan +eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient +poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the +music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and +compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in +the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow +him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the +lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell, +and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen +story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and +beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths. + +A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which +was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the +man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words, +"Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs, +according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects +that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained +by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They +understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning, +"Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward +to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely +congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in +many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist +writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the +doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called +the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay +stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," +and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated +power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the +painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the +narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting +assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but +there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any +reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures +themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to +contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent +the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet +and bearing his bed. [2] + +[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes +is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance +"represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both +knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not +seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It +is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before +accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the +possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one +figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act +of giving absolution expressed?] + +Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the +life of Moses,--his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord, +his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of +the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first +and the last are most common, and the truths which they were +intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was +regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation, +of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to +Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the +promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land +of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be +seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through +faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage. +Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou +standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard +the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the +Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance. +Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and +the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we +may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in +connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised +even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it +should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says +that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of +Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but +of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another +instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the +thought of immortality with the presence of death. + +So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth +abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the +living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ," +said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary +interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as +typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this +miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures +in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing +dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one +of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of +this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a +similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands +of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a +curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now +current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and +fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in +his hands,--emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being +the Vicegerent of Christ,--and on the bottom of a glass vessel of +late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of +the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not +of Moses, but of Peter,--for the Church had by this time advanced +far in its assumptions. + +The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the +walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet +appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the +great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth, +lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series; +but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted, +according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing +of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has +already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of +the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd, +(which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to +represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may +perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to +come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to +deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief +those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither, +so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and +wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter +dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows +as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was +one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the +long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were +enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the +Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon +those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new +commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with +rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth. +It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not +Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more +than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their +right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some, +at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may +have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more +subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic +meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later +fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations +of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell, +the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education +often led them. + +Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear +a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the +Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel +in the lions' den,--the other that of the Three Children of Israel +in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of +deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will +deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of +prayer,--the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with +arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached +to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They +were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them, +figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture +is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of +these figures with names inscribed above them,--as, for instance, +"HILARA IN PACE." + +Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old +Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the +middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with +the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the +type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the +midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider +signification, it was the type of the world saved through the +revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St. +Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that +is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even +baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." +Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more +literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes, +perhaps, by still other types. + +Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which +the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later +masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham, +in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the +Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a +common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling, +of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated +symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their +typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the +catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition +to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the +miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated, +with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight +to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new +picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is +continually receiving interesting additions. + +There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the +combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are +generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a +different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the +central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller +compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with +Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his +sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault +are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling +are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely +ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on +heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful +character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers, +crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed +more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and +other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church +delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in +the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on +their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put +these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual +significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner +meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus, +the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of +triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the +joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit, +and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the +emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor +of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the +anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol +of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for +the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life; +the lamb, of the Saviour himself. + +Many of these symbols were, it is plain, derived from the Scripture, +but many also had a heathen origin, and were adopted by the +Christians with a new or an additional significance. It was not +strange that this should be so, for many associations still bound +the Christians of the early centuries to the things they had turned +away from. Thus, the horse is frequently found upon the funeral vases +and marbles of the ancients; the peacock, the bird of Juno, was the +emblem of the apotheosis of the Roman empresses; the palm and the +crown had long been in use; and the funeral genii of the heathen +Romans were in some sort the type of the later Christian angels. But +although this adoption of ancient symbols is to be noticed, it is +also to be observed that there is in the Christian cemeteries on the +whole a remarkable absence of heathen imagery,--less by far than +might have been expected in the works of those surrounded by heathen +modes of thought and expression. The influence of Christianity, +however, so changed the current of ideas, and so affected the +feelings of those whom it called to new life, that heathenism became +to them, as it were, a dead letter, devoid of all that could rouse +the fancy, or affect the inner thought. A great gulf was fixed +between them and it,--a gulf which for three centuries, at least, +charity alone could bridge over. It was not till near the fourth +century that heathenism began, to any marked extent, to modify the +character and to corrupt the purity of Christianity. + +And with this is connected one of the most important historic facts +with regard to the Art of the catacombs. In no one of the pictures +of the earlier centuries is support or corroboration to be found of +the distinctive dogmas and peculiar claims of the Roman Church. We +have already spoken of the pictures that have been supposed to have +symbolic reference to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the +Eucharist, and have shown how little they require such an +interpretation. The exaltation of St. Peter above the other Apostles +is utterly unknown in the works of the first three centuries; in +instances in which he is represented, it is as the companion of St. +Paul. The Virgin never appears as the subject of any special +reverence. Sometimes, as in pictures of the Magi bringing their gifts, +she is seen with the child Jesus upon her lap. No attempt to +represent the Trinity (an irreverence which did not become familiar +till centuries later) exists in the catacombs, and no sign of the +existence of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be met with in them, +unless in works of a very late period. Of the doctrines of Purgatory +and Hell, of Indulgences, of Absolution, no trace is to be found. Of +the worship of the saints there are few signs before the fourth +century,--and it was not until after this period that figures of the +saints, such as those spoken of heretofore, in the account of the +crypt of St. Cecilia, became a common adornment of the sepulchral +walls. The use of the _nimbus_, or glory round the head, was not +introduced into Christian Art before the end of the fourth century. +It was borrowed from Paganism, and was adopted, with many other +ideas and forms of representation, from the same source, after +Romanism had taken the place of Paganism as the religion of the +Western Empire. The faith of the catacombs of the first three +centuries was Christianity, not Romanism. + +In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought +outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. +Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the +spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of +expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The +Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its +lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the +personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having +passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the +crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and +the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and +bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles, +beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of +feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works +disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves +were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom +they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves +hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr +became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or +_retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most +precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from +its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts +utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two +men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and +if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the +dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the +showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is +listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on +another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less +abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head +bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has +turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this +parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its +now rifled and forlorn graves. + +But the Art of the catacombs, after its first age, was not confined +to painting. Many sculptured sarcophagi have been found within the +crypts, and in the crypts of the churches connected with the +cemeteries. Here was again the adoption of an ancient custom; and in +many instances, indeed, the ancient sarcophagi themselves were +employed for modern bodies, and the old heathens turned out for the +new Christians. Others were obviously the work of heathen artists +employed for Christian service; and others exhibit, even more +plainly than the later paintings, some of the special doctrines of +the Church. The whole character of this sculpture deserves fuller +investigation than we can give to it here. The collection of these +first Christian works in marble that has recently been made in the +Lateran Museum affords opportunity for its careful study,--a study +interesting not only in an artistic, but in an historic and +doctrinal point of view. + +The single undoubted Christian statue of early date that has come +down to us is that of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, which was +found in 1551, near the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, it +was much mutilated, and has been greatly restored; but it is still +of uncommon interest, not only from its excellent qualities as a +work of Art, but also from the engraving upon its side of a list of +the works of the Saint, and of a double paschal cycle. This, too, is +now in the Christian Museum at the Lateran. + +Another branch of early Christian Art, which deserves more attention +than it has yet received, is that of the mosaics of the catacombs. +Their character is widely different from that of those with which a +few centuries afterwards the popes splendidly adorned their favorite +churches. But we must leave mosaics, gems, lamps, and all the lesser +articles of ornament and of common household use that have been +found in the graves, and which bring one often into strange +familiarity with the ways and near sympathy with the feelings of +those who occupied the now empty cells. Most of these trifles seem +to have been buried with the dead as the memorials of a love that +longed to reach beyond death with the expressions of its constancy +and its grief. Among them have been found the toys of little children,-- +their jointed ivory dolls, their rattles, their little rings, and +bells,--full, even now, of the sweet sounds of long-ago household +joys, and of the tender recollections of household sorrows. In +looking at them, one is reminded of the constant recurrence of the +figure of the Good Shepherd bearing his lamb, painted upon the walls +of these ancient chapels and crypts. + +It was thus that the dawn of Christian Art lighted up the darkness +of the catacombs. While the Roman nobles were decorating their +villas and summer-houses with gay figures, scenes from the ancient +stories, and representations of licentious fancies,--while the +emperors were paving the halls of their great baths with mosaic +portraits of the famous prize-fighters and gladiators,--the +Christians were painting the walls of their obscure cemeteries with +imagery which expressed the new lessons of their faith, and which +was the type and the beginning of the most beautiful works that the +human imagination has conceived, and the promise of still more +beautiful works yet to be created for the delight and help of the +world. + +[To be continued.] + + * * * * * + + + + +BEATRICE + + How was I worthy so divine a loss, + Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? + Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, + Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns? + + And when she came, how earned I such a gift? + Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, + The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, + The hourly mercy of a woman's soul? + + Ah, did we know to give her all her right, + What wonders even in our poor clay were done! + It is not Woman leaves us to our night, + It is our earth that grovels from her sun. + + Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes + We whirl too oft from her who still shines on + To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes + Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. + + Still must this body starve our souls with shade; + But when Death makes us what we were before, + Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, + And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor. + + + + +METEMPSYCHOSIS. + + "The sense of the world is short,-- + Long and various the report,-- + To love and be beloved: + Men and gods have not outlearned it; + And how oft soe'er they've turned it, + 'Tis not to be improved!"--EMERSON. + + +Mr. Vane and Mr. Payne both were eagerly describing to me their +arrangements for an excursion to the Lake. I did not doubt it would +be charming, but neither of these two gentlemen would be endurable +on such a drive, and each was determined to ask me first. I stood +pushing apart the crushed flowers of my bouquet, in which all the +gardener's art vindicated itself by making the airy grace of Nature +into a flat, unmeaning mosaic. + +In the next room the passionate melancholy of a waltz was mocked and +travestied by the frantic and ungrateful whirl that only Americans +are capable of executing; the music lived alone in upper air; of men +and dancing it was all unaware; the involved cadences rolled away +over the lawn, shook the dew-drooped roses on their stems, and went +upward into the boundless moonlight to its home. Through all, Messrs. +Vane and Payne harangued me about the splendid bowling-alley at the +Lake, the mountain-strawberries, the boats, the gravel-walks! At +last it became amusing to see how skilfully they each evaded and +extinguished the other; it was a game of chess, and he was to be +victor who should first ask me; if one verged upon the question, the +other quickly interposed some delightful circumstance about the +excursion, and called upon the first to corroborate his testimony; +neither, in Alexander's place, would have done anything but assure +the other that the Gordian knot was very peculiarly tied, and quite +tight. + +Presently Harry Tempest stood by my side. I became aware that he had +heard the discussion. He took my bouquet from my hand, and stood +smelling it, while my two acquaintance went on. I was getting +troubled and annoyed; Mr. Tempest's presence was not composing. I +played with my fan nervously; at length I dropped it. Harry Tempest +picked it up, and, as I stooped, our eyes met; he gave me the fan, +and, turning from Messrs. Vane and Payne, said, very coolly,-- + +"The Lake is really a charming place; I think, Miss Willing, you +would find a carriage an easier mode of conveyance, so far, than +your pony; shall I bring one for you? or do you still prefer to ride?" + +This was so quietly done, that it seemed to me really a settled +affair of some standing that I was to go to the Lake with Mr. Tempest. +Mr. Vane sauntered off to join the waltzers; Mr. Payne suddenly +perceived Professor Rust at his elbow and began to talk chemistry. I +said, as calmly as I had been asked,-- + +"I will send you word some time tomorrow; I cannot tell just now." + +Here some of my friends came to say good night; my duties as hostess +drew me toward the door; Harry Tempest returned my bouquet and +whispered, or rather said in that tone of society that only the +person addressed can hear,-- + +"Clara! let it be a drive!" + +My head bent forward as he spoke, for I could not look at him; when +I raised it, he was gone. + +The music still soared and floated on through the windows into the +moonlight; one by one the older part of my guests left me; only a +few of the gayest and youngest still persevered in that indefatigable +waltz, the oval room looking as if a score of bubbles were playing +hop and skip,--for in the crinoline expansions the gentlemen's black +pen-and-ink outlines were all lost. At length even these went; the +music died; its soul went up with a long, broken cry; its body was +put piecemeal into several green bags, shouldered by stout Germans, +and carried quite out of sight. The servants gathered and set away +such things as were most needful to be arranged, put out the lights, +locked the doors and windows, and went to bed. Mrs. Reading, my good +housekeeper, begged me to go up stairs. + +"You look so tired, Miss Clara!" + +"So I am, Delia!" said I. "I will rest. Go to bed you, and I shall +come presently." + +I heard her heavy steps ascend the stairs; I heard the door of her +room close, creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the +coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. +I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I +needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous +question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found +in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, +was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out +upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked eyes and fat +cheeks had eyed me a thousand times when Elsie's arm was clasped +over my neck, and with her head upon my shoulder we lay and laughed, +when we should have been dressing, at those Chinese chintz curtains. +Elsie was gone; if she had been here, I had been at once counselled. +Rest there, dead Past!--I could not go to my bedroom. + +The green-house opened from the large parlor by a sash-door. At this +season of the year the glazed roof and sides were withdrawn or +lowered, but at night the lower sashes were drawn up and fastened, +lest incursive cats or dogs should destroy my flowers. The great +Newfoundland that was our guard slept on the floor here, since it +was the weakest spot for any ill-meaning visitors to enter at. + +I drew the long skirt of my lace dress up over my hair, and quietly +went into the green-house. The lawn and its black firs tempted me, +but there was moonlight on the lawn, and moonlight I cannot bear; it +burns my head more fiercely than any noon sun; it scorches my eyelids; +it exhausts and fevers me; it excites my brain, and now I looked for +calm. This the odor of the flowers and their pure expression +promised me. A tall, thick-leaved camellia stood half-way down the +border, and before it was a garden-chair. The moonlight shed no ray +there, but through the sashes above streamed cool and fair over the +blooms that clung to the wall and adorned the parterres and vases; +for this house was set after a fashion of my own, a winter-garden +under glass; no stages filled the centre. It was laid out with no +stiff rule, but here and there in urns of stone, or in pyramidal +stands, gorgeous or fragrant plants ran at their own wild will, while +over all the wall and along the woodwork of the roof trailed +passion-flowers, roses, honeysuckles, fragrant clematis, ivy, and +those tropic vines whose long dead names belie their fervid +luxuriance and fantastic growth; great trees of lemon and orange +interspaced the vines in shallow niches of their own, and the languid +drooping tresses of a golden acacia flung themselves over and across +the deep glittering mass of a broad-leaved myrtle. + +As I sat down in the chair, Pan reared his dusky length from his mat, +and came for a recognition. It was wont to be something more +positive than caresses; but to-night neither sweet biscuit nor +savory bit of confectionery appeared in the hand that welcomed him; +yet he was as loving as ever, and, with a grim sense of protection, +flung himself at my feet, drew a long breath, and slept. I dared not +yet think; I rested my head against the chair, and breathed in the +odor of the flowers: the delicate scent of tea-roses; the Southern +perfume, fiery and sweet, like Greek wine, of profuse heliotropes,--a +perfume that gives you thirst, and longing, and regret. I turned my +head toward the orange-trees; Southern, also, but sensuous and tropic, +was the breath of those thick white stars,--a tasted odor. Not so +the cool air that came to me from a diamond-shaped bed of Parma +violets, kept back so long from bloom that I might have a succession +of them; these were the last, and their perfume told it, for it was +at once a caress and a sigh. I breathed the gale of sweetness till +every nerve rested and every pulse was tranquil as the air without. + +I heard a little stir. I looked up. A stately calla, that reared one +marble cup from its gracious cool leaves, was bending earthward with +a slow and voluntary motion; from the cup glided a fair woman's shape; +snowy, sandalled feet shone from under the long robe; hair of +crisped gold crowned the Greek features. It was Hypatia. A little +shiver crept through a white tea-rose beside the calla; its delicate +leaves fluttered to the ground; a slight figure, a sweet, sad face, +with melancholy blue eyes and fair brown hair, parted the petals. La +Valličre! She gazed in my eyes. + +"Poor little child!" said she. "Have you a treatise against love, +Hypatia?" + +The Greek of Egypt smiled and looked at me also. "I have discovered +that the steps of the gods are upon wool," answered she; "if love +had a beginning to sight, should not we also foresee its end?" + +"And when one foresees the end, one dies," murmured La Valličre. + +"Bah!" exclaimed Marguerite of Valois, from the heart of a rose-red +camellia,--"not at all, my dear; one gets a new lover!" + +"Or the new lover gets you," said a dulcet tone, tipped with satire, +from the red lips of Mary of Scotland,--lips that were just now the +petals of a crimson carnation. + +"Philosophy hath a less troubled sea wherein to ride than the stormy +fluctuance of mortal passion; Plato is diviner than Ovid," said a +puritanic, piping voice from a coif that was fashioned out of the +white camellia-blooms behind my chair, and circled the prim beauty +of Lady Jane Grey. + +"Are you a woman, or one of the Sphinx's children?" said a stormy, +thrilling, imperious accent, from the wild purple and scarlet flower +of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous +Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and +slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,--sallow, thin, but more +graceful than any bending bough of the desert acacia, and with eyes +like midnight, deep, glowing, flashing, melting into dew, as she +looked at the sedate lady of England. + +"You do not know love!" resumed she. "It is one draught,--a jewel +fused in nectar; drink the pearl and bring the asp!" + +Her words brought beauty; the sallow face burnt with living scarlet +on lip and cheek; the tiny pearl-grains of teeth flashed across the +swarth shade above her curving, passionate mouth; the wide nostrils +expanded; the great eyes flamed under her low brow and glittering +coils of black hair. + +"Poor Octavia!" whispered La Valličre. Lady Jane Grey took up her +breviary and read. + +"After all, you died!" said Hypatia. + +"I lived!" retorted Cleopatra. + +"Lived and loved," said a dreamy tone from the hundred leaves of a +spotless La Marque rose; and the steady, "unhasting, unresting" soul +of Thekla looked out from that centreless flower, in true German +guise of brown braided tresses, deep blue eyes like forget-me-nots, +sedate lips, and a straight nose. + +"I have lived, and loved, and cut bread and butter," solemnly +pronounced a mountain-daisy, assuming the broad features of a +fräulein. + +Cleopatra used an Egyptian oath. Lady Jane Grey put down her breviary +and took up Plato. Marguerite of Valois laughed outright. Hypatia +put a green leaf over Charlotte, with the air of a high-priestess, +and extinguished her. + +"Who does not love cannot lose," mused La Valličre. + +"Who does not love neither has nor gains," said Hypatia. "The dilemma +hath two sides, and both gain and loss are problematic. It is the +ideal of love that enthralls us, not the real." + +"Hush! you white-faced Greek! It was not an ideal; it was Mark Antony. +By Isis! does a dream fight, and swear, and kiss?" + +"The Navarrese did; and France dreamed he was my master,--not I!" +laughed Marguerite. + +"This is most weak stuff for goodly and noble women to foster," +grimly uttered a flame-colored hawk's-bill tulip, that directly +assumed a ruff and an aquiline nose. + +Mary of Scotland passed her hand about her fair throat. "Where is +Leicester's ring?" said she. + +The Queen did not hear, but went on. "Truly, you make as if it was +the intent of women to be trodden under foot of men. She that +ruleth herself shall rule both princes and nobles, I wot. Yet I had +done well to marry. Love or no love, I would the house of Hanover +had waged war with one of mine own blood; I hate those fair, fat +Guelphs!" + +"Love hath sometimes the thorn alone, the rose being blasted in bud," +uttered a sweet and sonorous voice with a little nasal accent, out +of the myrtle-boughs that starred with bloom her hair, and swept the +hem of her green dress. + +"Sweet soul, wast thou not, then, sated upon sonnets?" said Mary of +Scotland, in a stage aside. + +"Do not the laurels overgrow the thorn?" said La Valličre, with a +wistful, inquiring smile. + +Laura looked away. "They are very green at Avignon," said she. + +Out of two primroses, side by side, Stella and Vanessa put forth +pale and anxious faces, with eyes tear-dimmed. + +"Love does not feed on laurels," said Stella; "they are fruitless." + +"That the clergy should be celibate is mine own desire," broke in +Queen Elizabeth. "Shall every curly fool's-pate of a girl be turning +after an anointed bishop? I will have this thing ended, certes! and +that with speed." + +Vanessa was too deep in a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. +"I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and +veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto age and +learning." + +"Ciel!" muttered Marguerite; "is it, then, that in this miserable +England one cherishes a grand passion for one's grandfather?" + +The heliotrope-clusters melted into a face of plastic contour, rich +full lips, soft interfused outlines, intense purple eyes, and heavy +waving hair, dark indeed, but harmonized curiously with the narrow +gold fillet that bound it. "It is no pain to die for love," said the +low, deep voice, with an echo of rolling gerunds in the tone. + +"That depends on how sharp the dagger is," returned Mary of Scotland. +"If the axe had been dull"---- + +From the heart of a red rose Juliet looked out; the golden centre +crowned her head with yellow tresses; her tender hazel eyes were +calm with intact passion; her mouth was scarlet with fresh kisses, +and full of consciousness and repose. "Harder it is to live for love," +said she; "hardest of all to have ever lived without it." + +"How much do you all help the matter?" said a practical Yankee voice +from a pink hollyhock. "If the infinite relations of life assert +themselves in marriage, and the infinite I merges its individuality +in the personality of another, the superincumbent need of a passional +relation passes without question. What the soul of the seeker asks +from itself and the universe is, whether the ultimate principle of +existent life is passional or philosophic." + +"Your dialectic is wanting in purity of expression," calmly said +Hypatia; "the tongue of Olympus suits gods and their ministers only." + +"Plato hath no question of the matter in hand," observed Lady Jane +Grey, with a tone of finishing the subject. + +"I know nothing of your questions and philosophies," scornfully +stormed Cleopatra. "Fire seeks fire, and clay, clay. Isis send me +Antony, and every philosopher in Alexandria may go drown in the Nile! +Shall I blind my eyes with scrolls of papyrus when there is a goodly +Roman to be looked upon?" + +From the deep blue petals of a double English violet came a delicate +face, pale, serene, sad, but exceeding tender. "Love liveth when the +lover dies," said Lady Rachel Russell. "I have well loved my lord in +the prison; shall I cease to affect him when he is become one of the +court above?" + +"You are cautious of speech, Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. +"Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you has +carried cap and bell." + +They all turned toward the hawk's-bill tulip; it was not there. + +"Gone to Kenilworth," demurely sneered Mary of Scotland. + +A pond-lily, floating in a tiny tank, opened its clasped petals; and +with one bare pearly foot upon the green island of leaves, and the +other touching the edge of the marble basin, clothed with a rippling, +lustrous, golden garment of hair, that rolled downward in glittering +masses to her slight ankles, and half hid the wide, innocent, blue +eyes and infantile, smiling lips, Eve said, "I was made for Adam," +and slipped silently again into the closing flower. + +"But we have changed all that!" answered Marguerite, tossing her +jewel-clasped curls. + +"They whom the saints call upon to do battle for king and country +have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear +voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and +flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless +lips of a woman. + +"There have been cloistered nuns," timidly breathed La Valličre. + +"There is a monk's-hood in that parterre without," said Marguerite. + +The white clematis shivered. It was a veiled shape in long robes, +that hid face and figure, who clung to the wall and whispered, +"Paraclete!" + +"There are tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of +Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint +outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red +roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine +streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially +obscured, that ran, "Utque talis Rosa nulli alteri plantę adhęreret"---- + +"But the girl there is no saint; I think, rather, she is of mine own +land," said a purple passion-flower, that hid itself under a black +mantilla, and glowed with dark beauty. The Spanish face bent over me +with ardent eyes and lips of sympathetic passion, and murmured, +"Do not fear! Pedro was faithful unto and after death; there are some +men"---- + +Pan growled! I rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me +in very extempore costume, holding a night-lamp:-- + +"Goodness me, Miss Clara!" said she, "I never was more scared. I +happened to wake up, and I thought I see your west window open +across the corner; so I roused up to go and see if you was sick; and +you wasn't in bed, nor your frock anywhere. I was frighted to pieces; +but when I come down and found the greenhouse door open, I went in +just for a chance, and, lo and behold! here you are, sound asleep in +the chair, and Pan a-lying close onto that beautiful black lace frock! +Do get up, Miss Clara! you'll be sick to-morrow, sure as the world!" + +I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla +breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and +perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant. + +"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?" + +Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed. + +"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a +pretty good feller; but seein' things was as they was, if I'd had +means and knowed what I know now, I shouldn't never have married him." + +"May-be you'd have married somebody else, though," suggested I. + +"Like enough, Miss Clara; girls are unaccountable perverse when they +get in love. But do get up and go to bed. A'n't you goin' to the +Lake to-morrow?" + +That put my speculation to flight. Up I rose and meekly followed +Delia to my room; this time she staid to see me fairly disrobed. But +I had had sleep enough. I was also quiet; I could think. The future +lay at my feet, to be planned and patterned at my will; or so I +thought. I had not permitted myself to think much about Harry Tempest, +from an instinctive feeling of danger; I did not know then that + + "En songeant qu'il faut oublier + On s'en souvient!" + +I was young, rich, beautiful, independent; I came and went as I would, +without question, and did my own pleasure. If I married, all this +power must be given up; possibly I and my husband would tire of each +other,--and then what remained but fixed and incurable disgust and +pain? I thought over my strange dream. Cleopatra, the enchantress, +and the scorn of men: that was not love, it was simple passion of +the lowest grade. Lady Jane Grey: she was only proper. Marguerite de +Valois: profligate. Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. +Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Paetus dying, she could not +love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side +of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they +satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the +distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the +half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before +the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly +resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no +opportunity to speak to me alone. But I slept too long; it was noon +before I woke, and I had sent no message about my preference of the +pony, as I promised, to Mr. Tempest. I had only time to breakfast +and dress. At three o'clock he came,--with his carriage, of course. +So I rode to the Lake! + +It's all very well to make up one's mind to say a certain thing; it +is better if you say it; but, somehow or other,--I really was +ashamed afterward,--I forgot all my good reasons. I found I had taken +a great deal of pains to no purpose. In short, after due time, I +married Harry Tempest; and though it is some time since that happened, +I am still much of Eve's opinion,-- + + "I WAS MADE FOR ADAM." + + * * * * * + + + + +CRAWFORD AND SCULPTURE. + +There is as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, +the palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the +versatile, and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste +severe in affairs, costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. +The simplicity, directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace +of Sculpture have analogies in literature and character: the terse +despatch of a brave soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, +some proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic lines, that have become +household words, puritanic consistency, silent fortitude, are but so +many vigorous outlines, and impress us by virtue of the same +colorless intensity as a masterpiece of the statuary. How +sculpturesque is Dante, even in metaphor, as when he writes,-- + + "Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa; + Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, + A guisa di leon quando si posa." + +Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints are covered +with snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and mountain are clearly +defined by the universal whiteness. Death, in its pale, still, fixed +image,--always solemn, sometimes beautiful,--would have inspired +primeval humanity to mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. Even +New Zealanders elaborately carve their war-clubs; and from the +"graven images" prohibited by the Decalogue as objects of worship, +through the mysterious granite effigies of ancient Egypt, the brutal +anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and gilded figures on a +ship's prow,--whether emblems of rude ingenuity, tasteless caprice, +retrospective sentiment, or embodiments of the highest physical and +mental culture, as in the Greek statues,--there is no art whose +origin is more instructive and progress more historically significant. +The vases of Etruria are the best evidence of her degree of +civilization; the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood ware redeem the +economical art of England; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the +Roman Capitol are the most venerable local insignia; the carvings of +Gibbons, in old English manor-houses, outrival all the luxurious +charms of modern upholstery; Phidias is a more familiar element in +Grecian history than Pericles; the moral energy of the old Italian +republics is more impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the +bold and vigorous creations of Michel Angelo than in the political +annals of Macchiavelli; and it is the massive, uncouth sculptures, +half-buried in sylvan vegetation, which mythically transmit the +ancient people of Central America. + +We confess a faith in, and a love for, the "testimony of the rocks,"-- +not only as interpreted by the sagacious Scotchman, as he excavated +the "old red sandstone," but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, +and power by the hand of man through all generations. We love to +catch a glimpse of these silent memorials of our race, whether as +Nymphs half-shaded at noon-day with summer foliage in a garden, or +as Heroes gleaming with startling distinctness in the moonlit +city-square; as the similitudes of illustrious men gathered in the +halls of nations and crowned with a benignant fame, or as prone +effigies on sepulchres, forever proclaiming the calm without the +respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim, with the +enamored gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the asp had done its work,-- + + "She looks like sleep, + As she would catch another Antony + In her _strong toil of grace_." + +Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture,--partly because of an +inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its +greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its +awe-inspiring influence in "the monumental caves of death," as +described by Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that "all arts +address themselves to the sensibility and imagination"; and no one +thus alive to the appeal of sculpture will marvel that the +infuriated mob spared the statues of the Tuileries at the bloody +climax of the French Revolution,--that a "love of the antique" knit +in bonds of life-long friendship Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani,-- +that among the most salient of childhood's memories should be +Memnon's image and the Colossus of Rhodes,--that an imaginative girl +of exalted temperament died of love for the Apollo Belvidere,--and +that Carrara should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have +peopled earth with grace. + +To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing tableaux than a +gifted sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!--standing +erect by the mass of clay,--with graduated touch, moulding into +delicate undulations or expressive lines the inert mass,--now +stepping back to see the effect,--now bending forward, almost +lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a thin layer,--and so, +hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action, each perception +active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual approximation, under +patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a dense heap of +earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty. When such a man +departs from the world, after having thus labored in love and with +integrity so as to bequeathe memorable and cherished trophies of +this beautiful art,--when he dies in his prime, his character as a +man endeared by the ties of friendship, and his fame as an artist +made precious by the bond of a common nativity, we feel that the art +he loved and illustrated and the fame he won and honored demand a +coincident discussion. + +Thomas Crawford was born in New York, March 22, 1813, and died in +London, October 16, 1857. His lineage, school education, and early +facilities indicate no remarkable means or motive for artistic +development; they were such as belong to the average positions of +the American citizen; although a bit of romance, which highly amused +the young sculptor, was the visit of a noble Irish lady to his studio, +who ardently demonstrated their common descent from an ancient house. +At first contented to experiment as a juvenile draughtsman, to gaze +into the windows of print-shops, to collect what he could obtain in +the shape of casts, to carve flowers, leaves, and monumental designs +in the marble-yard of Launitz,--then adventuring in wood sculptures +and portraits, until the encouragement of Thorwaldsen, the nude +models of the French Academy at Rome, and copies from the +Demosthenes and other antiques in the Vatican disciplined his eye +and touch,--thus by a healthful, rigorous process attaining the +manual skill and the mature judgment which equipped him to venture +wisely in the realm of original conception,--there was a thoroughness +and a progressive application in his whole initiatory course, +prophetic, to those versed in the history of Art, of the ultimate +and secure success so legitimately earned. + +If Rome yields the choicest test, in modern times, of individual +endowment in sculpture, by virtue of her unequalled treasures and +select proficients in Art,--Munich affords the second ordeal in +Europe, because of the cultivated taste and superior foundries for +which that capital is renowned; and it is remarkable that both the +great statues there cast from Crawford's models by Müller inspired +those impromptu festivals which give expression to German enthusiasm. +The advent of the Beethoven statue was celebrated by the adequate +performance, under the auspices of both court and artists, of that +peerless composer's grandest music. When, on the evening of his +arrival, Crawford went to see, for the first time, his Washington in +bronze, he was surprised at the dusky precincts of the vast arena; +suddenly torches flashed illumination on the magnificent horse and +rider, and simultaneously burst forth from a hundred voices a song +of triumph and jubilee: thus the delighted Germans congratulated +their gifted brother, and hailed the sublime work,--to them typical +at once of American freedom, patriotism, and genius. The king warmly +recognized the original merits and consummate effect of the work; +the artists would suffer no inferior hands to pack and despatch it to +the sea-side; peasants greeted its triumphal progress;--the people +of Richmond were emulous to share the task of conveying it from the +quay to the Capitol hill; mute admiration, followed by ecstatic +cheers, hailed its unveiling, and the most gracious native eloquence +inaugurated its erection. + +Descriptions of works of Art, especially of statues, are +proverbially unsatisfactory; only a vague idea can be given in words, +to the unprofessional reader; otherwise we might dwell upon the eager, +intent attitude of Orpheus as he seems to glide by the dozing +Cerberus, shading his eyes as they peer into the mysterious +labyrinth he is about to enter in search of his ravished bride;--we +might expatiate on the graceful, dignified aspect of Beethoven, the +concentration of his thoughtful brow, and the loving serenity of his +expression,--a kind of embodied musical self-absorption, yet an +accurate portrait of the man in his inspired mood; so might he have +stood when gathering into his serene consciousness the pastoral +melodies of Nature, on a summer evening, to be incorporated into +immortal combinations of harmonious sound;--we might descant upon +the union of majesty and spirit in the figure of Washington and the +vital truth of action in the horse, the air of command and of +rectitude, the martial vigor and grace, so instantly felt by the +popular heart, and so critically praised by the adept in statuary +cognizant of the difficulties to be overcome and the impression to +be absolutely evolved from such a work, in order to make it at once +true to Nature and to character;--we might repeat the declaration, +that no figure, ancient or modern, so entirely illustrates the +classic definition of oratory, as consisting in action, as the +statue of Patrick Henry, which seems instinct with that memorable +utterance, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The inventive +felicity of the design for one of the pediments of the Capitol might +be unfolded as a vivid historic poem; and it requires no imagination +to show that Jefferson looks the author of the Declaration of +Independence. The union of original expression and skill in statuary +and of ingenious constructiveness in monumental designs, which +Crawford exhibited, may be regarded as a peculiar excellence and a +rare distinction. + +Much has been said and written of the limits of sculpture; but it is +the sphere, rather than the art itself, which is thus bounded; and +one of its most glorious distinctions, like that of the human form +and face, which are its highest subject, is the vast possible +variety within what seems, at first thought, to be so narrow a field. +That the same number and kind of limbs and features should, under the +plastic touch of genius, have given birth to so many and totally +diverse forms, memorable for ages and endeared to humanity, is in +itself an infinite marvel, which vindicates, as a beautiful wonder, +the statuary's art from the more Protean rivalry of pictorial skill. +If we call to mind even a few of the sculptured creations which are +"a joy forever," even to retrospection,--haunting by their pure +individuality the temple of memory, permanently enshrined in +heartfelt admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and +woman, significant in history, powerful in expression, or +irresistible in grace,--we feel what a world of varied interest is +hinted by the very name of Sculpture. Through it the most just and +clear idea of Grecian culture is revealed to the many. The solemn +mystery of Egyptian and the grand scale of Assyrian civilization are +best attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies the land +of the Pyramids and all its associations, mythological, scientific, +natural, and sacred,--its reverence for the dead, and its dim and +portentous traditions! and what a reflex of Nineveh's palmy days are +the winged lions exhumed by Layard! What more authentic tokens of +Mediaeval piety and patience exist than the elaborate and grotesque +carvings of Albert Dürer's day? The colossal Brahma in the temple of +Elephanta, near Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic superstition. +And can an illustration of the revival of Art, in the fifteenth +century, so exuberant, aspiring, and sublime, be imagined, to +surpass the Day and Night, the Moses, and other statues of Angelo?-- +But such general inferences are less impressive than the personal +experience of every European traveller with the least passion for +the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is there any sphere of +observation and enjoyment to such a one, more prolific of individual +suggestions than this so-called limited art? From the soulful glow +of expression in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the +womanly contours, so exquisite, in the armless figure of the Venus +de Milo,--from the aerial posture of John of Bologna's Mercury, to +the inimitable and firm dignity in the attitude of Aristides in the +Museum of Naples,--from the delicate lines which teach how grace can +chasten nudity in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the +embodied melancholy of Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici +Chapel,--from the stone despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all +bereaved maternity, in the very bend of Niobe's body and yearning +gesture, to the _abandon_ gleaming from every muscle of the Dancing +Faun,--from the stern brow of the Knife-grinder, and the bleeding +frame of the Gladiator, whereon are written forever the inhumanities +of ancient civilization, to the triumphant beauty and firm, light, +enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's Ariadne,--from the unutterable joy +of Cupid and Psyche's embrace, to the grand authority of Moses,--how +many separate phases of human emotion "live in stone"! What greater +contrast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge of facts and in our +consciousness of sentiment, can be exemplified, than those so +distinctly, memorably, and gracefully moulded in the apostolic +figures of Thorwaldsen, the Hero and Leander of Steinhaüser, the +lovely funereal monument, inspired by gratitude, which Rauch reared +to Louise of Prussia, Chantrey's Sleeping Children, Canova's Lions +in St. Peter's, the bas-reliefs of Ghiberti on the Baptistery doors +at Florence, and Gibson's Horses of the Sun? + +Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a pleasant +afternoon, along the Zurich road, to the old General's garden, where +stands the colossal lion designed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the +brave renown of the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the royal +family of France during the massacre of the Revolution? Carved from +the massive sandstone, the majestic animal, with the fatal spear in +his side, yet loyal in his vigil over the royal shield, is a grand +image of fidelity unto death. The stillness, the isolation, the +vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the clear mirror of the basin, +into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting the vast proportions +of the enormous lion, the veteran Swiss, who acts as _cicerone_, the +adjacent chapel with its altar-cloth wrought by one of the fair +descendants of the Bourbon king and queen for whom these victims +perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Nature and Art, +convey a unique impression, in absolute contrast with such white +effigies, for instance, as in the dusky precincts of Santa Croce +droop over the sepulchre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar +in the Mercato Nuevo of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness of that +sweet scion of the English nobility, moulded by Chantrey in all the +soft and lithe grace of childhood, holding a contented dove to her +bosom. + +Even as the subject of taste, independently of historical diversities, +sculpture presents every degree of the meretricious, the grotesque, +and the beautiful,--more emphatically, because more palpably, than +is observable in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an +immortal precedent; the Medięval carvings embody the rude Teutonic +truthfulness; where Canova provoked comparison with the antique, as +in the Perseus and Venus, his more gross ideal is painfully evident. +How artificial seems Bernini in contrast with Angelo! How minutely +expressive are the terra-cotta images of Spain! What a climax of +absurdity teases the eye in the monstrosities in stone which draw +travellers in Sicily to the eccentric nobleman's villa, near Palermo! +Who does not shrink from the French allegory and horrible melodrama +of Roubillac's monument to Miss Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey? +How like Horace Walpole to dote on Ann Conway's canine groups! We +actually feel sleepy, as we examine the little black marble Somnus +of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the first sight of the +Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in the presence of Nymphs, Graces, +and the Goddess of Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of genius, they +seem the ethereal types of that + + ----"common clay ta'en from the common earth, + Moulded by God and tempered by the tears + Of angels to the perfect form of woman." + +Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is +tranquillity,--a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe +chastens admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we +echo the poet's sentiment,-- + + "I do feel a mighty calmness creep + Over my heart, which can no longer borrow + Its hues from chance or change,--those children of to-morrow." + +It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate, +death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial +as commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like +those in St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked +beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venerable +associations of a Medięval tomb; while marble figures, typifying +Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding over the lineaments of the +illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral decorations, the most apt +and impressive. We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on +an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in which the brave +young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the scene and +story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form +of a recumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of the old +city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown forever +the gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In +Cathedral and Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the +sequestered parish church or the rural cemetery, what image so +accords with the sad reality and the serene hope of humanity, as the +adequate marble personification on sarcophagus and beneath shrine, +in mausoleum or on turf-mound? + + "His palms infolded on his breast, + There is no other thought express'd + But long disquiet merged in rest." + +In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so +readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is +in the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and +expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities +we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of +diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it +is the statues of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic +charm of her history; abstractly, we regard them with the poet:-- + + "Their gods? what were their gods? + There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules, + Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker + Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns + At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode + Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell + Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief; + Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best; + And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers; + Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer, + Sat in the circle of his starry power + And frowned 'I will!' to all." + +Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,--but calm, +fair, strong, and immortal. "They seem," wrote Hazlitt, "to have no +sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless +excellence they appear sufficient to themselves." + +In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the +most glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by +torchlight endears even these poor traditional deities forever. + + On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow, + Auroras beam, + The steeds of Neptune through the waters go, + Or Sibyls dream. + + As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved + Illusions wild, + Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved + And Juno smiled. + + Aerial Mercuries in bronze upspring, + Dianas fly, + And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling + Without a sigh. + +To this variety in unity, this wealth of antique genius, Crawford +brought the keen relish of an observant and the aptitude of a +creative mind. His taste in Art was eminently catholic; he loved the +fables and the personages of Greece because of this very diversity +of character,--the freedom to delineate human instincts and passions +under a mythological guise,--just as Keats prized the same themes as +giving broad range to his fanciful muse. A list of our prolific +sculptor's works is found to include the entire circle of subjects +and styles appropriate to his art--first, the usual classic themes, +of which his first remarkable achievement was the Orpheus; then a +series of Christian or religious illustrations, from Adam and Saul +to Christ at the Well of Samaria; next, individual portraits; a +series of domestic figures, such as the "Children in the Wood," or +"Truant Boys"; and, finally, what may be termed national statuary, +of which Beethoven and Washington are eminent exemplars. Like +Thorwaldsen, Crawford excelled in _basso-rilievo_, and was a +remarkable pictorial sculptor. Having made early and intense +studies of the antique, he as carefully observed Nature; few +statuaries have more keenly noted the action of childhood or +equestrian feats, so that the limbs and movement of the sweetest of +human and the noblest of brute creatures were critically known to him. +In sculpture, we believe that a great secret of the highest success +lies in an intuitive eclecticism, whereby the faultless graces of the +antique are combined with just observation of Nature. Without +correct imitative facility, a sculptor wanders from the truth and +the fact of visible things; without ideality, he makes but a +mechanical transcript; without invention, he but repeats +conventional traits. The desirable medium, the effective principle, +has been well defined by the author of "Scenes and Thoughts in Europe":-- +"Art does not merely copy Nature; it _coöperates_ with her, it makes +palpable her finest essence, it reveals the spiritual source of the +corporeal by the perfection of its incarnations." That Crawford +invariably kept himself to "the height of this great argument" it +were presumptuous to assert; but that he constantly approached such +an ideal, and that he sometimes seized its vital principle, the +varied and expressive forms yet conserved in his studio at Rome +emphatically attest. He had obtained command of the vocabulary of +his art; in expressing it, like all men who strive largely, he was +unequal. Some of his creations are far more felicitous than others; +he sometimes worked too fast, and sometimes undertook what did not +greatly inspire him; but when we reflect on the limited period of his +artist-life, on the intrepid advancement of its incipient stages +under the pressure of narrow means and comparative solitude, on the +extraordinary progress, the culminating force, the numerous trophies, +and the acknowledged triumphs of a life of labors, so patiently +achieved, and suddenly cut off in mid career,--we cannot but +recognize a consummate artist and the grandest promise yet +vouchsafed to the cause of national Art. + +Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good a judge of +sculpture as the best academician or anatomist. It is this direct +appeal, this elemental simplicity, which constitutes the great +distinction and charm of the art. There is nothing evasive and +mysterious; in dealing with form and expression through features and +attitude, average observation is a reliable test. The same English +poet was right in declaring that the Greek sculptors did not find +their inspiration in the dissecting-room; yet upon no subject has +criticism displayed greater insight on the one hand and pedantry on +the other, than in the discussion of these very _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of +antiquity. While Michel Angelo, who was at Rome when the Laocoön was +discovered, hailed it as "the wonder of Art," and scholars +identified the group with a famous one described by Pliny, Canova +thought that the right arm of the father was not in its right +position, and the other restorations in the work have all been +objected to. Goethe recognized a profound sagacity in the artist: +"If," he wrote, "we try to place the bite in some different position, +the whole action is changed, and we find it impossible to conceive +one more fitting; the situation of the bite renders necessary the +whole action of the limbs";--and another critic says, "In the group +of the Laocoön, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to +show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." +In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth +to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American +back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked why the +figures were seated in a row on a dry-goods box, and declared that +the serpent was not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the +child's, without breaking its vertebrae. So disgusted was Titian with +the critical pedantry elicited by this group, that, in ridicule +thereof, he painted a caricature,--three monkeys writhing in the +folds of a little snake. + +Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against which Byron, +while contemplating the Venus de Medici, utters so eloquent an +invective, sculpture is a grand, serene, and intelligible art,--more +so than architecture and painting,--and, as such, justly consecrated +to the heroic and the beautiful in man and history. It is predominantly +commemorative. How the old cities of Europe are peopled to +the imagination, as well as the eye, by the statues of their +traditional rulers or illustrious children, keeping, as it were, a +warning sign, or a sublime vigil, silent, yet expressive, in the +heart of busy life and through the lapse of ages! We could never +pass Duke Cosmo's imposing effigy in the old square of Florence +without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of the +Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local +association,--nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, +with hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars +in the piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of +Church abuses reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with +infamy. There was always a gleam of poetry,--however sad,--on the +most foggy day, in the glimpse afforded from our window, in +Trafalgar Square, of that patient horseman, Charles the Martyr. How +alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by moonlight, in Rome, as we +passed his plashing fountain! And those German poets,--Goethe, +Schiller, and Jean Paul,--what to modern eyes were Frankfort, +Stuttgart, and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms? The +most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of the Bourbon +dynasty was that inspired by Jeanne d'Arc, graceful in her marble +sleep, as sculptured by Marie d'Orléans; and the most impressive +token of Napoleon's downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image +intended for the square of Leghorn, but thrown permanently on the +sculptor's hands by the waning of his proud star. The statue of Heber, +to Christian vision, hallows Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini +breathes of the months of artistic suspense, inspiration, and +experiment, so graphically described in that clever egotist's memoirs. +One feels like blessing the grief-bowed figures at the tomb of +Princess Charlotte, so truly do their attitudes express our sympathy +with the love and the sorrow her name excites. Would not Sterne have +felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau of the Widow +Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially embodied by Ball Hughes? What more +spirited symbol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the +gilded horses of St. Mark's? How natural was Michel Angelo's +exclamation, "March!" as he gazed on Donatello's San Giorgio, in the +Church of San Michele,--one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, +complete armor, and the foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the +challenge, or a knight listening for the charge! Tenerani's +"Descent from the Cross," in the Torlonia Chapel, outlives in +remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that financial house. The +outlines of Flaxman, essentially statuesque, seem alone adequate to +illustrate to the eye the great Mediaeval poet, whose verse seems +often cut from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How grandly +sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement's tomb! + +It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these permanent +trophies of the sculptor's art may now be mingled our national fame. +Twenty years ago, the address in Murray's Guide-Book,--_Crawford, an +American Sculptor, Piazza Barberini_,--would have been unique; now +that name is enrolled on the list of the world's benefactors in the +patrimony of Art. Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel, +gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture and architecture +not destined soon to pass away; no more eloquent and original +advocate of the beautiful and the true in the higher social economies +has blest our day; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the poetry +of form; his essays are a valuable legacy of philosophic thought. +The Greek Slave of Powers was invariably surrounded by visitors at +the London World's Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Palmer has +sent forth from his isolated studio at Albany a series of ideal busts, +of a pure type of original and exquisite beauty. Others might be +named who have honorably illustrated an American claim to +distinction in an art eminently republican in its perpetuation of +national worth and the identity of its highest achievements with +social progress. + +Facility of execution and prolific invention were the essential +traits of Crawford's genius. For some years his studio has been one +of the shrines of travellers at Rome, because of the number and +variety as well as excellence of its trophies. The idea has been +suggested, and it is one we hope to see realized, that this complete +series of casts should be permanently conserved in such a temple as +Copenhagen reared to the memory of her great sculptor. It was on +account of this facility and fecundity that Crawford advocated +plaster as an occasional substitute for bronze and marble, where +elaborate compositions were proposed. He felt capable of achieving +so much, his mind teemed with so many panoramic and single +conceptions,--historical, allegorical, ideal, and illustrative of +standard literature or classical fable,--that only time and expense +presented obstacles to unlimited invention. Perhaps no one can +conceive this peculiar creativeness of his fancy and aptitude of hand, +who has not had occasion to talk with Crawford of some projected +monument or statue. No sooner was he possessed of the idea to be +embodied, the person or occasion to be commemorated, than he +instantly conceived a plan and drew a model, invariably possessing +some felicitous thought or significant arrangement. His sketch-book +was quite as suggestive of genius as his studio. The "Sketch of a +Statue to crown the Dome of the United States Capitol"--a photograph +of which is before us as we write, dated two years ago--is an +instance in point. A more grand figure, original and symbolic, +graceful and sublime, in attitude, aspect, drapery, accessories, and +expression, or one more appropriate, cannot be imagined; and yet it +is only one of hundreds of national designs, more or less mature, +which that fertile brain, patriotic heart, and cunning hand devised. +We are justified in regarding the appropriation by the State of +Virginia, for a monument to Washington by such a man, as an epoch in +the history of national Art. Crawford hailed it as would a confident +explorer the ship destined to convey him to untracked regions, the +ambitious soldier tidings of the coming foe, or any brave aspirant a +long-sought opportunity. It is one of the drawbacks to elaborate +achievement in sculpture, that the materials and the processes of +the art require large pecuniary facilities. To plan and execute a +great national monument, under a government commission, was +precisely the occasion for which Crawford had long waited. Happening +to read the proposals in a journal, while on a visit to this country, +he repaired immediately to Richmond, submitted his views, and soon +received the appointment. + +The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is +always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of +men have we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One +lovely evening in spring, we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse +of a beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation +of its own, and the afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue +of her loved and lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of +death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner +did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and +filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands, +and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in +contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. +"How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside, +with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity +of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the standard +of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of +beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the lips of +a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is the cognizance this +noble art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would +unfold by the hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty, +organization and use,--tracing therein a profound law and an +illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than +Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon receptions;--his white hair, kindly +smile, urbane manners, and unpretending simplicity gave an added +charm to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art,-- +reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in which +Humboldt cultivates science, and Sismondi history. Nor less +indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we +have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the +problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured +reproduction; or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the +treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. During Crawford's last +visit to America, we accompanied him to examine a portrait of +Washington by Wright. It boasts no elegance of arrangement or +refinement of execution; at a glance it was evident that the artist +had but a limited sense of beauty and lacked imagination; but, on +the other hand, he possessed what, for a sculptor's object,--namely, +facts of form and feature,--is more important,--conscience. +Crawford declared this was the only portrait of Washington which +literally represented his costume; having recently examined the +uniform, sword, etc., he was enabled to identify the strands of the +epaulette, the number of buttons, and even the peculiar seal and +watch-key. A man so faithful to details, so devoted to authenticity, +Crawford argued, was reliable in more essential things. He remarked, +that one of his own greatest difficulties in the equestrian statue +had been to reconcile the shortness of the neck in Stuart's portrait +and Houdon's statue (the body of which was not taken from life) with +the stature of Washington,--there being an anatomical incongruity +therein. "I had determined," he continued, "to follow what the laws +of Nature and all precedent indicate as the right proportion,-- +otherwise it would be impossible to make a graceful and impressive +statue; but in this picture, bearing such remarkable evidence of +authenticity, I find the correct distance between chin and breast." + +American travellers in Italy will sometimes be repelled by a certain +narrowness in the critical estimate of modern sculptors; though of +all arts sculpture demands and justifies the most liberal eclecticism. +Thus, a broad line of demarcation has been arbitrarily drawn between +high finish and prolific invention, originality and superficial skill; +as if these merits could not be united, or were incompatible with +each other,--and that, invariably, works of "outward skill elaborate" +are "of inward less exact." A Boston critic denominates Powers +"a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in +his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is +unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such +subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso +charming creations,--in attitude and feature true to the moment and +the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their +popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his +portrait busts and statues are, in many instances, unrivalled for +character as well as execution. A letter to one of his friends lies +before us, in which he responds to an amicable remonstrance at his +apparent slowness of achievement. The reasoning is so cogent, the +principle asserted of such wide application, and the artistic +conscience so nobly evident, that we venture to quote a passage. + +"It is said, that works designed to adorn buildings need not be done +with much care, being only architectural sculptures. This is quite a +modern idea. The Greeks did not entertain it, as is proved by those +gems which Lord Elgin sawed away from the walls of the Parthenon. I +cannot admit that a noble art should ever be prostituted to purposes +of mere show. They do not make rough columns, coarse and uneven +friezes, jagged mouldings, etc., for buildings. These are always +highly finished. Are figures in marble less important? But speed, +speed, is the order of the day,--'quick and cheap' is the cry; and +if I prefer to linger behind and take pains with the little I do, +there are some now, and there will be more hereafter, to approve it. +I cannot consent to model statues at the rate of three in six months, +and a clear conscience will reward me for not having yielded to the +temptation of making money at the sacrifice of my artistic reputation. +Art is, or should be, poetry, in its various forms,--no matter what +it is written upon,--parchment, paper, canvas, or marble. Milton +employed his daughter to write his 'Paradise Lost,' not to compose it; +her hand was moved by his soul; she was his modelling-tool,--nothing +more. But to employ another to model for you, and go away from him, +is not analogous. He then composes for you; modelling is composition. +And whom did Shakspeare get to do this for him? Whom did Gray employ +to arrange in words that immortal wreath set with diamond thoughts +which he has thrown upon a country churchyard? Whom did Michel +Angelo get to model his Moses? How many young men did Ghiberti employ +during the forty years he was engaged upon the Gates of Paradise? I +cannot yield my convictions of what is proper in Art. I will do my +work as well as I know how, and necessity compels me to demand ample +payment for it." + +We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic philosopher has not +analyzed the vital relation of the arts to each other and given a +popular exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the +antique has long been an acknowledged initiation for the limner, and +Campbell, in his terse description of the histrionic art, says that +therein "verse ceases to be airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb." +How much of their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe +to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean +adopted the "dying fall" of General Abercrombie's figure in St. +Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the memorable scenes and +votaries of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor's art,-- +as, for instance, the last act of "Don Giovanni," wherein the +expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in connection +with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare has +availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting +scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the +"Winter's Tale,"-- + + "Her natural posture! + Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed, + Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she + In thy not chiding: for she was as tender + As infancy and grace." + +Garrick imitated to the life, in "Abel Drugger," a vacant stare +peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was +a devotee of the chisel and adorned Chatsworth with free-stone +Sea-Nymphs. + +Crawford's interest in portrait-busts was secondary, owing to his +inventive ardor; the study he bestowed upon the lineaments of +Washington, however, gave a zest and a special insight to his +endeavor to represent his head in marble, and, accordingly, this +specimen of his ability, which arrived in this country after his +decease, is remarkable for its expressive, original, and finished +character. For ourselves, in view of the great historical value, +comparative authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of +this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm. +The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard +to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the +Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal +development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are +best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has +spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and +distinctness of impression associate most of our illustrious moderns +with their sculptured features: the ironical grimace of Voltaire is +perpetuated by Houdon's bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of +Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's countenance is familiar through +the elaborate chisel of Roubillac; Nollekens moulded Sterne's +delicate and unimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and Chantrey the +lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed the rude but +conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare preserved at +Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is +Albert Dürer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of Alexander +Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of him +by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for +Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in +marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never +more convinced of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of +"counterfeit presentment" than when exploring the Bacioechi _palazzo_ +at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, lighted from above, +and draped as well as carpeted with purple, stood on a simple +pedestal the bust of Napoleon's sister, thus enshrined after death +by her husband. The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated +head against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent emphatic +individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a holy place, where +communion with the departed, so spiritually represented by the +exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our +countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible +excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of +detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and with these, in many cases, +the highest characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute +artistic value, independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck +or Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achievements in this +regard are memorable, and fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty +and meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as +wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which +so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as +the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument +in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the +more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks +melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb? + + "The lips, as Cumae's cavern close, + The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, + The rigid front, almost morose, + But for the patient hope within, + Declare a life whose course hath been + Unsullied still, though still severe, + Which, through the wavering days of sin, + Kept itself icy chaste and clear." + +National characters become, as it were, household gods through the +sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon +seem as appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the +heads of Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images +of Scipio Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in +London. + +There is no phase of modern life so legitimate in its enjoyment and +so pleasing to contemplate as the life of the true artist. Endowed +with a faculty and inspired by a love for creative beauty, work is +to him at once a high vocation and a generous instinct. Imagine the +peace and the progress of those years at Rome when Crawford toiled +day after day in his studio,--at first without encouragement and for +bread, then in a more confident spirit and with some definite triumph, +and at last crowned with domestic happiness and artistic renown,--his +mind filled with ideal tasks more and more grand in their scope, and +the coming years devoted in prospect to the realization of his +noblest aspirations. From early morning to twilight, with rare and +brief interruptions, he thus designed, modelled, chiselled, +superintended, every day adding something permanent to his trophies. +This self-consecration was entire, and in his view indispensable. Few +and simple were the recreative interludes: a reunion of +brother-artists or fellow-countrymen and their families,--an +occasional journey, almost invariably with a professional intent,--a +summer holiday or a winter festival; but, methodical in pastime as +in work, his family and his books were his cherished resources. +Often so weary at night that he returned home only to recline on a +couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable +volume provided by his vigilant companion,--the best energies of his +mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art. +This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or +dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much; +but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of +character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human +experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine of many a +dreamer, the haunt of countless inefficient enthusiasts. But there, +as elsewhere, will must intensify thought, action control imagination, +or both are fruitless. Those melancholy ruins, those grand temples +of religion, the immortal forms and hues that glorify palace and +chapel, square, mausoleum, and Vatican, the dreamy murmur of +fountains, the aroma of violets and pine-trees, the pensive relics +of imperial sway, the sublime desolation of the Campagna, the mystery +of Nature and Art, when both are hallowed by time, the social zest +of an original brotherhood like the artists, the freedom and +loveliness, the ravishment of spring and the soft radiance of sunset, +all that there captivates soul and sense, must be resisted as well +as enjoyed;--self-control, self-respect, self-dedication are as +needful as susceptibility, or these peerless local charms will only +enchant to betray the artist. Crawford carried to Rome the ardor of +an Irish temperament and the vigor of an American character. +Hundreds have passed through a like ordeal of privation, ungenial +because conventional work, and slow approach to the goal of +recognized power and remunerated sacrifice; but few have emerged +from the shadow to the sunshine, by such manly steps and patient, +cheerful trust. It was not the voice of complaint that first +attracted towards him intelligent sympathy,--it was brave achievement; +and from the day when a remittance from Boston enabled him to put +his Orpheus in marble, to the day when, attended by his devoted +sister, he paid the last visit to his crowded studio, and looked, +with quivering eyelids, but firm heart, on the silent but eloquent +offspring of his brain and hand, the Artist in him was coincident +with the Man,--clear, unswerving, productive, the sphere extending, +the significance multiplying, and the mastery becoming more and more +complete through resolute practice, vivid intuition, and candid +search for truth. + +In the fifteenth century, and earlier, the lives of artists were +adventurous; political relations gave scope to incident; and Michel +Angelo, Salvator Rosa, and Benvenuto Cellini furnish almost as many +anecdotes as memorials of genius. In modern times, however, +vicissitude has chiefly diversified the uniform and tranquil +existence of the artist; his struggles with fortune, and not his +relations to public events, have given external interest to his +biography. It is the mental rather than the outward life which is +fraught with significance to the painter and sculptor; consciousness +more than experience affords salient points in his career. How the +executive are trained to embody the creative powers, through what +struggles dexterity is attained, and by what reflection and earnest +musing and observant patience and blest intuitions original +achievements glimmer upon the fancy, grow mature by thought, correct +through the study of Nature, and are finally realized in action,-- +these and such as these inward revelations constitute the actual +life of the artist. The mere events of Crawford's existence are +neither marvellous nor varied; his early love of imitative pastime, +his fixed purpose, his resort to stone-cutting as the nearest +available expedient for the gratification of that instinct to copy +and create form which so decidedly marks an aptitude for sculpture, +his visit to Rome, the self-denial and the lonely toil of his +novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and +his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise +enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity. +Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to +these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his +professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost +as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel +therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal +interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as +the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of +his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, he +long occupied an isolated position. The qualities of the man,--his +patient industry,--the new and unexpected superiority in different +branches of his art, so constantly exhibited,--the loyal, generous, +and frank spirit of his domestic and social life,--the freedom, the +faith, and the assiduity that endeared him to so large and +distinguished a circle, were individual claims often noted by +foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his +country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now +cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a +musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with +sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of +fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every +nation of Europe was represented, and the most illustrious of living +English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to +his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently +contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of +his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as +insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of +its victims,--by no violent epidemic, like those which have again +and again devastated the cities of Europe,--by no illusive decline, +whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations, +and which, in that soft clime, has peopled with the dust of +strangers the cemetery which the pyramid of Cestius overshadows and +the heart of Shelley consecrates,--by none of these familiar gates +of death did Crawford pass on; but, in the meridian of his powers +and his fame, in the climax of his artistic career, in the noontide +of his most genial activity, a corrosive tumor on the inner side of +the orbit of the eye encroached month by month, week by week, hour +by hour, upon the sources of life. Medical skill freed the brain +from its deadly pressure, but could not divert its organic affinity. +The mind's integrity was thus preserved intact; consciousness and +self-possession lent their dignity to waning strength; but the alert +muscles were relaxed; the busy hands folded in prayer; what Michel +Angelo uttered in his eighty-sixth Crawford was called upon to echo +in his forty-fifth year:-- + + "Wellnigh the voyage now is overpast, + And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude, + Draws nigh that common haven where at last, + Of every action, be it evil or good, + Must due account be rendered. Well I know + How vain will then appear that favored art, + Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart; + For all is vain that man desires below." + +The cheerful voice was often hushed by pain; but conjugal and +sisterly love kept vigil, a long, a bitter year, by that couch of +suffering in the heart of multitudinous Paris and London; hundreds +of sympathizing friends, in both hemispheres, listened and prayed +and hoped through a dreary twelvemonth. With the ripe autumn closed +the quiet struggle; and "in the bleak December" the mortal remains +were followed from the temple where his youth worshipped, to the +snow-clad knoll at Greenwood; garlands and tears, the ritual and the +requiem, eulogy and elegy, consecrated the final scene. By a singular +coincidence, the news of his decease reached the United States +simultaneously with the arrival of the ship in James River with the +colossal bronze statue of Washington, his crowning achievement. + +One would imagine, from the eagerness and intensity exhibited by +Crawford, that he anticipated a brief career. Work seemed as +essential to his comfort as rest is to less determined natures. He +was a thorough believer in the moral necessity of absolute +allegiance to his sphere; and differed from his brother-artists +chiefly in the decisive manner in which he kept aloof from extrinsic +and incidental influences. If Art ever made labor delectable, it was +so with him. He seemed to go through with the ordinary processes of +life with but a half consciousness thereof,--save where his personal +affections were concerned. One of the first works for which he +expressed a sympathetic admiration was Thorwaldsen's "Triumph of +Alexander,"--one of the most elaborate and suggestive of modern +friezes. He early contemplated an entire series of illustrations of +Ovid. He alternated, with infinite relish, between the extreme phases +of his art,--a delicate Peri and a majestic Colossus, an extensive +array of basso rilievo figures, a sublime ideal of manhood and an +exquisite image of infancy. His alacrity of temper was co-equal with +his steadiness of purpose; and the cheerfulness of an active mind, +sanguine temperament, and great nervous energy did not abandon him, +even in the state of forced passivity so intolerable to such habitude; +for hilarious words and, once or twice, the old ringing laugh +startled the fond watchers of his declining hours. The events of his +life are but a few expressive outlines; his works embody his most +real experience; and the thoughts and feelings, the observation and +the sentiment, not therein moulded or sketched, happily found +adequate record in the ample and ingenuous letters he wrote to his +beloved sister, from the time of his first arrival in Europe to that +of his last arrival in America,--embracing a period of twenty-two +years. Each work he conceived and executed, each process of study, +the impressions he gained and the convictions at which he arrived in +relation to ancient and modern art,--each journey, achievement, plan, +opinion,--what he saw, and imagined, and hoped, and did,--was +frankly and fondly noted; and the time may come when these epistles, +inspired by love and dictated by intelligent sympathy and insight, +will be compiled into a priceless memorial of artist-life. + + + + +ASIRVADAM THE BRAHMIN. + +Who put together the machinery of the great Indian revolt, and set +it going? Who stirred up the sleeping tiger in the Sepoy's heart, +and struck Christendom aghast with the dire devilries of Meerut and +Cawnpore? + +Asirvadam the Brahmin! + +Asirvadam is nimble with mace or cue; at the billiard-table, it is +hinted, he can distinguish a kiss from a carom; at the sideboard +(and here, if I were Mr. Charles Reade, I would whisper, in small +type) he confounds not cocktails with cobblers; when, being in trade, +he would sell you saltpetre, he tries you with flax-seed; when he +would buy indigo, he offers you indigo at a sacrifice. Yet, in +Asirvadam, if any quality is more noticeable than the sleek +respectability of the Baboo, it is the jealous orthodoxy of the +Brahmin. If he knows in what presence to step out of his slippers, +and when to pick them up again with his toes, in jaunty dandyisms of +etiquette, he also makes the most of his insolent order and its +patent of privilege, and wears the rue of his triple cord with a +demure and dignified difference. High, low, or jack, it is always +"the game" with him; and the game is--Asirvadam the Brahmin,--free +tricks and Brahmins' rights,--Asirvadam for his caste, and +everything for Asirvadam. + +The natural history of our astute and accomplished friend is worth a +page or two. And first, as to his color. Asirvadam comes from the +northern provinces, and calls the snow-turbaned Himalayas cousin; +consequently his complexion is the brightest among Brahmins. By some +who are uninitiated in the chemical mysteries of our metropolitan +milk-trade, it has been likened to chocolate and cream, with plenty +of cream; but the comparison depends, for the idea it conveys, so +much on the taste of the ethnological inquirer, as to the proportion +of cream, and still so much more, as in the case of Mr. Weller's +weal pies, on the reputation of "the lady as makes it," that it will +hardly serve the requirements of a severe scientific statement. +Copper-color has an excess of red, and sepia is too brown; the tarry +tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even +that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, +and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits +of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time +being. The flipper of your legitimate shiver-my-timbery old salt, +whose most amiable office is piping all hands to witness punishment, +has long since acquired the hue of a seven-years' meerschaum; while +the dandy cockswain of a forty-gun frigate lying off the navy-yard, +who brings the third cutter ship-shapely alongside with a pretty +girl in the stern-sheets, lends her--the pretty girl--a hand at the +gangway, that has been softened by fastidious applications of +solvent slush to the tint of a long envelope "on public service." +"Law sheep," when we come to the binding of books, is too sallow for +this simile; a little volume of "Familiar Quotations," in limp calf, +(Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855,) might answer,--if the cover of the +January number of the "Atlantic Monthly" were not exactly the thing. + +Simplicity, convenience, decorum, and picturesqueness distinguish +the costume of Asirvadam the Brahmin. Three yards of yard-wide fine +cotton cloth envelope his loins, in such a manner, that, while one +end hangs in graceful folds in front, the other falls in a fine +distraction behind. Over this, a robe of muslin, or silk, or pińa +cloth--the latter in peculiar favor, by reason of its superior purity, +for high-caste wear--covers his neck, breast, and arms, and descends +nearly to his ankles. Asirvadam borrowed this garment from the +Mussulman; but he fastens it on the left side, which the follower of +the Prophet never does, and surmounts it with an ample and elegant +waistband, beside the broad Romanesque mantle that he tosses over +his shoulder with such a senatorial air. His turban, also, is an +innovation,--not proper to the Brahmin,--pure and simple, but, like +the robe, adopted from the Moorish wardrobe, for a more imposing +appearance in Sahib society. It is formed of a very narrow strip, +fifteen or twenty yards long, of fine stuff, moulded to the orthodox +shape and size by wrapping it, while wet, on a wooden block; having +been hardened in the sun, it is worn like a hat. As for his feet, +Asirvadam, uncompromising in externals, disdains to pollute them +with the touch of leather. Shameless fellows, Brahmins though they be, +of the sect of Vishnu, go about, without a blush, in thonged sandals, +made of abominable skins; but Asirvadam, strict as a Gooroo when the +eyes of his caste are on him, is immaculate in wooden clogs. + +In ornaments, his taste, though somewhat grotesque, is by no means +lavish. A sort of stud or button, composed of a solitary ruby, in +the upper rim of the cartilage of either ear,--a chain of gold, +curiously wrought, and intertwined with a string of small pearls, +around his neck,--a massive bangle of plain gold on his arm,--a +richly jewelled ring on his thumb, and others, broad and shield-like, +on his toes,--complete his outfit in these vanities. + +As often as Asirvadam honors us with his morning visit of business +or ceremony, a slight yellow line, drawn horizontally between his +eyebrows, with a paste composed of ground sandal-wood, denotes that +he has purified himself externally and internally, by bathing and +prayers. To omit this, even by the most unavoidable chance to appear +in public without it, were to incur a grave public scandal; only +excepting the reason of mourning, when, by an expressive Oriental +figure, the absence of the caste-mark is accepted for the token of a +profound and absorbing sorrow, which takes no thought even for the +customary forms of decency. The disciple of Siva crossbars his +forehead with ashes of cow-dung or ashes of the dead; the sectary of +Vishnu adorns his with a sort of trident, composed of a central +perpendicular line in red, and two oblique lines, white or yellow. +But the true Brahmin knows no Siva or Vishnu, no sectarian +distinctions or preferences; Indra has set no seal upon his brow, nor +Krishna, nor Devendra. For, ignoring celestial personalities, it is +the Trimurti that he grandly adores,--Creation, Preservation, +Destruction triune,--one body with three heads; and the right line +alone, or _pottu_, the mystic circle, describes the sublime +simplicity of his soul's aspiration. + +When Asirvadam was but seven years old, he was invested with the +triple cord, by a grotesque, and in most respects absurd, extravagant, +and expensive ceremony, called the _Upanayana_, or Introduction to +the Sciences, because none but Brahmins are freely admitted to their +mysteries. This triple cord consists of three thick strands of cotton, +each composed of several finer threads; these three strands, +representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, are not twisted together, but +hang separately, from the left shoulder to the right hip. The +preparation of so sacred a badge is entrusted to none but the purest +hands, and the process is attended with many imposing ceremonies. +Only Brahmins may gather the fresh cotton; only Brahmins may card +and spin and twist it; and its investiture is a matter of so great +cost, that the poorer brothers must have recourse to contributions +from the pious of their caste, to defray the exorbitant charges of +priests and masters of ceremonies. + +It is a noticeable fact in the natural history of the always +insolent Asirvadam, that, unlike Shatriya, the warrior, Vaishya, the +cultivator, or Soodra, the laborer, he is not born into the full +enjoyment of his honors, but, on the contrary, is scarcely of more +consideration than a Pariah, until by the Upanayana he has been +admitted to his birthright. Yet, once decorated with the ennobling +badge of his order, our friend became from that moment something +superior, something exclusive, something supercilious, arrogant, +exacting,--Asirvadam, the high Brahmin,--a creature of wide strides +without awkwardness, towering airs without bombast, Sanscrit +quotations without pedantry, florid phraseology without hyperbole, +allegorical illustrations and proverbial points without +sententiousness, fanciful flights without affectation, and formal +strains of compliment without offensive adulation. + +When Asirvadam meets Asirvadam in the way, compliments pass: each +touches his forehead with his right hand, and murmurs twice the +auspicious name of Rama. But the passing Vaishya or Soodra elevates +reverently his joined palms above his head, and, stepping out of his +slippers, salutes the descendant of the Seven Holy Penitents with +_namaskaram_, the pious obeisance. _Andam arya_! "Hail, exalted +Lord!" he cries; and the exalted lord, extending the pure lilies of +his hands lordliwise, as one who condescends to accept an humble +offering, mutters the mysterious benediction which only Gooroos and +high Brahmins may bestow,--_Asirvadam_! + +The low-caste slave who may be admitted to the distinguished +presence of our friend, to implore indulgence, or to supplicate +pardon for an offence, must thrice touch the ground, or the honored +feet, with both his hands, which immediately he lays upon his +forehead; and there are occasions of peculiar humiliation which +require the profound prostration of the _sashtangam_, or abasement of +the eight members, wherein the suppliant extends himself face +downward on the earth, with palms joined above his head. + +If Asirvadam--having concluded a visit in which he has deferentially +reminded me of the peculiar privilege I enjoy in being admitted to +social converse with so select a being--is about to withdraw the +light of his presence, he retires backward, with many humbly gracious +salaams. If, on the other hand, I have had the honor to be his +distinguished guest at his garden-house, and am in the act of taking +my leave, he patronizes me to the gate with elaborate obsequiousness, +that would be tedious, if it were not so graceful, so comfortable, +so gallantly vainglorious. He shows the way by following, and spares +me the indignity of seeing his back by never taking his eyes from +mine. He knows what is due to his accomplished friend, the Sahib, +who is learned in the four Yankee Vedas; as to what is due to +Asirvadam the Brahmin, no man knoweth the beginning or the end of +that. + +When Asirvadam crosses my threshold, he leaves his slippers at the +door. I am flattered by the act into a self-appreciative complacency, +until I discover that he thereby simply puts me on a level with his +cow. When he converses with me, he keeps respectful distance, and +gracefully averts from me the annoyance of his breath by holding his +hand before his mouth. I inwardly applaud his refined breeding, +forgetting that I am a Pariah of Pariahs, whose soul, if I have one, +the incense of his holy lungs might save alive,--forgetting that he +is one to whose very footprint the Soodra salaams, alighting from +his palanquin,--to whose shadow poor Chakili, the cobbler, abandons +the broad highway,--the feared of gods, hated of giants, mistrusted +of men, and adored of himself,--Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +"They, the Brahmin Asirvadam, to him, Phaldasana, who is obedient, +who is true, who has every faithful quality, who knows how to serve +with cheerfulness, to submit in silence, who by the excellent +services he renders the Brahmins has become like unto the stone +Chintamani, the bringer of good, who by the number and variety and +acceptableness of his gifts shall attain, without further trials, to +the paradise of Indra: _Asirvadam_! + +"The year Vikarj, the tenth of the month Phalguna: we are at Benares +in good health; bring us word of thine. It shall be thy privilege to +make sashtangam at the feet--which are the true lilies of Nilufar-- +of us the Lord Brahmin, who are endowed with all the virtues and all +the sciences, who are great as Mount Meru, to whom belongs +illustrious knowledge of the four Vedas, the splendor of whose +beneficence is as the noon-flood of the sun, who are renowned +throughout the fourteen worlds, whom the fourteen worlds admire. + +"Having received with both hands that which we have abased ourself +by writing to thee, and having kissed it and set it on thy head, +thou wilt read with profound attention and execute with grateful +alacrity the orders it contains, without swerving from the strict +letter of them, the breadth of a grain of sesamum. Having hastened +to us, as thou art blessed in being bidden, thou shalt wait in our +presence, keeping thy distance, thy hands joined, thy mouth closed, +thine eyes cast down,--thou who art as though thou wert not,--until +we shall vouchsafe to perceive thee. And when thou hast obtained our +leave, then, and not sooner, shalt thou make sashtangam at our +blessed feet, which are the pure flowers of Nilufar, and with many +lowly kisses shalt lay down before them thy unworthy offering,--ten +rupees, as thou knowest,--more, if thou art wise,--less, if thou +darest. + +"This is all we have to say to thee. _Asirvadam_!" + +In the epistolary style of Asirvadam the Brahmin we are at a loss +which to admire most,--the flowers or the force, the modesty or the +magnificence. + +Among the cloistral cells of the women's quarter, which surround the +inner court of Asirvadam's domestic establishment, is a dark and +narrow chamber which is the domain of woman's rights. It is called +"the Room of Anger," because, when the wife of the bosom has been +tempted by inveigling box-wallahs with a love of a pink coortee, or +a pair of chased bangles, "such darlings, and so cheap," and has +conceived a longing for the same, her way is, without a word +beforehand, to go shut herself up in the Room of Anger, and pout and +sulk till she gets them; and seeing that the wife of the bosom is +also the pure concocter of the Brahminical curry and server of the +Brahminical rice, that she is the goddess of the sacred kitchen and +high-priestess of pots and pans, it is easy to see that her success +is certain. Poor little brown fool! that twelve feet square of +curious custom is all, of the world-wide realm of beauty and caprice, +that she can call her own. + +When the enamored young Asirvadam brought to her father's gate the +lover's presents,--the ear-rings and the bangles, the veil and the +loongee, the attar and the betel and the sandal, the flowers and the +fruits,--the lizard that chirped the happy omen for her betrothal +lied. When she sat by his side at the wedding-feast, and partook of +his rice, prettily picking from the same leaf, ah! then she did not +eat,--she dreamed; but ever since that time, waiting for his leavings, +nor daring to approach the board till he has retired to his pipe, +she does not dream,--she feeds. + +Around her neck a strange ornament of gold, having engraved upon it +the likeness of Lakshmee, is suspended by a consecrated string of +one hundred and eight threads of extreme fineness, dyed yellow with +saffron. This is the Tahli, the wife's badge,--"Asirvadam the Brahmin, +his chattel." They brought it to her on a silver salver garnished +with flowers, she sitting with her betrothed on a great cushion; and +ten Brahmins, holding around the happy pair a screen of silk, +invoked for them the favor of the three divine couples,--Brahma with +Sarawastee, Vishnu with Lakshmee, Siva with Paravatee. Then they +offered incense, to the Tahli, and a sacrifice of fire, and they +blessed it with many mantras, or holy texts; and as the bride turned +her to the east, and fixed her inmost thought on the "Great Mountain +of the North," Asirvadam the Brahmin clasped his collar on her neck, +never to be loosened till he, dying, shall leave her to be burned, +or spurned. + +No man, when he meets Asirvadam the Brahmin, presumes to ask, +"How is the little brown fool today?" No man, when he visits him, +ventures to inquire if she is at home; it is not the etiquette. +Should the little brown fool, having a mind of her own, and being +resolved not to endure this any longer, suddenly make Asirvadam +ridiculous some day, the etiquette is to hush it up among their +friends. + +As Raja, the warrior, sprang from the right arm of Brahma, and +Vaishya, the cultivator, from his belly, and Soodra, the laborer, +from his feet,--so Asirvadam the Brahmin was conceived in the head +and brought forth from the mouth of the Creator; and he is above the +others by so much as the head is above arms, belly, and feet; he is +wiser than the others, inasmuch as he has lain among the thoughts of +the god, has played with his inventions, and made excursions through +the universe with his speech. Therefore, if it be true, as some say, +that Asirvadam is an ant-hill of lies, he is also a snake's-nest of +wisdom, and a beehive of ingenuity. Let him be respected, for his +rights are plain. + +It is his right to be taught the Vedas and the mantras, all the +tongues of India, and the sciences; to marry a child-wife, no matter +how old he may be,--or a score of wives, if he be a Kooleen Brahmin, +so that he may drive a lively business in the way of dowries; to +peruse the books of magic, and perform the awful sacrifice of the +Yajna; to receive presents without limit, levy taxes without law, +and beg with insolence. + +It is his duty to study diligently; to conform rigorously to the +rules of his caste; to honor and obey his superiors without question +or hesitation; to insult his inferiors, for the magnifying of his +office; to get him a wife without loss of time, and a male child by +all means. During his religious minority he is expected to bathe and +sacrifice twice a day, to abstain from adorning his forehead or his +breast with sandal, to wear no flowers in his hair, to chew no betel, +to regard himself in no mirrors. + +Under Hindoo law, which is his own law, Asirvadam the Brahmin pays no +taxes, tolls, or duties; corporal punishment can in no case be +inflicted upon him; if he is detected in defalcation or the taking +of bribes, partial restitution is the worst penalty that can befall +him. "For the belly," he says, "one will play many tricks." To smite +his cheek with your leathern glove, or to kick him with your shoe, +is an outrage at which the gods rave; to kill him would draw down a +monstrous calamity upon the world. If he break faith with you, it is +as nothing; if you fail him in the least promise, you take your +portion with Karta, the Fox, as the good Abbé Dubois relates. + +"Karta, Karta!" screamed an Ape, one day, when he saw a fox feeding +on a rotten carcass, "thou must, in a former life, have committed +some dreadful crime, to be doomed to a new state in which thou +feedest on such garbage." + +"Alas!" replied the Fox, "I am not punished more severely than I +deserve. I was once a man, and then I promised something to a Brahmin, +which I never gave him. That is the true cause of my being +regenerated in this shape. Some good works, which I did have, won for +me the indulgence of remembering what I was in my former state, and +the cause for which I have been degraded into this." + +Asirvadam has choice of a hundred callings, as various in dignity +and profit as they are numerous. Under native rule he makes a good +cooly, because the officers of the revenue are forbidden to search a +Brahmin's baggage, or anything that he carries. He is an expeditious +messenger, for no man may stop him; and he can travel cheaply for +whom there is free entertainment on every road. "For the belly one +will play many tricks"; and Asirvadam, in financial straits, may +teach dancing to nautch-girls; or he may play the mountebank or the +conjurer, and with a stock of mantras and charms proceed to the +curing of murrain in cattle, pip in chickens, and short-windedness +in old women,--at the same time telling fortunes, calculating +nativities, finding lost treasure, advising as to journeys and +speculations, and crossing out crosses in love for any pretty dear +who will cross the poor Brahmin's palm with a rupee. He may engage +in commercial pursuits; and in that case, his bulling and bearing at +the opium-sales will put Wall Street to the blush. He may turn his +attention to the healing art; and allopathically, homoeopathically, +hydropathically, electropathically, or by any other path, run a muck +through many heathen hospitals. The field of politics is full of +charms for him, the church invites his taste and talents, and the +army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the +shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making +mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, +fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, +he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,--sleekest of lackeys, most +servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of +hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most +versatile of adventurers, most inventive of charlatans, most +restless of schemers, most insidious of jesuits, most treacherous of +confidants, falsest of friends, hardest of masters, most arrogant of +patrons, cruelest of tyrants, most patient of haters, most +insatiable of avengers, most gluttonous of ravishers, most infernal +of devils,--pleasantest of fellows. + +Superlatively dainty as to his fopperies of orthodoxy, Asirvadam is +continually dying of Pariah roses in aromatic pains of caste. If in +his goings and comings one of the "lilies of Nilufar" should chance +to stumble upon a bit of bone or rag, a fragment of a dish, or a +leaf from which some one has eaten,--should his sacred raiment be +polluted by the touch of a dog or a Pariah,--he is ready to faint, +and only a bath can revive him. He may not touch his sandals with +his hand, nor repose in a strange seat, but is provided with a mat, +a carpet, or an antelope's skin, to serve him for a cushion in the +houses of his friends. With a kid glove you may put his +respectability in peril, and with your patent-leather pumps affright +his soul within him. To him a pocket-handkerchief is a sore offence, +and a tooth-pick monstrous. All the Vedas could not save the Giaour +who "chews"; nor burnt brandy, though the Seven Penitents distilled +it, purify the mouth that a tooth-brush has polluted. Beware how you +offer him a wafered letter; and when you present him with a copy of +your travels, let it be bound in cloth. + +He has the Mantalini idiosyncrasy as to dem'd unpleasant bodies; and +when he hears that his mother is dead, he straight-way jumps into a +bath with his clothes on. Many mantras and much holy-water, together +with incense of sandal-wood, and other perfumery, regardless of +expense, can alone relieve his premises of the deadness of his wife. + +For a Soodra even to look upon the earthen vessels wherein his rice +is boiled implies the necessity of a summary smash of the infected +crockery; and his kitchen is his holy of holies. When he eats, the +company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent +thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a +complexity of dangers;--a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might +have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have +turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and +impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his +repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous +duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the +heaven of his mouth. When he would quench his thirst, he disdains to +apply the earth-born beaker to his lips, but lets the water fall +into his solemn swallow from on high,--a pleasant feat to see, and +one which, like a whirling dervis, diverts you by its agility, while +it impresses you by its devotion. + +It is easy to perceive, that, if our friend Asirvadam were not one +of the "Young Bengal" lights who do not fash themselves with trifles, +his orthodox sensibilities would be subjected to so many and gross +affronts from the indiscriminate contacts of a mixed community, that +he would shortly be compelled to take refuge in one of those +Arcadias of the triple cord, called _Agragramas_, where pure +Brahmins are met in all the exclusiveness of high caste, and where +the more a man rubs against his neighbor the more he is sanctified. +True, the Soodras have an irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at +the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra +when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are +saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers. + +There was once a foolish Brahmin, to whom a rich and charitable +merchant presented two pieces of cloth, the finest that had ever +been seen in the Agragrama. He showed them to the other Brahmins, +who all congratulated him on so fortunate an acquisition; they told +him it was the reward of some deed that he had done in a previous +life. Before putting them on, he washed them, according to custom, +in order to purify them from the pollution of the weaver's touch, +and hung them up to dry, with the ends fastened to two branches of a +tree. Presently a dog, happening to pass that way, ran under them, +and the Brahmin could not decide whether the unclean beast was tall +enough to touch the cloth, or not. He questioned his children, who +were present; but they were not quite certain. How, then, was he to +settle the all-important point? Ingenious Brahmin! an idea struck him. +Getting down on all fours, so as to be of the same height as the dog, +he crawled under the precious cloths. + +"Did I touch it?" + +"No!" cried all the children; and his soul was filled with joy. + +But the next moment the terrible conviction took possession of his +mind, that the dog had a turned-up tail; and that, if, in passing +under the cloths, he had elevated and wagged it, their defilement +must have been consummated. Ready-witted Brahmin! another idea. He +called the cleverest of his children, and bade it affix to his +breech-cloth a plantain-leaf, dog's-tail-wise, and waggishly. Then +resuming his all-fours-ness, he passed a second time under the cloth, +and conscientiously, and anxiously, wagged. + +"A touch! a touch!" cried all the children, and the Brahmin groaned, +for he knew that his beautiful raiment was ruined. Thrice he wagged, +and thrice the children cried, "A touch! a touch!" + +So the strict Brahmin leaped to his feet, in a frightful rage, and, +tearing the precious cloth from the tree, rent it in a hundred shreds, +while he cursed the abominable dog and the master that owned him. +And the children admired and were edified, and they whispered among +themselves,-- + +"Now, surely, it behooveth us to take heed to our ways, for our +father is particular." + +Moral: And the Brahmin winked. + +The Samaradana is an institution for which our friend Asirvadam +entertains peculiar veneration. This is simply an abundant feast of +Brahminical good things, to which the "fat and greasy citizens" of +the caste are bidden by some zealous or manoeuvring Soodra,--on +occasion of the dedication of a temple, perhaps, or in a season of +drought, or when a malign constellation is to be averted, or to +celebrate the birth or marriage of some exalted personage. From all +the country round about, the Brahmins flock to the feasting, singing +Sanscrit hymns and obscene songs, and shouting, _Hara! hara! Govinda!_ +The low fellow who has the honor to entertain so select a company is +not suffered to seat himself in the midst of his guests, much less +to partake of the viands he has been permitted to provide; but in +consideration of his "deed of exalted merit," and his expensive +appreciation of the beauties and advantages of high-caste society, +as expressed in all the delicacies of the season, he may come, when +the last course has been discussed, and, prostrating himself in the +sashtangam posture, receive the unanimous asirvadam of the company. + +If, in taking leave of his august guests, he should also signify his +sense of the honor they have done him, by presenting each with a +piece of cloth or a sum of money, he is assured that he is altogether +superior in mind and person to the gods, and that, if he is wise, he +will not neglect to remind his friends of his munificence by another +exhibition of it within a reasonable time. + +In the creed of Asirvadam the Brahmin, the drinker of strong drink +is a Pariah, and the eater of cow's flesh is damned already. If, then, +he can tell a cocktail from a cobbler, and scientifically +discriminate between a julep and a gin-sling, it must be because the +Vedas are unclasped to him; for in the Vedas all things are taught. +It is of Asirvadam's father that the story is told, how, when a fire +broke out in his house once, and all the pious neighbors ran to +rescue his effects, the first articles saved were a tub of pickled +pork and a jar of arrack. But this, also, no doubt, is the malicious +invention of some satirical rogue of a Soodra. Asirvadam, as is well +known, recoils with horror from the abomination of eating aught that +has once lived and moved and had a being; but if, remembering that, +you should seek to fill his soul with consternation by inviting him +to inspect a fig under a microscope, he would quietly advise you to +break your nasty glass and "go it blind." + +But there is one custom which Asirvadam the Brahmin observes in +common with the Pariah, and that is the solemn ceremonial of Death. +When his time comes, he dies, is burned, and presently forgotten; +and it is a consolation for his ever having been at all, that some +one is sure to be the richer and happier and freer for his ceasing +to be. True, he may assume new earthly conditions, may pass into +other vexatious shapes of life; but the change must ever be for the +better in respect of the interests of those who have suffered by the +powers and capabilities of the shape which he relinquishes. He may +become a snake; but then he is easily scotched, or fooled out of his +fangs with a cunning charmer's tom-tom;--he may pass into the foul +feathers of an indiscriminately gluttonous adjutant-bird; but some +day a bone will choke him;--his soul may creep under the mangy skin +of a Pariah dog, and be kicked out of compounds by scullions; he may +be condemned to the abominable offices of a crow at the burning +ghauts, a jackal by the wells of Thuggee, or a rat in sewers; but he +can never again be such a nuisance, such a sore offence to the minds +and hearts of men, as when he was Asirvadam the Brahmin. + +Fortunate indeed will he be, if the low, deep curses of all whom he +has oppressed, betrayed, insulted, shall not have availed against +him in his last hour. "Mayest thou never have a friend to lay thee +on the ground when thou diest!"--no imprecation so fierce, so fell, +as that; even Asirvadam the Brahmin abates his cruel greed, when +some poor Soodra client, bled of his last anna, thinks of his sick +wife, and the darling cow that must be sold at last, and grows +desperate. "Mayest thou have no wife to sprinkle the spot with +cow-dung where thy corpse shall lie, and to spread the unspotted +cloth; nor any cow, her horns tipped with rings of brass, and her +neck garlanded with flowers, to lead thee, holding by her tail, +through pleasant paths to the land of Yama! May no Purohita come to +strew thy bier with the holy herb, nor any next of kin be near to +whisper the last mantra!" + +Horrid Soodra! But though thy words make the soul of Asirvadam shiver, +they are but the voice of a dog, after all, and nothing can come of +them. Asirvadam the Brahmin has raised up lusty boys to himself, as +every good Brahmin should; and they shall bind together his thumbs +and his great toes, and lay him on the ground, when his hour is come,-- +lest the bed or the mat cling to his ghost, whithersoever it go, and +torment it eternally. His wife shall spread beneath him a cloth that +the hands of Kooleen Brahmins have woven. Lilies of Nilufar shall +garland the neck of the happy cow that is to lead him safely beyond +the fiery river, and the rings shall be golden wherewith her horns +are tipped. A mighty concourse of clients shall follow him to the +place of burning,--to "Rudra, the place of tears,"--whither ten +Kooleen Brahmins will bear him; and as often as they set down the +bier to feed the dead with a morsel of moistened rice, other +Brahmins shall sing his wisdom and his virtues, and celebrate his +meritorious deeds. When his funeral pyre is lighted, his sons, and +his sons' sons, and his daughters' husbands, and his nephews, shall +beat their breasts and rend the air with lamentations; and when his +body has been consumed, his ashes shall be given to the Ganges,--all +save a certain portion, which shall be made into a paste with milk, +and moulded into an image; and the image shall be set up in his house, +that the Brahmins and all his people may offer sacrifices before it. + +On the tenth day, his wife shall adorn her forehead with a scarlet +emblem, blacken the edges of her eyelids with soorma, deck her hair +with scarlet flowers, her neck and bosom with sandal, stain her face, +arms, and legs with turmeric, and array her in her choicest robes +and all her jewels, and follow her eldest son, in full procession, +to the tank hard by the "land of Rudra." And the heir shall take +three little stones, that were planted there in a row by the +Purohitas, and, going down into the water as deep as his neck, shall +turn his face to the sun and say, "Until this day these three stones +have stood for my father, that is dead. Henceforth let him cease to +be a carcass; let him enter into the joys of Swarga, the paradise of +Devendra, to be blessed with all conceivable blessings so long as +the waters of Ganges shall continue to flow;--so shall the dead +Brahmin not prowl through the universe, afflicting with evil tricks +stars, men, and trees; so shall he be laid." + +But who shall lay the quick Asirvadam, than whom there walks not a +sprite more cunning, more malign? + +Ever since the Solitaries, odious by their black arts to princes and +people, were slain or driven out,--fifteen centuries and more,-- +Asirvadam the Brahmin has been selfish, wicked, and mischievously +busy,--corrupting the hearts, bewildering the minds, betraying the +hopes, exhausting the moral and physical strength of the Hindoos. He +has taught them the foolish tumult of the Hooly, the fanatical +ferocities of the Yajna, the unwhisperable obscenities of the Saktis, +the fierce and ruinous extravagances of the Doorga Pooja, the +mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of +the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious +debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of +Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,--all the +fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral +epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or a Cawnpore. + +Of the outrageous insolence of the Seven Penitents he omits nothing +but their sincerity; of the enlightened simplicity of the anchoret +philosophers he retains nothing but their selfishness; of the +intellectual influence of the Gooroo pontiffs he covets nothing but +their dissimulation. He has taught his gaping disciples that a +skilfully compounded and plausibly administered lie is a goodly thing,-- +except it be told against the cause of a Brahmin, in which case no +oxyhydrogeneralities of earthly combustion can afford an idea of the +particular hotness of the hell devised for such a liar. He has +solemnly impressed them with the mysterious sacredness of the Ganges, +and its manifold virtues of a supernatural order; to swear falsely +by its waters, he says, is a crime for which Indra the Dreadful has +provided an eternity of excruciations,--except the false oath be +taken in the interest of a Brahmin, in which case the perjurer may +confidently expect a posthumous good time. For the rich to extort +money from the poor, says Asirvadam, is an affront to the Gooroos +and the Gods, which must be punished by forfeiture to the Brahmins +of the whole sum extorted, the poor client to pay an additional +charge for the trouble his protectors have incurred; the same when +fines are recovered; and in cases of enforced payment of debts, +three-fourths of the sum collected are swallowed up in costs. Being +a Brahmin, to pay a bribe is a foolish act; to receive one--a +necessary circumstance, perhaps. Not being a Brahmin, to offer or +accept a bribe is a disgraceful transaction, requiring that both +parties shall be made an example of;--the bribe is forfeited to the +Brahmins, and the poorer party fined; if the fine exceed his means, +the richer party to pay the excess. + +As the Brahminical interpretation of an oath is not always clear to +prisoners and witnesses of other castes, it is usual to illustrate +the definition to the obtuser or more scrupulous unfortunates by the +old-fashioned machinery of ordeals: such as compelling the +conscientious or obdurate inquirer to promenade without sandals over +burning coals; or to grasp, and hold for a time, a bar of red-hot +iron; or to plunge the hands into boiling oil, and keep them there +for several minutes. The party receiving these illustrations and +practical definitions of the Brahminical nature of an oath, without +discomfort or scar, is frankly adjudged innocent and reasonable. + +Another pretty trick of ordeal, which borrows its more striking +features from the department of natural history, is that in which +the prisoner or witness is required to grope about for a trinket or +small coin in a basket or jar already occupied by a lively cobra. +Should the groper not be bitten, our courtly friend, Asirvadam, is +satisfied there has been some mistake here, and gallantly begs the +gentleman's pardon. To force the subject to swallow water, cup by cup, +until it burst from mouth and nose, is also a very neat ordeal, but +requiring practice. + +Formerly, Asirvadam the Brahmin "farmed" the offences of his district;-- +that is, he paid a certain sum to government for the right to try, +and to punish, all the high crimes and misdemeanors that should be +committed in his "section" for a year. Of course, fines were his +favorite penalties; and although most of the time, expenses for +meddlers and perjurers being heavy, the office did not pay more than +a fair living profit, there would now and then come a year when, +rice being scarce and opium cheap, with the aid of a little extra +exasperation, he cut it pretty fat. "Take it year in and year out," +said Asirvadam the Brahmin, "a fellow couldn't complain." + +Asirvadam the Brahmin is among the Sepoys. He sits by the well of +Barrackpore, a comrade on either side, and talks, as only he can +talk to whom no books are sealed. To one, a rigid statue of thrilled +attention, he speaks of the time when Arab horsemen first made +flashing forays down upon Mooltan; he tells of Mahmoud's mace, that +clove the idol of Somnath, and of the gold and gems that burst from +the treacherous wood, as water from the smitten rock in the +wilderness; he tells of Timour, and Baber the Founder, and the long +imperial procession of the Great Moguls,--of Humayoon, and Akbar, +and Shah Jehan, and Aurengzebe,--of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan,-- +of Moorish splendor and the Prophet's sway; and the swarthy Mussulman +stiffens in lip-parted listening. + +To the other, a fiery enthusiast, fretting for the acted moral of a +tale he knows too well, he whispers of British blasphemy and +insolence,--of Brahmins insulted, and gods derided,--of Vedas +violated, and the sacred Sanscrit defiled by the tongues of +Kaffirs,--of Pariahs taught and honored,--of high and low castes +indiscriminately mingled, an obscene herd, in schools and regiments,-- +of glorious institutions, old as Mount Meru, boldly overthrown,--of +suttee suppressed, and infanticide abated,--of widows re-married, +and the dowries of the brides of Brahmins limited,--of high-caste +students handling dead bodies, and Soodra beggars drinking from +Brahminical wells,--of the triple cord broken in twain, and +Brahminee bulls slain in the streets, and cartridges greased with the +fat of cows, and Christian converts indemnified, and property not +confiscated for loss of caste,--and a frightful falling off in the +benighting business generally; and the fierce Rajpoot grinds his +white teeth, while Asirvadam the Brahmin plots, and plots, and plots. + +Incline your ears, my brothers, and I will sing you softly, and low, +a song to make Moor and Rajpoot bite, with their very hearts: + +"Bring Soma to the adorable Indra, the lord of all, the lord of +wealth, the lord of heaven, the perpetual lord, the lord of men, the +lord of earth, the lord of horses, the lord of cattle, the lord of +water!" + +"Offer adoration to Indra, the overcomer, the destroyer, the +munificent, the invincible, the all-endowing, the creator, the +all-adorable, the sustainer, the unassailable, the ever-victorious!" + +"I proclaim the mighty exploits of that Indra who is ever victorious, +the benefactor of man, the overthrower of man, the caster-down, the +warrior, who is gratified by our libations, the grantor of desires, +the subduer of enemies, the refuge of the people!" + +"Unequalled in liberality, the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, +profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of +prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, +Indra has given birth to the light of the morning!" + +"Indra, bestow upon us most excellent treasures, the reputation of +ability, prosperity, increase of wealth, security of person, +sweetness of speech, and auspiciousness of days!" + +"Offer worship quickly to Indra; recite hymns; let the outpoured +drops exhilarate him; pay adoration to his superior strength!" + +"When, Indra, thou harnessest thy horses, there is no such +charioteer as thou; none is equal to thee in strength; none, +howsoever well horsed, has overtaken thee!" + +"He, who alone bestows wealth upon the man who offers him oblations, +is the undisputed sovereign: Indra, ho!" + +"When will he trample with his foot upon the man who offers no +oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our +praises? Indra, ho!" + +"Indra grants formidable strength to him who worships him, having +libations prepared: Indra, ho!" + +The song that was chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the +maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the +well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and +mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red +knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene. + +When Asirvadam the Brahmin conjured the wild demon of revolt to light +the horrid torch and bare the greedy blade, he tore a chapter from +the Book of Menu:-- + +"Let no man, engaged in combat, smite his foe with concealed weapons, +nor with arrows mischievously barbed, nor with poisoned arrows, nor +with darts blazing with fire." + +"Nor let him strike his enemy alighted on the ground; nor an +effeminate man, nor one who sues for life with closed palms, nor one +whose hair is loose, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am +thy captive.'" + +"Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one +who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, +but no combatant, nor one who is fighting with another man." + +"Calling to mind the duty of honorable men, let him never slay one +who has broken his weapon, nor one who is afflicted, nor one who +has been grievously wounded, nor one who is terrified, nor one who +turns his back." + +But Asirvadam the Brahmin, like the Thug of seven victims, has +tasted the sugar of blood, sweeter upon his tongue than to the lips +of an eager babe the pearl-tipped nipple of its mother. Henceforth +he must slay, slay, slay, mutilate and ravish, burn and slay, in the +name of the queen of horrors.--Karlee, ho! + +Now what shall be done with our dangerous friend? Shall he be blown +from the mouths of guns? or transported to the heart-breaking +Andamans? or lashed to his own churruck-posts, and flayed with cats +by stout drummers? or handcuffed with Pariahs in chain-gangs, to +work on his knees in foul sewers? or choked to death with raw +beefsteaks and the warm blood of cows? or swinged by stout Irish +wenches with bridle-ends? or smitten on the mouth with kid gloves by +English ladies, his turban trampled under foot by every Feringhee +brat in Bengal?--Wanted, a poetical putter-down for Asirvadam the +Brahmin. + +"Devotion is not in the ragged garment, nor in the staff, nor in +ashes, nor in the shaven head, nor in the sounding of horns. + +"Numerous Mahomets there have been and multitudes of Brahmas, Vishnus, +and Sivas; + +"Thousands of seers and prophets, and tens of thousands of saints +and holy men: + +"But the chief of lords is the one Lord, the true name of God!" + + * * * * * + + + + +WHAT ARE WE GOING TO MAKE? + +It would be easy to collect a library of lamentations over the +mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many +people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do +nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest +detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would +have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree +to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, +they think, argues degeneracy from the good old times of abstract +philosophy and spiritual dogmatism. But what do we better know of +the Infinite Spirit than that he is an infinite mechanic? Whence do +we get worthier or sublimer conceptions of him than from the +machinery with which he works? Are we ourselves less godlike +building mills than sitting in pews?--less in the image of our Maker, +endeavoring to subdue matter than endeavoring to ignore its existence? +Without questioning that the moral nature within us is superior to +the mechanical, we think it quite susceptible of proof that the +moral condition of the world depends on the mechanical, and that it +has advanced and will advance at equal pace with the progress of +machinery. To prove this, or anything else, however, is by no means +the purpose of this article, but only to take the general reader +around a little among mechanical people and ideas, to see what lies +ahead. + +"Papa, what are you going to make?" was doubtless the question of +Tubal-Cain's little boy, when he saw his ingenious father hammering +a red-hot iron, with a stone for a hammer, and another for an anvil. +Little boys have often since asked the same question in blacksmiths' +shops, and we now have shops in which the largest boys may well ask +it. It might be answered in a general way, that the smiths or smiters, +black and white, were and are going to make what our Maker left +unmade in making the human race. The lower animals were all sent +into the world in appropriate, finished, and well-fitting costume, +provided with direct and effective means of subsistence and defence. +The eagle had his imperial plumage, beak, and talons; the elephant +his leathern roundabout and travelling trunk, with its convenient +air-pump; and the beaver, at once a carpenter and a mason, had his +month full of chisels and his tail a trowel. The _bipes implumis_, on +the contrary, was hatched nude, without even the embryo of a +pin-feather. There was nothing for him but the recondite capabilities +of his two talented, but talonless hands, and a large brain almost +without instinct. Nothing was ready-made, only the means of making. +He was brought into the infinite world a finite deity, an +infinitesimal creator,--the first being of that class, to our +knowledge. His most urgent business as a creator was to make tools +for himself, and especially for the purpose of supplying his own +pitiful destitution of feathers. From the aprons of fig-leaves, +stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has +made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other +animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, +lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and +birds-of-paradise; and it only remains that what can be done shall +be done more extensively,--we do not mean for the individual, but +for the masses. Man has created not only tools, but servants,-- +animals all but alive. We may soon say that he has created great +bodies politic and bodies corporate, with heads, hands, feet, claws, +tails, lungs, digestive organs, and perhaps other viscera. What is +remarkable, having at first failed to furnish them with nerves, he +has lately supplied that deficiency,--a token that he will supply +some others. + +Let not the reader shrink from our page as irreverent. It shall not +preach the possibility of inventing perpetual motion or a machine +with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good +city of Lynn,--where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in +making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be +either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that +human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more +than the rudest semblance of that self-directing vitality which +characterizes the most servile of God-created machinery. The human +mechanic must be content, if he can approach as near to the creation +of life as the painter and sculptor have done. The soul of the +man-made horse-power is primarily the horse, and secondarily the +small boy who stands by to "cut him up" occasionally. Maelzel +created excellent chess-players, with the exception of intelligence, +which he was obliged to borrow of the original Creator and conceal +in a closet under the table. + +But let us not undervalue ourselves--which would, in fact, be to +undervalue our Creator--for such shortcomings. Though into our iron +horse's skull or cab we have to put one or two living men to supply +its deficiency of understanding, it is nevertheless a recognizable +animal, of a very grand and somewhat novel type. Its respiratory, +digestive, and muscular systems are respectable; and in the nature +and articulation of its organs of motion it is clearly original. The +wheel, typical of eternity, is nowhere to be found among living +organisms, unless we take the brilliant vision of Ezekiel in a +literal sense. The idea of attributing life or spirit to wheels, +organs by their nature detached or discontinuous from the living +creatures of which they were parts, was worthy of a prophet or poet; +but to no such prophetic vision were the first wheelwrights indebted +for their conception of so great an improvement upon animal +locomotion. For if they had not made chariots before Noah's flood, +they certainly had done it before Pharaoh's smaller affair in the +Red Sea. On that occasion, the chariot-wheels of the Egyptians were +taken off; but this does not seem to have produced effects so +decisive as would result from a similar disorganization in Broadway +or Washington Street; for the charioteers still "drave them heavily." +Hence we may infer that the wheels were of rude workmanship, making +the chariots little less liable to the infirmity of friction than +those Western vehicles called mud-boats, used to navigate semi-fluid +regions which pass on the map for _terra firma_. + +Yet, notwithstanding the rudeness of the primitive chariot, made of +two or three sticks and two rings cut from a hollow tree, it was the +germ of human inventions, and embosomed the world's destiny. It was +the most original as well as the most godlike of human thoughts. The +ship may have been copied from the nautilus, or from the embarked +squirrel trimming his tail to the breeze; or it may have been +blundered upon by the savage mounted on a drift-log, accidentally +making a sail of his sheepskin cloak while extending his arms to +keep his balance. But the cart cannot be regarded either as a +plagiarism from Nature, or the fruit of accident. The inventor must +have unlocked Nature's private closet with the key of mathematical +principle, and carried off the wheel and axle, the only mechanical +power she had not used in her physical creation, as patent to our +senses. Of course, she meant it should be stolen. She had, it is true, +made a show of punishing her little Prometheus for running off with +her match-box and setting things on fire, but she must have felt +proud of the theft. In well-regulated families children are not +allowed to play with fire, though the passion to do it is looked on +as a favorable mental indication. When the good dame saw that her +infant _chef-d'oeuvre_ had got hold of her reserved mechanical +element, the wheel, she foresaw his use of the stolen fire would be +something more than child's play. The cart, whether two-wheeled, or, +as our Hibernian friends will have it, one-wheeled, was an infinite +success, an invention of unlimited capabilities. Yet the inventor +obtained no record. Neither his name nor his model is to be found in +any patent-office. + +The tool-making animal, having obtained this marvellous means of +multiplying, or rather treasuring and applying, mechanical force, +went on at least some thousands of years before waking up to its +grand significance. Among the nations that first obtained excellence +in textile fabrics, very little use has ever been made of the wheel. +The spinning-girl of Dacca, who twists, and for ages has twisted, a +pound of cotton into a thread two hundred and fifty miles long, +beating Manchester by ninety miles, has no wheel, unless you so call +a ball of clay, of the size of a pea, stuck fast on one end of her +spindle, by means of which she twists it between her thumb and +finger. But this wonderful mechanical feat costs her many months of +labor, to say nothing of previous training; while the Manchester +factory-girl, aided by the multiplying power of the wheel, easily +makes as much yarn, though not quite so fine, in a day. If it were +an object to rival the tenuity of the finest India muslin, machinery +could easily accomplish it. But that spider-web fabric is carried so +nearly to transparency, that the Emperor Aurengzebe is said to have +reproved his daughter for the indelicacy of her costume while she +wore seven thicknesses of it. She might have worn twelve hundred +yards without burdening herself with more than a pound weight; what +she did wear did not, probably, weigh two ounces. The Chinese and +Japanese have spinning-wheels hardly equal to those brought over by +our pilgrim fathers in the Mayflower. But they have also, what +Western civilization has not, praying-wheels. In Japan the +praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it +is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a +mill. The Japanese, however, have mills for hulling rice, turned by +very respectable water-wheels. The Egyptians and Greeks had +water-wheels, and in fact understood all the mechanical powers. +Archimedes, all the world knows, astounded the Romans by mechanical +combinations which showered rocks on the besiegers of Syracuse, and +boasted he could make a projectile of the world itself, if he could +only find a standing-place outside of it. + +The present civilization of Europe very properly began with the clock, +a machine which a monk, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, was supposed +to have borrowed from Satan, though he was probably indebted for it +to the Saracens. For nearly nine hundred years after his day, the +best ingenuity of Italian, German, Swiss, French, and English +mechanics was devoted to perfecting this noble creation, and it +became at last a part of the civilized man, a sort of additional or +supplementary sense. The savage may well be excused for mistaking +the watch for a living creature. It could not serve us better, if it +were. True, it does not perform its function by its own force, but by +a stock of extraneous force which is from time to time put into a +little store-house called a spring. Neither does the living creature +perform its functions by any other force than that which is developed +by the chemical action within it, or the _quasi_ combustion of its +food. Its will does but direct the application of its mechanical +power. It creates none. You may weigh the animal and all the food it +is to consume, and thence calculate the utmost ounce of work, of a +given kind, which it can thereafter perform. It may do less, but +cannot do more. Having consumed all of its food and part of itself, +it dies. Its chemical organs have oxydated or burned up all the +combustibles submitted to them, thus developing a definite amount of +heat, a part of which, at the dictation of the will, by the +mechanism of nerves and muscles, has been converted into mechanical +motion. When the chemical function ceases, for the want of materials +to act upon, the development of heat ceases. There is no more either +to be converted into motion or to maintain the temperature of the +body; and self-consumption having already taken the place of +self-repair, there is no article left but the _articulus mortis_. + +But of all the force or motion produced by, or rather passing through, +a living animal, or any other organism, none is ever, so far as we +know, annihilated. The motion which has apparently ceased or been +destroyed has in reality passed into heat, light, electricity, +magnetism, or other effect,--itself, perhaps, nothing but motion, to +keep on, in one form or another, indefinitely. The fuel which we put +into the stomach of the horse, of iron or of flesh, first by its +oxydation raises heat, a part of which it is the function of the +individual to convert into motion, to be expended on friction and +resistance, or, in other words, to be reconverted into heat. What +becomes of this heat, then? If the fuel were to be replaced or +deoxydated, the heat that originally came from the oxydation would be +precisely reabsorbed. But this heat of itself cannot overcome the +stronger affinity which now chains the fuel to the oxygen. It must +go forward, not backward, about its business, forever and ever. It +may pass, but not cease. The sharp-eyed Faraday has been following +far away this Proteus, with a strong suspicion that it changes at +last into gravity, in which shape it returns straight to the sun, +carrying down with it, probably, those flinty showers of meteors +which, striking fire in the atmosphere of the prime luminary, +replenish its overflowing fountain of life. But we are not aware +that he has yet discovered the anastomosis of this conversion, or +quite established the fact. We are therefore not yet quite ready to +resolve the universe of physical forces into the similitude of the +mythical mill-stream, which, flowing round a little hill, came back +and fed its own pond. Nevertheless, we believe the physicists have +pretty generally agreed to assume as a law of Nature what they call +the conservation of force, the principle we have been endeavoring to +explain. + +Under the lead of this law, theory, or assumption, discoveries have +been made that deeply and practically interest the most abject +mortal who anywhere swings a hoe or shoulders a hod, as well as the +lords of the land. For example, it has been ascertained that heat is +converted into motion, or motion into heat, according to a fixed or +constant ratio or equivalent. To be more particular, the heat which +will raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree of +Fahrenheit's scale, when converted into mechanical motion, is +equivalent to the force which a weight of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds would exert by falling one foot. This is a +wonderfully small quantity of heat to balance so heavy a blow, but +the careful experiments of Mr. Joule of Manchester, the discoverer, +confirmed by Regnault, Thomson, Rankine, Clausius, Mayer, Rennie, +and others, have, we believe, satisfied scientific men that it is +not far from the correct measure. Were the same, or a far less +amount of heat, concentrated on a minute chip of steel struck off by +collision with a flint, it would be visible to the eye as a spark, +and show us how motion is converted into light as well as heat. + +It is not our vocation to dive into the infinities, either upward or +downward, in search, on the one hand, of the ultimate atoms of the +rarest ether, by whose vibrations the luminous waves run through +space at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute, or, +on the other, of the nebulous systems, worlds in the gristle, so far +off that the light just now arriving from them tells only how they +looked two hundred thousand years ago. All we have to say is, that, +if we do not now absolutely know, we do reasonably suspect, that heat +and light are mere mechanical motions, alike in nature and +interconvertible in fact. The luminiference seems to behave itself, +not like infinitely small bullets projected from Sharpe's rifles of +proportionately small bore, as was once supposed, but rather after +the manner of the sound-waves, which we know travel through the air +from the sonorous body to the ear. They have also a resemblance, not +so close, to the waves which run in all directions along the surface +of a pond of water from the point where a stone falls into it. These +three classes of waves, differing so immensely in magnitude and +velocity, all agree in this,--that it is the wave that travels, and +not the fluid or medium. The rapidity of the luminous wave is about +nine hundred million times that of the sound-wave; hence we may +suppose that the ether in which it moves is about as many times +rarer or lighter than air, and the retina of the eye which it +impresses as many times more delicate and sensitive than the drum of +the ear. It can hardly be unreasonable to suppose that a fluid so +rare as this luminiferous ether will readily interflow the particles +of all other matter, gaseous, liquid, or solid, and that in such +abundance that its vibrations or agitations may be propagated through +them. Yet even the rarest gases must considerably obstruct and +modify the vibratory waves, while liquids and solids, according to +their density and structural arrangement of atoms, must do it far +more. The luminiferous ether, in which all systems are immersed, +kept hereabout in an incessant quiver through its complete and +perhaps three-fold gamut of vibrations by the sun, strikes the aėrial +ocean of the earth about an average of five hundred million millions +of blows per second, for each of the seven colors, or luminous notes, +not to speak of the achromatic vibrations, whose effects are other +than vision or visionary. The aėrial ocean is such open-work, that +these infinitesimal billows are not much, though somewhat, broken by +it; but when they reach the terraqueous globe itself, they dash into +foam which goes whirling and eddying down into solids and liquids, +among their wild caverns of ultra-microscopic littleness, and this +foam or whirl-storm of ethereal substance is heat, if we are not +much mistaken. According to its intensity, it expands by its own mere +motion all grosser material. + +The quantity of this ethereal foam, yeast, whirlwind, hubbub, or +whatever else you please to call it, which is got up or given up by +the combustion of three pounds of good bituminous coal, according to +Mr. Joule's experiments, is more than equivalent to a day's labor +of a powerful horse. With our best stationary steam-engines, at +present, we get a day's horse-power from not less than twenty-four +pounds of coal. At this rate, the whole supply of mineral coal in +the world, as it may be roughly estimated, is equivalent only to the +labor of one thousand millions of horses for fifteen hundred years. +With the average performance of our present engines, it would +support that amount of horse-power for only one thousand years. But +could we obtain the full mechanical duty of the fuel by our engines, +it would be equal to the work of a thousand millions of horses for +sixteen thousand years, or of about fifteen times as many men for +the same time. This would materially postpone the exhaustion of the +coal, at which one so naturally shudders,--to say nothing of the +saving of having to dig but one eighth as much of the mineral to +produce the same effect. Hence some of the interest that attaches to +this discovery of Mr. Joule, which has given a new impulse to the +labor of inventors in pushing the steam-engine towards perfection. + +But if the whole available mechanical power, laid in store in the +coal mines, in addition to all the unimproved wind and water power, +should seem to any one insufficient to work out this world's manifest +destiny, the doctrine of the essential unity or conservation of +force is not exhausted of consolation. All the coal of which we have +spoken is but the result of the action of sun-light in past ages, +decomposing carbonic acid in the vegetative process. The combustion +of the carbon reproduces a force exactly equivalent to that of the +sun-light which was absorbed or consumed in its vegetative separation. +Supposing the whole estimated stock of coal in the world to be +consumed at once, it would cover the entire globe with a stratum of +carbonic acid about seventy-two feet deep. And if all the energy of +sun-light which this globe receives or encounters in a year were to +be devoted to its decomposition, according to Pouillet's estimate of +the strength of sunshine,--and he probably knows, if any one does,-- +deducting all that would be wasted on rock or water, there would be +enough to complete the task in a year or two. A marvellous growth of +forest, that would be! But the coal is not to be burned up at once. +When we get our steam-engines in motion to the amount of two or +three thousand millions of horse-power, and are running off the coal +at the rate of one tenth of one per cent per annum, the simple and +inevitable consequence will be that the wood will be growing enough +faster to keep good the general stock of fuel. Doubtless the forests +are now limited in their growth and stunted from their ante-Saurian +stature, not so much for want of soil, moisture, or sunshine as for +want of carbonic acid in the air, to be decomposed by the foliage, +the great deposition of coal in the primitive periods having +exhausted the supply. Our present havoc of wood only changes the +locality of wood-lots, and our present consumption of coal, rapid +enough to exhaust the entire supply in about seventy-seven thousand +years, is sure to increase the aggregate cordage of the forests. By +the time we have brought our locomotive steam-cultivators to such +perfection as to plough up and pulverize the great central deserts, +we may see trees flourish where it would have been useless to plant +the seed before we had converted so much of the earth's entrails +into smoke. + +There was a time, before we had harnessed the powers of Nature to +found, forge, spin, weave, print, and drudge for us generally, that +in every civilized country the strong-headed men used their +strong-handed brethren as machines. Only he could be very knowing who +owned many scribes, or he very rich who owned many hewers of wood +and drawers of water. With our prodigious development of mechanical +inventions, iron and coal, our mighty steam-driven machinery for +making machines, the time for chattelizing men, or depending mainly +on animal power of any sort for the production of wealth, has passed +by. Abrogate the golden rule, if you will, and establish the creed +of caste,--let the strongest of human races have full license to +enslave the weakest, and let it have the pick of soil and staples,-- +still, if you do not abolish the ground rules of arithmetic, and the +fact that a pound of carbon costs less than a pound of corn, and must +cost less for at least a thousand years to come, chattelism of man +will cease in another generation, and the next century will not dawn +on a human slave. At present, a pound of carbon does not cost so +much as a pound of corn in any part of the United States, and in no +place visited by steam-transportation does it cost one fifth as much. +We are already able to get as much work out of a pound of carbon as +can be got from a pound of corn fed to the faithfullest slave in the +world. Mr. Joule has shown us that there is really in a pound of +carbon more than twice as much work as there is in a pound of corn. +The human corn-consuming machine comes nearer getting the whole +mechanical duty or equivalent out of his fuel than our present +steam-engine does, but the former is all he ever will be, while the +latter is an infant and growing. + +We shall doubtless soon see engines that will get the work of two +slaves out of the coal that just balances one slave's food in the +scales. Our iron-boned, coal-eating slave, with the advantage of +that peculiar and almost infinitely applicable mechanical element, +the wheel, may be made to go anywhere and do any sort of work, and, +as we have seen, he will do it for one tenth of the cost of any +brute or human slave. + +But will not our artificial slave be more liable to insurrection? +Everybody admits that he already accomplishes incalculable drudgery +in the huge mill, on the ocean, and on the iron highway. But almost +everybody looks upon him as a sleeping volcano, which must sooner or +later flare up into irresistible wrath and do frightful mischief. +Underwriters shake their prudent heads at him. Coroners' inquests, +sitting solemnly over his frequent desolations, find only that some +of his ways are past finding out. Can such a creature be +domesticated so as to serve profitably and comfortably on by-roads +as well as high-roads, on farms, in gardens, in kitchens, in mines, +in private workshops, in all sorts of places where steady, +uncomplaining toil is wanted? Can we ever trust him as we trust +ourselves, or our humble friends, the horse and the ox? The law of +the conservation of force, now so nearly developed, will perhaps +throw some light on this inquiry. + +Boiler explosions have a sort of family resemblance to the freaks of +lightning or the thunderbolt. Indeed, so striking is the similarity, +that people have been prone to think, that, previously to an +explosion, the steam in the boiler must have become in some +inexplicable way charged with electricity like a thunder-cloud, and +that the discharge must have occasioned the catastrophe. It is +needless to say to those who understand a Leyden jar, that nothing +of the sort takes place. The friction of the watery globules, carried +along by the steam in blowing off, is found to disturb the +electrical equilibrium, as any other friction does; but the +circumstances in the case of a boiler are always so favorable to its +restoration, that an electrical thunderbolt cannot possibly be +raised there that would damage a gnat. Yet a boiler explosion may, +after all, depend on the same immediate cause as the mechanical +effect which is frequently noticed after an electrical discharge in a +thunder-storm. Let us hypothetically analyze what takes place in a +thunder-storm. For the sake of illustration, and nothing more, we +will suppose the existence, throughout all otherwise void space, of +three interflowing ethers, the atoms of each of which are, in regard +to each other, repellant, negative, or the reverse of ponderable, +and that these ethers differ in a series by vast intervals as to +size and distance of atoms, that each neither repels nor attracts +the other, that only the rarest is everywhere, and that the denser +ones, while self-repellant, have affinities, more or less, which +draw them from the interplanetary spaces towards the ponderable +masses. Let the rarest of these ethers be that whose vibrations +cause the phenomena of light,--the next denser that which, either by +vibration or translatory motion, causes the electrical phenomena,-- +and the most dense of the three that which by its motions, of +whatever sort, causes the phenomena of heat. The solar impulse +propagated through the luminiferous ether towards any mass encounters +in its neighborhood the electrical and calorific ethers, and sets +them into motions which may be communicated from one to the other, +but which are communicated to ponderable matter, or result in +mechanical action, only or chiefly by the impulse of the denser or +calorific ether. When the sun shines on land and water, as we have +already said, there is a violent ethereal commotion in the +interstices of the superficial matter, which we will now suppose to +be that of the calorific ether; and by virtue of this motion, +together with whatever affinities this ether may be supposed to have +for ponderable matter, we may account for evaporation, and the +production of those vast aėrial currents by which the evaporated +water is diffused. In the production of aėrial currents, heat is +converted into force, and hence vapor is converted into watery +globules mechanically suspended on clouds, which, by their friction, +sweep the electrical ether into excessive condensation in the great +Leyden-jar arrangement of the sky. Whatever it may be that gives +relief to this condensation, the relief itself consists in motion, +either translatory or vibratory, of the electrical ether or ethers. +As this motion, if it be such, often takes place through gases, +liquids, and solids, without any sensible mechanical effect, and at +other times is contemporary with phenomena of intense heat, we may, +till otherwise informed, suppose, that, whenever it produces a +mechanical effect, it is by so impinging on the calorific ether as +to produce the motion of heat, which is instantly thereafter +converted into mechanical force. It is not so much the greatness of +the amount of this mechanical force which gives it its peculiar +destructiveness, as the inequality of its strain; not so much the +quantity of matter projected, as the velocity of the blow. One may +have his brains blown out by a bullet of air as well as one of lead, +if the air only blows hard enough and to one point. Whatever its +material, the edge of the thunder-axe is almost infinitely sharp, +and its blow is as destructive as it is timeless. But it is always +heat, not electrical discharge, which only sometimes causes heat, +that strikes the blow. + +Now in the case of a steam-boiler, when the water, having been +reduced too low, is allowed suddenly to foam up on the overheated +crown-sheet of the furnace, there must be just that sudden or +instantaneous conversion of heat into force which may take place +when the current of the electrical discharge passes through the +gnarled fibres of an oak. The boiler and the oak are blown to shivers +in equally quick time. The only difference seems to be, that in one +case electricity stood immediately, in point of time, behind the heat, +and in the other it stood away back beyond the crocodiles, playing +its _rōle_ more genially in the growth of the monster forests whose +remains we are now digging from the bowels of the earth as coal. In +the normal action of a steam-boiler, the steam-generating surfaces +being all under water, however unequally the fire may act in +different localities, the water, by its rapid circulation, if not by +its heat-absorbing power, diffuses the heat and constantly equalizes +the strain resulting from its conversion into mechanical force. The +increase of pressure takes place gradually and evenly, and may +easily be kept far within safe limits. It is quite otherwise when +the conductivity of the boiler-plate is not aided and controlled by +the distributiveness of the water, as it is not whenever the plate +is in contact with the fire on one side without being also in contact +with the water on the other. Everybody knows that boilers explode +under such circumstances, but everybody does not know why. + +A cylinder of plate-iron will withstand a gradually applied, evenly +distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, +acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or +establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the +sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be +nothing very serious in itself,--no more so than a rent produced by +the hydraulic press,--if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of +a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not take instant +advantage of it to enlarge the breach and blow the whole structure +to fragments, or, in other words, if it did not permit nearly the +whole of the accumulated heat in the boiler to be at once converted +into mechanical motion. For example, a boiler whose ordinary working +pressure is one hundred pounds to the square inch, which may give an +aggregate on the whole surface of five millions of pounds, would not +give way, perhaps, if that pressure were gradually and evenly +increased to thirty millions. But if the water is allowed to get so +low that some part of the plate exposed to the fire is no longer +covered with it, that part will directly become far hotter than the +water or the mass of the steam,--dry steam having no more power to +carry away the excess of heat than so much air. After that, when the +water rises again, the first wave or wallop that strikes the +overheated plate absorbs the excess of heat, and its conversion into +steam of higher pressure than that already existing is so sudden +that it may be regarded as instantaneous. It is to be remembered +that for every pound of water raised one degree, or heat to that +amount absorbed in generating steam, a force of seven hundred and +seventy-two pounds is created. In this case a new or additional +force is created, which, acting in all directions from one point, +first takes effect on the line which joins that point with the +nearest opposite point in the wall of the boiler. If it is not like +smiting with the edge of a ponderous battle-axe, it is at least as +dangerous as a cannon ball shot along that line. If the local heat +so suddenly absorbed be but enough to raise ten pounds of water ten +degrees, it is equivalent to the force acquired by seventy-seven +thousand two hundred pounds falling through a foot, or of a +cannon-ball of one hundred pounds flying at the rate of more than a +mile per second. If by any miracle the boiler should stand this +shock or series of shocks, the pressure becomes equalized, and the +overheated plate having parted with its excess of heat, safety is +restored. But if cohesion is anywhere overcome by the sudden blow, +the wild horses stampede in all directions. The boiler, minus the +water and boiler-head perhaps, goes through ceiling, roof, and brick +walls, as if they were cobwebs, and, surrounded with fragments of +men and things, is seen descending like a comet through the +neighboring air. + +To get rid of this liability to have a Thor-hammer or thunderbolt +generated in the stomach of a steam-engine, at any moment when the +vigilance of the engineer happens to be at fault, something is going +to be done. No safety-valve or fusible plug is adequate. The boiler +cannot be all safety-valve. The trouble is, the hammer is not more +likely to strike the first of its terrible series of blows on the +valve than anywhere else. A safety-valve, in good order, is a +sovereign precaution against the excess of an equally distributed +strain, but it is not an adequate protection against a shock or +unequal strain. The old-fashioned gaugecocks, which are by no means +to be dispensed with, reveal the state of the water in the boiler to +the watchful engineer about as surely as the stethoscope reveals to +the doctor the condition of his patient's lungs. A surer and more +convenient indication is the tubular glass gauge, on the fountain +principle, which in its best form is both trustworthy and durable. +No well-informed proprietor suffers his boiler to be without one; +but it is not a cure for carelessness. It is only a window for the +vigilant eye to look through, not the eye itself. Steam-boilers will +have to be constructed so that when the subsidence of the water +fails to check itself by enlarging the supply, it shall, before the +point of danger is reached, infallibly check the combustion, let off +the steam, and blow a whistle or ring a bell, which the proprietor +may, if he pleases, regard as the official death-knell of the +careless engineer. Human vigilance must not be superseded, but +fortified,--as in the case of the watchman watched by the tell-tale +clock. The steam-creature must be so constituted as to refuse to +work itself down to the zone where alone unequal strains are possible; +it must cry out in horror and strike work. Mechanically the solution +of the problem is easy, and the enhancement in cost of construction +will be nothing, compared to the risk of loss from these explosions. +With this guard against the deficiency of water, steam-power will +become the safest, as it is the most manageable, of all forces that +have hitherto been subsidized by the civilized man. + +But there is one more improvement worth mentioning. We do great +injustice to our steam-slaves by the slovenly and unphilosophical +way in which we feed them. We take no hints from animal economy or +the laws of dietetics. + +Our creature has no regular meals, especially if he is one of the +fast kind; but a grimy nurse stands by, and, opening his mouth every +few minutes, crams in a few spoonfuls of the black pudding. The +natural consequence is more or less indigestion and inequality of +strength. We have not yet taken full advantage of the laws of +combustion, or adapted our apparatus to the peculiarities of the +best and cheapest fuel. Nature manages more wisely in her machinery. +Combustion, the union of fuel with oxygen, ceases for want of air as +well as for want of fuel. In the case of fuels compounded of carbon +and hydrogen, if the air be withheld when the mass is in rapid +combustion, the heat will cause a portion of the fuel to pass off by +distillation, unconsumed, and this portion will be lost. But from +the best anthracite, which is nearly pure carbon concentrated, if +oxygen be entirely excluded, not much can distil away with any +degree of heat. The combustion of this fuel, therefore, admits of +very easy and economical regulation, by simply regulating the supply +of air. When the air is admitted at all, it should be admitted above +as well as below the fuel, so that the carbonic oxyde that is +generated in the mass may be burned, or converted into carbonic acid, +over the top. Why, then, should not the iron horse, before leaving +his stable, take a meal of anthracite sufficient to last him fifty +or one hundred miles? Let him swallow a ton at once, if he need it. +Before starting, let the temperature of the mass in the furnace be +got up to the point where the combustion will go on with sufficient +rapidity for the required speed by simply supplying air, which +should also be fed as hot as possible. This done, the engineer +throughout the trip will have perfect control of his force by means +of the steam-blast and air-openings. There will be no smoke nuisance, +the combustion being complete so far as it takes place at all. +There will be no need of loading the furnace with firebrick to +equalize the heat,--the mass of incandescent fuel serving that +purpose; and no waste or inequality will occur from opening the door +to throw in a cold collation. + +What are we going to make? First, we are going to finish up, and +carry out into all desirable species, our great idea of an iron slave, +the illustrious Man Friday of our modern civilization. Whether we +put water, air, or ether into his aorta, as the medium of converting +heat into force, we shall at last have a safe subject, available for +all sorts of drudgery, that will do the work of a man without eating +more than half as much weight of coal as a man eats of bread and meat. +Next, carrying into all departments of human industry, in its +perfect development, this new creature, which has already, as a mere +infant, made so stupendous a change in some of them, we shall make +the human millions all masters, from being nearly all slaves. We +shall make both idleness and poverty nearly impossible. Human labor, +as a general thing, is a positive pleasure only when the hand and +brain work in concert. Hence, the more you increase well-devised and +efficient machinery, which requires and rewards intelligent +oversight and skilful direction, the more you increase the love of +labor. We have already manufacturing communities so well supplied +with tasks for brains and hands, that everybody works, or would do +so but for Circe and her seductive hollow-ware. We are beginning to +push machinery into agriculture, where it will have still greater +scope. With the means we now have, in the enormously increased +production of iron, our almost omnipresent and omnipotent +machine-shops, our railroads leading everywhere, another century, or +perhaps half of it, will see every arable rood of the earth and +every rood that can be made arable, ploughed, sowed, and the crops +harvested by iron horses, iron oxen, or iron men, under the free and +intelligent supervision of people who know how to feed, drive, doctor, +and make the most of them. + +One island, which would hardly be missed from the map of the world, +so small that its rivers all fall into the sea mere brooks, with not +more than one-thirteenth as much coal as we have in the United States, +and perhaps not one-hundredth as much iron ore, by the use of +steam-driven machinery produces as much iron and perhaps weaves as +much cloth yearly as all the rest of the world. If it does not the +latter, it would do it, if it could find enough of the raw material +and paying customers. But agriculture, which supplies the raw +material, though it is the first and most universal form of human +labor, lags behind the world's present manufacturing power. One cause +of the late, and perhaps of the previous commercial revulsion, was +this disproportion. The more rapid enlargement of manufacturing +industry, multiplied in power by its machinery, caused the raw +material to rise in price and the manufactured article to fall, till +the operations could not be supported from the profits at the same +time that contracts were fulfilled with capitalists. Manufactures +must pause till agriculture overtakes. Steam-machinery applied to +agriculture is the only thing that can correct this disproportion, +and this is what we are going to make. The world is not to be much +longer dependent for its cotton on the compulsory labor of the Dark +Ages, nor for its flax and corn on blistered free hands or +overworked cattle. The laborer, in either section of our country, +will be transformed into an ingenious gentleman or lady, comfortably +mounted on a migratory steam-cultivator to direct its gigantic +energies,--or, at least, occasionally so occupied. Under this system, +it must be plain enough, to all persons prophetically inclined, that +the Northern valleys will greatly multiply their products, while the +Southern cotton-fields will whiten with heavier crops than human +chattelism ever produced, and the mountains of both latitudes, now +hardly notched with civilization, will roll down the wool of sheep +in clouds. + +Finally, with important and fruitful mechanical ideas which the +world did not have twenty years ago, with machinery which no one +could have believed possible one hundred years ago, and which has, +since that time, quintupled the power of every free laborer in +Christendom, we are going to make man what his Creator designed him +to be,--always and everywhere a sub-creator. By the press we are +making the knowledge of the past the knowledge of the present, the +knowledge of one the knowledge of all. By the telegraph the senses +of sight and hearing are to be extended around the globe. If we do +not make ships to navigate the air, for ourselves, our wives, and +our little ones, it will not be because we cannot, but because, being +lords of land and sea, with power to traverse either with all +desirable speed, we are too wise to waste force either in beating +the air for buoyancy, battling with gravity like birds, on the one +hand, or in paddling huge balloons against the wind, on the other. +The steam-driven wheel leaves us no occasion to envy even that +ubiquitous denizen of the universe, the flying-fish. We have in it +the most economical means of self-transportation, as well as of +mechanical production. It only remains to make the most of it. This, +to be sure, will not be achieved without infinite labor and +innumerable failures. The mechanical genius of the race is like the +polypus anxiously stretching its tentacles in every direction, and +though frustrated thousands of times, it grasps something at last. + +One of the most significant structures in the world, by the way, is +the United States Patent Office at Washington. No other building in +that novel city means a hundredth part as much, or shows so clearly +what the world's most cunning thoughts and hands are chiefly engaged +with. Not that the Patent Office contains so many miracles of +mechanical success; rather the contrary. Take a just appraisal of +its treasures, and you will regard it rather as the chief tomb in the +Pčre la Chaise of human hopes. What multitudes of long-nursed and +dearly-cherished inventions there repose in a common grave, useful +only as warnings to future inventors! One great moral of the survey +is, that inventive talent is shamefully wasted among us, for want of +proper scientific direction and suitable encouragement. The mind +that comprehends general principles in all their relations, and sees +what needs to be done and what is possible and profitable to be done, +is of necessity not the one to arrange in detail the means of doing. +The man of science and the mechanical inventor are distinct persons, +speaking of either in his best estate; and the maximum success of +machinery depends on their acting together with a better +understanding than they have hitherto had. It were less difficult +than invidious to point to living examples of the want of +cooperation and co-appreciation between our knowing and our doing men; +but, for the sake of illustrating our idea, we will run the risk of +quoting a minute from the proceedings of one of our scientific +societies, premising that we know nothing more of the parties than +we learn from the minute itself,--to wit, that one is, or was, an +ingenious mechanic, and the other a promoter of science. + +"Dr. Patterson gave an account of an automaton speaking-machine +which Mr. Franklin Peale and himself had recently inspected. The +machine was made to resemble as nearly as possible, in every respect, +the human vocal organs; and was susceptible of varied movements by +means of keys. Dr. Patterson was much struck by the distinctness with +which the figure could enunciate various letters and words. The +difficult combination _three_ was well pronounced,--the _th_ less +perfectly, but astonishingly well. It also enumerated diphthongs, +and numerous difficult combinations of sounds. Sixteen keys were +sufficient to produce all the sounds. In enunciating the simple +sounds, the movements of the mouth could be seen. The parts were +made of gum elastic. The figure was made to say, with a peculiar +intonation, but surprising distinctness, 'Mr. Patterson, I am glad to +see you.' It sang, 'God save Victoria,' and 'Hail Columbia,'--the +words and air combined. Dr. Patterson had determined to visit the +maker of the machine, Mr. Faber, in private, in order to obtain +further interesting information; but, on the following day, Dr. P. +was distressed to learn, that, in a fit of excitement, he had +destroyed every particle of a figure which had taken him seventeen +years to construct." + +It is quite probable that the world lost very little by the +destruction of this curious figure, whatever the nature or cause of +the "excitement" that led to it. All we have to say is, that it does +lose much, when the genius that can create such things is not set +upon the right tasks, and encouraged to success by the "high +consideration" of scientific men, who alone of all the world can +appreciate the difficulties it has to contend with. It is by setting +the right mechanical problems before the men who can make dumb matter +talk, that we are to bring about the resurrection of the black Titan +who has lain buried under the mountains for thousands of millenniums, +and constitute him the efficient sub-gardener of the world's Paradise +Regained. + + + * * * * * + + + + +SHIPWRECK + + We who by shipwreck only find the shores + Of divine wisdom can but kneel at first, + Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, + That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, + The shock and sustenance of solid earth: + Inland afar we see what temples gleam + Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, + And we conjecture shining shapes therein; + Yet for a space 'tis good to wonder here + Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + + [Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the + end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at + once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh + verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your + audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people + can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off + without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into + the saddle again, at every parenthesis.] + +----The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had +fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street. +It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable +exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayley. +When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face, +and complained that he had been "made sport of." By sympathizing +questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him "old daddy," +and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed. + +This incident led me to make some observations at table the next +morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this +record. + +----The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I +learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of +Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were +usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native +town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a +"Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, +and the following dialogue ensued. + +_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, did you know there was g-on-to +be a race to-morrah? + +_Myself_. No. Who's g-on-to run, 'n'wher's't g-on-to be? + +_The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico and Doctor Williams, round the brim +o' your hat. + +These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at +that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, +the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, +I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to +make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress +ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it. + +A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, +is never itself again afterwards. + +It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary. + +Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is +always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, +suggestive of a wet brush. + +The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing +its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of +"respectability." + +----The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very +pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French, +except the word for potatoes,--_pummies de tare_.--_Ultimum moriens_, +I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With +this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I +saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the +white one in his hand. + +----I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor +for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think +and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many +respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this +time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing, and therefore +I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a +word or two about my friends. + +The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful +and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small +technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and +though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand +airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting +on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet I +am sure he has a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its +cultivators. + +But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other day.-- +My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, because I +keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into +the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your +customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them +off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher +a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, +the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew +all this very well when he advised every literary man to have a +profession. + +----Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with +the other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of +intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have +found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other +amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my +carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest +possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to +tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work +immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, +and got so interested in it, that, when we were set loose, I +"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished. + +There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and +others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my +winter's work is over, and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn +to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life than +he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says,-- +yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he can sing +least. + +Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed, sometimes,-- +said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst songs fall below +my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to others who +have told me so, that they ought to be _all best_,--if not in actual +execution, at least in plan and motive. I am grateful--he continued-- +for all such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have his most +serious efforts praised, and the highest aspect of his nature get the +most sunshine. + +Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change +their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing +their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant by +complementary colors? You know the effect, too, that the prolonged +impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your +eyes after looking steadily at a _red_ object, you see a _green_ +image. + +It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking at +one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or truth, +when they turn away, the _complementary_ aspect of the same object +stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. Shall +they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not? + +When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite largeness +of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote +the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, +I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from +time to time, and come down from its noblest condition,--never, of +course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, +but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise +themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the +bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble +friends in the basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet +and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple adornments, but befitting the +station of those who wear them--show themselves to the crowd, who +think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs +know that they are cheap and perishable? + +----I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or +other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you +what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me, +one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ. Life +turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come +under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my +_adagio_ movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play us so +always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, +the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. How +easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must be no end of +just such melodies in him,--I will open the poor machine for you one +moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note marks where a spur of +steel has been driven in. It is easy to grind out the song, but to +plant these bristling points which make it was the painful task of +time. + +I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no +larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them +piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect. +The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their +turn! + +So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest songs, +and after it a gay _chanson_, and then a string of epigrams. All true,-- +he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the corolla spread, +and another with its disk half opened, and the third with the +heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two showing its tip +through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of the poet's soul,-- +he told me. + +----What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the +souls of poets most fully? + +Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus. +Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark, and +a fern will not flower anywhere. + +What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's corolla?-- +I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am afraid; or at +least they shine on a good many that never come to anything. + +Who are _they_?--said the schoolmistress. + +Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his +best reward. + +The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I +really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have +pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, +but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true +poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,--to a +woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, +so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.-- +Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,--what color +would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed +whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's praises! I should +have grown like Marvell's fawn,-- + + "Lilies without; roses within!" + +But then,--he added,--we all think, _if_ so and so, we should have +been this or that, as you were saying, the other day, in those +rhymes of yours. + +----I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but +of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in +soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and +sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own hands +the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts the +over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould. + +There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. +[Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please to tell us +about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are +blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,-- +_negative_ or _washed_ blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to +become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with +golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,-- +_positive_ or _stained_ blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as +unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike a +snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a +sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline +fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her +quick, glittering glances. + +Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations, +and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of +moonlight genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of +nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive to +those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at all. +Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with melancholy. +There is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of +compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than the fact that +some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest songs are the +growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for the rougher +duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or +of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle, sweet natures, +born to weakness, and mostly dying before their time,--one cannot +help thinking that the human race dies out singing, like the swan in +the old story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the Hōtel Dieu, +at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by a key in his throat, which he +had swallowed when delirious in consequence of a fall,)--this poor +fellow was a very good example of the poet by excess of sensibility. +I found, the other day, that some of my literary friends had never +heard of him, though I suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know +the lines which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed +in the great hospital of Paris. + + "Au banquet de la vie, infortuné convive, + J'apparus un jour, et je meurs; + Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, oł lentement j'arrive, + Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." + + At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest, + One day I pass, then disappear; + I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest + No friend shall come to shed a tear. + +You remember the same thing in other words somewhere in Kirke +White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all these +sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the world +will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have loved! +how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing, their eyes +grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner and thinner, +until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, +they drop it and pass onward. + +----Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them +up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the +hand of the Angel of the Resurrection. + +Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; +they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only +makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, +seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence +at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so +long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. + +If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count the +dead beats of thought after thought and image after image jarring +through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those wheels, +uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those weights, blow +up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a passion comes over us +sometimes for silence and rest!--that this dreadful mechanism, +unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered with spectral +figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can +wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?-- +that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters +beneath?--that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to +utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is +shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that +building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where +neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which +a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. +There is nothing for it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling +of its wheels, but to spring against the stone wall and silence them +with one crash. Ah, they remembered that, the kind city fathers,-- +and the walls are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise +as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and +serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of +a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid +automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would +the world give for the discovery? + +----From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place +and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they call +John. + +You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will +maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot stop, +but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at +the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other. They clap +on the breaks by means of opium; they change the maddening monotony +of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It is because the brain +is locked up and we cannot touch its movement directly, that we +thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice by which they may +reach the interior, and so alter its rate of going for a while, and +at last spoil the machine. + +Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work +independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who +follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of +keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their +reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the mechanical +appliances to help them govern their intellects. + +----He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded +to by name. + +Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of +inebriating fluids?--said the divinity-student. + +If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,-- +I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are +the things that some foolish people call _dangerous_ subjects,--as if +these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea-worm +burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more +mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal +with these obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of +them, and no bigger than a horse-hair, is to get a piece of silk +round their _heads_, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only +break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the +person that has the misfortune of harboring one of them. Whence it +is plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head +lies. + +Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of +intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For you +may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has not a +head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain virtue, I +was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound paradoxical. I +have heard an immense number of moral physicians lay down the +treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority of them would +always insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all body +and tail. So I have found a very common result of their method to be +that the string slipped, or that a piece only of the creature was +broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The truth +is, if the Devil could only appear in church by attorney, and make +the best statement that the facts would bear him out in doing on +behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the +influence of good teachers would be much greater than it is. For the +arguments by which the Devil prevails are precisely the ones that +the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The way to argue down a vice +is not to tell lies about it,--to say that it has no attractions, +when everybody knows that it has,--but rather to let it make out its +case just as it certainly will in the moment of temptation, and then +meet it with the weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel +did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but touched him +with it, and the blasted angel took the sad glories of his true shape. +If he had shown fight then, the fair spirits would have known how to +deal with him. + +That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly clear. +Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with religious +excitement,--oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said she was so +easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents have +been made tipsy by a beef-steak. + +There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation, which, in +themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be +considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When +the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the +cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging +spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused, or +the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment when +the whole human zoöphyte flowers out like a full-blown rose, and is +ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution box,--it would +be hard to say that a man was at that very time, worse, or less to +be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits +about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic virtues don't wash; +but until the water takes their colors out, the tints are very much +like those of the true celestial stuff. + +[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to +report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine +these records to commit to their candor.] + +A _person_ at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady +drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I +restrained myself, and answered thus:-- + +Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to the +product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the +vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne, +"the foaming wine of Eastern France," is rum. Hock, which our friend, +the Poet, speaks of as: + + "The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, + Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," + +is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to the +first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I address +myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay, almost in +abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise +both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into +which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and +sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I +thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober. + +Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by +drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before +they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no +doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost irresistible +hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but oftenest of all +a _punishment_. + +Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and +sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,-- +ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control +of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their +owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we +have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or +ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it is +simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or +aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre, +and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings +into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled +being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no chance +to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught the +lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an +_ad valorem_ scale for them,--and all of us. + +But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more +prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,--the +reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine +frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once explained +to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great picture. The +creative action is not voluntary at all, but automatic; we can only +put the mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, that +blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus the true state of +creative genius is allied to _reverie_, or dreaming. If mind and +body were both healthy, and had food enough and fair play, I doubt +whether any men would be more temperate than the imaginative classes. +But body and mind often flag,--perhaps they are ill-made to begin +with, underfed with bread or ideas, over-worked, or abused in some +way. The automatic action, by which genius wrought its wonders, fails. +There is only one thing which can rouse the machine; not will,--that +cannot reach it; nothing but a ruinous agent, which hurries the +wheels awhile and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The +dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, because their mode +of action can be imitated by artificial excitement; the reasoning +ones are safe, because they imply continued voluntary effort. + +I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on a +man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses and +fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious +parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is +already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that +he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to +stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face +which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy +there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the lassitude +of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in +their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds untrained to +labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the germination of +the seeds of intemperance. + +Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,--no +steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,-- +he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the +maelstrom. + +----I wonder if you know the _terrible smile_? [The young fellow +whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the +sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word +_smile_. The company was curious to know what I meant.] + +There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you +than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth, +which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and +thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about +themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of +self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both, +which are betrayed by the cowardly behavior of the eye and the +tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate +beings. + +----Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the +divinity-student. + +Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or +other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't +think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have known a +number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing conveys +the idea of _underbreeding_ more than this self-betraying smile. Yet +I think this peculiar habit, as well as that of _meaningless blushing_, +may be fallen into by very good people who meet often, or sit +opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's face is infinitely +removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed, firm-mouthed. I think +Titian understood the look of a gentleman as well as anybody that +ever lived. The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his hand, +in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have seen that collection, +will remind you of what I mean. + +----Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I +cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if +they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one meets +one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same manifestation. +The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a dependence of the +_platysma myoides_, which is called the _risorius Santorini_. + +----Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above. + +The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's +laughing-muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were born +with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am +uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you +of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they +are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally +recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet +three of the scowlers than one of the smilers. + +----There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar +to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are +some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't +understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature +and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the +right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female +countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the +sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the +person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any +unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient +apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an +appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may +inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how +morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest +demonstration of this kind. When a _lady_ walks the streets, she +leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well +enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces +framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a +right to see them. + +----When we observe how the same features and style of person and +character descend from generation to generation, we can believe that +some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities. Little +snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us--before they +are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much higher up in +the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at the age of --2 or +--3 months. + +----My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This +remark excited a burst of hilarity, which I did not allow to +interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the +great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-turtles +mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have suggested +several odd analogies enough. + +There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the +_ovarian eggs_ of the next generation's or century's civilization. +These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet; +some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But +as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and +these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are not +good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian +eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the minds of +others. One must be in the _habit_ of talking with such persons to +get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their development is +necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new patterns, which +must be long and closely studied. But these are the men to talk with. +No fresh truth ever gets into a book. + +"----A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow",--said one of the company. + +I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my +friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its +materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and +been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one +mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be +milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something +which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man +instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in +print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it +lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his +intellect. + +----Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of +thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of thought, +who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and the +retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in the +popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to separate +them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of +opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few +generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of +its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of +it or even with it; the world calls him hard names probably; but if +you would find the man of the future, you must look into the folds +of his cerebral convolutions. + +[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as +if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed +his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few +corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-burning and +witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as the old +gentleman opposite says.] + +----Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about. + +SPRING HAS COME. + _Intra Muros_. + + The sunbeams, lost for half a year, + Slant through my pane their morning rays; + For dry Northwesters cold and clear, + The East blows in its thin blue haze. + + And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, + Then close against the sheltering wall + The tulip's horn of dusky green, + The peony's dark unfolding ball. + + The golden-chaliced crocus burns; + The long narcissus-blades appear; + The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, + And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. + + The willow's whistling lashes, wrung + By the wild winds of gusty March, + With sallow leaflets lightly strung, + Are swaying by the tufted larch. + + The elms have robed their slender spray + With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; + Wide o'er the clasping arch of day + Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. + + --See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, + That flames in glory for an hour,-- + Behold it withering,--then look up,-- + How meek the forest-monarch's flower!-- + + When wake the violets, Winter dies; + When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; + When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, + "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!" + + The windows blush with fresh bouquets, + Cut with the May-dew on their lips; + The radish all its bloom displays, + Pink; as Aurora's finger-tips. + + Nor less the flood of light that showers + On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- + The walks are gay as bridal bowers + With rows of many-petalled maids. + + The scarlet shell-fish click and clash + In the blue barrow where they slide; + The horseman, proud of streak and splash, + Creeps homeward from his morning ride. + + Here comes the dealer's awkward string, + With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- + Rough colts, with careless country-swing, + In lazy walk or slouching trot. + + --Wild filly from the mountain-side, + Doomed to the close and chafing thills, + Lend me thy long, untiring stride + To seek with thee thy western hills! + + I hear the whispering voice of Spring, + The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, + Like some poor bird with prisoned wing + That sits and sings, but longs to fly. + + Oh for one spot of living green,-- + One little spot where leaves can grow,-- + To love unblamed, to walk unseen, + To dream above, to sleep below! + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PRESIDENT'S PROPHECY OF PEACE. + +There was joy in the national palace on the eve of May-day. The +heart of the Chief of Thirty Millions was full of gladness. It was a +high holiday at the capital of the nation. Jubilant processions +crowded the streets. The boom of cannon told to the heavens that some +great event, full of glory and of blessing, was just happily born +into the history of the world. Strains of triumphant music at once +expressed and stirred afresh the rapture which the new fruition of a +deferred and doubting hope had kindled in myriad breasts. Rejoicing +multitudes swarmed before the palace gate, and with congratulatory +shouts compelled the presence of the Nation's Head. He stood before +them proud and happy, and answered to the transports of their joy +with a responsive sympathy. He rejoiced in the prospect of the peace +and prosperity with which the occasion of this jubilee was to cheer +and bless the land in all its borders. His chosen friends and +counsellors surrounded him and echoed his prophecies of good. A +kindred homage was next paid to the virtuous artificers of the +new-wrought blessing, without whose shaping hands it would have +perished before the sight, or taken some dreadful form of mischief +and of horror. Their words of cheer and exultation, too, swelled the +surging tide of patriotic emotion till it overflowed again. Thus with +the thunder of artillery, with the animating sound of drum and +trumpet, with the more persuasive music of impassioned words, with +shoutings and with revelry, these jocund compeers, from the highest +to the lowest, mingled into one by the alchemy of a common joy, +chased the hours of that memorable night and gave strange welcome to +the morn of May. + +What great happiness had just befallen, which should thus transport +with joy the chief magistrate of a mighty nation, and send an +answering pulse of rapture through all the veins of his capital? The +armies of the Republic had surely just returned in triumph from some +dubious battle joined with a barbarian invader who threatened to +trample all her cherished rights, and the institutions which are +their safeguard, under his iron heel. Perhaps the Angel of Mercy had +at length set again the seals upon some wide-wasting pestilence +which had long been walking in darkness, with Terror going before +her and Death following after. Or was it the desolating course of +Famine that had been stayed, as it swept, gaunt and hungry, over the +land, and consumed its inhabitants from off its face? Peradventure, +the prayers of holy men had prevailed, and the heavens which had +been as brass were melted, and the earth which had been but ashes +revived again, a living altar, crowned afresh with flowers, and +prophetic of the thank-offerings of harvests. Or it might be that a +great discoverer had added a new world to the domain of human +happiness, by some invention which should lighten the toils and +multiply the innocent satisfactions of mankind. Or had virtue and +intelligence won some signal victory over barbarism and ignorance, +and blessed with liberty and knowledge regions long abandoned to +despotism and to darkness? These had been, indeed, occasions on +which the chief ruler of a great people might fitly lead the anthem +of a nation's thanksgiving. + +But the joy which thus overflowed the hearts of President and people +at the metropolis of our politics, and which has sprinkled with its +cordial drops kindred spirits scattered far and wide over the land, +welled up from no wholesome sources such as these. It was no +deliverance from barbarous enemies, from pestilential disease, from +meagre famine, that moved those raptures,--no joy at ignorance +dissipated, barbarism dispelled, or tyranny put down. The "peace" +and the "prosperity," the prophecy of which was so sweet to the +souls that took sweet counsel together on that night, were of a kind +which only souls tuned to such unison and so subtly trained could +fully comprehend and rightly estimate. This gentle peace, thus +joyfully presaged, is to be won by the submission of an inchoate +State to a form of government subjecting its inhabitants to +institutions abhorrent to their souls and fatal to their prosperity, +forced upon them at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of +the revolver by hordes of sordid barbarians from a hostile soil, +their natural and necessary enemies. And the sweet harbinger of this +blessed peace, the halcyon which broods over the stormy waves and +tells of the calm at hand, is a bribe so cunningly devised that its +contrivers firmly believe it will buy up the souls of these +much-injured men, and reconcile them to the shame and infamy of +trading away their lights and their honor as the boot of a dirty +bargain in the land-market. And the "prosperity" which is to wait +upon this happy "peace" glows with a like golden promise. It is a +prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North +Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the +Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the +intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever +follows after the footsteps of Slavery,--a prosperity which is to +blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish +the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, +if the joy of the President and his directors is to be made full. +Such is the message of peace and good-will which thrilled with +prophetic raptures the hearts which flowed together on that happy +night, and such the blessed prospects which made the air of +Washington vocal with the ecstasies of triumph. + +The history of the world is full enough of illustrations of +"the Art of making a Great Kingdom a Small One." The art of +degrading the imperial idea of a true republic from its just +preeminence among the polities of mankind, of quenching the +principles of eternal right which are the star-points of its divine +crown, of trailing the shining whiteness of its robes in the dust, +and making it an object of contempt rather than of adoration, has +never been taught more emphatically than in the examples furnished +by our own later annals. If Mr. Buchanan and his predecessor had set +themselves to work, of good set purpose, to bring republican +institutions into derision, and to prove that the American +experiment was a dead failure, they could not have proceeded more +cunningly with their task. Their aim has been, as it has seemed, to +give the lie to all the principles on which it has been assumed that +these institutions rest, and to show that their real object is to +subject the many to the government of the few, as the manner is of +the nations round about. The thin veil of decent falsehood, under +which the caution of earlier time had decorously hid this fact, has +been torn aside by the rude intrepidity of assurance which +long-continued success had fostered. The problem to be solved being +to prove the chief axiom of our political science, that the people +have a right to self-government and to the choice of their own +institutions, to be a lie, it is worked out in the presence of an +admiring world, after this fashion. + +The old Ordinance--which set limits to Slavery, and which, as it +preceded the Constitution, should in honor and equity be taken as a +condition precedent to it, and the later pledge of the South, that +this contract should be sacredly kept on the other side of a certain +parallel of latitude, having both been infamously violated for the +sake of extending the domain of Slavery into regions solemnly +dedicated to Liberty, the entire energies of the General Government +and of the political party it represented were put forth to +crystallize this double lie into the institutions of Kansas, and +thus take it out of the category of theory and reduce it into that +of fact. The reluctance of the inhabitants of the young Territory +went for nothing, and provision was soon effectually made to +overcome their resistance. Every form of terrorism, to which tyrants +all alike instinctively resort to disarm resistance to their will, +was launched at the property, the lives, and the happiness of the +defenceless settlers. Hordes of barbarians, as we have said before, +from every part of the Southern hive, but especially from the savage +tribes of the bordering Missouri, poured themselves over the devoted +land. Murder, arson, robbery, every outrage that could be offered to +man or woman, waited on their footsteps and stalked abroad with them +in their forays against Freedom. When the first steps were to be +taken towards the organization of a government, they precipitated +themselves upon the Territory in fiercer numbers. They made +themselves masters of the polling-places; they drove away by +violence and threats the peaceable inhabitants and lawful voters, +and by open force and unblushing fraud elected themselves or their +creatures the lawgivers of the commonwealth about to be created. So +outrageous were the crimes of these miscreants at this and +subsequent periods, that even the very creatures of Pierce and +Buchanan, chosen especially for their supposed fitness to assist in +these villanies, turned away, one after another, sickened at the +sight of them, and forfeited forever the favor of their masters by +shrinking from an unqualified and unhesitating obedience. + +The Constitution, contrived by the wretches thus nefariously clothed +in the stolen sovereignty of the true inhabitants of Kansas, of +course made Slavery an integral part of the institutions of the State. +A code of laws was enacted absolutely without parallel in the history +of the world for insolent trampling down of rights and for bloody +cruelty of penalties,--laws so abominable as even to call down upon +them, from his place in the Senate, the emphatic condemnation of so +veteran a soldier in the service of Slavery as General Cass, now +Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of State. These Territorial laws, thus +infamously vile, thus made in defiance of the well-known will of the +great majority of the people of Kansas, Mr. Pierce hastened to +recognize as the authentic expression of the mind of the people there, +and exerted all the moral and all the physical force of the +government to maintain them in their authority. Since that magistrate +was kicked aside as no longer available for the uses of Slavery, +because of the very infamy he had won in its service, Mr. Buchanan, +unlessoned by his fate, has adopted his views and carried out his +policy. + +We do not propose to follow this march of shameful events step by +step, nor to speak of them in their exact chronological order, nor +yet to specify to which of these magistrates the credit of any one +of them belongs, inasmuch as the philosophy and method of the policy +of the one and the other are absolutely identical. We have space +only to glance at unquestionable facts, and to trace them to their +necessary motives. To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and +the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons +of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to +what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no +more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of +China. When the actual inhabitants of the Territory had met in +Convention and framed a Constitution excluding Slavery, and had +adopted it, and the legislature authorized by it met, its members +were dispersed by national soldiers, detailed to compel submission +to the behests of the Slavemastery of the Government and of the +nation. These troops have been kept on foot ever since, to intimidate +the people, to assist as special police in the arrest and detention +of political prisoners charged with crimes against the Usurpation, +and to sustain the Federal governors and judges in carrying out +their instructions for the Subjugation of the majority by legal +chicane or by military violence. + +Such was the genesis of the Lecompton Constitution, and such the +nursing it had received at the hands of the paternal government at +Washington. In due course of time it was presented to Congress as +the charter under which the people of Kansas asked to receive the +concession of their right of State government; and the scene of war +was forthwith transferred from those distant fields to the chambers +of national legislation, under the immediate eye of the chief of the +state. This high officer soon dispelled any delusive doubts which, +for the purpose of securing his election, he had permitted to be +ventilated during the late Presidential campaign, that he would at +least see fair play in the struggle between Slavery and Freedom in +Kansas. With indecent zeal and unscrupulous partisanship, he +concentrated all the energies of his administration, and employed +the whole force of the influence and the patronage of the nation, to +obtain the indorsement by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, and +thus to compel the people of Kansas to pass under the yoke of their +Slaveholding invaders. The true origin and character of that vile +fabrication had been made plain to every eye that was willing to see, +and the abhorrence in which it was held by nearly the entire +population of the Territory put beyond question by more than one +trial vote. Yet it was embraced as the test measure of the +Administration to prove the unbroken fealty of the President to the +Power which is mightier than he. Victory was reckoned upon in advance, +as certain and easy. A servile, or rather a commanding majority in +the Senate,--nearly half of that body being of the class that rules +the rulers,--was ready to do whatever dirty and detestable work was +demanded of them. A majority of more than thirty in the House, +elected as supporters of the Administration, seemed to make success +there also an inevitable necessity. But by reason of the vastly +larger proportion of members from the Free States in that body, and +their greater nearness to their constituents, these reasonable +expectations were disappointed. Men who had taken service in the +Democratic ranks, and had been faithful unto that day, refused to +obey the word of command when it took this tone and was informed +with this purpose. And for a season the plague was stayed, and +sanguine hearts trusted that it was stayed forever. + +We are willing to believe that the bulk of the Democrats in both +Houses of Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and +cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was +demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed +to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, +and of which their party had always professed to be the special +defence and guard. But the mantle of our charity is not wide enough +to cover up the base treachery of those men who, acknowledging and +demonstrating the right, devised or consented to the villany which +was to crush or to cripple it. That the final shape which the +Lecompton juggle took was an invention of the enemy, cunningly +contrived to win by indirection what was too dangerous to be +attempted by open violence, is a conclusion from which no candid +mind can escape, after a full consideration of the case. The +defection of so large a body of Northern Democrats from the side of +the Slaveholding Directory was doubtless a significant and startling +fact, suggestive of dangerous insubordination on the part of allies +who had ever been found sure and steadfast in every jeopardy of +Slavery. And it made a resort to guile necessary to carry the point +which it was not prudent to press to the extremity of force. The +Slaveholders are not fastidious as to the means by which they reach +their end. Though they might have preferred to hew their way to their +design with a high hand, and to put down all opposition by bought or +bullied majorities, backed by the strong arm of the nation, yet they +never refuse to compromise and palter when the path to success lies +through stratagems or frauds. The skill in this instance, as in all +others, by which they propose to win everything under the show of +yielding somewhat, is worthy of Machiavel or of Lucifer, and is far +above the capacity of the paltry Northern tool who is permitted to +enjoy the infamy of the invention which he was employed to utter. +The Slaveholders, like other despots, do their dirty work by proxy, +and scorn the wretched instruments they use, and then fling from +them in disgust. + +The Lecompton cheat having been defeated in the House after it had +received the indorsement of the Senate, the two coordinates were at +issue, and it seemed for a brief time to have met with the fate it +merited. But cunning and treachery combined to put it into the hands +of a Committee of Conference to be manipulated afresh, and, if +possible, moulded into a shape that might give Democratic recusants +an excuse for treason to the North and submission to the Power that +demanded it. And the invention was worthy of the diabolical sagacity +and ingenuity which have always marked the politics of Slavery. The +maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to +men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the +hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, +was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And +to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens +them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. +They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or +dissent as to the Constitution held over their heads. Their enemies +know too well what its fate would be, if offered, pure and simple, +to their acceptance or refusal. They are only to say whether or not +they will accept five million acres of land that Congress +munificently offers them for the construction of their railways. If +they say, "Yes, thank you," to this simple question, the Chief +Conjurer of the nation, the great Medicine Man of our tribe, the +Head Magician of our Egypt, will only have to say, "Presto pass," +and they will find themselves a Slave State in the glorious Union, +under a solemn contract, struck by this same act, to endure Slavery +for six years to come. If they say, "No, we won't," the door of the +Union is shut in their faces, and they are told to wait without in +all the bleakness of Territorial dependency, subject to the laws now +afflicting them, with a satrap sent down from Washington to rule over +them, and with Lecomptes and Catos to decree justice for them, until +swindling tools of the Administration shall be instructed to allow +the presence of a sufficient population to entitle a State to a +Representative. + +If they consent to be erected into a Slave State by accepting the +bribe, they will come into the Union by a puff of Presidential breath, +though having only forty thousand inhabitants, with two Senators and +a Representative, and all the advantages incident to Federal +connection and patronage. Should they reject it, they will be left, +it may be, to years of Territorial annoyance, and the annoyance of a +Slave Territory, too, till Government officials shall discover their +numbers to amount to near a hundred thousand, and possibly to much +more, after the next census has newly apportioned the House. With +Slavery, they have proffered to them broad lands to help cover their +wide expanse with an iron reticulation of railways, developing their +resources and multiplying their material prosperity, at the slight +cost of their consistency and their honor. Without it, they may have +to stand shivering at the gate of the Union, blasted by the +"cold shade" of our American aristocracy, and far removed from the +genial sunshine of national favor and bounty. Truly did Senator +Wilson say that Congress approached Kansas at once with a bribe and +a threat. Never was the devilish cunning of Slaveholding politics +more strikingly illustrated than by the insidious vileness of this +proposition. It had been bad enough, surely, had we been called upon +to rejoice, as over a great triumph of the right, at the concession +to Kansas of the sovereignty of settling her own institutions in her +own way, had such been granted. Nothing could be more simple and +natural, in a case of conflicting assertions and opposite beliefs as +to the state of opinion there, than to remit the decision of the +doubt to a fresh vote. Had any other interest than that in human +beings been involved, such a disposition of the whole matter would +have excited neither remark nor opposition. Nothing, perhaps, could +exemplify the control Slavery has obtained over the affairs of the +country more strongly than the power it has had to hinder this +simple remedy of an alleged wrong or error,--and this, by procuring +the defection of sordid Northern Representatives from what they +confessed to be the right, to this corrupt evasion,--an evasion +designed to fit the people of Kansas for servitude by tempting them +to sacrifice their self-respect and their honor. Let these +miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before +popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight +into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for +the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the +people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it +would have been humiliating enough to have had to exult over it as a +victory of Freedom. With what depth of shame, then, should we +contemplate the compassing of their end by the Slavocrats, through +the venal surrender of the rights so long and so manfully asserted, +for so paltry a temptation! + +But we do not apprehend a consummation so devoutly to be deprecated. +We believe that the people of Kansas will spurn the bribe and refuse +to eat the dirt that is set before them for a banquet. They will +reject the insulting proffer with contempt, and fall back upon their +reserved right of resistance, passive or active, as their +circumstances may advise. They will not be so base as to desert the +post of honor they have sought in the great fight for freedom and +maintained so long and so well, disappointing and throwing into +confusion the distant allies who have stood behind them in their most +evil hours, for all the lands that President and Congress have to +give. It is, indeed, a momentous crisis for them, and we have faith +to believe that they will not be wanting to its demands. The eyes of +the lovers of liberty everywhere are earnestly watching to see how +they will come out from the ordeal by fire and by gold to which they +are subjected. What Boston was in 1775, and Paris in 1789, is Kansas +now,--the field on which a great battle for the right is to be fought. +Honor or infamy attends the issue of her action in the dilemma in +which the crafty malice of her enemies has placed her. If she agree +to take the dirty acres which are proffered to her as the price of +her integrity, she consents to take the yoke of Slavery upon her +neck and not even to attempt to shake herself free from it for six +years to come. We know that shuffling Democrats, and even +temporizing Republicans, represent that the people, after accepting +the Lecompton Constitution, can forthwith summon a Convention and +substitute another scheme of government in its stead. But this could +be initiated only by a breach of the promise they would have just +pledged, and could be carried through only by a revolution. Such a +course would be a direct violation of the philosophy of +Constitutional Government, which assumes as its fundamental axiom, +that Constitutions can be altered only in the way and according to +the conditions prescribed in themselves. Such a proceeding would be +a _coup d'état_, not as flagitious certainly as that of Bonaparte, +but to the full as revolutionary and illegal. And we may be sure +that the arm of the United States Government would not be shortened +so that it should not interpose and hinder such a defiance of itself +and the Power whose instrument it is. With servile and corrupt +judges at its beck and a majority in Congress within its purchase, +the occasion and means of such an interference would be readily +devised and supplied. + +We believe that this line of policy would lead to an armed collision +with the General Government. It is for the oppressed inhabitants of +any country to say when their wrongs have reached the height which +justifies the drawing of the civil sword. We have neither the right +nor the disposition to advise the people of Kansas in a matter so +emphatically their own. But there is another way of coming to this +arbitrament,--inevitable, if they deviate a hair's-breadth from the +strict line of law,--should they deem there is no other remedy for +their wrongs. The admirable Constitution just framed at Leavenworth, +one well worthy of a free people that has been tried as with fire, +will be adopted before these lines are before the public eye. Let +them reject the Buchanan-English swindle, put their heel on the +Lecompton fraud, set up the Leavenworth Constitution, and erect a +State government under it in defiance of the Territorial Usurpation, +and they will soon find themselves face to face with the tyranny at +Washington. But is there not reason to hope that firmness and +patience may yet win the battle for freedom without resorting to so +serious an alternative? Is it indeed inevitable that Kansas must +remain out of the pale of the Union, under the oppression of the +Territorial laws, until the hirelings of the Government shall have +determined that slaves enough have been poured in to decide the +complexion of the new State, and shall authorize her to ask for +admission? We are told that the joy at Washington and elsewhere over +this "settlement" of the Kansas difficulty was because it was taken +out of Congress, and "Agitation" at an end. But what is to hinder +its being brought into Congress again?--and whose fault will it be, +if Agitation do not survive and grow mightier unto the victory? If +the present Congress can shut its doors against this intruder, its +power dies with itself, and it greatly lies with the people of Kansas +to make the next Congress one that shall rehabilitate them in their +rights. Their conduct at this pregnant moment may settle the +proximate destiny of the Republic, and decide whether the Slave +Power is to rule us by its underlings for four years more, or +whether its pride is to have a fall and its insolence a rebuke in +1860. + +We all remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has +been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again +to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the +blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had +hoped to look upon it no more. It would come back: + + "With twenty mortal murders on its head + _To push them from their stools_!" + +And this dreaded spectre, though a beneficent angel with healing on +his wings in truth, will push yet many traitorous or cowardly +sycophants from the stools they disgrace, and substitute in their +stead men who will quiet Agitation by Justice. Let the men of Kansas +remember that a yet greater trust than that of providing for their +own interests and rights is in their hands. The battle they are to +fight in this quarrel is for the whole North, for the whole country, +for the world. Let them address themselves unto it with calmness, +with prudence, with watchfulness, with courage. They are beset on +every side by crafty and desperate enemies. Greedy land-jobbers, in +haste to be rich, will try to persuade them that not to be innocent +is to be wise. Timid timeservers will urge a submission which +promises peace, though it be but a solitude that is called so. +Rampant Pro-slavery will exalt its horn against Righteousness and +try again the virtue of ruffianism to prevail against civilization. +The barbarians will hang anew upon the borders, ready to complete +the conquest they began so well. And above all, a majority of the men +who are to pass upon the votes are the creatures of the +Administration, who know, by the example of their predecessors, that +the suspicion of honesty will be fatal to all their hopes of +preferment, and that they can purchase reward only by procuring, +_quocunque modo_, the acceptance of the proposition of Congress. +But still the power is in the hands of the Free-State men, if they +choose to put it forth. Let them organize such a scrutiny everywhere, +that fraud and violence cannot escape detection and exposure. Let +them observe most rigidly all the technical rules imposed upon the +electors, that no vote may be lost. Let them come to the polls by +thousands, and trample under their feet the shabby bribe for which +they are asked to trade away their independence and their virtue. +Let them be thus faithful, and never be weary of maintaining the +Agitation, which is proved, by the very dread their enemies have of +it, to be the way to their victory. Thus they will be sure to triumph, +conquering their right to create their own government, and erect a +free commonwealth on the ruins of the tyranny they have overthrown. +And Kansas, at no distant period, will be welcomed by her Free +Sisters to her place among them, with no stain of bribes in her hands, +and with no soil of meanness upon her garments. And then the +"peace" and "prosperity," which President Buchanan saw in vision on +the eve of May-day, will indeed prevail and be established, while +the blackness of infamy will brood forever over the memory of the +magistrate who used the highest office of the Republic to perpetuate +the wrongs of the Slave by the sacrifice of the rights of the Citizen. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Library of Old Authors.--Works of John Webster_. London: John + Russell Smith. 1856-57. + +We turn now to Mr. Hazlitt's edition of Webster. We wish he had +chosen Chapman; for Mr. Dyce's Webster is hardly out of print, and, +we believe, has just gone through a second and revised edition. +Webster was a far more considerable man than Marston, and infinitely +above him in genius. Without the poetic nature of Marlowe, or +Chapman's somewhat unwieldy vigor of thought, he had that +inflammability of mind which, untempered by a solid understanding, +made his plays a strange mixture of vivid expression, incoherent +declamation, dramatic intensity, and extravagant conception of +character. He was not, in the highest sense of the word, a great +dramatist. Shakspeare is the only one of that age. Marlowe had a +rare imagination, a delicacy of sense that made him the teacher of +Shakspeare and Milton in versification, and was, perhaps, as purely +a poet as any that England has produced; but his mind had no +balance-wheel. Chapman abounds in splendid enthusiasms of diction, +and now and then dilates our imaginations with suggestions of +profound poetic depth. Ben Jonson was a conscientious and intelligent +workman, whose plays glow, here and there, with the golden pollen of +that poetic feeling with which his age impregnated all thought and +expression; but his leading characteristic, like that of his great +namesake, Samuel, was a hearty common sense, which fitted him rather +to be a great critic than a great poet. He had a keen and ready +sense of the comic in situation, but no humor. Fletcher was as much a +poet as fancy and sentiment can make any man. Only Shakspeare wrote +comedy and tragedy with truly ideal elevation and breadth. Only +Shakspeare had that true sense of humor which, like the universal +solvent sought by the alchemists, so fuses together all the elements +of a character, (as in _Falstaff_,) that any question of good or evil, +of dignified or ridiculous, is silenced by the apprehension of its +thorough humanity. Rabelais shows gleams of it in _Panurge_; but, in +our opinion, no man ever possessed it in an equal degree with +Shakspeare, except Cervantes; no man has since shown anything like +an approach to it, (for Moliere's quality was comic power rather +than humor,) except Sterne, Fielding, and Richter. Only Shakspeare +was endowed with that healthy equilibrium of nature whose point of +rest was midway between the imagination and the understanding,-- +that perfectly unruffled brain which reflected all objects with +almost inhuman impartiality,--that outlook whose range was ecliptical, +dominating all zones of human thought and action,--that power of +verisimilar conception which could take away _Richard III_ from +History, and _Ulysses_ from Homer,--and that creative faculty whose +equal touch is alike vivifying in _Shallow_ and in _Lear_. He alone +never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the risks +and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a +jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot. He is never, like +many of his fellow-dramatists, confronted with unnatural +Frankensteins of his own making, whom he must get off his hands as +best he may. Given a human foible, he can incarnate it in the +nothingness of Slender, or make it loom gigantic through the tragic +twilight of _Hamlet_. We are tired of the vagueness which classes +all the Elizabethan playwrights together as "great dramatists,"--as +if Shakspeare did not differ from them in kind as well as in degree. +Fine poets some of them were; but though imagination and the power of +poetic expression are, singly, not uncommon gifts, and even in +combination not without secular examples, yet it is the rarest of +earthly phenomena, to find them joined with those faculties of +perception, arrangement, and plastic instinct in the loving union +which alone makes a great dramatic poet possible. We suspect that +Shakspeare will long continue the only specimen of the genus. His +contemporaries, in their comedies, either force what they call +"a humor" till it becomes fantastical, or hunt for jokes, like +rat-catchers, in the sewers of human nature and of language. In +their tragedies they become heavy without grandeur, like Jonson, or +mistake the stilts for the cothurnus, as Chapman and Webster too +often do. Every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist is but the +putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility +of Shakspeare's stand-point as poet and artist. + +Webster's most famous works are "The Duchess of Malfy" and "Vittoria +Corombona," but we are strongly inclined to call "The Devil's +Law-Case" his best play. The two former are in a great measure +answerable for the "spasmodic" school of poets, since the +extravagances of a man of genius are as sure of imitation as the +equable self-possession of his higher moments is incapable of it. +Webster had, no doubt, the primal requisite of a poet, imagination, +but in him it was truly untamed, and Aristotle's admirable +distinction between the _Horrible_ and the _Terrible_ in tragedy was +never better illustrated and confirmed than in the "Duchess" and +"Vittoria." His nature had something of the sleuth-hound quality in +it, and a plot, to keep his mind eager on the trail, must be +sprinkled with fresh blood at every turn. We do not forget all the +fine things that Lamb has said of Webster, but, when Lamb wrote, the +Elizabethan drama was an El Dorado, whose micacious sand, even, was +treasured as auriferous,--and no wonder, in a generation which +admired the "Botanic Garden." Webster is the Gherardo della Notte of +his day, and himself calls his "Vittoria Corombona" a "night-piece." +Though he had no conception of Nature in its large sense, as +something pervading a whole character and making it consistent with +itself, nor of Art, as that which dominates an entire tragedy and +makes all the characters foils to each other and tributaries to the +catastrophe, yet there are flashes of Nature in his plays, struck +out by the collisions of passion, and dramatic intensities of phrase +for which it would be hard to find the match. The "prithee, undo +this button" of _Lear_, by which Shakspeare makes us feel the +swelling of the old king's heart, and that the bodily results of +mental anguish have gone so far as to deaden for the moment all +intellectual consciousness and forbid all expression of grief, is +hardly finer than the broken verse which Webster puts into the mouth +of _Ferdinand_ when he sees the body of his sister, murdered by +his own procurement,-- + + "Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young." + +He has not the condensing power of Shakspeare, who squeezed meaning +into a phrase with an hydraulic press, but he could carve a +cherry-stone with any of the _concellisti_, and abounds in +imaginative quaintnesses that are worthy of Donne, and epigrammatic +tersenesses that remind us of Fuller. Nor is he wanting in poetic +phrases of the purest crystallization. Here are a few examples:-- + + "Oh, if there be another world i' th' moon, + As some fantastics dream, I could wish all _men_, + The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, + Sent thither to people that!" + +(Old Chaucer was yet slier. After saying that Lamech was the first +faithless lover, he adds,-- + + "And he invented _tents_, unless men lie,"-- + +implying that he was the prototype of nomadic men.) + + "Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds: + In the trenches, for the soldier; in the wakeful study, + For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea, + For men of our profession [merchants]; all of which + Arise and spring up honor." + +("Of all which," Mr. Hazlitt prints it.) + + "Poor Jolenta! should she hear of this, + She would not after the report keep fresh + So long as flowers on graves." + + "For sin and shame are ever tied together + With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, + They cannot without violence be undone." + "One whose mind + Appears more like a ceremonious chapel + Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence." + "Gentry? 'tis nought else + But a superstitious relic of time past; + And, sifted to the true worth, it is nothing + But ancient riches." + "What is death? + The safest trench i' th' world to keep man free + From Fortune's gunshot." + + "It has ever been my opinion + That there are none love perfectly indeed, + But those that hang or drown themselves for love," + + says _Julio_, anticipating Butler's + + "But he that drowns, or blows out's brains, + The Devil's in him, if he feigns." + +He also anticipated La Rochefoucauld and Byron in their apophthegm +concerning woman's last love. In "The Devil's Law-Case," _Leonora_ +says: + + "For, as we love our youngest children best, + So the last fruit of our affection, + Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, + Most violent, most unresistible; + Since 'tis, indeed, our latest harvest-home, + Last merriment 'fore winter." + +In editing Webster, Mr. Hazlitt had the advantage (except in a +single doubtful play) of a predecessor in the Rev. Alexander Dyce, +beyond all question the best living scholar of the literature of the +times of Elizabeth and James I. If he give no proof of remarkable +fitness for his task, he seems, at least, to have been diligent and +painstaking. His notes are short and to the point, and--which we +consider a great merit--at the foot of the page. If he had added +a glossarial index, we should have been still better pleased. +Mr. Hazlitt seems to have read over the text with some care, and he +has had the good sense to modernize the orthography, or, as he says, +has "observed the existing standard of spelling throughout." Yet--for +what reason we cannot imagine--he prints "I" for "ay," taking the pains +to explain it every time in a note, and retains "banquerout" and +"coram" apparently for the sake of telling us that they mean +"bankrupt" and "quorum." He does not seem to have a quick ear for +scansion, which would sometimes have assisted him to the true reading. +We give an example or two: + + "The obligation wherein we all stood bound + Cannot be concealed [_cancelled_] without great + reproach." + + "The realm, not they, + Must be regarded. Be [we] strong and bold, + We are the people's factors." + + "Shall not be o'erburdened [_overburdened_] in + our reign." + + "A merry heart + And a good stomach to [a] feast are all." + + "Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and + ruffians." [_dele_ "up."] + + "Brother or father + In [a] dishonest suit, shall be to me." + + "What's she in Rome your greatness cannot awe, + Or your rich purse purchase + Promises and threats." [_dele_ the second "your."] + + "Through clouds of envy and disast [rous] change." + + "The Devil drives; 'tis [it is] full time to go." + +He has overlooked some strange blunders. What is the meaning of + + "Laugh at your misery, as foredeeming you + An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth + Would soon be lost i' the air"? + +We hardly need say that it should be + +"An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth, would," &c. + +"_For_wardness" for "_fro_wardness," (Vol. II. p. 87,) "tennis-balls +struck and ban_ded_" for "ban_died_," (Ib. p. 275,) may be errors of +the press; but: + + "Come, I'll love you wisely: + That's jealousy," + +has crept in by editorial oversight for "wisely, that's jealously." +So have: + + "Ay, the great emperor of [_or_] the mighty Cham"; + +and: + + "This wit [_with_] taking long journeys"; + +and: + + "Virginius, thou dost but supply my place, + I thine: Fortune hath lift me [_thee_] to my chair, + And thrown me headlong to thy pleading bar"; + +and: + + "I'll pour my soul into my daughter's belly, [_body_,] + And with my soldier's tears embalm her wounds." + +We suggest that the change of an _a_ to an _r_ would make sense of +the following:-- + + "Come, my little punk, with thy two compositors, + to this unlawful painting-house," + +[printing-house,] which Mr. Hazlitt awkwardly endeavors to explain by +this note on the word _compositors_:--"i.e. (conjecturally), +making up the composition of the picture"! Our readers can decide for +themselves;--the passage occurs Vol. I. p. 214. + +We think Mr. Hazlitt's notes are, in the main, good; but we should +like to know his authority for saying that _pench_ means "the hole +in a bench by which it was taken up,"--that "descant" means +"look askant on,"--and that "I wis" is equivalent to "I surmise, +imagine," which it surely is not in the passage to which his note is +appended. On page 9, Vol. I., we read in the text, + + "To whom, my lord, bends thus your awe," + +and in the note, "i.e. submission." The original has _aue_, which, +if it mean _ave_, is unmeaning here. Did Mr. Hazlitt never see a +picture of the Annunciation with _ave_ written on the scroll +proceeding from the bending angel's mouth? We find the same word in +Vol. III. p. 217,-- + + "Whose station's built on avees and applause." + +Vol. III. pp. 47-48:-- + + "And then rest, gentle bones; yet pray + That when by the precise you are view'd, + A supersedeas be not sued + To remove you to a place more airy, + That in your stead they may keep chary + Stockfish or seacoal, for the abuses + Of sacrilege have turned graves to viler uses." + +To the last verse Mr. Hazlitt appends this note, "Than that of +burning men's bones for fuel." There is no allusion here to burning +men's bones, but simply to the desecration of graveyards by building +warehouses upon them, in digging the foundations for which the bones +would be thrown out. The allusion is, perhaps, to the "Churchyard of +the Holy Trinity";--see Stow's _Survey_, ed. 1603, p. 126. Elsewhere +in the same play, Webster alludes bitterly to "begging church-land." + +Vol. I. p. 73, "And if he walk through the street, he ducks at the +penthouses, like an ancient that dares not flourish at the oathtaking +of the praetor for fear of the signposts." Mr. Hazlitt's note is, +"_Ancient_ was a standard or flag; also an _ensign_, of which +Skinner says it is a corruption. What the meaning of the simile is +the present editor cannot suggest." We confess we find no difficulty. +The meaning plainly is, that he ducks for fear of hitting the +penthouses, as an ensign on the Lord Mayor's day dares not flourish +his standard for fear of hitting the signposts. We suggest the query, +whether _ancient_, in this sense, be not a corruption of the Italian +word _anziano_. + +Want of space compels us to leave many other passages, which we had +marked for comment, unnoticed. We are surprised that Mr. Hazlitt, +(see his Introduction to "Vittoria Coromboma,") in undertaking to +give us some information concerning the Dukedom and Castle of +Bracciano, should uniformly spell it _Brachiano_. Shakspeare's +_Petruchio_ might have put him on his guard. We should be glad +also to know in what part of Italy he places _Malfi_. + +Mr. Hazlitt's General Introduction supplies us with no new +information, but this was hardly to be expected where Mr. Dyce had +already gone over the field. We wish that he had been able to give +us better means of distinguishing the three almost contemporary John +Websters one from the other, for we think the internal evidence is +enough to show that all the plays attributed to the author of the +"Duchess" and "Vittoria" could not have been written by the same +author. On the whole, he has given us a very respectable, and +certainly a very pretty, edition of an eminent poet. + +In leaving the subject, we cannot but express our satisfaction in +comparing with these examples of English editorship the four volumes +of Ballads recently published by Mr. Child. They are an honor to +American scholarship and fidelity. Taste, learning, and modesty, the +three graces of editorship, seem to have presided over the whole work. +We hope soon, also, to be able to chronicle another creditable +achievement in Mr. White's Shakspeare, which we look for with great +interest. + + + + _History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to + the Present Time_. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., + Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition, + with Additions. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1858. + 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 566, 648. + +We are heartily glad to welcome this reprint of the "History of the +Inductive Sciences," from an improved edition. From an intimate +acquaintance with the first edition, we should cordially recommend +these volumes to those who wish to take a general survey of this +department of human learning. The various subjects are, for the most +part, treated in a manner intelligible and agreeable to the +unlearned reader. As an authority, Whewell is generally trustworthy, +and as a critic usually fair. But in a work going over so much +ground it would be unreasonable to expect perfect accuracy, and +uniformly just estimates of the labors of all scientific men. +Dr. Whewell's scientific philosophy naturally affects his ability as +an historian and critic. In his Bridgewater Treatise, he indulged in +a fling at mathematics, for which we have never wholly forgiven him; +and in the present volume we see repeated evidence of his +underestimate of the value of the sciences of Space and Time. He says, +Vol. I. p. 600, that it was an "erroneous assumption" in Plato to +hold mathematical truths as "Realities more real than the Phenomena." +But to us it seems impossible to understand any work of Nature aright, +except by taking this view of Plato. The study of natural science is +deserving of the contempt which Samuel Johnson bestowed upon it, if +it be not a study of the thoughts of the Divine Mind. And as +phenomena are subject to laws of space and time as their essential +condition, they are primarily a revelation of the mathematical +thoughts of the Creator. Those mathematical ideas are, in Erigena's +phrase, the created creators of all that can appear. + +This false view of the mathematics lies at the foundation of +Whewell's view of a type in organized nature. He conceives a genus +to consist of those species which resemble the typical species of +the genus more than they resemble the typical species of any other +genus. It follows from this view that a species might be created +that would not belong to any genus, but resemble equally the types of +two or three genera. Thus, our little rue-leaved anemone might +belong to the meadow rues or to the wind-flowers, at the pleasure of +the botanist. We believe that classification is vastly more real than +this, real as geometry itself. Another instance of a similar want of +idealism in Dr. Whewell may be found in Vol. II. p. 643:--"Nothing +is added to the evidence of design by the perception of a unity of +plan which in no way tends to promote the design." Now to one who +believes, with us, that a thought is as real as the execution of the +thought, the perception of a unity of plan is the highest evidence +of design. No more convincing evidence of the existence of an +Intelligent Designer is to be found than in the unity of plan,--and +his design, thus proved, is the completion of the plan. For what +purpose he would complete it, is a secondary question. + +In this third edition many valuable additions have been made; and no +tales of Oriental fancy could be more wonderful than some of these +records of the discoveries in exact science made by our +contemporaries. What more magical than the miracles performed every +day in our telegraphic offices?--unless it be the transmission of +human speech in that manner under the waves of the Mediterranean +from Africa to Europe. What more like the dreams of alchemy than +taking metallic casts, in cold metal, with infinitely more delicacy +and accuracy than by melted metals,--taking them, too, from the most +fragile and perishable moulds? What sounds more purely fanciful than +to assert a connection between variations in the direction of the +compass-needle and spots on the surface of the sun! or what is more +improbable than that the period of solar spots should be ten years? +What would seem to be more completely beyond the reach of human +measurement than the relative velocities of light in air and in water, +since the velocity in each is probably not less than a hundred +thousand miles a second? Yet two different experimenters arrived, +according to Whewell, in the same year, 1850, at the same result,-- +that the motion is slower in water; thus supplying the last link of +experimental proof to establish the undulatory theory of light. +While the records of science are strewn on every page with accounts +of such triumphs of human skill and intellect, we see no need of +resorting to fiction or to necromancy for the gratification of a +natural taste for the marvellous. + +It is true, Dr. Whewell does not give these discoveries, in the +spirit of an alchemist, as marvels,--but in the spirit of a +philosopher, as intellectual triumphs. Few men of our times have +shown a more active and powerful mind, a more earnest love of truth +for truth's sake, than the author of this History,--and few men have +had a wider or more thorough knowledge of the achievements of other +scientific men. Yet we are surprised, in reading this improved +edition, written scarce a twelvemonth ago, to find how ignorant +Dr. Whewell appears to have been of the existence or value of the +contributions to knowledge made on this side the Atlantic. The +chapter on Electro-Magnetism does not allude to the discoveries of +Joseph Henry, in regard to induced currents, and the adaptation of +varying batteries to varying circuits,--discoveries second in +importance only to those of Faraday,--and which were among the direct +means of leading Morse to the invention of the telegraph. The +chapters on Geology do not mention Professor Hall, and only allude in +a patronizing way to the labors of American geologists, and to the +ease of "reducing their classification to its synonymes and +equivalents in the Old World," as though the historian were not +aware that Hall's nomenclature is adopted on the continent of Europe +by the most eminent men in that department of science. In Geological +Dynamics Dr. Whewell speaks slightingly of glacial action, and +approves of Forbes's semifluid theory, in utter ignorance, it would +seem, of the labors of the Swiss geologists who now honor America +with their presence. The chapters on Zoology, and on Classifications +of Animals, make no allusion to Agassiz's introduction of Embryology +as an element in classification, which was published several years +before the "close of 1856." The history of Neptune gives no hint of +the fact, that its orbit was first determined through the labors of +American astronomers, with all the accuracy that fifty years of +observation might otherwise have been required to secure. Nor does +Dr. Whewell allude to the fact, that Peirce alone has demonstrated +the accuracy of Le Verrier's and Adams's computations, and shown +that a planet in the place which they erroneously assigned to +Neptune would produce the same perturbations of Uranus as those +which Neptune produced. Much less does he allude to that wonderful +demonstration by Peirce of the younger Bond's hypothesis, that the +rings of Saturn are fluid; or to Peirce's remark, that the belt of +the asteroids lies in the region in which the sun could most nearly +sustain a ring. Yet all these points are more important than many of +those which he introduces, and more to the purpose of his chapters. + +Notwithstanding these deficiencies in Whewell's scholarship and in +his philosophy, his History is a valuable addition to our modern +literature, and gives a better sketch of the whole ground than can be +found in any other single work. It is particularly valuable to those +whose ordinary pursuits lead them into other fields than those of +science, and we have known such to acknowledge their great +obligations to these clearly written and most suggestive volumes. + + + + _The Life of George Stephenson, Railway Engineer_. + By SAMUEL SMILES. From the + Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor + & Fields. + +There is something sublime about railway engineers. But what shall +we say of the pioneer of this almost superhuman profession? The +world would give much to know what Vulcan, Hercules, Theseus, and +other celebrities of that sort, really did in their mortal lives to +win the places they now occupy in our classical dictionaries, and +what sort of people they really were. But whatever they did, +manifestly somebody, within a generation or two, has done something +quite as memorable. Whether the world is quite awake to the fact or +not, it has lately entered on a new order of ages. Formerly it +hovered about shores, and built its Tyres, Venices, Amsterdams, and +London only near navigable waters, because it was easier to traverse +a thousand miles of fluid than a hundred miles of solid surface. Now +the case is nearly reversed. The iron rail is making the continent +all coast, anywhere near neighbor to everywhere, and central cities +as populous as seaports. Not only is all the fertility of the earth +made available, but fertility itself can be made by our new power of +transportation. + +Who more than other man or men has done this? Is there any chance +for a new mythology? Can we make a Saturn of Solomon de Caus, who +caught a prophetic glimpse of the locomotive two hundred years ago, +and went to a mad-house, without going mad, because a cardinal had +the instinct to see that the hierarchy would get into hot water by +allowing the French monarch to encourage steam? Can we make a +Jupiter of Mr. Hudson, one bull having been plainly sacrificed to him? +and shall Robert Schuyler serve us for Pluto? Shall we find Neptune, +with his sleeves rolled up, on the North River, commanding the first +practical steamboat, under the name of Robert Fulton? However this +may be, we think Mr. Smiles has made out a quite available demigod +in his well-sketched Railway Engineer. George Stephenson did not +invent the railway or the locomotive, but he did first put the +breath of its life into the latter. He built the first locomotive +that could work more economically than a horse, and by so doing +became the actual father of the railroad system. In 1814, he found +out and applied the steam-blast, whereby the waste steam from the +cylinders is used to increase the combustion, so that the harder the +machine works, the greater is its power to work. From that moment he +foresaw what has since happened, and fought like a Titan against the +world--the men of land, the men of science, and the men of law--to +bring it about. + +But before we go farther, who was this George Stephenson? A +collier-boy,--his father fireman to an old pumping-engine which +drained a Northumbrian coal-mine,--his highest ambition of boyhood to +be "taken on" to have something to do about the mine. And he was +taken on to pick over the coal, and finally to groom the engine, +which he did with the utmost care and veneration, learning how to +keep it well and doctor it when ill. He took wonderfully to +steam-engines, and finally, for their sake, to his letters, at the +age of seventeen! He became steam-engineer to large mines. Of his +own genius and humanity, he studied the nature of fire-damp +explosions, and, what is not more wonderful than well proven, +invented a miner's safety-lamp, on the same principle as Sir +Humphrey Davy's, and tested it at the risk of his life, a month or +two before Sir Humphrey invented his, or published a syllable about +it to the world! He engineered the Stockton and Darlington Railway. +He was thereupon appointed engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester +Railway. Though the means of transportation between those cities, +some thirty miles, were so inadequate that it took longer to get +cotton conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester than from New York to +Liverpool, yet it was with the utmost difficulty that a grant of the +right to build a railway could be obtained from Parliament. There +was little faith in such roads, and still less in steam-traction. +The land-owners were opposed to its passage through their domains, +and obliged Mr. Stephenson to survey by stealth or at the risk of a +broken head. So great was this opposition, that the projectors were +fain to lay out their road for four miles across a remarkable Slough +of Despond, called Chat Moss, where a scientific civil-engineer +testified before Parliament that he did not think it practicable to +make a railway, or, if practicable, at not less cost than £270,000 +for cutting and embankment. George Stephenson, after being almost +hooted out of the witness-box for testifying that it could be done, +and that locomotives could draw trains over it and elsewhere at the +rate of twelve miles an hour,--for which last extravagance his own +friends rebuked him,--carried the road over Chat Moss for £28,000, +and his friends over that at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Thus +he broke the back of the war, and lived to fill England with +railroads as the fruits of his victory; all which, and a great deal +more of the same sort, the reader will find admirably told by +Mr. Smiles,--albeit we cannot but smile too, that, when addressing the +universal English people, he expects them to understand such +provincialisms as _wage_ for wages, _leading coals_ for carrying coal, +and the like. But, nevertheless, his freedom from literary pretence +is really refreshing, and his thoroughness in matters of fact is +worthy of almost unlimited commendation. On the important question, +Who invented the locomotive steam-blast? had Mr. Smiles made in his +book as good use of his materials as he has since elsewhere, he +would have saved some engineers and one or two mechanical editors +from putting their feet into unpleasant places. Our Railroad Manuals, +that have adopted the error of attributing this great invention to +"Timothy Hackworth, in 1827," should be made to read, "George +Stephenson, in 1814." Their authors, and all others, should read +Samuel Smiles, the uppermost, by a whole sky, of all railway +biographers. + + + + + _A Volume of Vocabularies, illustrating the Condition and Manners + of our Forefathers, as well as the History of the Forms of + Elementary Education and of the Languages spoken in this Island, + from the Tenth Century to the Fifteenth_. Edited, from MSS. in + Public and Private Collections, by THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ., etc. + Privately printed. [London.] 1857. 8vo. pp. 291. + +Mr. Wright, in editing this handsome volume, has done another +service to the lovers and students of English glossology. Their +thanks are also due to Mr. Joseph Mayer, who generously bore the +expense of printing the book. + +A great deal that is interesting to the student of general history +lies imbedded in language, and Mr. Wright, in a very agreeable +Introduction, has summarized the chief matters of value in the +collection before us, which comprises the printed copies of sixteen +ancient MSS. of various dates. As far as we have had time to examine +it, the book seems to have been edited with care and discretion, and +Mr. Wright has added much to its value by timely and judicious notes. + +Most of the vocabularies here printed (many of them for the first +time) were intended for the use of schoolmasters, and throw great +light on the means and methods of teaching during the periods at +which they were compiled. Mr. Wright tells us that there exist very +few MSS. of educational treatises of the fourteenth century, (during +which teaching would accordingly seem to have been neglected,) in +comparison with the thirteenth and fifteenth, when such works were +abundant. To all who would trace the history of education in England +and follow up our common-school system to its source, the editor's +Introduction will afford valuable hints. + +The following extracts from Mr. Wright's Introduction will give some +notion of the archaeological and philological value of the volume. + + "It is this circumstance of grouping the + words under different heads which gives these + vocabularies their value as illustrations of the + conditions and manners of society. It is evident + that the compiler gave, in each case, the + names of all such things as habitually presented + themselves to his view, or, in other + words, that he presents us with an exact list + and description of all the objects which were + in use at the time he wrote, and no more. + We have, therefore, in each a sort of measure + of the fashions and comforts and utilities of + contemporary life, as well as, in some cases, of + its sentiments. Thus, to begin with a man's + habitation, his house,--the words which describe + the parts of the Anglo-Saxon house are + few in number, a _heal_ or hall, a _bur_ or bedroom, + and in some cases a _cicen_ or kitchen, + and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, + laths, and plaster. But when we come to + the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, + we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic + buildings which William of Malmsbury + assures us that the Normans introduced + into this island; the house becomes more + massive, and the rooms more numerous, and + more diversified in their purposes. When we + look at the furniture of the house, the difference + is still more apparent. The description + given by Alexander Neckam of the hall, the + chambers, the kitchen, and the other departments + of the ordinary domestic establishment, + in the twelfth century, and the furniture + of each, almost brings them before our + eyes, and nothing could be more curious than + the account which the same writer gives us + of the process of building and storing a castle." + p. xv. + +"The philologist will appreciate the tracts printed in the following +pages as a continuous series of very valuable monuments of the +languages spoken in our island during the Middle Ages. It is these +vocabularies alone which have preserved from oblivion a very +considerable and interesting portion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and +without their assistance our Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be far +more imperfect than they are. I have endeavored to collect together +in the present volume all the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies that are +known to exist, not only on account of their diversity, but because +I believe that their individual utility will be increased by thus +presenting them in a collective form. They represent the Anglo-Saxon +language as it existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and, as +written no doubt in different places, they may possibly present some +traces of the local dialects of that period. The curious semi-Saxon +vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in +its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. +The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on +John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language +which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the +Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. In +the partial vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we +have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then +emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become +early English. We are again introduced to the English language more +generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose +treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the +fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given here belong, +as far as the language is concerned, to the fifteenth century. As +written in different parts of the country, they bear evident marks +of dialect; one of them--the vocabulary in Latin verse--is a very +curious relic of the dialect of the West of England at a period of +which such remains are extremely rare."--p. xix. + + + + + _Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton_. By the late REV. + FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Second Series. From + the Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +The biography of Robertson, prefixed to this volume, will gratify +the curiosity which every sympathetic reader of the first series of +his sermons must have felt regarding the incidents of his career. It +was evident to a close observer that the peculiar charm and power of +the preacher came from peculiarities of character and individual +experience, as well as from peculiarities of mind. There was +something so close and searching in his pathos, so natural in his +statements of doctrine, so winning in his appeals,--his simplest +words of consolation or rebuke touched with such subtile certainty +the feelings they addressed,--and his faith in heavenly things was +so clear, deep, intense, and calm,--that the reader could hardly +fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in +the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the +spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His +biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried +in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward +struggle with suffering and calamity,--a character sensitive, tender, +magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly +cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a +sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at +work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to +the decay of strength and the need of repose. He had no time to be +happy. + +The most striking mental characteristic of his sermons is the +originality of his perceptions of religious truth. He takes up the +themes and doctrines of the Church, the discussion of which has +filled libraries with books of divinity which stand as an almost +impregnable wall around the simple facts and teachings of the +Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, +and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and +heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a +man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, +and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in +their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the +truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in +which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, he often tells us +more of the essentials of a subject, and exhibits more clearly the +religious significance of a doctrine, than other writers have done in +labored volumes of exposition and controversy. This power of +simplifying spiritual truth without parting with any of its depth +accounts for the interest with which his sermons are read by persons +of all degrees of age and culture. His method of arrangement is also +admirable; his thoughts are not only separately excellent, but are +all in their right places, so that each is an efficient agent in +deepening the general impression left by the whole. The singular +refinement and beauty of his mind lend a peculiar charm to its +boldness; we have the soul of courage without the rough outside +which so often accompanies it; and his diction, being on a level +with his themes, never offends that fine detecting spiritual taste +which instinctively takes offence when spiritual things are viewed +through unspiritual moods and clothed in words which smack of the +senses. Combine all his characteristics, his intrepidity of +disposition and intellect, his deep experience of religious truth, +the sad earnestness of his faith, his penetration of thought, his +direct, executive expression, and the beauty which pervades and +harmonizes all,--and it is hazarding little to say, that his volumes +will take the rank of classics in the department of theology to +which they belong. + + + + _The Church and the Congregation_. A Plea + for their Unity. By C. A. BARTOL. + Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. + +As church-membership is in some respects the aristocracy of +Congregationalism, and as it is considered by many minds to be as +necessary for the safety of theology as the old distinction of +_esoteric_ and _exoteric_ was for the safety of philosophy, the +publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose +clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and +certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open +communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of +Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the +meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the +Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other +ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps +exaggerates its importance, he thinks that its most beneficent +effects will be seen when it is the symbol of unity, and not of +division. The usual distinction between Church and Congregation he +considers invidious and mischievous, as not indicating a +corresponding distinction in religious character, and as separating +the body of Christian worshippers into two parts by a mechanical +rather than spiritual process. Though he meets objections with +abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due +not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative +statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of +that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly +beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the +expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to +the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common +sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. +This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that +the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also +much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the +practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the +objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in +earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free +from the repellent qualities which are apt to embitter theological +controversies, that even when his ideas come into conflict with the +most obstinate prejudices and rooted convictions, there is nothing +in his mode of stating or enforcing them to give offence. The book +will win its way by the natural force of what truth there is in it, +and the most that an opponent can say is, that the author is in error; +it cannot be said that he is arrogant, contemptuous, self-asserting, +or that he needlessly shocks the opinions he aims to change. + +Mr. Bartol's style is bold, fervid, and figurative, exhibiting a +wide command of language and illustration, and at times rising into +passages of singular beauty and eloquence. The fertility of his mind +in analogies enables him to strengthen his leading conception with a +large number of related thoughts, and the whole subject of vital +Christianity is thus continually in view, and connected with the +special theme he discusses. This characteristic will make his volume +interesting and attractive to many readers who are either opposed to +his views of the Lord's Supper, or are unable to agree with him in +regard to the importance of the change he proposes. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. II, NO. 8, JUNE 1858 *** + +This file should be named 802a810.txt or 802a810.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 802a811.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 802a810a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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