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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 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. I., No. 3, January 1858
+       A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #8947]
+Release Date: September, 2005
+First Posted: August 28, 2003
+Last Updated: May 4, 2005
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JANUARY 1858 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Robert Prince and Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS
+
+VOL. I--JANUARY, 1858.--NO. III.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
+
+If building many houses could teach us to build them well, surely we
+ought to excel in this matter. Never was there such a house-building
+people. In other countries the laws interfere,--or customs,
+traditions, and circumstances as strong as laws; either capital is
+wanting, or the possession of land, or there are already houses
+enough. If a man inherit a house, he is not likely to build another,--
+nor if he inherit nothing but a place in an inevitable line of
+lifelong hand-to-mouth toil. In such countries houses are built
+wholesale by capitalists, and only by a small minority for themselves.
+
+And where the man inherits no house, he at least inherits the
+traditional pattern of one, or the nature of the soil decides the
+main points; as you cannot build of brick where there is no clay,
+nor of wood where there are no forests. But here every man builds a
+house for himself, and every one freely according to his whims. Many
+materials are nearly equally cheap, and all styles and ways of
+building equally open to us; at least the general appearance of most
+should be known to us, for we have tried nearly all. Our public
+opinion is singularly impartial and cosmopolitan, or perhaps we
+should rather say knowing and unscrupulous. All that is demanded of
+a house is, that it should be of an "improved style," or at least
+"something different." Nothing will excuse it, if old-fashioned,--
+and hardly anything condemn it, if it have novelty enough.
+
+And this latitude is not confined to the owner's scheme of his house,
+but extends also to the executive department. In other countries,
+however extravagant your fancy, you are brought within some bounds
+when you come to carry it out; for the architect and the builder have
+been trained to certain rules and forms, and these will enter into
+all they do. But here every man is an architect who can handle a
+T-square, and every man a builder who can use a plane or a trowel;
+and the chances are that the owner thinks he can do all as well as
+either of them. For if every man in England thinks he can write a
+leading article, much more every Yankee thinks he can build a house.
+Never was such freedom from the rule of tradition. A fair field and
+no favor; whatever that can accomplish we shall have.
+
+The result, it must be confessed, is not gratifying. For if you
+sometimes find a man who is satisfied with his own house, yet his
+neighbors sneer at it, and he at his neighbors' houses. And even with
+himself it does not usually wear well. The common case is that even
+he accepts it as a confessed failure, or at best a compromise. And
+if he does not confess the failure, (for association, pride,
+use-and-wont reconcile one to much), the house confesses it. For
+what else but self-confessed failures are these thin wooden or cheap
+brick walls, temporarily disguised as massive stone,--this roof,
+leaking from the snow-bank retained by the Gothic parapet, or the
+insufficient slope which the "Italian style" demands?
+
+There is no lack of endeavor to make the house look well. People
+will sacrifice almost anything to that. They will strive their
+chambers into the roof,--they will have windows where they do not
+want them, or leave them out where they do,--in our tropical summers
+they will endure the glare and heat of the sun, rather than that
+blinds should interfere with the moulded window-caps, or with the
+style generally,--they will break up the outline with useless and
+expensive irregularity,--they will have brackets that support nothing,
+and balconies and look-outs upon which no one ever steps after the
+carpenter leaves them,--all for the sake of pleasing the eye. And
+all this without any real and lasting success,--with a success,
+indeed, that seems often in an inverse ratio to the effort. If a man
+have a pig-stye to build, or a log-house in the woods, he may hit
+upon an agreeable outline; but let him set out freely and with all
+deliberation to build something that shall be beautiful, and he fails.
+
+Not that the failure is peculiar at all to us. In Europe there may,
+perhaps, be less bad taste,--though I am not sure of that; but there,
+and everywhere, I think, the memorable houses, among those of recent
+date, are not those carefully elaborated for effect,--the
+premeditated irregularity of the English Gothic, the trig regularity
+of the French Pseudo-Classic, or the studied rusticity of Germany,--
+but such as seem to have grown of themselves out of the place where
+they stand,--Swiss _châlets_, Mexican or Manila plantation-houses,
+Italian farm-houses, built, nobody knows when or by whom, and built
+without any thought of attracting attention. And here I think we get
+a hint as to the reason of their success. For a house is not a
+monument, that it should seek to draw attention to itself,--but the
+dwelling-place of men upon the earth; and it must show itself to be
+wholly secondary to its purpose.
+
+We have had a good deal of exhortation lately, now getting rather
+wearisome, about avoiding pretence in architecture, and that we
+should let things show for what they are. The avoidance of pretence
+should begin farther back. If the house is _all_ pretence, we shall
+not help it by "frankness of treatment" in details.
+
+The house is the sign of man's entering into possession of the earth.
+A houseless savage, living on wild game and accidental fruits, is an
+alien in nature, or a minor not yet come to his estate. As soon as
+he begins to cultivate the soil he builds him a house,--no longer a
+hut or a cave but the work of his own hands, and as permanent as his
+tenure of the cultivated field. If that is to descend to his children,
+the house must be so built as to endure accordingly. It is the
+material expression of the _status_ of the family,--such people in
+such a place. Hence the two-fold requirement of fitness for its use
+and of harmony with its surroundings. A log-house is the appropriate
+dwelling of the lumberer in the woods; but transplant it to a
+suburban lawn and it becomes an absurdity, and a double absurdity.
+It is not in harmony with the place, nor fit for the use of the
+citizen. Nothing more satisfactory in their place than the old
+English parish-churches; but transfer one of them from its natural
+atmosphere and surroundings to the midst of one of our raw villages
+or bustling cities, exposed to the sudden and violent changes of our
+climate,--the open timber roof admitting the heat and the cold, and
+the stone walls bedewed with condensed moisture,--and after the first
+pleasant impression of the moment is over, there is left only a
+painful feeling of mimicry, not to be removed by any precision of
+copying, nor by the feeble attempts at ivy in the corners.
+
+This is all evident enough, and in principle generally admitted; but
+we dodge the application of the principle, because we are not ready
+to admit to ourselves, what history, apart from any reasoning, would
+show us, that those importations are failures, and that not
+accidentally in these particular cases, leaving the hope of better
+success for the next trial, but necessarily, and because they are
+importations.
+
+All good architecture must be the gradual growth of its country and
+its age,--the accumulation of men's experience, adding and leaving
+out from generation to generation. The air of permanence and stability
+that we admire in it must be gained by a slow and solid growth.
+It is the product, not of any one man's skill, but of a nation's;
+and its type, accordingly, must be gradually formed.
+
+But in this, as in everything else, there must be an aim, and one
+persisted in, else no experience is gained. A mere succession of
+generations will do nothing, if for each of them the whole problem
+is changed. The man of to-day cannot profit by his father's
+experience in the building of his house, if his culture, his habits,
+his associates, are different from his father's,--much less if they
+have changed since his own youth, and are changing from year to year.
+He will not imitate, he will not forbear to alter. On such shifting
+sands no enduring structure is possible, but only a tent for the
+night.
+
+We talk of the laws of architecture; but the fundamental law of all,
+and one that is sure to be obeyed, is, that the dwelling shall
+typify man's appropriation of the earth and its products,--what we
+call property. A man's house is naturally just as fixed a quantity
+as the kind and the amount of his possessions, and no more so. The
+style of it, depending on the inherited ideas of the class to
+which he belongs, will be as formed and as fixed as that class.
+Then where there is no fixed class, and where the property of
+every man is constantly varying, our quantity will be just so
+variable, and the true type of our architecture will be the
+tent,--of the frame-and-clapboard variety suited to the climate.
+
+For good architecture, then, we need castes in society, and fixed
+ways of living. We see the effect in the old parsonages in England,
+where from year to year have dwelt men of the same class, education,
+income, tastes, and circumstances generally, and so bringing from
+generation to generation nearly the same requirements, with the
+unessential changes brought in from time to time by new wants or
+individual fancies, here and there putting out a bay-window or
+adding a wing, but always in the spirit of the original building,
+and the whole getting each year more weather-stained and ivy-grown,
+and so toned into more complete harmony with the landscape, yet
+still living and expansive.
+
+It may be said that the result is here a partly accidental one, and
+not a matter of art. But domestic architecture is only half-way a
+fine art. It does not aim at a beauty of the monumental kind, as a
+statue, a triumphal arch, or even a temple does. Its primary aim is
+shelter, to house man in nature,--and it forms, as it were, the
+connecting link between him and the outward world. Its results,
+therefore, are partly the free artistic production, and partly
+retain unmodified their material character. In the image carved by
+the sculptor, the stone or wood used derive little of their effect
+from the original material; the important character is that imparted
+to them by his skill. Still more the canvas and pigments of the
+painter. But in architecture the wood and stone still fulfil the
+offices of covering, connecting, and supporting, as they did in the
+tree and the quarry, and their physical properties play an essential
+part in the work. The house, therefore, is a work of art only half
+emancipated from nature, and must depend on nature for much of its
+beauty also. It must not be isolated, as something merely to be
+looked at, apart from its position and its material use.
+
+The common mistake in our houses is, that they are designed, as
+inexperienced persons choose their paper-hangings, to be something
+of themselves, and not as mere background, as they should be. Thus
+it is that people seek to beautify their houses by ornamenting them,
+as a vulgar person sticks himself over with jewelry. A man's house
+is only a wider kind of dress; and as we do not call a man
+well-dressed when we are forced to see his dress before we see him,
+so a house cannot be satisfactory when it isolates itself from its
+inmates and from the landscape. In such houses, the more _effort_
+the worse they are; they may cheat us for the moment, but the oftener
+we see them the less we like them. Does not the uncomfortable
+sensation with which fine houses so often oppress us arise from the
+vague feeling that the owner has built himself out of his house, and
+his house out of the landscape?
+
+Hence it is mostly the novices that build the fine houses. A man of
+sense, I think, will generally build his second house plainer than
+his first. Not that he desires, perhaps, any the less what he
+desired before, but he is more alive to the difficulties and to the
+cost, and takes refuge in the safety of a lower scale. His
+experience has taught him that where he succeeded best he was really
+farthest from the end he sought. The fine house requires that its
+accessories should be in kind. All things within and without, the
+approach, the grounds, the furniture, must be brought up to the same
+pitch, and kept there. And when all is done, it is not done, but
+forever demands retouching. What is got in this kind cannot be paid
+for with money, nor finished once for all, but is a never-sated
+absorbent of time, thought, life. And it attacks the owner, too; he
+must conform, in his dress, his equipage, and his habits generally;
+he must be as fine as his house. The nicer his taste the more any
+incongruity will offend him, and the greater the danger of his
+becoming more or less an appendage to his house.
+
+Much of that chronic ailment of our society, the "trials of
+housekeeping," is traceable to this source. This is a complicated
+trouble, and probably other causes have their share in it. But we
+cannot fail to recognize in these seemingly accidental obstructions
+a stern, but beneficent adjustment of our circumstances to enforce a
+simplicity which we should else neglect. One cannot greatly
+deprecate the terrors of high rents and long bills, and the
+sufferings from clumsy and careless domestics, if they help to keep
+down senseless profusion and display.
+
+Our problem is, in truth, one of greater difficulty than at first
+appears. For we are each of us striving to do, by the skill and
+forethought of one man, what naturally accomplishes itself in a
+succession of generations and with the aid of circumstances. It is
+from our freedom that the trouble arises. Were our society composed
+of few classes, widely and permanently distinct, a fitting style for
+each would naturally arise and become established and perfected.
+There would be fewer occasions for new houses, and the new house
+would be less novel in style, and so two difficulties would be
+overcome. For novelty of style is a drawback to effect, as tending
+to isolate the house; and a new house is always at a disadvantage.
+Nature, in any case, is slow to adopt our handiwork into the
+landscape; sometimes the assimilation is so difficult that it must
+be ruined for its original purpose before it will be accepted.
+Sooner or later, indeed, it will be accepted. For though most of our
+buildings seem even in decay to resist the harmonizing hand of Nature,
+and to grow only ghastly and not venerable in dilapidation, yet
+leave them long enough and what of beauty was possible to them will
+appear, though it be only a crumbling heap of bricks where the
+chimney stood, or the grassy slope where the cellar-wall has fallen
+in.
+
+It is for this reason that persons of taste have taken pains to face
+their houses with weather-stained and lichen-crusted stone, or
+invent proper names for them, in imitation of the English
+manor-houses. But Nature is jealous of this helping, and neither the
+lichens nor the names will stick, for the reason that they never
+grew there. They cannot be naturalized without naturalizing their
+conditions. The gray ancestral houses of England are the beautiful
+symbols of the permanence of family and of caste. They are the
+embodiments of traditional institutions and culture. When we speak
+of the House of Stanley or of Howard, the expression is not wholly
+figurative. We do not mean simply the men and women of these families,
+but the whole complex of this manifold environment which has
+descended to them and in the midst of which they have grown up,--no
+more to be separated from it than the polyp from the coral stem.
+All this is centralized and has its expression in the House.
+
+Now as these conditions are not our conditions, the attempt to build
+fine houses is an attempt to import an effect where the cause has
+not existed. Our position is that of a perpetually shifting
+population,--the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place,
+circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and,
+whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally
+build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance
+rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the
+feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in
+outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so
+niched into the rock, that a change of fortune, or even a change in
+the direction of a town-road, shall leave us high and dry, like the
+fossils of the Norwegian cliffs, but rather, like the shell-fish of
+our beaches, free to travel up and down with the tide.
+
+The imitating of foreign examples comes from no real, heart-felt
+demand, but only from a fancied or simulated demand,--from tradition,
+association; at second-hand in one shape or another. It is at bottom
+something of the same flunkeyism that in a more exaggerated form
+assumes heraldic bearings and puts its servants into livery.
+
+It may well reconcile us to our deprivation to remember at what cost
+these things we admire are established and kept up. The imagination
+is pleased with this stability; but it is bought too dear, if
+progress is to be sacrificed to it, if the freedom and the true
+lives of the members are to be merged in the family, and if they are
+to be the stones of which the house is built. It is not desirable to
+be _adscriptus glebes_, whether the bonds be physical or only moral
+ones. We may well be content to have our limits free, even though
+our architecture suffer for it. It is better that houses should
+belong to men, and not men to houses.
+
+But whether we are content or not, it is evident that all hope of
+improvement lies in the tendency, somewhat noticeable of late, to
+the abnegation of exotic styles and graces. We have survived the
+Parthenon pattern, and there seems to be a prospect that we shall
+outlive the Gothic cottage. Even the Anglo-Italian bracketed villa
+has seen its palmiest days apparently, and exhausted most of its
+variations. We are in an extremely chaotic state just now; but there
+seems to be an inclination towards more rational ways, at least in
+the plans and general arrangement of houses.
+
+Of course mere negation cannot carry us far. We sometimes hear it
+said that it is as easy for a house to look well as to look ill, and
+those who say this seem to think that the failure is due solely to
+want of due consideration of the problem on the part of our builders,
+and that we have but to leave out their blunders to get at a
+satisfactory result. But if we look at the facts of the case, we
+find the builders have some reason on their side.
+
+Nothing can be more unsightly than the stalky, staring houses of our
+villages, with their plain gable-roofs, of a pitch neither high
+enough nor low enough for beauty, and disfigured, moreover, by mere
+excrescences of attic windows, and over the whole structure the
+awkward angularity, and the look of barren, mindless conformity and
+uniformity in the general outlines, and the meagre, frittered effect
+inherent in the material. But when we come to build, we find that
+the blockheads who invented this style, or no-style, have got at the
+cheapest way of supplying the first imperative demands of the people
+for whom they build,--namely, to be walled in and roofed
+weather-tight, and with a decent neatness, but without much care
+that the house should be solid and enduring,--for it cannot well be
+so flimsy as not to outlast the owner's needs. He does not look to
+it as the habitation of his children,--hardly as his own for his
+lifetime,--but as a present shelter, easily and quickly got ready,
+and as easily plucked up and carried off again. The common-law of
+England looks upon a house as real estate, as part of the soil; but
+with us it is hardly a fixture.
+
+Surely nothing can be more simple and common-sense than an ordinary
+New England house, but at the same time nothing can be uglier. The
+outline, the material, the color and texture of the surface are at
+all points opposed to breadth of effect or harmony with the
+surroundings. There is neither mass nor elegance; there are no lines
+of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of
+shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be
+impressive, and too large to be overlooked,--and finally, the paint,
+of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky
+blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of
+assimilation,--all combine to form something that shall forever
+remain a blot in the landscape.
+
+Evidently it is not merely a more common-sense treatment that we want;
+for here is sufficient simplicity, but a simplicity barren of all
+satisfaction. And singularly enough, it seems, with all its
+meagreness, to pass easily into an ostentatious display. In these
+houses there is no thought of "architecture"; that is considered as
+something quite apart, and not essential to the well-building of the
+house. But for this very reason matters are not much changed when
+the owner determines to spend something for looks. The house remains
+at bottom the same rude mass, with the "architecture" tacked on. It
+is not that the owner has any deeper or different sentiment towards
+his dwelling, but merely that he has a desire to make a flourish
+before the eyes of beholders. There is no heartfelt interest in all
+this on his part; it gives him no pleasure; how, then, should it
+please the spectator?
+
+The case is the same, whether it be the coarse ornamentation of the
+cheap cottage, or the work of the fashionable architect; we feel
+that the decoration is superficial and may be dispensed with, and
+then, however skillful, it becomes superfluous. The more elaborate
+the worse, for attention is the more drawn to the failure.
+
+What is wanted for any real progress is not so much a greater skill
+in our house-builders, as more thoughtful consideration on the part
+of the house-owners of what truly interests them in the house. We do
+not stop to examine what really weighs with us, but on some fancied
+necessity hasten to do superfluous things. What is it that we really
+care for in the building of our houses? Is it not, that, like dress,
+or manners, they should facilitate, and not impede the business
+of life? We do not wish to be compelled to think of them by
+themselves either as good or bad, but to get rid of any obstruction
+from them. They are to be lived in, not looked at; and their beauty
+must grow as naturally from their use as the flower from its stem,
+so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and
+the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be
+the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come.
+But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying
+to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has
+been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances.
+Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt
+to conceal it by our affectation of foreign airs and graces.
+
+
+
+
+MAYA, THE PRINCESS.
+
+The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its
+inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue
+sky was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver
+moon-fringes, or spangled with careless stars; the air was full of
+south-winds that had fluttered the hearts of a thousand roses and a
+million violets with long, deep kisses, and then flung the delicate
+odors abroad to tell their exploits, and set the butterflies mad
+with jealousy, and the bees crazy with avarice. And all this bloom
+was upon the country of Larrièrepensée, when Queen Lura's little
+daughter came to life in the Topaz Palace that stood on Sunrise Hills,
+and was King Joconde's summer pavilion.
+
+Now there was no searching far and wide for godfathers, godmothers,
+and a name, as there is when the princesses of this world are born:
+for, in the first place, Larrièrepensée was a country of pious
+heathen, and full of fairies; the people worshipped an Idea, and
+invited the fairy folk to all their parties, as we who are proper
+here invite the clergy; only the fairy folk did not get behind the
+door, or leave the room, when dancing commenced.
+
+And the reason why this princess was born to a name, as well as to a
+kingdom, was, that, long ago, the people who kept records in
+Larrièrepensée were much troubled by the ladies of that land never
+growing old: they staid at thirty for ten years; at forty, for twenty;
+and all died before fifty, which made much confusion in dates,--
+especially when some women were called upon to tell traditions, the
+only sort of history endured in that kingdom; because it was against
+the law to write either lies or romances, though you might hear and
+tell them, if you would, and some people would; although to call a
+man a historian there was the same thing as to say, "You lie!" here.
+
+But as I was saying, this evergreen way into which the women fell
+caused much trouble, and the Twelve Sages made a law that for six
+hundred years every female child born in any month of the
+seventy-two hundred following should be named by the name ordained
+for that month; and then they made a long list, containing
+seventy-two hundred names of women, and locked it up in the box of
+Great Designs, which stood always under the king's throne; and
+thenceforward, at the beginning of every month, the Twelve Sages
+unlocked the box, consulted the paper, and sent a herald through the
+town to proclaim the girl-name for that month. So this saved a world
+of trouble; for if some wrinkled old maid should say, "And that
+happened long ago, some time before I was born," all her gossips
+laughed, and cried out, "Ho! ho! there's a historian! do we not all
+know you were a born Allia, ten years before that date?"--and then
+the old maid was put to shame.
+
+Now it happened well for Queen Lura's lovely daughter, that on her
+birth-month was written the gracious name of Maya, for it seemed
+well to fit her grace and delicacy, while but few in that country
+knew its sad Oriental depth, or that it had any meaning at all.
+
+It was all one flush of dawn upon Sunrise Hills, when the
+maids-of-honor, in curls and white frocks, began to strew the great
+Hall of Amethyst with geranium leaves, and arrange light tripods of
+gold for the fairies, who were that day gathered from all
+Larrièrepensée to see and gift the new princess. The Queen had
+written notes to them on spicy magnolia-petals, and now the
+head-nurse and the grand-equerry wheeled her couch of state into the
+Hall of Amethyst, that she might receive the tender wishes of the
+good fairies, while yet the sweet languor of her motherhood kept her
+from the fresh wind and bright dew out of doors.
+
+The couch of state was fashioned like a great rose of crimson velvet;
+only where there should have been the gold anthers of the flower lay
+the lovely Queen, wrapped in a mantle of canary-birds' down, and
+nested on one arm slept the Child of the Kingdom, Maya. Presently a
+cloud of honey-bees swept through the wide windows, and settling
+upon the ceiling began a murmurous song, when, one by one, the
+flower-fairies entered, and flitting to their tripods, each garlanded
+with her own blossom, awaited the coming of their Head,--the Fairy
+Cordis.
+
+As the Queen perceived their delay, a sudden pang crossed her pale
+and tranquil brow.
+
+"Ah!" said she, to the nurse-in-chief, Mrs. Lita, "my poor baby, Maya!
+What have I done? I have neglected to ask the Fairy Anima, and now
+she will come in anger, and give my child an evil gift, unless
+Cordis hastens!"
+
+"Do not fear, Madam!" said Mrs. Lita, "your nerves are weak,--take a
+little cordial."
+
+So she gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she
+called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then
+Queen Lura drank it down nicely;--so much depends on names, even in
+Larrièrepensée!
+
+But as Mrs. Lita set away the glass, the bees upon the ceiling began
+to buzz in a most angry manner, and rally about the queen-bee; the
+south-wind cried round the palace corner; and a strange light, like
+the sun shining when it rains, threw a lurid glow over the graceful
+fairy forms. Then the door of the hall flung open, and a beautiful,
+wrathful shape crossed the threshold;--it was the Fairy Anima. Where
+she gathered the gauzes that made her rainbow vest, or the
+water-diamonds that gemmed her night-black hair, or the sun-fringed
+cloud of purple that was her robe, no fay or mortal knew; but they
+knew well the power of her presence, and grew pale at her anger.
+
+With swift feet she neared the couch of state, but her steps
+lingered as she saw within those crimson leaves the delicate,
+fear-pale face of the Queen, and her sleeping child.
+
+"Always rose-folded!" she murmured, "and I tread the winds abroad! A
+fair bud, and I am but a stately stem! You were foolish and frail,
+Queen Lura, that you sent me no word of your harvest-time; now I
+come angry. Show me the child!"
+
+Mrs. Lita, with awed steps, drew near, and lifted the baby in her
+arms, and the child's soft hazel eyes looked with grave innocence at
+Anima. Truly, the Princess was a lovely piece of nature: her hair,
+like fine silk, fell in dark, yet gilded tresses from her snow-white
+brow; her eyes were thoughtless, tender, serene; her lips red as the
+heart of a peach; her skin so fair that it seemed stained with
+violets where the blue veins crept lovingly beneath; and her dimpled
+cheeks were flushed with sleep like the sunset sky.
+
+Anima looked at the baby.--"Ah! too much, too much!" said she.
+"Queen Lura, a butterfly can eat honey only; let us have a higher
+life for the Princess of Larrièrepensée. Maya, I give thee for a
+birth-gift another crown. Receive the Spark!"
+
+Queen Lura shrieked; but Anima stretching out her wand, a snake of
+black diamonds, with a blood-red head, touched the child's eyes, and
+from the serpent's rapid tongue a spark of fire darted into either
+eye, and sunk deeper and deeper,--for two tears flowed above, and
+hung on Maya's silky lashes, as she looked with a preternatural
+expression of reproach at the Fairy.
+
+Now all was confusion. Queen Lura tried to faint,--she knew it was
+proper,--and the grand-equerry rang all the palace bells in a row.
+Anima gave no glance at the little Princess, who still sat upright
+in Mrs. Lita's petrified arms, but went proudly from the hall alone.
+
+The flower-fairies dropped their wands with one sonorous clang upon
+the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one
+after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted
+gifts and powers.
+
+"Why should I give her beauty?" cried the Fairy Rose; "all eyes will
+be dazzled with the Spark; who will know on what form it shines?"
+
+So the red rose dropped and died.
+
+"Why should I bring her innocence?" said the Fairy Lily; "the Spark
+will burn all evil from her, thought and deed!"
+
+Then the white lily dropped and died.
+
+"Is there any use to her in grace?" wept the Fairy Eglantine;
+"the Spark will melt away all mortal grossness, till she is light
+and graceful as the clouds above."
+
+And the eglantine wreaths dropped and died.
+
+"She will never want humility," said the Fairy Violet; "for she will
+find too soon that the Spark is a curse as well as a crown!"
+
+So the violet dropped and died.
+
+Then the Sun-dew denied her pity; the blue Forget-me not, constancy;
+the Iris, pride; the Butter-cup, gold; the Passion-flower, love; the
+Amaranth, hope: all because the Spark should gift her with every one
+of these, and burn the gift in deeply. So they all dropped and died;
+and she could never know the flowers of life,--only its fires.
+
+But in the end of all this flight came a ray of consolation, like
+the star that heralds dawn, springing upward on the skirt of night's
+blackest hour. The raging bees that had swarmed upon the golden
+chandelier returned to the ceiling and their song; the scattered
+flowers revived and scented the air: for the Fairy Cordis came,--too
+late, but welcome; her face bright with flushes of vivid, but
+uncertain rose,--her deep gray eyes brimming with motherhood, a
+sister's fondness, and the ardor of a child. The tenderest
+garden-spider-webs made her a robe, full of little common blue-eyed
+flowers, and in her gold-brown hair rested a light circle of such
+blooms as beguile the winter days of the poor and the desolate, and
+put forth their sweetest buds by the garret window, or the bedside
+of a sick man.
+
+Mrs. Lita nearly dropped the baby, in her great relief of mind; but
+Cordis caught it, and looked at its brilliant face with tears.
+
+"Ah, Head of the Fairies, help me!" murmured Queen Lura, extending
+her arms toward Cordis; for she had kept one eye open wide enough to
+see what would happen while she fainted away.
+
+"All I can, I will," said the kindly fairy, speaking in the same key
+that a lark sings in. So she sat down upon a white velvet mushroom
+and fell to thinking, while Maya, the Princess, looked at her from
+the rose where she lay, and the Queen, having pushed her down robe
+safely out of the way, leaned her head on her hand, and very
+properly cried as much as six tears.
+
+Soon, like a sunbeam, Cordis looked up. "I can give the Princess a
+counter-charm, Queen Lura," said she,--"but it is not sure. Look you!
+she will have a lonely life,--for the Spark burns, as well as shines,
+and the only way to mend that matter is to give the fire better fuel
+than herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in
+peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no
+more be hidden,--since to be a woman is to have power and pain,--
+then let her veil herself, and with a staff and scrip go abroad into
+the world, for her time is come. Now in this kingdom of
+Larrièrepensée there stand many houses, all empty, but swept and
+garnished, and a fire laid ready on the hearth for the hand of the
+Coming to kindle. But sometimes, nay, often, this fire is a cheat:
+for there be men who carve the semblance of it in stone, and are so
+content to have the chill for the blaze all their lives; and on some
+hearths the logs are green wood, set up before their time; and on
+some they are but ashes, for the fire has burned and died, and left
+the ghostly shape of boughs behind; and sometimes, again, they are
+but icicles clothed in bark, to save the shame of the possessor. But
+there are some hearths laid with dry and goodly timber; and if the
+Princess Maya does not fail, but chooses a real and honest heap of
+wood, and kindles it from the Spark within her, then will she have a
+most perfect life; for the fire that consumes her shall leave its
+evil work, and make the light and warmth of a household, and rescue
+her forever from the accursed crown of the Spark. But I grieve to
+tell you, yet one of my name cannot lie--if the Princess mistake the
+false for the true, if she flashes her fire upon stone, or ice, or
+embers, either the Spark will recoil and burn her to ashes, or it
+will die where she placed it and turn her to stone, or--worst fate
+of all, yet likeliest to befall the tenderest and best--it will
+reenter her at her lips, and turn her whole nature to the bitterness
+of gall, so that neither food shall refresh her, sleep rest her,
+water quench her thirst, nor fire warm her body. Is it worth the
+trial? or shall she live and burn slowly to her death, with the
+unquenchable fire of the Spark?"
+
+"Ah! let her, at the least, try for that perfect life," said Queen
+Lura.
+
+Then the Fairy Cordis drew from her delicate finger a ring of
+twisted gold, in which was set an opal wrought into the shape of a
+heart, and in it palpitated, like throbbing blood, one scarlet flash
+of flame.
+
+"Let her keep this always on her hand," said Cordis. "It will serve
+to test the truth of the fire she strives to kindle; for if it be
+not true wood, this heart will grow cold, the throb cease, the glow
+become dim. The talisman may, will, save her, unless in the madness
+of joy she forget to ask its aid, or the Spark flashing upon its
+surface seems to create anew the fire within, and thus deceives her."
+
+So the Fairy put the ring upon Queen Lura's hand, and kissed Maya's
+fair brow, already shaded with sleep. The bees upon the ceiling
+followed her, dropping honey as they went; the maids-of-honor
+wheeled away the couch of state; the castle-maids swept up the fading
+leaves and blossoms, drew the tulip-tree curtains down, fastened the
+great door with a sandal-wood bar, sprinkled the corridors with
+rosewater; and by moonrise, when the nightingales sung loud from the
+laurel thickets, all the country slept,--even Maya; but the Spark
+burned bright, and she dreamed.
+
+So the night came on, and many another night, and many a new day,--
+till Maya, grown a girl, looked onward to the life before her with
+strange foreboding, for still the Spark burned.
+
+Hitherto it had been but a glad light on all things, except men and
+women; for into their souls the Spark looked too far, and Maya's
+open brow was shadowed deeply and often with sorrows not her own,
+and her heart ached many a day for pains she could not or dared not
+relieve; but if she were left alone, the illumination of the Spark
+filled everything about her with glory. The sky's rapturous blue,
+the vivid tints of grass and leaves, the dismaying splendor of
+blood-red roses, the milky strawberry-flower, the brilliant
+whiteness of the lily, the turquoise eyes of water-plants,--all
+these gave her a pleasure intense as pain; and the songs of the winds,
+the love-whispers of June midnights, the gathering roar of autumn
+tempests, the rattle of thunder, the breathless and lurid pause
+before a tropic storm,--all these the Spark enhanced and vivified;
+till, seeing how blest in herself and the company of Nature the
+Child of the Kingdom grew, Queen Lura deliberated silently and long
+whether she should return the gift of the Fairy Cordis, and let Maya
+live so tranquil and ignorant forever, or whether she should awaken
+her from her dreams, and set her on her way through the world.
+
+But now the Princess Maya began to grow pale and listless. Her eyes
+shone brighter than ever, but she was consumed with a feverish
+longing to see new and strange things. On her knees, and weeping,
+she implored her mother to release her from the court routine, and
+let her wander in the woods and watch the village children play.
+
+So Queen Lura, having now another little daughter, named Maddala,
+who was just like all other children, and a great comfort to her
+mother, was the more inclined to grant Maya's prayer. She therefore
+told Maya all that was before her, and having put upon her tiny
+finger the fairy-ring, bade the tiring-woman take off her velvet robe,
+and the gold circlet in her hair, and clothe her in a russet suit of
+serge, with a gray kirtle and hood. King Joconde was gone to the wars.
+Queen Lura cried a little, the Princess Maddala laughed, and Maya
+went out alone,--not lonely, for the Spark burned high and clear,
+and showed all the legends written on the world everywhere, and Maya
+read them as she went.
+
+Out on the wide plain she passed many little houses; but through all
+their low casements the red gleam of a fire shone, and on the
+door-steps clustered happy children, or a peasant bride with warm
+blushes on her cheek sat spinning, or a young mother with pensive
+eyes lulled her baby to its twilight sleep and sheltered it with
+still prayers.
+
+One of these kindly cottages harbored Maya for the night; and then
+her way at dawn lay through a vast forest, where the dim tree-trunks
+stretched far away till they grew undefined as a gray cloud, and
+only here and there the sunshine strewed its elf-gold on ferns and
+mosses, feathery and soft as strange plumage and costly velvet.
+Sometimes a little brook with bubbling laughter crept across her
+path and slid over the black rocks, gurgling and dimpling in the
+shadow or sparkling in the sun, while fish, red and gold-speckled,
+swam noiseless as dreams, and darting water-spiders, poised a moment
+on the surface, cast a glittering diamond reflection on the yellow
+sand beneath.
+
+The way grew long, and Maya weary. The new leaves of opalescent tint
+shed odors of faint and passionate sweetness; the birds sang
+love-songs that smote the sense like a caress; a warm wind yearned
+and complained in the pine boughs far above her; yet her heart grew
+heavy, and her eyes dim; she was sick for home;--not for the palace
+and the court; not for her mother and Maddala; but for home;--she
+knew her exile, and wept to return.
+
+That night, and for many nights, she slept in the forest; and when
+at length she came out upon the plain beyond, she was pale and wan,
+her dark eyes drooped, her slender figure was bowed and languid, and
+only the mark upon her brow, where the coronet had fretted its
+whiteness, betrayed that Maya was a princess born.
+
+And now dwellings began to dot the country: brown cottages, with
+clinging vines; villas, aërial and cloud-tinted, with pointed roofs
+and capricious windows; huts, in which some poor wretch from his bed
+of straw looked out upon the wasteful luxury of his neighbor, and,
+loathing his bitter crust and turbid water, saw feasts spread in the
+open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish
+thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and
+turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm,
+while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal
+music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes of a
+warrior's return.
+
+All these Maya passed by, for no door was open, and no fireless
+hearth revealed; but before night dropped her starry veil, she had
+travelled to a mansion whose door was set wide, and, within, a cold
+hearth was piled with boughs of oak and beech. The opal upon Maya's
+finger grew dim, but she moved toward the unlit wood, and at her
+approach the false pretence betrayed itself; the ice glared before
+her, and chilled her to the soul, as its shroud of bark fell off.
+She fled over the threshold, and the house-spirit laughed with
+bitter mirth; but the Spark was safe.
+
+Now came thronging streets, and many an open portal wooed Maya, but
+wooed in vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque
+cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure,
+and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look
+tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and
+likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with
+the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever
+changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness,
+and beauty-love, she would have drawn near the hearth, a sigh like
+the passing of a soul shivered by her, and before its breath the
+shapely embers fell to dust, the hearth beneath was heaped with ashes,
+and with tearful lids Maya turned away, and the house-spirit, weeping,
+closed the door behind her.
+
+Long days and nights passed ere she essayed again; and then, weary
+and faint with home-woe, she lingered on the steps of a lofty house
+whose carved door was swung open, whose jasper hearthstone was
+heaped with goodly logs, and beside it, on the soft flower-strewn
+skin of a panther, slept a youth beautiful as Adonis, and in his
+sleep ever murmuring, "Mother!" Maya's heart yearned with a kindred
+pang. She, too, was orphaned in her soul, and she would gladly have
+lit the fire upon this lonely hearth, and companioned the solitude
+of the sleeper; but, alas! the boughs still wore their summer garland,
+and from each severed end slow tears of dryad-life distilled
+honeyedly upon the stone beneath. Of such withes and saplings comes
+no living fire! Maya, smiling, set a kiss upon the boy-sleeper's brow,
+but the Spark lay quiet, and the house-spirit flung a blooming
+cherry-bough after its departing guest.
+
+The year was now wellnigh run. The Princess Maya despaired of home.
+The earth seemed a harsh stepmother, and its children rather stones
+than clay. A vague sense of some fearful barrier between herself and
+her kind haunted the woman's soul within her, and the unquenchable
+flames of the Spark seemed to girdle her with a defence that drove
+away even friendly ingress. Night and day she wept, oppressed with
+loneliness. She knew not how to speak the tongues of men, though
+well she understood their significance. Only little children mated
+rightly with her divine infancy; only the mute glories of nature
+satisfied for a moment her brooding soul. The celestial impulses
+within her beat their wings in futile longing for freedom, and with
+inexpressible anguish she uttered her griefs aloud, or sung them to
+such plaintive strains that all who heard wept in sympathy. Yet she
+had no home.
+
+After many days she came upon a broad, champaign, fertile land, where,
+on a gentle knoll, among budding orchards, and fields green with
+winter grains, stood a low, wide-eaved house, with gay parterres and
+clipped hedges around it, all ordered with artistic harmony, while
+over chimney and cornice crept wreaths of glossy ivy, every deep
+green leaf veined with streaks of light, and its graceful sprays
+clasping and clinging wherever they touched the chiselled stone
+beneath. Upon the lawn opened a broad, low door, and the southern sun
+streamed inward, showing the carved panels of the fireplace and its
+red hearth, where heavy boughs of wood and splinters from the heart
+of the pine lay ready for the hand of the Coming to kindle. Upon the
+threshold, plucking out the dead leaves of the ivy, stood one from
+whose face strength, and beauty, and guile that the guileless knew
+not, shone sunlike upon Maya; and as she faltered and paused, he
+spoke a welcome to her in her own language, and held toward her the
+clasping hand of help. A thrill of mad joy cleft the heart of the
+Princess, a glow of incarnate summer dyed with rose her cheek and lip,
+the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished.
+"Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of
+the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and
+staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and,
+heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes
+the Spark,--the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning
+speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre;
+so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and--is gone!
+The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay
+unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long
+respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like
+a hot iron, and entered into her heart,--the blighting canker of her
+fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.
+
+Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought
+stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as
+she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath
+her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the
+threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones
+together strike fire, Maya!"--while from the casement above looked
+forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and
+disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that
+ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.
+
+With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her
+laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the
+stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a
+scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its
+wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,--
+but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood
+had dropped away, and the jewel was broken across.
+
+So the wide world heard of Maya, the Child of the Kingdom, and from
+land to land men carried the stinging arrows of her wit, or
+signalled the beacon-fires of her scorn, while seas and shores
+unknown echoed her mad and rapt music, or answered the veiled agony
+that derided itself with choruses of laughter, from every mystic
+whisper of the wave, or roar of falling headlands.
+
+And then she fled away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the
+Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with
+wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,--or if it dared,
+standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was
+neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the
+thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine or crystal water,
+translucent grapes or the crimson fruits that summer kisses into
+sweetness with her heats; forever longing, and forever unsated, it
+parched her lips and burnt her gasping mouth, but there was no
+draught to allay it. And even so food failed of its office. Kindly
+hands brought to her, whose queenliness asserted itself to their
+souls with an innocent loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all
+delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and
+stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest
+bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat.
+The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet,
+sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those
+lips of fire burned all things in their touch to tasteless ashes.
+
+So she fled away; for the forest was cool and lonely, and even as
+she learned the lies and treacheries of men, so she longed to leave
+them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude.
+But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of
+despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled
+hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no
+rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and
+dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the
+ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation she flung
+herself by the clear fountain that had already fallen upon her lips
+and cooled them with bitter water, and hiding her head under the
+broad, fresh leaves of a calla that bent its marble cups above her
+knitted brow and loosened hair, she lay in deathlike trance, till the
+Fairy Anima swept her feet with fringed garments, and cast the
+serpent wand writhing and glittering upon her breast.
+
+"Wake, Maya!" said the organ-tones of the Spark-Bringer; and Maya
+awoke.
+
+"So! the Spark galls thee?" resumed those deep, bitter-sweet tones;
+and for answer the Princess Maya held toward her, with accusing eyes,
+the broken, bloodless opal.
+
+"Cordis's folly!" retorted Anima. "Thou hadst done best without it,
+Maya; the Spark abides no other fate but shining. Yet there is a
+little hope for thee. Wilt thou die of the bitter fire, or wilt thou
+turn beggar-maid? The sleep that charity lends to its couch shall
+rest thee; the draught a child brings shall slake thy thirst; the
+food pity offers shall strengthen and renew. But these are not the
+gifts a Princess receives; she who gathers them must veil the Crown,
+shroud the Spark, conceal the Curse, and in torn robes, with bare
+and bleeding feet, beg the crumbs of life from door to door. Wilt
+thou take up this trade?"
+
+Maya rose up from the leaves of the cool lily, and put aside the
+veiling masses of her hair.
+
+"I will go!" she whispered, flutelike, for hope beat a living pulse
+in her brain.
+
+So with scrip and hood she went out of the forest and begged of the
+world's bounty such life as a beggar-maid may endure.
+
+Long ago the King and Queen died in Larrièrepensée, and there the
+Princess Maddala reigns with a goodly Prince beside her, nor cares
+for her lost sister; but songless, discrowned, desolate, Maya walks
+the earth.
+
+All ye whose fires burn bright on the hearth, whose dwellings ring
+with child-laughter, or are hushed with love-whispers and the peace
+of home, pity the Princess Maya! Give her food and shelter; charm
+away the bitter flames that consume her life and soul; drop tears
+and alms together into the little wasted hand that pleads with dumb
+eloquence for its possessor; and even while ye pity and protect,
+revere that fretted mark of the Crown that still consecrates to the
+awful solitude of sorrow Maya, the Child of the Kingdom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CATAWBA WINE.
+
+      This song of mine
+        Is a Song of the Vine,
+  To be sung by the glowing embers
+        Of wayside inns,
+        When the rain begins
+  To darken the drear Novembers.
+
+      It is not a song
+        Of the Scuppernong,
+  From warm Carolinian valleys,--
+        Nor the Isabel
+        And the Muscatel
+  That bask in our garden alleys,--
+
+      Nor the red Mustang,
+      Whose clusters hang
+  O'er the waves of the Colorado,
+      And the fiery flood
+      Of whose purple blood
+  Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
+
+      For richest and best
+      Is the wine of the West,
+  That grows by the Beautiful River;
+      Whose sweet perfume
+      Fills all the room
+  With a benison on the giver.
+
+      And as hollow trees
+      Are the haunts of bees
+  Forever going and coming,
+      So this crystal hive
+      Is all alive
+  With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
+
+      Very good in their way
+      Are the Verzenay,
+  And the Sillery soft and creamy;
+      But Catawba wine
+      Has a taste more divine,
+  More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
+
+      There grows no vine
+      By the haunted Rhine,
+  By Danube or Guadalquivir,
+      Nor on island or cape,
+      That bears such a grape
+  As grows by the Beautiful River.
+
+      Drugged is their juice
+      For foreign use,
+  When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
+      To rack our brains
+      With the fever pains
+  That have driven the Old World frantic.
+
+      To the sewers and sinks
+      With all such drinks,
+  And after them tumble the mixer!
+      For a poison malign
+      Is such Borgia wine,
+  Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
+
+      While pure as a spring
+      Is the wine I sing,
+  And to praise it, one needs but name it;
+      For Catawba wine
+      Has need of no sign,
+  No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
+
+      And this Song of the Vine,
+      This greeting of mine,
+  The winds and the birds shall deliver
+      To the Queen of the West,
+      In her garlands dressed,
+  On the banks of the Beautiful River.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDS AND THE WEATHER.
+
+
+  _The Physical Geography of the Sea_. By M. F. MAURY. New York:
+    Harper & Brothers. 1857.
+
+  _Climatology of the United States and of the Temperate Latitudes
+    of the North American Continent_. By LORIN BLODGET. Philadelphia: J.
+    B. Lippincott & Co. 1857.
+
+  _Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of
+    Science_. 1857.
+
+An eloquent philosopher, depicting the deplorable results that would
+follow, if some future materialist were "to succeed in displaying to
+us a mechanical system of the human mind, as comprehensive,
+intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian mechanism of the
+heavens," exclaims, "Fallen from their elevation, Art and Science
+and Virtue would no longer be to man the objects of a genuine and
+reflective adoration." We are led, in reflecting upon the far more
+probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon
+the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced
+when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes
+of the atmosphere to rules and predictions,--when the rain shall
+fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth,"
+and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature. But we
+console ourselves by contemplating the difficulties of the problem,
+and the improbability, that, in our generation at least, we shall be
+deprived of these subjects of general news and universal interest.
+
+During the last half-century, the progress of experimental
+philosophy in the direction of the weather, though its results are
+for the most part of a negative character, has yet been sufficient
+to excite the apprehensions of the philanthropist. We have unlearned
+many fables and false theories, and have made great advancement in
+that knowledge of our ignorance, which is the only true foundation
+of positive science.
+
+The moon has been deposed from the executive chair, though she still
+has her supporters and advocates; and an innumerable host of minor
+causes are found to constitute, upon strictly republican principles,
+the ruling power of the winds and the rain. That regularity, however
+complicated, which reason still demands, and expects even from the
+weather, is not found to be so simple as our rules and signs of the
+weather indicate; for the operation of these innumerable causes is
+so complicated, that the repetition of similar phenomena or similar
+combinations of causes, to any great extent, is the most improbable
+of events. Perhaps the meteorologist will ultimately find that
+Nature has succeeded, in what seems, indeed, to be her aim, in
+completely retracing her steps, and reducing the operation of that
+simple and regular system of causes, which she brought out of chaos,
+back to a confusion of detail, from which all law and regularity are
+obliterated.
+
+Meteorological observations have, however, determined many regular
+and constant causes and a few regular phenomena. The method pursued
+in these investigations is, for the most part, the elimination, by
+general averages, of limited and temporary changes in the elements
+of the weather, and the determination of those changes which depend
+upon the constant influences of locality, of season, and of constant
+or slowly varying causes. These constant influences constitute the
+climate; and the study of climates is thus the first step towards
+the solution of the problem of the weather. Climates, in their
+changes and distribution, are very important elements in the
+determination of the movements of the weather, and are to the
+meteorologist what the elements of the planetary orbits are to the
+astronomer; but, unlike planetary perturbations, the weather makes
+the most reckless excursions from its averages, and obscures them by
+a most inconsequent and incalculable fickleness.
+
+Whether mechanical science will hereafter succeed in calculating
+these perturbations of climate, as we may style the weather, or will
+find the problem beyond its capacity, it will yet, doubtless, account
+for much that is now obscure, as observation brings the facts more
+distinctly to view. We propose to give a brief general survey of the
+mechanics of the atmosphere in its present state, and to indicate
+the nature and limits of our knowledge on this subject.
+
+Among the first noticed and most remarkable features of regularity
+in atmospheric changes are constant, periodic, and prevailing winds.
+The most remarkable instances of these are the trade-winds of the
+torrid zone, the monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and the prevailing
+southwest wind of our northern temperate latitudes. Of these, the
+trade-winds are the most important to science, as furnishing the key
+to that general explanation of the winds which was first advanced by
+the distinguished Halley.
+
+In Halley's celebrated theory, the trade-winds are explained as the
+effects of the unequal distribution of the sun's heat in different
+latitudes. The air of the equator, heated more than the northern or
+southern air, expands more, and overflows, moving in the upper
+regions of the atmosphere toward the poles; while the lower, colder
+air on both sides moves toward the equator to preserve equilibrium.
+Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface
+of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns
+as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises and moves
+toward the poles.
+
+Now the air of the equator, moving with the earth's rotary motion,
+has a greater velocity than the earth itself at high northern or
+southern latitudes, and consequently appears to gain an eastward
+motion in its progress toward the poles. Without friction, this
+relative eastward motion would increase as the air moves toward the
+poles, and diminish at the same rate as the air returns, till at the
+equator the velocity of the earth and of the air would again be equal;
+but friction reduces the motion of the returning air to that of the
+earth, at or near the calms of the tropics; so that the air, passing
+the tropics, gains a relative westward motion in its further
+progress through the torrid zone. The southwestward motion thus
+produced between the tropic of Cancer and the equator is the
+well-known trade-wind.
+
+Now, according to this theory, the prevailing winds of our temperate
+latitudes ought to have a southeastward motion as far as the calms
+of Cancer or "the horse latitudes." Moreover, instead of these calms,
+there should still be a southward motion. But observation has shown,
+that though the prevailing lower winds of our latitude move eastward,
+still their motion is toward the north rather than the south; so
+that they appear to contradict the theory by which the trade-winds
+are explained.
+
+To account for these anomalies, Lieut. Maury has invented a very
+ingenious hypothesis, which is published in his "Physical Geography
+of the Sea." He supposes that the air, which passes from the equator
+toward the poles in the upper regions of the atmosphere, is brought
+down to the surface of the earth beyond the calms of the tropics,
+and that it thence proceeds with an increasing eastward motion,
+appearing in our northern hemisphere as the prevailing northeastward
+winds. Approaching the poles with a spiral motion, the air there
+rises, according to this hypothesis, in a vortex, and returns toward
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually acquiring a westward
+motion; till, returning to the tropics, it is again brought down to
+the earth, and thence proceeds, with a still increasing westward
+motion, as the trade-winds. At the equator the air rises again, and,
+according to Lieut. Maury, crosses to the other side, and proceeds
+through a similar course in the other hemisphere.
+
+The rising of the air at the equator is supposed to cause the
+equatorial rains; and the drought of the tropics is also explained
+by that descent of the air, in these latitudes, which this
+hypothesis supposes.
+
+Now although this hypothesis explains the phenomena, it has still
+met with great opposition. The motions which Lieut. Maury supposes
+can hardly be accounted for without resorting, as is usual in such
+cases, to electricity or magnetism,--to some occult cause, or some
+occult operation of a known cause. Moreover, it has been difficult
+for the mechanical philosopher to understand how the winds manage to
+cross each other, as Lieut. Maury supposes them to do, at the
+equator and the tropics, without getting into "entangling alliances."
+If this hypothesis were advanced, not as a physical explanation of
+the phenomena, but, like the epicycles and eccentrics of Ptolemy,
+"to save the appearances," its ingenuity would be greatly to its
+author's credit; but, like the epicycles and eccentrics, though it
+represents the phenomena well enough, it contradicts laws of motion,
+now well known, which ought to be familiar to every physical
+philosopher. But these speculations of Lieut. Maury will now be
+superseded by a new theory of atmospheric movements, an account of
+which was presented by its author, Mr. J. Thompson, at the recent
+meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A fuller discussion of this theory the author
+reserved for the Royal Society. The _London Athenaeum_ gives a brief
+abstract of his paper, in its report of the proceedings of the
+Association.]
+
+Mr. Thompson's theory takes account of forces, hitherto unnoticed,
+which are generated by the eastward circulation of the atmosphere in
+high latitudes. He shows that these forces cause the prevailing
+northeastward under-current of our latitudes, while above this, yet
+below the highest northeastward current, the air ought still to move
+southward according to Halley's theory.
+
+This under-current is not the immediate effect of differences of
+temperature, but a secondary effect induced by the friction of the
+earth's surface and the continual deflection of the air's eastward
+motion from a great circle, (in which the air tends to move,) into
+the small circle of the latitude, in which the air actually does move.
+The force of this deflection, measured by the centrifugal force of
+the air as it circulates around the pole, retards the movement from
+the equator, and finally wholly suspends it; so that the upper air
+circulates around in the higher latitudes as water may be made to
+circulate in a pail; and the air is drawn away from the polar
+regions as this circulatory motion is communicated to it, and tends
+to accumulate in the middle latitudes, as the circulating water is
+heaped up around the sides of the pail. Hence, in the middle
+latitudes there is a greater weight of air than at the poles, and
+this tends to press the lower air to higher latitudes. Centrifugal
+force, however, balances this pressure, so long as the lower air
+moves with the velocity of the upper strata; but as the friction of
+the earth retards its motion and diminishes its centrifugal force,
+it gradually yields to the pressure of the air above it, and moves
+toward the poles. Near the polar circles it is again retarded by its
+increasing centrifugal force, and it returns through the middle
+regions of the atmosphere.
+
+Thus there are two systems of atmospheric circulation in each
+hemisphere. The principal one extends from the equator to high
+middle latitudes and partly overlies the other, which extends from
+the tropical calms to the polar circles. These two circulations move
+in opposite directions; like two wheels, when one communicates its
+motion to the other by the contact of their circumferences.
+
+In the middle latitudes the lower current of the principal
+circulation lies upon the upper current of the secondary circulation,
+and both move together toward the equator. This principal lower
+current first touches the earth's surface beyond the tropical calms,
+and having lost its relative eastward motion and now tending westward,
+it appears as the trade-wind, very regular and constant; while the
+upper secondary current returns, without reaching the tropics, as an
+undercurrent, and in our latitude appears as the prevailing
+northeastward wind,--a very feeble motion, usually lost in the
+weather winds and other disturbances, and only appearing distinctly
+in the general average.
+
+Mr. Thompson illustrates the effect of the friction of the earth's
+surface on the eastward circulation of the air by a very simple
+experiment with a pail of water. If we put into the pail grains of
+any material a little heavier than water, and then give the water a
+rotatory motion by stirring it, the grains ought, by the centrifugal
+force imparted to them, to collect around the sides of the pail; but,
+sinking to the bottom, they do in fact tend to collect at the centre,
+carried inward by those currents which the friction of the sides and
+bottom indirectly produces.
+
+Thus Mr. Thompson's beautiful and philosophical theory completes
+that of Halley, and explains all those apparent anomalies which have
+hitherto seemed irreconcilable with the only rational account of the
+trade-winds. The rainless calms of the tropics are explained by this
+theory without that crossing and interference of winds which Lieut.
+Maury supposes; for the secondary circulation returns as an
+under-current toward the poles without reaching the tropics, and the
+dry lower current of the principal circulation passes over the
+tropical latitudes, in its gradual descent, before it reaches the
+earth as the trade-winds.
+
+These trade-winds, absorbing moisture from the sea, precipitate it
+as they rise again, and produce the constant equatorial rains; and
+these rains, doubtless, tend much more powerfully than the mere
+unequal distribution of heat to direct the wind toward the equator;
+for the fall of rain rapidly diminishes the pressure of the air and
+disturbs its equilibrium, so that violent winds are frequently
+observed to blow toward rainy districts. Thus, primarily, the unequal
+distribution of heat, and, more immediately, the equatorial rains
+cause the principal circulation of our atmosphere; and this
+indirectly produces the secondary circulation of Mr. Thompson's
+theory. Both these regular movements are, however, greatly disturbed,
+and especially the latter, by winds which are occasioned by local
+and irregular rains.
+
+In these movements and their causes we have the general outline of
+our subject, within which we must now sketch the weather. The causes
+of atmospheric movement, which we have thus far considered, are the
+unequal distribution of the sun's heat, the absorption and
+precipitation of moisture, the direct and the inductive action of
+the earth's rotation and friction. If to these we should add the
+tidal action of the sun's and moon's attractions, we should perhaps
+complete the list of _vera causae_ which are certainly known to
+exert a more or less general influence upon the atmosphere. But this
+short list is long enough, as we shall soon see.
+
+If the earth were wholly covered with water of a uniform depth, its
+climates would be distributed with greater regularity, and the
+perturbations of climate would be comparatively small and regular;
+though even under such circumstances there would still exist a
+tendency to discontinuity and complexity of movements from that
+influence of rain, the peculiar character of which we shall soon
+consider.
+
+The irregular distribution of land and water, and the peculiar
+action of each in imparting the heat of the sun to the incumbent air,--
+the irregular distribution of plains and mountains, and their various
+effects in different positions and at different altitudes,--the
+distribution of heat effected by ocean currents,--all these tend to
+produce permanent derangements of climate and great irregularities
+in the weather. To these we must add what the astronomer calls
+disturbing actions of the second order,--effects of the disturbances
+themselves upon the action of the disturbing agencies,--effects of
+the irregular winds upon the distribution of heat and rain, and upon
+the action of lands and seas, mountains and plains. Though such
+disturbances are comparatively insignificant in the motions of the
+planets, yet in the weather they are often more important than the
+primary causes.
+
+The aggregate and permanent effect of all these disturbing causes,
+primary and secondary, is seen in that irregular distribution of
+climates, which the tortuous isothermal lines and the mottled
+raincharts illustrate. The isothermal lines may be regarded as the
+topographical delineations of that bed of temperatures down which
+the upper atmosphere flows from the equator toward the poles, till
+its downward tendency is balanced by the centrifugal force of its
+eastward motion. This irregular bed shifts from month to month, from
+day to day, and even from hour to hour; and the lines that are drawn
+on the maps are only averages for the year or the season.
+
+In the midst of these irregular, but continuous agencies, the rain
+introduces a peculiar discontinuity, and turns irregularity into
+discord. We have shown that the rain is an immediate cause of wind;
+but how is the rain itself produced? For so marked an effect we
+naturally seek a special cause; but no adequate single cause has
+ever been discovered. The combination of many conditions, probably,
+is necessary, such as a peculiar distribution of heat and moisture
+and atmospheric movements; though the immediate cause of the fall of
+rain is doubtless the rising, and consequent expansion and cooling,
+of the saturated air.
+
+The winds that blow hither and thither, vainly striving to restore
+equilibrium to the atmosphere, burden themselves with the moisture
+they absorb from the seas; and this moisture absorbs their heat,
+retards their motion, and slowly modifies the forces which impel them.
+Now when the saturated air, extending far above the surface of the
+earth, and carried in its movements still higher, is relieved of an
+incumbent weight of air, it becomes rarefied, and its temperature
+and capacity for moisture are simultaneously diminished; its moisture,
+suddenly precipitated, appears as a cloud, the particles of which
+collect into rain-drops and fall to the earth. Thus the air suddenly
+loses much of its weight, and instead of restoring equilibrium to
+the troubled atmosphere, it introduces a new source of disturbance.
+Though the weight of the air is diminished by the fall of rain, yet
+the bulk is increased by the expansive force of the latent heat
+which the condensed vapors set free. Thus the rainy air expands
+upwards and flows outwards, and no longer able to balance the
+pressure of the surrounding air, it is carried still higher by
+inblowing winds, which rise in turn and continue the process, often
+extending the storm over vast areas. The force of these movements is
+measured partly by the force of latent heat set free, and partly by
+the mechanical power of the rain-fall, a very small fraction of
+which constitutes the water-power of all our rivers. Such a fruitful
+source of disturbance, generated by so slight an accident as the
+upward movement of the saturated air, expanded by its own agency to
+so great an extent, so sudden and discontinuous in its action, so
+obscure in its origin, and so distinct in its effects,--such a
+phenomenon defies the powers of mathematical prediction, and rouses
+all the winds to sedition.
+
+A storm not only disturbs the lower winds, but its influences reach
+even to the upper movements. The sudden expansion and rising of the
+rainy air delay these movements, which afterwards react as violent
+winds.
+
+The forces stored away by the gradual rise of vapor and its
+absorption of heat, and then suddenly exhibited in a mechanical form
+by the effects of rain, afford an illustration of that principle of
+conservation and economy of power, of which there are so many
+examples in modern science. No power is ever destroyed. Whether
+exhibited as heat or mechanical force, in the products and forces of
+chemical or of vital action, in movement or in altered conditions of
+motion,--whether changed by the growth of plants into fuel or into
+food, and converted again to heat by combustion or by vital processes,
+and brought out as mechanical power in the steam-engine or in the
+horse,--it is still the same power, and is measured in each of its
+forms by an invariable standard. It first appears as the heat of the
+sun, and a portion escapes at once back into space, while the rest
+passes first through a series of transformations. A part is changed
+into moving winds or into suspended vapor, and a part into fuel or
+food. From conditions of motion it is changed into motion; from
+motion it is changed by friction or resistance into heat, electric
+force, molecular vibrations, or into new conditions of motion, and
+passing through its course of changes, it remains embroiled in its
+permanent effects or escapes into space as heat.
+
+Though mechanical science will probably never be able to predict the
+beginning or duration of storms, it will yet, doubtless, be able to
+account for all their general features, and for such distinct local
+peculiarities as observation may determine. Great advancement has
+already been made in the determination of prevailing winds and in
+the study of storms. Two theories have been brought forward upon the
+general movements of storms; both have been proved, to the entire
+satisfaction of their advocates, by the storms themselves; and
+probably both are, with some limitations, true. The first of these
+theories we have already described. According to it, the winds move
+inward toward the centre of the storm; according to the other theory,
+they blow in a circumference around the centre.
+
+Observations upon storms of small extent, such as thunder-storms or
+tornadoes, show very clearly that the winds blow toward the stormy
+district. But when observations are made upon the winds within the
+district of such extensive storms as sometimes visit the United
+States, the directions of the wind are found to be so various, that
+the advocates of either theory, making due allowance for local
+disturbances, can triumphantly refute their adversaries. In such
+storms there are doubtless many centres or maxima of rain, and
+whether the wind move around or toward these centres, it would
+inevitably get confused.
+
+The opinion, that the winds move around the central point or line of
+the storm, was strenuously maintained by the late Mr. Redfield,
+whose activity in his favorite pursuit has connected his name
+inseparably with meteorology. Others have maintained the same opinion,
+and the rotatory motion of the tropical hurricanes is offered as a
+principal proof. It is obvious from the causes of motion already
+considered, that, if the air is carried far, by its tendency toward a
+rainy district, it will acquire a secondary relative motion from its
+change of latitude; and this, in our hemisphere, if the air move
+toward the south, will be westward,--if toward the north, eastward.
+Hence the motion of the air from both directions toward a stormy
+district is deflected to the right side of the storm; and this gives
+rise to that motion from right to left which is observed in the
+hurricanes of the northern hemisphere.
+
+To suppose, as many do, that regular winds, arising from constant
+and extensive causes, can come into bodily conflict and preserve
+their identity and original impetus for days, without immediate and
+strongly impelling forces to sustain their motion, implies a
+profound ignorance of mechanical science, and is little better than
+those ancient superstitions which gave a personal identity to the
+winds. The momentum of ordinary winds is a feeble force in
+comparison with those forces of pressure and friction which
+continually modify it. Hence sudden changes in the direction and
+intensity of winds must primarily arise from similar changes in
+these forces. But there are no known forces which change so suddenly,
+except the pressure and latent heat of suspended vapor; and therefore
+the fall of rain is the only adequate known cause of those
+storm-winds which, interpolated among the gentler winds, keep the
+atmosphere in perpetual commotion.
+
+Storms have, however, certain habits and peculiarities, more or less
+regular and distinct, which depend upon locality and season. And
+this is what ought to be expected; for, though the storms themselves
+are essentially anomalous, yet many of the causes which cooperate to
+induce them are constant or periodic, while others are subject to
+but slight perturbations. It is obvious that no more moisture can be
+precipitated than has been evaporated, and that the winds only gain
+suddenly by the fall of rain the forces which they have lost at their
+leisure in the absorption of moisture. Thus the rage of the storm is
+kept within bounds, and though the exact period at which the winds
+are set free cannot be determined, yet their force and frequency
+must be subject to certain limitations. The study of the habits and
+peculiarities of storms is of the greatest importance to navigation
+and agriculture, and these arts have already been benefited by the
+labors of the meteorologist.
+
+The lawlessness of the weather, within certain limitations, though
+discouraging to the physical philosopher, has yet its bright side
+for the student of final causes. The uses of the weather and its
+adaptation to organic life are subjects of untiring interest. The
+progression of the seasons, varied by differences of latitude, is
+also diversified and adapted to a fuller development of organic
+variety by irregularities of climate.
+
+The regular alternations of day and night, summer and winter, dry
+seasons and wet, are adapted to those alternations of organic
+functions which belong to the economy of life. The vital forces of
+plants and of the lower orders of animals have not that
+self-determining capacity of change which is necessary to the
+complete development of life; but they persist in their present mode
+of action, and, when they are not modified by outward changes,
+reduce life to its simplest phases. Changes of growth are effected
+by those apparent hardships to which life is subject; and progression
+in new directions is effected by retrogression in previous modes of
+growth. The old leaves and branches must fall, the wood must be
+frost-bitten or dried, the substance of seeds must wither and then
+decay, the action of leaves must every night be reversed, vines and
+branches must be shaken by the winds, that the energies and the
+materials of new forms of life may be rendered active and available.
+
+Some of the outward changes of nature are regular and periodic, while
+others, without law or method, are apparently adapted by their
+diversity to draw out the unlimited capacities and varieties of life;
+so that as inorganic nature approaches a regulated confusion, the
+more it tends to bring forth that perfect order, of which fragments
+appear in the incomplete system of actual organic life.
+
+The classification of organic forms presents to the naturalist, not
+the structure of a regular though incomplete development, but the
+broken and fragmentary form of a ruin. We may suppose, then, with a
+recent physiological writer, that the creation of those organic
+forms which constitute this fragmentary system was effected in the
+midst of an elemental storm, a regulated confusion, uniting all the
+external conditions which the highest capacities and the greatest
+varieties of organized life require for their fullest development;
+and that as the storm subsided into a simpler, but less genial
+diversity,--into the weather,--whole orders and genera and species
+sank with it from the ranks of possible organic forms. The weather,
+fallen from its high estate, no longer able to develope, much less to
+create new forms, can only sustain those that are left to its care.
+
+Man finds himself everywhere mirrored in nature. Wayward, inconstant,
+always seeking rest, always impelled by new evils, the greatest of
+which he himself creates,--protecting and cherishing or blighting and
+destroying the fragmentary life of a fallen nature,--incapable
+himself of creating new capacities, but nourishing in prosperity and
+quickening in adversity those that are left,--he sees the workings of
+his own life in the strife of the elements. His powers and activities
+are related to his spiritual capacities, as inorganic movements are
+related to an organizing life. The resurrection of his higher nature
+is like a new creation, secret, sudden, inconsequent. "The wind
+bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
+canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every
+one that is born of the Spirit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AKIN BY MARRIAGE [Continued]
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The designs of Mr. Elam Hunt upon the hand of Laura Stebbins have
+already been mentioned, in a former chapter of this history, as well
+as the fact that his hopes were encouraged by Mrs. Jaynes who
+(to make no secret of the matter) had pledged her word to the
+enamored Elam, that when he should be settled in a parish of his own,
+Laura should be added to complete the sum of his felicity.
+
+To this agreement Laura herself was not a party; nay, her consent
+had never been so much as asked; for though Elam knew that marriage
+by proxy was impossible, and, indeed, would doubtless have preferred
+to be the bridegroom at his own wedding, he had no objection
+whatever to a vicarious courtship; for he was not a forward suitor,
+delighting to prattle of his pains to his fair tormentor, as the way
+of many is. But touching all the terms and conditions of this
+contract Laura was informed by Mrs. Jaynes, who, when the other
+protested with tears and sobs against this disposition of her person
+without even asking her leave thereto, replied, with a quiet voice
+and manner, that she had the right to make the promise in Laura's
+name, and had done so upon due consideration.
+
+This ominous reserve frightened Laura far more than an angry reply
+would have done; for when her sister spoke with such brief decision,
+it was a sign that her mind was made up; and Laura knew full well
+the resolute purpose with which Mrs. Jaynes was wont to pursue any
+design that she had once formed. She distrusted her own ability to
+withstand her sister's inflexible will, and felt a secret misgiving,
+that, in spite of herself, she would by some means be forced or
+persuaded to yield at last. This very lack of faith in her own power
+of resistance caused her more distress and terror than all her other
+fears. Sometimes she almost fancied a spell of enchantment had been
+put upon her, which would render all her efforts to escape her fate
+as unavailing as the struggles of a gnat in a spider's web.
+
+A friend in time of trouble is like a staff to one that is lame or
+weary. But when Laura, in these straits, leaned upon her dearest
+friend, Cornelia, for aid and comfort, she found but a broken reed;
+for, instead of words of consolation and encouragement, Cornelia
+uttered only dismal prophecies that Laura was surely doomed to be
+the young parson's bride.
+
+"If you only had another lover to run away with, now," said she,
+"why, then it would be delightful to have your sister act as she does;
+but, as it is, I'm sure I don't see any way to avoid it."
+
+"Nor I," cried Laura, sinking still deeper in despair. "Oh, dear!
+what shall I do?"
+
+"In novels, you know," pursued Cornelia, "where there's a cruel,
+tyrannical father, like your sister, there's always a hero in love
+with the heroine----"
+
+"I'm sure I wish there was a hero in love with me," said Laura,
+thinking of her own hero in regimentals. "I'd run away with him,"
+she added, with animation, "if--if both his legs were shot off,"--not
+considering duly, I dare say, how greatly such a dreadful mutilation,
+however glorious in itself, would conflict with the rapid locomotion
+essential to her plan of elopement.
+
+But when Tira Blake came to be told of Laura's trouble, and the
+reasons of it, that sage and prudent friend gave counsel that
+cheered her like a cordial, telling her it would be sinful to marry
+a man whom she disliked so heartily, and that in such a matter no
+one had the right to demand or enforce obedience.
+
+"It's bad enough to be married when you're willin'," said she;
+"but when you a'n't willin', there's no law nor no gospel to make you."
+
+"But if Maria should compel me, what should I do?" cried Laura, to
+whom her sister's will seemed more mighty than both law and gospel.
+
+"She can't," replied Statira, sententiously; "she can't. Her 'yes,'
+in such a case, is only good for herself; it can't make you any
+man's wife.--What shall you do? Why, nothin',--nothin' in the world.
+If they should bring bridegroom and parson, and stand you up side of
+him by main force, (which of course is foolish to think of their
+doing so, only I suppose it just to show you what I mean,) even in
+such a case you needn't do anything. Keep your mouth shut and your
+head from bobbin', and there a'n't lawyers, nor squires, nor parsons,
+nor parsons' wives either for that matter, enough in all Connecticut
+to marry you to a mouse, let alone a man. Humph!" added Miss Blake,
+with scornful accent, "I should like to see 'em set out to marry me
+to anybody I didn't want to have!"
+
+There was nothing in all that Tira said which Laura did not know
+before; but it was uttered in such a way that it sounded in her ears
+like a new revelation, filling her heart with peace and comfort, and
+inspiring her with hope and courage. The magic spell that had
+enthralled her spirit was broken by the power of a few cheery,
+confident, assuring words. A heavy weight seemed lifted from her
+heart, and, relieved from the pressure, her spirits rose, joyous and
+elastic. The shadow was dispelled which had darkened her future, and
+the sun seemed to shine brighter and the birds to sing more sweetly.
+She herself was changed,--or at least it was hard to believe she was
+the same Laura Stebbins who, the night before, had cried herself to
+sleep, and whose doleful visage, that very morning, had looked out
+at her from the mirror. She flew at Tira in a transport, and,
+without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a
+minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have
+tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she
+danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step,
+singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near
+the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball,
+bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture
+of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed
+teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow,
+that, never, _never_, the longest day she lived, would she marry
+Elam Hunt, to please anybody,--as her sister Maria (said she, with a
+saucy toss of the head) would find, if she tried to make her!
+
+I doubt greatly, whether, if Laura had known what I am now going to
+tell my reader, she would have indulged in such vivacious pranks,
+and bold, defiant words: namely, that Mrs. Jaynes was hearing
+everything she said, and, in fact, had listened to and taken special
+heed of nearly the whole conversation, a part of which has been set
+forth above. Coming through the wicket in the garden fence, on an
+errand to the Bugbee kitchen, the sound of her own name, in Laura's
+excited tones, struck Mrs. Jaynes's ear and excited her curiosity.
+Walking nearer to the house, and concealing herself behind a little
+thicket of lilac bushes, near the open window of Statira's bedroom,
+she was enabled to hear with distinctness almost every word uttered
+by the unconscious conspirators, who were plotting against the
+fulfilment of her cherished project.
+
+There is good reason for believing that what Mrs. Jaynes overheard,
+while lying in ambush, as has been related, excited in her heart
+emotions of indignation and resentment. Be that as it may, no trace
+of displeasure was visible upon her face or in her voice or manner,
+when, a few minutes afterwards, she stood by the side of the
+unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her
+hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from
+the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the
+curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then
+could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the
+shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces.
+Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their
+first glad rebound from recent despondency, being wild with gayety,
+enjoying the sport no less than the merry child, her playmate.
+Laura's glowing face was fairly radiant with beauty, and her figure
+was unconsciously displayed in such a variety of bewitching
+attitudes and dainty postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens,
+that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down
+the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still,
+crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if
+taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard
+Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say
+for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though
+her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter
+she held in her hand would not have melted in her pursed-up mouth.
+
+Mrs. Jaynes, for reasons of her own, thought proper to keep
+her temper in control, abstaining from any manifestation of
+displeasure for a much longer time than while she remained
+standing in the back veranda of Doctor Bugbee's house. She did not
+think it prudent to apprise Laura that her rebellious conference
+with Statira had been discovered, nor to forbid her from holding
+further communication with her evil counsellors; but contented
+herself, for the present, with keeping a stricter watch over her
+sister's conduct, by practising with increased rigor and vigilance
+that efficient system of tactics hereinbefore commemorated, by which
+the ardor of Laura's chance admirers was repressed and their
+advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's
+prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or,
+at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had
+engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and
+was only waiting to be asked to name the wedding-day.
+
+It was many months after Elam left the shady height of East Windsor
+Hill before he received a call to settle; for though he preached in
+different parts on trial, before many congregations that were
+destitute of pastors, none of these fastidious flocks would listen
+to his voice a second time, or agree to choose him for its shepherd.
+At last, however, the people of Walbury, a town in Windham County,
+lying nearly twenty miles from Belfield, made choice of Mr. Hunt to
+be their spiritual guide, and accordingly extended to him an
+invitation to be ordained and installed as the settled minister over
+their ancient parish. Upon receiving this proposal, Elam at once
+despatched a letter to his friend and ally, Mrs. Jaynes, informing
+her of his good fortune, and suggesting that Laura should at once
+bestir herself in preparations for their wedding, in order that this
+blissful event might precede his ordination. Then, after waiting for
+the lapse of that period of decorous delay which immemorial usage
+has prescribed in such cases, he indited an epistle to the church in
+Walbury, stating, in proper and accustomed form, that his native
+humility inclined him to refuse their request; but that, after a
+wrestle with his inclinations, he had got the better of them, and
+had resolved to sacrifice his own wishes and feelings, and to enter
+the field of labor to which the Israel in Walbury had invited him.
+
+A year and more had elapsed since Laura, encouraged by Tira Blake's
+assuring words, had begun to hope that a better fate was in store
+for her than to become the wife of a man she detested. Meanwhile,
+Elam had often come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for
+Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without
+having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At
+his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond
+about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to
+entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she
+would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero
+in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever,
+continually waiting for Elam, if she could have been assured the
+time would never come for him to claim her.
+
+But, one morning, after breakfast, having made her bed and arranged
+her chamber, singing blithely all the while, she was just going to
+sit down by the window with her sewing, when Mrs. Jaynes came in
+with a letter in her hand. Laura guessed at once that the letter was
+from Elam, and that it contained the news of which the reader has
+been apprised already. Though she did not need to read the letter in
+order to inform herself of its contents, she took it in her hand,
+when her sister bade her read it, and made a pretence of obedience,
+shuddering, meanwhile, with disgust and terror. At last she came to
+the conclusion of the epistle, where Elam had mentioned his desire
+to be married before being ordained, and had subscribed himself as
+united in gospel bonds to the worthy lady to whom the letter was
+addressed. Then, folding up the paper with trembling hands, she held
+it towards her sister, without daring to look up, or to say a word.
+
+"Now, Laura," asked Mrs. Jaynes, in a quiet tone, "when can you be
+ready to be married?"
+
+Laura tried to speak, and looked up, with a pale, frightened face,
+into her sister's impassive countenance. Her white lips failed to
+form the words she strove to utter.
+
+"When shall the wedding be?" said Mrs. Jaynes, with a smile of
+affected sportiveness. "Name the happy day, my love."
+
+"Happy day!" repeated poor Laura. "Oh, Maria!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter, child?" said Mrs. Jaynes; "what are you
+crying for?"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear sister!" sobbed Laura, falling on her knees at
+Mrs. Jaynes's feet, "do hear me! You are my mother, for you fill her
+place."
+
+"I have endeavored to do so," said Mrs. Jaynes.
+
+"Then, for God's sake, don't make me marry this horrid man!" pursued
+Laura. "Don't tell me that I must! Don't force me to such a fate!"
+And with many passionate words like these, Laura implored her
+sister not to lay any command upon her to marry Elam Hunt.
+
+"Hush, Laura! hush, my dear child!" said Mrs. Jaynes, who had
+anticipated this scene, and was well prepared with her replies.
+"Be calm; you behave absurdly. I have no power to force you to marry
+any man. I don't expect to compel you to accept Mr. Hunt for a
+husband. For at least two years past I had supposed, however, that
+it was your intention to do so. If you have changed your mind, and
+if you wish to break an engagement that has subsisted so long,
+whether for or without cause, I cannot prevent it. You have read so
+many foolish romances, that your head is turned, and you fancy
+yourself a heroine in distress. But let me tell you, my dear, that
+in real life, here, in New England, a woman cannot be forced to marry.
+So calm your transports, wipe your eyes, and get up from your knees.
+I'm not to be kneeled to, pray remember."
+
+Laura did as she was told,--so much abashed that she dared not look
+up. To increase her confusion, her sister began to laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, dear," said she, "but, ha, ha, ha! it was so
+funny!--like a scene in a play, I should think."
+
+"I know I've been silly, Maria," said Laura, weeping again,--with
+shame, this time.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said her sister, in a kind tone, "we're all
+silly sometimes. You'll never be guilty of the folly again, at any
+rate, of supposing that girls can be married, in spite of themselves,
+by cruel sisters; eh, Laura?"
+
+"Oh, Maria, do forgive me!" cried Laura, blushing crimson. "I was so
+very silly!"
+
+"Well, let it all go," said Mrs. Jaynes, kissing her. "Now we'll
+talk about this letter. Tell me why you don't wish to marry Mr. Hunt.
+If you have any good reason against it, I'm sure I don't desire it;
+though, I confess, having supposed so long it was a settled thing, I
+had set my heart upon it. Perhaps this disappointment has been sent
+to me for some wise purpose," added Mrs. Jaynes, with a pious sigh.
+
+Thus encouraged, Laura opened her heart and began to talk, saying
+that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, that she didn't love him, that she
+disliked him, and hated him, and that he was hateful, and horrid, and
+awful, and dreadful, and so homely, and pale, and pimpled, and, ugh!
+she should never like him, nor love him, but always dislike him, and
+hate him. And on she went in this manner, till her fervor was cooled,
+and she had exhausted, by frequent repetition, every form of speech
+capable of expressing her great repugnance to a union with Elam Hunt.
+In conclusion, she said she was willing never to marry, but would
+remain with her sister and work for her and the children all her life.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Jaynes. "We'll talk of your kind offer
+presently; and you will see, I think, that I have no desire that you
+should live and die an old maid, even in case you do not marry
+Mr. Hunt."
+
+"I'm sure I'd rather than not," said Laura, with a twinge of
+conscience at the thought of her hero.
+
+"Have you said all that you've got to say?" asked Mrs. Jaynes, very
+quietly.
+
+Laura looked up into her sister's grave, sober face, and felt a
+chill of vague apprehension begin to take the place of the hopeful
+glow in her heart.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Jaynes, inquiringly.
+
+"Y--yes," faltered Laura, "only this,--I don't like him, and he's
+such a horrid, disgusting man,--and--and--that's all, I believe,
+except that I don't like him, and think he's so disagreeable,--and--
+oh, yes! there's another thing,--he wears blue spectacles,--ugh!
+_blue_ spectacles!"
+
+"Is there anything more?" said Mrs. Jaynes, still speaking with the
+same even, quiet voice.
+
+"N--no," said Laura, "only I--" and here she paused.
+
+"Don't like him," added Mrs. Jaynes, supplying the words.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Laura. "I know I'm foolish, but--"
+
+"It's much to confess it," said Mrs. Jaynes. "Now that I've
+patiently heard all that you have to say, I wish to be heard a few
+words in favor of a dear and worthy friend of mine, against whom you
+appear to entertain a groundless antipathy."
+
+"No, not groundless," interposed Laura.
+
+"Well, I'll agree that a pale, studious face and blue spectacles are
+good reasons for hating a man. Now let me say a word or two in his
+favor, notwithstanding, and also in favor of a plan which I had
+supposed was agreed upon, and which I dislike extremely to see
+abandoned. You have reasons against it, which you have stated. I
+have reasons for it, which I will state. But first answer me two or
+three simple questions, 'yes' or 'no,'--will you, dear?"
+
+And Laura assenting, she went on to ask if Mr. Hunt was not good,
+and pious, and of blameless life and reputation; extorting from
+Laura an affirmative reply to each separate inquiry.
+
+"He's all these good qualities, then, to offset the complexion of
+his face and spectacles," resumed Mrs. Jaynes. "Now let us look at
+the matter in a worldly point of view. He is able to give you not
+only a place, but the very highest position in society; he can offer
+you, not wealth, but competence, which is better than either poverty
+or riches. Why, my dear, there are a hundred girls in this town,
+many of whom excel you in everything which men think desirable in a
+wife, except, perhaps, the poor, perishable quality of beauty,--
+girls of good family, rich, or likely to be so, intelligent, well
+educated, some of them, to say the least, almost as pretty as you,
+any one of whom would think herself honored by this offer which you
+despise; for most people are aware that to be a minister's wife, in
+New England, is, my dear, to occupy, as I have just said, the very
+summit of the social structure."
+
+Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words.
+After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain
+with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened
+with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet,
+Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had
+been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no
+claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.
+
+"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes,
+"to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would
+bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But
+young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It
+is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event
+was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's
+warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this
+good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you
+prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to
+marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue
+spectacles and pale complexion?"
+
+Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor
+paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.
+
+"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms
+together, in sore distress.
+
+"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and
+speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It
+used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are
+getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more,
+and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez
+has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If--well, never
+mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of
+Mr. Hunt,--such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances,
+from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose
+preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands,
+would be glad to win,--who is going to be settled in a good old
+parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large,
+I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,--I _do_ say, Laura, that you ought to
+give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a
+two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his
+spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a
+home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but
+Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we
+have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection.
+To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will
+be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind,
+imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish
+whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and
+opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had
+better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner.
+If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear,
+I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice
+against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."
+
+With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought
+she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and
+went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting
+with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.
+
+At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely
+have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the
+door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a
+sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro
+across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and
+sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the
+while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some
+reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person,
+nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that
+her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who
+provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those
+who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to
+her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained
+for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first
+time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and
+felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.
+
+At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of
+frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on
+purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new
+exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a
+whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing
+but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she
+must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to
+think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what
+good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister
+that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told
+her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had
+been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that
+she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was
+all true and reasonable,--but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she
+conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,--his lank, slim figure,
+arrayed in sombre black,--his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with
+pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,--his spectral
+glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She
+imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers,
+and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the
+certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an
+invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she
+screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting
+herself, she sank down moaning.--Oh, heavens! she thought, there was
+no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all
+alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor
+father, nor mother, nor brother,--with only a sister who had a
+husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than
+she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,--
+nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her
+heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What
+could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was
+worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer.
+If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her
+and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only
+knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so
+pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put
+upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared.
+For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to
+write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the
+dictionary, to see how they were spelt;--and parsing! and doing sums!--
+oh, gracious! she never could teach school,--that was out of the
+question!
+
+At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit
+her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam
+of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit
+upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always
+been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange
+laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and
+trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it
+would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing
+and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than
+marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she
+began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied
+herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps,
+among a group of other girls,--sometimes rising to attend upon a
+customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in
+the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be
+ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to
+see her in Hartford.
+
+What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl
+that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking
+how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was
+a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping
+of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her
+new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford,
+and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get
+a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the
+city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there,
+and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it
+was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of
+Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the
+great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small,
+for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen
+scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee
+could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay,
+even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask
+him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her,
+unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would
+not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see
+Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and
+forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon
+his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so
+much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children
+complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed
+the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she
+troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause
+to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless
+gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened
+to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of
+sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his
+aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense
+benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to
+refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to
+help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn
+her away. At all events, she could try.
+
+Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and
+strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face,
+arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then
+sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for
+Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed
+visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very
+day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was
+represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable
+temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at
+the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated
+and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by
+his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by
+a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by
+robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even
+teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a
+jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and
+himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.
+
+Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose
+unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of
+even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page
+near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit
+of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces
+her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then
+Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten
+at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught
+sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of
+coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted
+the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the
+message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information
+that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.
+
+Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and
+console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite
+of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this
+lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward
+accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she
+never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this
+interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor
+would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference
+to appear at the end of a chapter.
+
+[To be continued in the next Number.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPARTACUS.
+
+The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the
+virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity.
+They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The
+quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,
+
+  "Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"
+
+Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who
+resisted them, and enslaved the rest."
+
+But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited
+their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that
+are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high
+as well as the low,--of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks
+and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.
+
+The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their
+bondmen,--by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,--affecting as they
+did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made
+slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians
+and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their
+necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses,
+and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of
+their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the
+head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae.
+One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the
+greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since
+that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his
+javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.
+
+The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that
+which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are
+many facts which show that the relations between master and slave
+were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were
+exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be
+where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and
+the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where
+cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the
+slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were
+the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love
+of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men
+were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and
+abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So
+ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway,
+and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the
+private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves.
+Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their
+maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but
+little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded
+as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the
+ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters
+manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by
+Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates
+this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade
+slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size
+was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its
+size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed
+that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave,
+not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to
+present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the
+animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor
+ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of
+thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through
+many generations.
+
+The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the
+efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to
+the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in
+Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should
+become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the
+Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians,
+about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property
+ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says
+Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large
+tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates
+which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had
+been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners.
+The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became
+rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had
+cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was
+suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded
+with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors,
+whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that
+they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer
+Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were
+well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of
+others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus,
+although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and
+though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with
+evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the
+horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318,
+London edition.]
+
+The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the
+destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of
+the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline
+may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two
+or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred
+thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He
+was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and
+conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his
+elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts,
+he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be
+recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The
+victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the
+credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he
+must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his
+position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said
+to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only
+that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner,
+but died before he could be brought to punishment,--no doubt, to the
+vast regret of his savage captors.
+
+In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and
+was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting.
+The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a
+Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their
+leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to
+his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was
+not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves
+were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one
+arising to make their place good.
+
+The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer,
+than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it
+was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military
+genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps,
+of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies,
+and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the
+Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war
+took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with
+Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the
+exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,--the great
+Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in
+contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with
+Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to
+Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their
+walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their
+assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man
+of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means
+at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing
+powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and
+in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were,
+of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a
+long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus.
+The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his
+father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian,
+without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his
+enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most
+heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The
+palm must be aligned to the latter.
+
+To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a
+Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave
+people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual
+superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large
+views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch
+pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he
+deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was,
+says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength,
+but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition,
+and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation."
+It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace
+was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion
+of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found
+in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to
+Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were
+Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians
+themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior
+physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from
+attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for
+soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the
+preference as gladiators,--a dubious honor, to say the best of it.
+
+How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is
+a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it
+was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie
+for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was
+first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter
+and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from
+choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he
+writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that
+Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly
+gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a
+contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by
+the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals.
+Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been
+a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,--
+a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek,
+who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a
+word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but
+introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us,
+"that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was
+seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the
+same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and
+possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this
+was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him
+to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress,
+being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when
+he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War
+of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain
+know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was
+loved by such a man.
+
+The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known.
+Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and
+had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who
+wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators,
+the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were
+maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account,
+Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and
+afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators,
+who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome.
+But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a
+destiny as the being "butchered to make a Roman holiday." Most of
+his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who
+bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their
+escape,--the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who
+were subsequently made his lieutenants,--Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus,
+a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a
+portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says
+that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number
+to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed
+themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook's shop,
+they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell
+in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators' weapons, which
+they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition.
+Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom
+they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial,
+deeming these no longer worthy of them.
+
+They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers,
+with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from
+time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive.
+Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus
+and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that
+they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and
+such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans
+little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible
+of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent
+against the "robbers," as they were considered to be. He found them
+so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to
+them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to
+blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight
+at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of
+genius, against whom even Rome's military system could not then
+succeed. He despised his enemy,--a sort of gratification which to
+those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused
+ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his
+followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point
+which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered
+inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently
+affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In
+the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the
+Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep,
+the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed
+into the hands of the despised enemy.
+
+Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to
+assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them.
+Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of
+the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which,
+while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who
+groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how
+strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining
+that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful
+submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land
+belonged of right to the bravest,--a sentiment as natural and proper
+when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding
+from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his
+own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is
+contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for
+a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust,
+but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as
+Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to
+disregard keeping in what he wrote.
+
+Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been
+men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made
+captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost
+entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had
+pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that
+the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry
+to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his
+murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate,
+the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery
+to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural
+population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been
+conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to
+baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of
+Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the
+Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were
+indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An
+anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the
+character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty
+years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius
+Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the
+brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed,
+"Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you
+in chains to Rome!"
+
+The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves,
+Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was
+particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of
+Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the
+Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness
+that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the
+cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having
+asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no
+travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell,
+"was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti,
+and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
+adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder
+the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged
+to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the
+year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for
+brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land
+of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were
+shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they
+talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The
+century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus
+had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them
+ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number,
+men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible
+material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to
+the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and
+active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority
+of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular
+manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the
+men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some
+discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the
+men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the
+hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had
+to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to
+the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military
+force then to be found in the world.
+
+[Footnote 3: Liddell, _History of Rome_, Vol. II, p. 144]
+
+With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led,
+Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name.
+Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were
+perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species
+of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation
+which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and
+which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and
+destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the
+conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the
+fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without
+supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw
+that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it
+unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
+
+[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on
+the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later
+Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of
+Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young
+slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War,
+"If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus."
+The manner in which he, the son of a _libertinus_, speaks of
+Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but
+is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working
+out more important results than could have followed from all the
+acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense
+connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
+
+Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it
+was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The
+government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at
+the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was
+not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later,
+Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy;
+and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate
+of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong
+enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently
+skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But
+they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of
+invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time
+apparently justified their confidence.
+
+The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly
+armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to
+use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"--never yet having been
+matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were
+chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made
+by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon
+retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his
+lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated
+themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly
+routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and
+even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted.
+Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military
+principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a
+Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly
+after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting
+him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground
+hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters,
+and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of
+those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when,
+one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a
+state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had
+happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond
+their reach.
+
+This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a
+division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night
+was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's
+march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the
+Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without
+making any show of resistance,--abandoning everything to the
+assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to
+escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they
+were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place
+not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
+
+Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a
+Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had
+fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of
+superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though
+still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust
+represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling
+them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but
+upon a long war,--that from success, then, would follow a series of
+victories,--and that therein lay their only salvation from a death
+at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon
+victory after victory,--an expression that showed he had a clear
+comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that
+followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for
+his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus.
+His lictors, with the _fasces_, shared the same fate. Spartacus
+assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He
+has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince
+every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound
+appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which
+his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of
+authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the
+possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and
+about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power,
+but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it.
+Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of
+the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.
+
+The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy
+of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and
+at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to
+organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to
+prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which
+they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and
+gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from
+the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example
+in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.
+
+Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting
+another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,--
+repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were
+not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp,
+whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no
+fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had
+become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but
+wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that
+the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to
+retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a
+retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in
+pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight
+under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of
+Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.
+
+Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which
+Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less
+than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved
+himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent
+against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great
+battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly
+successful. Like Carnot, he had "organized victory." A large part of
+Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than
+those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would
+probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful
+state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than
+of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and
+knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of
+accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was
+fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get
+out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the
+extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from
+Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march
+north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers
+reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was
+determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the
+Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A
+division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under
+Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but
+the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very
+outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the
+Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that,
+separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus,
+they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did
+good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and
+inflated with a notion of invincibility,--on what founded, it would
+be hard to say,--would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to
+lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the
+number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main
+army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting
+a Roman army, commanded by the Prætor Arrius, on the borders of
+Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not
+less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But
+this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and,
+while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon
+by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his
+followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was
+the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.
+
+The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their
+enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was,
+they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious
+efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Gellius and Lentulus
+were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the
+Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria.
+Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was
+determined not to fight until Gellius--whose victory he knew of--
+should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight
+he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in
+blocking up the road by which Gellius was advancing, unknown to
+Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his
+colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman
+accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to
+meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus.
+Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman
+armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different
+battles. Hannibal's Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this
+exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies
+were united under the command of Varro.
+
+These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser
+Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the
+Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open
+country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon
+which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had
+he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his
+victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success
+had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the
+impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army,
+dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by
+their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that
+his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be
+destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was
+slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a
+modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it
+was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and
+Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of
+burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order,
+the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon
+as so many brutes.
+
+Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army
+led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory
+was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their
+army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to
+be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this
+signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand
+design of attacking Rome,--a design every way so worthy of his
+genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving
+permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way
+out of Italy by a northern march,--can never be known. It is
+supposed to have been in consequence of information that
+circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage
+into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an
+earlier period.
+
+At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the
+Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years
+later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus
+expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in
+abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred
+thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from
+Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus,
+though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for
+their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests
+were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the
+gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman
+oppression, and had become outlaws because the world's law was
+against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a
+thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on
+the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for
+the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with
+Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius
+and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was
+then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian.
+Verres was ruling over the island,--and how he ruled it Cicero has
+told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the
+free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans.
+A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in
+armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend
+to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is
+certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had
+been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed
+the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies
+of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields
+from those on which their fame and power were won.
+
+But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be
+done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to
+Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its
+course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of
+Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his
+supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less
+than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the
+sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus
+to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his
+followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them.
+The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few
+would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful
+gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to
+construct boats.
+
+After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called
+Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort
+to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused,
+but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against
+Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his
+lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with
+orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his
+orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw
+away their arms, and fled,--an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The
+victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their
+main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of
+Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced
+by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though
+he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over
+into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to
+meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his
+rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of
+generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the
+Roman army. [5]
+
+[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to
+Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal
+fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and
+so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune--
+a misfortune of his own creating--to lead the finest Roman army that
+had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on
+the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would
+have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive
+his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us
+as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration
+beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only
+exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but,
+when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from
+the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla.
+Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of
+"destroying the den of the wolves of Italy," and Sulla arrived to
+the city's rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately
+followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was
+completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was
+as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with
+Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and
+to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said
+to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want
+of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left
+him no friends in death.]
+
+Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army
+employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest
+slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of
+owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account.
+He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand
+how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the
+gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property,
+as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly
+a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic;
+as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to
+the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of
+any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that
+because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man
+of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the
+most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him,
+as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so
+completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not
+misplaced.
+
+The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having
+restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to
+meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter's position,
+he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal
+unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy.
+As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he
+commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have
+rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works
+were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and
+ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction.
+So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not
+until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus
+discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his
+genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks
+on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors,
+and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he
+purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible
+snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman
+works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march
+noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed
+to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to
+fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts
+were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the
+whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind,
+and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and
+trenching of the legions.
+
+It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had
+been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus.
+But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as
+a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier.
+He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both
+to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate,
+stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home
+from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down
+an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time
+sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for
+Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of
+mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority,
+and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on
+the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most
+severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the
+field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom
+only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks.
+Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by
+Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this
+last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to
+avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels,
+and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was
+what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from
+Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it
+to be prolonged.
+
+Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he
+was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general.
+The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and
+the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable
+war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble
+ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers,
+warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall
+alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical
+commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height,
+and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were
+visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be
+brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own
+hands. "I am determined," he said to his men, "to share all your
+dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I
+shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need
+a horse no more." [6]
+
+[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his
+horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton,
+(fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating
+the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen
+centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at
+the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated
+and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]
+
+The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of
+that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw
+the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its
+commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The
+insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus
+leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus
+acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans
+steadily resisted,--and the slaughter was great on both sides. At
+last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when
+Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a
+fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way
+to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of
+inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs.
+Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was
+overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer,
+and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty
+thousand of whom were killed;--Livy puts their killed at forty
+thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as
+many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands
+of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,--the
+crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way,
+between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched
+through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who
+sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his
+homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.
+
+Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great
+republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who
+boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from
+Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the
+force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own,
+and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus,
+who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably
+resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia,
+after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except
+Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his
+foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes,
+and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?
+
+
+I.
+
+"If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years
+old," said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and
+the setting sun,--for it was summer-time, "it would be that he can
+remember M. ---- in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty
+odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn't help making great allowances
+for _Don Giovanni_, after seeing her in _Zerlina_. She was beyond
+imagination _piquante_ and delicious."
+
+The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman
+Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing
+this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,--I forget which,--in
+President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the
+office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for
+the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or
+village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him
+"the _Counsel_" which, I believe,--for I am not very fresh from my
+school-books,--was etymologically correct enough, however
+orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life,
+however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had
+dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had
+seen many cities, and the manners of many men--and of some women,--
+singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul,
+correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by
+pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial
+intermediacy of the _coulisses_, still less to the lower depth of
+disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.
+
+"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,--Catalani,
+Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,--
+though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is
+none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so
+permanently as the Signorina G----, or that I can see and hear so
+distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. _Rosina,
+Desdemona, Cinderella_, and, as I said just now, _Zerlina_,--she is
+as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear, as if the Park
+Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been
+hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the
+Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,--a mood to which
+he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.
+
+Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul's
+wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious
+shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his
+tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which
+divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and
+had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the
+communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.
+
+"A glass of Champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end
+of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the
+palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn
+and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but
+Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man
+and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."
+
+I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine
+and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,--which
+for a heretic is something remarkable,--and had no scruple about
+uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or
+protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism
+by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to
+the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by
+industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine
+such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the
+last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to
+import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,--their
+bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events.
+Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it,
+from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.
+
+"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir," I suggested, "that
+made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned
+seventeen when she sung in this country."
+
+"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether,
+nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so
+glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of
+delight, as that Lake fellow says,"--it was thus profanely that the
+Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,--
+"and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"
+
+"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.
+
+"Once, only," he answered,--"eight or nine years afterwards, a year
+or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in _Norma_. She was
+different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an
+indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one
+oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart
+and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in
+_Camille_ or _Phèdre_. It was true genius, and no imitation, that
+made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical
+beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force
+of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the
+scene before you."
+
+"But do you rank M. ---- with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied
+perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be
+altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive
+self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character
+she personated,--not always the same, but such as the woman she
+represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion
+that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty!
+What might not ten years more have made her!"
+
+"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected
+with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For
+it was unlucky enough, I believe,--was it not?"
+
+"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or
+qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending.
+It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G---- was the one
+who suffered the most by the operation."
+
+"I have always heard," said I, "that old G---- was cheated out of
+the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. ----
+got his wife on false pretences."
+
+"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all
+about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false
+pretences, to be sure, but it was not G---- that suffered by them.
+M. M. ----, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G----
+got it for all that."
+
+"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot
+exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs
+thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"
+
+"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no
+secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van
+Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year
+'Thirty-five."
+
+"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"
+
+"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing
+the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind
+you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the
+mountains as soon as the sun is down."
+
+I beg your pardon,--did you make a remark?--Oh, _what mountains_? You
+must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the
+identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient
+reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number,
+you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent,
+from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only
+you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river--also
+anonymous for the present distress--breaks its way, and which gives
+him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled
+to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with
+their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of
+the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and
+when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apophthegms,
+namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it
+teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another.
+Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just
+this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we
+drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following
+story. I will tell it in my own words,--not that they are so good as
+his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.
+
+
+II.
+
+New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has
+almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed,
+had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich
+Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the
+obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea,
+in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has
+been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know
+not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was
+in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species,
+Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing,
+Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his
+advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain
+of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys,
+such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been
+taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the
+votive stocking,--they come from the mother city, where she sits
+upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And
+linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them,
+come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our
+beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,--though
+the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. ----'s marriage
+may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that
+the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven
+out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine
+Hollands;--and this is the way in which it came to pass.
+
+Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must
+understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a
+city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His
+transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip
+over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of
+London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his
+adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one
+I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good
+to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly
+made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little
+dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those
+flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was
+present at the _début_ of Maria G---- at the King's Theatre. He must
+have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful _Rosina_,
+had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended
+emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely
+excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not
+have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New
+York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair
+linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might
+enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to _Doctor Bartolo_
+in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a
+more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He
+thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.
+
+Well, the good ship _Steenbok_ had prosperous gales and fair weather
+across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days
+to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off
+and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own
+warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully
+understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been
+since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited
+for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or
+two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that
+he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam,
+when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently
+of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will
+call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he
+had advertised yet on hand."
+
+"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"And the terms?"
+
+"Cash, on delivery."
+
+"Very good," replied the obliging buyer, "if they be of the quality
+you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms.
+Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, tomorrow
+morning, and I will send you the money."
+
+"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"Is M. ----," responded the courteous purchaser.
+
+The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually
+well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good day.
+
+Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer;
+but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that.
+He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see
+the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and
+thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good
+appetite.
+
+It is to be supposed that M. M. ---- did the same. At any rate, he
+had the most reason,--at least, according to his probable notions of
+mercantile morality and success.
+
+
+III.
+
+The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens
+to M. M. ----'s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the
+same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room,
+according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point
+of fact, M. M. ---- was not in at the time; but there was no doubt
+that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came
+in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant
+presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two
+more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no
+delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave
+himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five
+and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the
+current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so
+large a scale as M. M. ----, and conducted them on the sound basis
+of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when
+a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of
+purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for
+himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he
+incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. ---- to
+receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed
+to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of
+being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some
+little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state
+of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them,
+Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,--
+
+"Is M. M. ---- in?"
+
+"No, Sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be just at
+present."
+
+"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing
+business of importance."
+
+"Not to-day, Sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively;
+"he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."
+
+"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that
+very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not
+seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where
+does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he
+has to say for himself, and that speedily."
+
+"Indeed, Sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think when you
+understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear
+disturbing M. M. ---- this day of all others in his life."
+
+"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said
+Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, "that he can't see his
+creditors and pay his debts on it?"
+
+"Why, Sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest
+and importance, "it is M. M. ----'s wedding-day. He marries this
+morning the Signorina G----, and I am sure you would not molest him
+with business on such an occasion as that."
+
+"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee, "and why
+have they not been paid?"
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir," replied
+the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles
+was a daily occurrence; "M. M. ---- will, of course, attend to that
+matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that,
+in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature,
+the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he
+returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and
+you will hear from him without delay."
+
+The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence
+would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his
+part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact
+the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young _Prima
+Donna_. There is something about the great events of life, which
+cannot happen a great many times to anybody,--
+
+  "A wedding or a funeral,
+  A mourning or a festival,--"
+
+that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes
+it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have
+demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_
+that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed
+three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his
+bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he
+was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer
+of the lovely G----. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of
+marriage with that divine creature should forget every other
+consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,--even
+if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to
+the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that
+the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his
+mind under the delay, that old G---- was by no means the kind of man
+to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet
+lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the
+fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give
+him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the
+notes of the Signorina G---- as so much collateral security for his
+debt.
+
+So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the
+discharge of M. M. ----'s indebtedness to his principal. He had
+advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment,
+and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days
+wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide
+was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision
+exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet
+influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted
+that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in
+peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of
+earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my
+readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their
+own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time,
+after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he
+took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118,
+Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. ---- joy of
+his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long
+withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.
+
+  "The gods gave ear and granted half his prayer;
+  The rest the winds dispersed in empty air."
+
+There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting
+his epithalamic congratulation,--but as to his receiving the
+numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was
+an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl-Street
+counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a
+less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked
+on his last visit. He was received by M. M. ---- with courtesy, a
+little over-strained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at
+their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging
+with epic energy into the midst of things, said, "I have called,
+M. M. ----, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will
+remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such
+a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented
+your attending to this business sooner, but it is now high time that
+it were settled."
+
+"I consent to it all, Monsieur," replied M. M. ----, with a
+deprecatory gesture; "you have reason, and I am desolated that it is
+the impossible that you ask of me to do."
+
+"How, Sir!" demanded the creditor; "what do you mean by the
+impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for
+the goods?"
+
+"My faith, no, Monsieur," shruggingly responded M. M. ----;
+"I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say
+it; but if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the
+money? What to do?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Sir," returned Mr. Schulemberg. "You have
+not the money? And you do not mean to pay me according to agreement?"
+
+"But, Monsieur, how can I when I have not money? Have you not heard
+that I have made--what you call it?--failure, yesterday? I am
+grieved of it, thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could
+not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the
+price."
+
+"Indeed, sir," replied Mr. Schulemberg, "I had not heard of your
+misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and
+yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is
+no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me and
+accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss
+of the interest."
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur, you are too good, and Madame will be recognizant
+to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God, it is
+impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, Monsieur,
+I have sold it all!"
+
+"Sold it?" reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of
+etiquette, "Sold it? And to whom, pray? And when?"
+
+"To M. G----, my father-in-the-law," answered the catechumen, blandly;
+"and it is a week that he has received it."
+
+"Then I must bid you a good morning, Sir," said Mr. Schulemberg,
+rising hastily and collecting his hat and gloves, "for I must lose
+no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have
+changed hands again."
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted the poor, but honest M. ----,
+"but it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. G---- embarked
+himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him!"
+
+Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at
+finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline
+reporting the conversation any farther, lest its strength of
+expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more
+queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say, that the _swindlee_, if I
+may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own
+mind and imprisoned the body of M. M. ----; for in those days
+imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few
+of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which
+it was no abuse to apply it.
+
+
+IV.
+
+I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in
+captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which
+beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my
+hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he
+obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being
+entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of
+him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though
+that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his
+young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice
+into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be
+told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another
+matrimonial venture in partnership with De B----. I have nothing to
+do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the
+object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and
+here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not
+quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising
+_impresario_, Signor G----, who had so deftly turned his daughter
+into a ship-load of fine linens.
+
+This excellent person sailed, as M. M. ---- told Mr. Schulemberg, for
+Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers,
+and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage
+was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion
+could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as
+he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a
+whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow
+of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties
+was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of
+linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest
+sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous
+height. So the good G---- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing
+the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the
+same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost
+price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and
+having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in
+those latitudes, Signor G---- set forth for the Aztec City. As the
+relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory
+footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry
+his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither
+was a triumphal procession. Not Cortés, not General Scott, himself,
+marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads
+from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song.
+Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and
+from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the
+vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
+
+Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most
+populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself
+master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine
+love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few
+opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G----
+was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished
+singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit,
+if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and,
+though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give
+them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the
+intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Señoras and
+Señoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their
+fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very
+pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds
+and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give
+pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and
+hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their
+private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself
+never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer
+hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the
+portly person of the happy G----. Saturated at length with the
+golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,--if, indeed, singer
+were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable
+forever like a sieve of the Danaides,--saturated, or satisfied that
+it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back
+again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going,
+and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his
+safe return.
+
+But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints
+were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not
+hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate,
+they did not take that care of the worthy G---- which their devotees
+had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the
+Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on
+his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit
+to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his
+linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the
+vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native
+Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared
+onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy
+of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to
+the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road
+turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a
+dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind
+intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the
+_impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature
+of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into
+the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men
+whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the
+intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in
+this case, as Signor G---- was a Spaniard by birth, and their
+expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for
+speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very
+little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
+
+Now Signor G---- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his
+operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were
+perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense.
+Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights,
+pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of
+explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now
+saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe,
+and, in the opinion of Signor G----, at least, very much inferior to
+it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped,
+these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and
+weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the
+two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between
+Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed
+induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's
+fancy-dress breakfast,--for this integument, I say, these minions of
+the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in
+preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic
+cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new
+Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away,
+these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their
+thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough
+sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the
+ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy
+travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so
+they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there
+they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in
+their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while
+their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
+
+There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it
+was entirely unequal to the emergency,--even if it were not, as was
+afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy
+had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was
+nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or
+to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily
+administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,--as the King
+of France, by virtue of his _Droit d'Aubaine_, would have
+confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in
+spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced
+to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G----
+had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly
+rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely
+chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new
+acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking
+open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved
+doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever
+felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers
+to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his
+pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the
+sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished
+from the shirt-frills,--for in those days studs were not,--and the
+rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining
+testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the
+celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road.
+Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on
+at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good
+Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and
+Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as
+he professed to feel.
+
+At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the
+spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they
+should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic
+seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their
+utmost, and poor G---- and his companions in misery stood in the
+centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their
+backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the
+victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their
+toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded
+Signor G---- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he
+had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself
+directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and
+spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea
+was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized
+results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were
+unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him
+some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued.
+Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground,
+a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G---- for a song.
+A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a
+stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for
+the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a
+tyring-room," as poor G---- had no clothes to change for those he
+stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their
+captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the
+task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would
+brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor
+sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would
+avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated,
+the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in
+expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
+
+So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold,"
+before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was
+one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening
+began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a
+glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he
+delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,--that the tenor himself
+could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held
+the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and
+applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of
+their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or
+dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving
+singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would
+be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his
+meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or
+Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would
+sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just
+lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It
+was lucky for the unfortunate G---- that their approbation took this
+solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all
+he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating
+audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many
+encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook
+themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their
+patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket
+as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two
+furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for
+Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
+
+And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering
+for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G---- received the
+price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing,
+and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his
+losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes;
+but then it is equally true that M. M. ---- actually obtained his
+wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this
+can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest
+I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle," in my mind.
+I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am
+quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so
+comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical
+or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the
+reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only
+undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,--
+and I have done it.
+
+
+V.
+
+"I consider that a good story," said the Consul, when he had
+finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing,--
+"and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one."
+
+I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if
+the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg
+him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it
+to me, it was an excellent good story.
+
+"Poor Mynheer Van Holland," he added, laughing, "never got over that
+adventure. Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich
+for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to
+a parcel of Mexican _ladrones_, after buying an opera-singer for a
+Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to
+the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or
+opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don't
+wonder at it!"
+
+Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO RIVERS.
+
+  Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
+  Repeats the music of the rain;
+  But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
+  Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
+
+  Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
+  The stream I love unbounded goes
+  Through flood and sea and firmament;
+  Through light, through life, it forward flows.
+
+  I see the inundation sweet,
+  I hear the spending of the stream
+  Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
+  Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
+
+  Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
+  Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
+  They lose their grief who hear his song,
+  And where he winds is the day of day.
+
+  So forth and brighter fares my stream,--
+  Who drink it shall not thirst again;
+  No darkness stains its equal gleam,
+  And ages drop in it like rain.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
+
+  [The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round
+  again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made since
+  the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to remember
+  this is _talk_; just as easy and just as formal as I choose to make
+  it.]
+
+--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did
+not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (_Felis Catus_,
+LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.
+
+But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an
+author he is _droll_. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does,
+be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you
+_cried_ over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and
+send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in
+private.
+
+--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--
+Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The
+clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but
+with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion
+never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a
+procession.
+
+If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to
+tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit--
+using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in a
+partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a
+single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any
+intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the
+province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the
+prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight. A
+pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much shallower trick
+in mental optics; throwing the _shadows_ of two objects so that one
+overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects,
+but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of
+truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
+
+[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape
+the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all
+must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that Proserpina's
+cutting the yellow hair had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,
+and that breakfast was over.]
+
+--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say
+disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
+you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and
+courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave
+your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are
+ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding _never_ forgets that
+_amour-propre_ is universal. When you read the story of the
+Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old
+man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool
+of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in
+turning him out of doors.
+
+--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find
+everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly
+mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I
+once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for
+its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken
+ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should have
+shown up the Professor, who had once belabored me in his feeble way,
+but one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough,
+and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I
+doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling
+unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny.
+
+Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some
+persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly
+stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is
+precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but
+perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat
+sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, that,
+just as music must have all these, so conversation must have its
+partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. It
+is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal
+element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too
+literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of _esprit_.--
+"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense?
+Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"--Certainly, if a man
+is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and empty,--if, instead
+of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords,
+often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of
+thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords,
+stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking is
+one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most important, and the most
+difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the
+intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is
+suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of
+each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and
+the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons
+talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts, there
+are so many of them.
+
+[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
+
+When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is
+natural enough that among the six there should be more or less
+confusion and misapprehension.
+
+[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw
+loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a
+boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a
+sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand
+to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded,
+with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of
+the mouth, and somewhat rasping _voce di petto_, to Falstaff's nine
+men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman
+opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate,
+he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]
+
+I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that
+there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as
+taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
+
+                   {1. The real John; known only
+                   {   to his Maker.
+                   {
+                   {2. John's ideal John; never the
+  Three Johns      {   real one, and often very unlike him.
+                   {
+                   {3. Thomas's ideal John; never
+                   {   the real John, nor John's
+                   {   John, but often very unlike
+                   {   either.
+
+                   {1. The real Thomas.
+  Three Thomases.  {2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.
+                   {3. John's ideal Thomas
+
+
+Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a
+platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the
+conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and
+ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the
+gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly
+conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks
+from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to
+be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as
+Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue,
+though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the
+three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows
+himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him,
+there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between
+two. Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the
+one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants
+often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening
+all at the same time.
+
+[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by
+a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at
+table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known
+to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _viâ_ this unlettered
+Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,
+remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him
+that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
+mean time he had eaten the peaches.]
+
+--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly
+of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh
+and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as
+likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of
+considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what
+florists style the _breaking_ of a seedling tulip into what we may
+call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one with
+the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in old
+Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the seckel pear,
+which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise,--
+there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that twice
+two make _five_. Nature is fond of what are called "gift-enterprises."
+This little book of life which she has given into the hands of its
+joint possessors is commonly one of the old story-books bound over
+again. Only once in a great while there is a stately poem in it, or
+its leaves are illuminated with the glories of art, or they enfold a
+draft for untold values signed by the millionfold millionnaire old
+mother herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find the
+"gift" that came with the little book.
+
+It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own
+flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still
+more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of
+any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his
+own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one
+remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for
+exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
+self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just
+stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found in
+the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what your
+cousins, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about
+the fine poem you have written, but send it (postage paid) to the
+editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the way, is
+not so called because it is a _notion_, as some dull wits wish they
+had said, but are too late.
+
+--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled
+with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,
+peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them
+are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps;
+they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet
+assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly
+the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what
+he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who
+deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a
+mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a
+hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision
+with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional,
+incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of
+things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal
+with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature;
+only in a less degree. Every probability--and most of our common,
+working beliefs are probabilities--is provided with _buffers_ at
+both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing
+against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy,
+no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the minds that
+handle these forms of truth.
+
+--Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most
+gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preëminent in the
+ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But
+mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force
+enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen
+most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only
+in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a
+certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the
+sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an
+attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and
+appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash
+man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwithstanding.
+
+[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated
+in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of
+music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned
+before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked
+barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes
+add my vocal powers to her execution of:
+
+  "Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom,"--
+
+not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is
+present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a
+good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to,
+sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that
+felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted
+by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is
+very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris,
+which is awkward, as B.F. devoted himself to it with the peculiar
+advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well,
+between us, notwithstanding. The following is an _uncorrected_ French
+exercise, written by this young gentleman. His mother thinks it very
+creditable to his abilities; though, being unacquainted with the
+French language, her judgment cannot be considered final.
+
+  LE RAT DES SALONS À LECTURE.
+
+  Ce rat çi est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de derrière
+  sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il fait
+  usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a le peau noir pour le
+  plupart, et porte un cercle blanchâtre autour de son cou. On le
+  trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, digere, s'il y
+  a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et
+  ronfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblance de lire. On ne sait
+  pas s'il a une autre gite que celà. Il a l'air d'une bête très
+  stupide, mais il est d'une sagacité et d'une vitesse extraordinaire
+  quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne sait pas
+  pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idées. Il
+  vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers.
+  Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel
+  il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres,
+  semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas cependant les
+  prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole pas, ordinairement;
+  il fait rarement même des echanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau,
+  parceque son chapeau a toujours un caractère specifique. On ne sait
+  pas au juste ce dont il se nourrit. Feu Cuvier était d'avis que
+  c'etait de l'odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une
+  nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chère. Il vit bien longtems.
+  Enfin il meure, en laissant à ses héritiers une carte du Salon à
+  Lecture ou il avait existé pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient
+  toutes les nuits, après la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir,
+  dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir,
+  et ayant à sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des
+  caractères inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le
+  spiritulisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professors de Cambridge
+  sont des imbeçiles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.
+
+I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be
+touched in any way, is very creditable to B.F. You observe that he
+is acquiring a knowledge of zoölogy at the same time that he is
+learning French. Fathers of families who take this periodical will
+find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode of
+instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's exercise.
+The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire Naturelle des
+Bêtes Ruminans et Rougeurs, Bipèdes et Autres," lately published in
+Paris. This was translated into English and published in London. It
+was republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and additions by the
+American editor. The notes consist of an interrogation-mark on page
+53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" by the
+same hand. The additions consist of the editor's name on the
+title-page and back, with a complete and authentic list of said
+editor's honorary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy
+translated the translation back into French. This may be compared
+with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division X, of the
+Public Library of this metropolis.]
+
+--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a
+story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering
+each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the
+wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by
+the piece and by the bale.
+
+That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for
+one novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a
+cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that
+many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that
+are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing
+in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that all
+records of human experience are as so many bound _herbaria_ to the
+innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, fragrance-laden,
+poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling leaves and flowers of
+the forest and the prairies. All we can do with books of human
+experience is to make them alive again with something borrowed from
+our own lives. We can make a book alive for us just in proportion to
+its resemblance in essence or in form to our own experience. Now an
+author's first novel is naturally drawn, to a great extent, from his
+personal experiences; that is, is a literal copy of nature under
+various slight disguises. But the moment the author gets out of his
+personality, he must have the creative power, as well as the
+narrative art and the sentiment, in order to tell a living story;
+and this is rare.
+
+Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall
+clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives, though
+their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, drop
+a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. Oftentimes a
+single _cradling_ gets them all, and after that the poor man's labor
+is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which proves that I,
+as an individual of the human family, could write one novel or story
+at any rate, if I would.
+
+--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it. In
+the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain that
+verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and rhyme
+and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the fire of
+imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness of a
+heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in the
+luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A beauty
+shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the glitter of her
+diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms and shoulders
+laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain calico, she would
+be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies.
+
+Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I
+should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am
+afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they
+have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I am
+pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories among us
+there is hardly one I can recall that has not drawn too faithfully
+some living portrait that might better have been spared.
+
+Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull
+to write such a story as I should wish to write.
+
+And finally, I think it very likely I _shall_ write a story one of
+these days. Don't be surprised at anytime, if you see me coming out
+with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite."
+
+[_Our_ schoolmistress and _our_ old gentleman that sits opposite
+had left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing
+the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write
+when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the
+reputation they might have made!
+
+----I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being
+too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you
+meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark that may hereafter
+prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has been led
+by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or herself
+possessed of talent arrives at the full and final conclusion that he
+or she is really dull, it is one of the most tranquillizing and
+blessed convictions that can enter a mortal's mind. All our failures,
+our short-comings, our strange disappointments in the effect of our
+efforts are lifted from our bruised shoulders, and fall, like
+Christian's pack, at the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit
+to deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, with which one
+look may overflow us in some wider sphere of being.
+
+----How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate
+books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not learned,
+of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better
+than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge of the
+world and society, but certainly not clever either in the arts or
+sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I did not
+recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so distinctly as
+I did simplicity of character and fearless acknowledgment of his
+inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think there are a great many
+gentlemen and others, who read with a mark to keep their place, that
+really "hate books," but never had the wit to find it out, or the
+manliness to own it.
+
+[_Entre nous_, I always read with a mark.]
+
+We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual man"
+was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or thereabouts,
+of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if he is actually
+so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a strong solution
+of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best worth reading, as
+hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If I were a prince, I
+would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, in which I would steep
+all the leaves of new books that promised well. The infusion would do
+for me without the vegetable fibre. You understand me; I would have
+a person whose sole business should be to read day and night, and
+talk to me whenever I wanted him to. I know the man I would have: a
+quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive fellow; knows history, or at any
+rate has a shelf full of books about it, which he can use handily,
+and the same of all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common
+plots of plays and novels, and the stock company of characters that
+are continually coming on in new costume; can give you a criticism
+of an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it;
+cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in what he says;
+delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the
+disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as
+tender and reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is;
+of a new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In
+short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to
+make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal
+compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn,
+in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of
+course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide.
+In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase,
+"put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered,
+warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on
+his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of shutting it off at will.
+
+A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with
+about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of
+the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A
+dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of
+civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the
+senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by well-studied
+artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into their natural
+attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a short jacket.
+
+The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take for
+granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out; nothing
+short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies their dull
+apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble game! White
+stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red says, Mate in six
+moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over. Just so in talking
+with first-rate men; especially when they are good-natured and
+expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That blessed clairvoyance
+which sees into things without opening them,--that glorious license,
+which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from its key-hole,
+calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to get off from her pedestal and
+drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant
+place on the _medius lectus_,--that carnival-shower of questions and
+replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like
+bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping
+its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of
+_bon-bons_ pelting everybody that shows himself,--the picture of a
+truly intellectual banquet is one that the old Divinities might well
+have attempted to reproduce in their----
+
+----"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--
+"that is from one of your lectures!"
+
+I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.
+
+  "The trail of the serpent is over them all!"
+
+All lecturers, all professors, all school-masters, have ruts and
+grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually
+sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still June
+evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum of air,
+and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere beyond?
+Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay,--where
+the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating the "Metropolitan"
+boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a narrow, local
+gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little underdone, through
+which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to bring you back
+to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just so, in talking
+with any of the characters above referred to, one not unfrequently
+finds a sudden change in the style of the conversation. The
+lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon-Street door-plate in August,
+all at once fills with light; the face flings itself wide open like
+the church-portals when the bride and bridegroom enter; the little
+man grows in stature before your eyes, like the small prisoner with
+hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of early childhood; you were
+talking with a dwarf and an imbecile,--you have a giant and a
+trumpet-tongued angel before you!----Nothing but a streak out of a
+fifty-dollar lecture.----As when, at some unlooked-for moment, the
+mighty fountain-column springs into the air before the astonished
+passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from
+the bosom of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet
+batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less amiable and less
+elevated order of _reptilia_ in other latitudes.
+
+----Who was that person that was so abused some time since for
+saying that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go
+with the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on
+in India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned,
+inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and
+American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful
+questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come out
+most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that the
+human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does the
+same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The India
+mail brings stories of women and children outraged and murdered; the
+royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. England takes
+down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with empire, and
+makes a correction thus:
+
+[Strike-out: DELHI]. _Dele_.
+
+The civilized world says, Amen.
+
+----Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly,
+that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them
+and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes
+and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did
+with their _melas oinos_,--that black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which
+they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream.
+
+[Could it have been _melasses_, as Webster and his provincials
+spell it,--or _Molossa's_, as dear old smattering, chattering,
+would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"?
+Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights
+of learning in "Notes and Queries"!--ye Historical Societies, in one
+of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while
+other hands tug at the oars!--ye Amines of parasitical literature,
+who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having
+gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe
+speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!]
+
+----Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses.
+You will understand by the title that they are written in an
+imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man
+well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on
+_a priori_ grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There
+is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a
+soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and
+nurtured it; that its mysterious _compages_ or frame-work has
+survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity;
+that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the
+traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial clothing;
+that he will, having all the world to choose from, select the very
+locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It
+builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that
+Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in
+every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.--Now hear the
+verses.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN DREAMS.
+
+  O for one hour of youthful joy!
+    Give back my twentieth spring!
+  I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
+    Than reign a gray-beard king!
+
+  Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
+    Away with learning's crown!
+  Tear out life's wisdom-written page,
+    And dash its trophies down!
+
+  One moment let my life-blood stream
+    From boyhood's fount of flame!
+  Give me one giddy, reeling dream
+    Of life all love and fame!
+
+  --My listening angel heard the prayer,
+    And calmly smiling, said,
+  "If I but touch thy silvered hair,
+    Thy hasty wish hath sped."
+
+  "But is there nothing in thy track
+    To bid thee fondly stay,
+  While the swift seasons hurry back
+    To find the wished-for day?"
+
+  --Ah, truest soul of womankind!
+    Without thee, what were life?
+  One bliss I cannot leave behind:
+    I'll take--my--precious--wife!
+
+  --The angel took a sapphire pen
+    And wrote in rainbow dew,
+  "The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a husband too!"
+
+  --"And is there nothing yet unsaid
+    Before the change appears?
+  Remember, all their gifts have fled
+    With those dissolving years!"
+
+  Why, yes; for memory would recall
+    My fond paternal joys;
+  I could not bear to leave them all:
+    I'll take--my--girl--and--boys!
+
+  The smiling angel dropped his pen,--
+    "Why this will never do;
+  The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a father too!"
+
+  And so I laughed,--my laughter woke
+    The household with its noise,--
+  And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
+    To please the gray-haired boys.
+
+
+
+
+AGASSIZ'S NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+  _Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of
+  America_. By LOUIS AGASSIZ. Vols. I. and II. Boston: Little,
+  Brown & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1857.
+
+The Great Professor has given the first Monograph of his _Magnum Opus_
+to the Great Republic and the wider realm of Science. The learned
+world resolves itself into committees to consider every important
+work; claiming leave to sit for as long a time as they choose,--for
+years, or for a whole generation. Every alleged fact is to be
+verified or cancelled or qualified, every inference to be measured
+over and over again by its premises, every proposition to be tried
+by all the tests that can prove its strength or weakness, and the
+whole to be marshalled to the place it may claim in the alcoves of
+the universal library. No hasty opinion can anticipate this final
+and peremptory judgment. Its elements must of necessity be gathered
+slowly from many and scattered sources. The accumulated learning of
+the great centres of civilization, the patient investigation of
+plodding observers, the keen insight of subtile analysts, the
+jealous clairvoyance of dissentient theorists, the oblique glances
+of suspicious sister-sciences, the random flashes that skepticism
+throws from her faithless mirror to dazzle all eyes that seek for
+truth; through such a varied and protracted ordeal must every record
+that embodies long and profound observation, large and lofty thought,
+reach the golden _Imprimatur_ which is its warrant for immortality.
+
+The work of Mr. Agassiz, if we may judge it by the portion now
+before us, has a right to challenge such a matured opinion, and to
+wait for it. Not the less does a certain duty belong to us as
+literary journalists with reference to these stately volumes, which
+are in the hands of thousands, learned and unlearned, and of which
+there are scores of thousands waiting to hear. Our duty we consider
+to be four-fold: first, that of recognition in terms of fitting
+courtesy; secondly, of analysis for the general reader; thirdly, of
+accentuation, so to speak, of what seems most widely applicable or
+interesting; and lastly, of making such comments as so pregnant a
+text may suggest.
+
+And first, of recognition. Here are the fruits of ten years of
+patient labor, taken out of the heart of life, in the age of vigor,
+which is that of ambition,--to use the phrase of another great
+observer,--by a man of large endowments and of vast knowledge,
+assisted by skilful collaborators, by finished artists, by the
+counsels and liberality of the learned few, and the generous
+countenance of the intelligent many. Before analysis, before
+criticism, there should be uttered a welcome; not grudging, not
+envious of an overshadowing reputation, not over-curious in
+searching for qualifications to abate its warmth, not carefully
+taming down its enthusiasm to tepid formalisms; but full-souled and
+free-spoken, such as all noble works and deeds should claim.
+
+The learned men of past centuries have left us an example of this
+treatment of authors, in those gratulatory verses with which they
+were wont to hail every considerable literary or scientific
+performance. They knew human nature well. They knew that the author,
+when he quenches the lamp over which he has grown haggard and pale,
+and steps from his cell into daylight and the chill outside air,
+longs, longs unutterably, for kind words, and the cheering
+fellowship of kindred souls; and with instinctive grace they chose
+the poetical form of expression, simply because this alone gives
+full license to the lips of friendship.
+
+This old folio which stands by us is not precious only because it
+contains the quaint wisdom and manifold experience of Ambroise Paré,
+mingled with his credulous gossip, and again sweetened by his simple
+reverence; not precious alone because it contains the noblest words
+ever uttered by one of his profession,--_Ie le pensay et Dieu le
+guarit_; but also because PIERRE RONSARD, the "Poet of France," has
+left his deathless name thrice inscribed in its earlier pages at the
+foot of tributes to its author.
+
+And here in the next century comes Schenck of Grafenberg, staggering
+under his monstrous volume of "Casus Rariores,"--ready to fall
+fainting by the wayside, when lo! the shining ones meet him too, and
+lift him and lighten him with the utterance of these _fifty-one_
+distinct poems which we see hung up on so many votive tablets at the
+entrance of this miniature Babel of Science.
+
+Even so late as the last century the genial custom survived; for our
+worthy Stalpart van der Wiel, whose little pair of volumes was
+published in 1727, can boast of twenty-two pages of well-ordered
+commendatory verse, much of it in his native Dutch,--a little of
+which goes a good way with all except Batavian readers.
+
+But as the "Arundines Cami," musical as they are, have lent no
+prelude to these harmonies of science, we must say in a few plain
+words of prose our own first thought as to the work the commencement
+of which lies before us. We believe, that, if completed according to
+its promise, it is to be one of the monumental labors of our century.
+Comparisons are not to be lightly instituted, and especially under
+circumstances that do not allow a fair survey of the whole field
+from which the objects to be compared are to be taken. We suppose,
+however, it will be conceded that the sunset continent has never
+witnessed anything like the inception of this mighty task in the way
+of systematic natural science. And if, since Cuvier, the greatest of
+naturalists, as Mr. Agassiz considers him, slept with the fossils to
+which he had given life, there has been any other student of Nature
+who has attempted a task so immense, with the same union of observing,
+reflecting, analyzing, and coördinating power, we cannot name him.
+Our civilization has a right to be proud of such an accession to its
+thinking and laboring constituency; it is also bound to be grateful
+for it, and to express its gratitude.
+
+It is just one hundred years since another Swiss, the magnificent
+Albert von Haller, gave to the world the first volume of the
+"Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani." Nine years afterwards, in
+1766, the last of the eight volumes appeared; and the vast structure,
+which embodied his untiring study of Nature, his world-wide erudition,
+his deepest thought, his highest imaginings, his holiest aspirations,
+stood, like the Alps whose shadow fell upon its birthplace, the
+lovely Lausaune, pride of the Pays de Vaud. The clepsydrae that
+measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs--the
+glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a
+shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each
+revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the
+summer's sun--have registered a new centennial circle, and at the
+very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient
+renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of
+another of her honored children. May the auspicious omen lead to as
+happy a conclusion!
+
+Lovingly, then, we lay open the generous quarto and look upon its
+broad, bright title-page. It tells us that we have here the first of
+a series of "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States of America." We see that one of its three parts embraces the
+largest generalities of Natural Science, under the head of an
+"Essay on Classification." We see that the other two parts are
+devoted to the description and delineation of a single order of
+Reptilia,--the Testudinata, or "Turtles."
+
+If Mr. Agassiz had intentionally chosen the simplest way of proving
+that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have
+selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word
+_Turtle_ to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle
+is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights
+the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a
+provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and
+Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. For him a
+land-testudinate is a _tortoise_. When his poets and romancers speak
+of turtles, again, they commonly mean turtle-_doves_.
+
+  "Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies
+  That drives a turtle through the liquid skies."
+
+The only flight of a testudinate which we remember is that downward
+one of the unfortunate tortoise that cracked the bald crown of
+Aeschylus. But turtle, as embracing all chelonians, or, as liberal
+shepherds call it, "turkle," is unquestionably Cisatlantic. The
+distinguished naturalist has made himself an American citizen by
+adopting our own expression, and should have the freedom of all our
+cities presented to him in the shell of a box-TURTLE.
+
+It is singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the
+testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and
+sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury,
+as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise
+that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world.
+Under the _testudo_ the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities
+of the _orbis terrarum_. And in that wise old fable which childhood
+learns, and age too often remembers, sorrowing, it was the tortoise
+that won the race against the swiftest of the smaller tribes, his
+competitor.
+
+And here once more we have his shell strung with vibrating thoughts
+that repeat the harmonies of nature. Once more his broad back stoops
+to the weighty problems which the planet proposes to its children.
+Once more the great cities are stormed--by science--beneath his coat
+of mail. Once more he has run the race, not against the hare only,
+but the whole animal kingdom, and won it, and with it the new fame
+which awaits him, as he leads in the long array of his fellows that
+are to come up, one by one, in these enduring records. And so we
+turn the leaf, and come to the DEDICATION.
+
+The Dedication of a work like this, destined to preserve all the
+names it enrols in the sculpture-like immortality of science,
+naturally delays us for a moment. Of the foreign teacher and friend
+to whom the author owes some of his earliest lessons, and of that
+group of our own citizens, most of them still living, who lent their
+united efforts to the enterprise of publication after it was
+commenced, we need not speak individually. But we cannot pass over
+the name of FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY without a word of grateful
+remembrance for one who was the friend and adviser of the author
+in planning the publication of the work before us. We who remember
+his varied culture, his large and fluent discourse, with its
+formidable accuracy of knowledge and gracious suavity of utterance,
+his taste in literature and art, which made his home a suite of
+princely cabinets, his generous and elegant hospitality, which
+scholars and artists knew so well,--counting him as the peer, and in
+many points the more than peer of such as the wide world of letters
+is proud to claim,--are pleased to see that his cherished name will
+be read by the students of unborn generations on the first leaf of
+this noble record of the science of our own.
+
+The PREFACE which follows the Dedication is full of grateful
+acknowledgments to the many friends of science, in all parts of the
+country, who came forward to lend their aid in various forms,
+especially in collecting and transmitting specimens from the
+most widely remote sections of the continent. The pious zeal of
+Mr. Winthrop Sargent, who brought a cargo of living turtles more
+than a thousand miles to the head-quarters of testudinous learning
+at Cambridge, is only paralleled by the memorable act of the Pisans
+in transporting ship-loads of holy soil from Palestine to fill their
+Campo Santo. Genius is marked by nothing more distinctly than that
+it makes the world its tributary. He from whose lips it speaks has
+but to look calmly into the eyes of dull routine, of jaded toil, of
+fickle childhood, and utter the words, "Follow me." Custom-house
+officials close their books, tired fishermen leave their nets,
+riotous boys forsake their play, to do the master's bidding. Is he
+making collections for some great purpose of study? Piece by piece
+the fragmentary spoils flow in upon him, of all sizes, shapes, and
+hues; a chaos of confused riches, perhaps only a wealth of rubbish,
+as they lie at his feet. One by one they fall into harmonious
+relations, until the meaningless heap has become a vast mosaic,
+where nothing is too minute to fill some interstice, nothing too
+angular to fit some corner, nothing so dull or brilliant of tint
+that it will not furnish its fraction of light or shadow. Such has
+been the history of those years of labor the results of which these
+volumes present to us. Whatever may have been said of the devotion
+of our countrymen to material interests, the wise and winning lips
+had only to speak, and such a currency of _plastrons_ and _carapaces_
+was set in circulation, that the contemplative stranger who saw the
+mighty coinage of Chelonia flowing in upon Cambridge might well have
+thought that the national idea was not the Almighty Dollar, but the
+Almighty Turtle.
+
+Mr. Agassiz places a high estimate on the intelligence as well as
+the kind spirit of his adopted countrymen. "There is not a class of
+learned men here," he says, "distinct from the other cultivated
+members of the community. On the contrary, so general is the desire
+for knowledge, that I expect to see my book read by operatives, by
+fishermen, by farmers, quite as extensively as by the students of
+our colleges, or by the learned professions; and it is but proper
+that I should endeavor to make myself understood by all."
+
+The deficiencies of our scientific libraries, and the want of a
+class of elementary works upon Natural History, such as are widely
+circulated in Europe, are adverted to and alleged as a reason for
+entering into details which the professional naturalist might think
+misplaced.
+
+We quote one paragraph entire from the Preface, as not susceptible
+of being abridged, and as briefly stating those general facts with
+regard to the work which all our readers must desire to know.
+
+  "I have a few words more to say respecting the two first volumes,
+  now ready for publication. Considering the uncertainty of human life,
+  I have wished to bring out at once a work that would exemplify the
+  nature of the investigations I have been tracing during the last ten
+  years, and show what is likely to be the character of the whole
+  series. I have aimed, therefore, in preparing these two volumes, to
+  combine them in such a manner as that they should form a whole. The
+  First Part contains an exposition of the general views I have
+  arrived at thus far, in my studies of Natural History. The Second
+  Part shows how I have attempted to apply these results to the
+  special study of Zoology, taking the order of Testudinata as an
+  example. I believe, that, in America, where turtles are everywhere
+  common, and greatly diversified, a student could not make a better
+  beginning than by a careful perusal of this part, specimens in hand,
+  with constant reference to the second chapter of the First Part. The
+  Third Part exemplifies the bearing of Embryology upon these general
+  questions, while it contains the fullest illustration of the
+  embryonic growth of the Testudinata."
+
+The Preface closes with honorable mention of the gentlemen who have
+furnished direct assistance in the preparation of the work, and
+especially of Mr. Clark in microscopic observation and illustration,
+and of Mr. Sonrel in drawing the zoological figures.
+
+The LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS is not without its special meaning and
+interest. If, as has been said, the grade of civilization in any
+community can be estimated by the amount of sulphuric acid it
+consumes, the extent to which a work like this has been called for
+in different sections of the country may to some extent be
+considered an index of its intellectual aspirations, if not of its
+actual progress. This is especially true of those remoter regions
+where personal motives would exercise least influence. But without
+instituting any comparisons, we may well be proud of this ample list
+of twenty-five hundred subscribers, most of them citizens of the
+republic,--"a support such as was never before offered to any
+scientific man for purely scientific ends, without any reference to
+government objects or direct practical aims."
+
+Our analysis must confine itself mainly to the first of the three
+parts into which these two volumes are divided. This first part it
+is that contains those large results which every thinker must desire
+to learn from one whose life has been devoted to the searching and
+contemplative study of Nature. It is in the realm of thought here
+explored, that Natural Science, whose figure we are wont to look
+down upon, crouching to her task, like him of the muck-rake, as he
+painfully gathers together his sticks and straws, rises erect, and
+lifts her forehead into the upper atmosphere of philosophy, where
+the clouds are indeed thickest, but the stars are nearest. The
+second and third parts belong more exclusively to the professed
+students of Natural History in its different special departments.
+Our notice of these divisions of the work must therefore be
+comparatively brief.
+
+The first chapter of the first part has for its title, "The
+fundamental relations of animals to one another and to the world in
+which they live, as the basis of the natural system of animals."
+
+Certain general doctrines, the spirit of which runs through all the
+scientific works of Mr. Agassiz, are distinctly laid down in the
+first section of this chapter. It is headed with the statement,
+"The leading features of a natural zoological system are all founded
+in nature." The systems named from the great leaders of science are
+but translations of the Creator's thoughts into human language.
+"If it can be proved that man has not invented, but only traced this
+systematic arrangement in nature,--that these relations and
+proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world
+have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator,--
+that this plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest
+wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws,
+but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in
+his thought, before it was manifested in tangible, external forms,--
+if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation,
+we have done, once and forever, with the desolate theory which
+refers us to the laws of matter as accounting for all the wonders of
+the universe, and leaves us with no God but the monotonous, unvarying
+action of physical forces, binding all things to their inevitable
+destiny."
+
+One more extract must be given from this section, for it is the key
+to the general argument which follows.
+
+"I disclaim every intention of introducing in this work any evidence
+irrelevant to my subject, or of supporting any conclusions not
+immediately flowing from it; but I cannot overlook nor disregard
+here the close connection there is between the facts ascertained by
+scientific investigations, and the discussions now carried on
+respecting the origin of organized beings. And though I know those
+who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not
+something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential
+difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings, I shall
+not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from
+expressing my conviction, that, as long as it cannot be shown that
+matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
+manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking
+being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an
+intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature
+as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as
+man exhibits the power of thinking when he recognizes their natural
+relations."
+
+We must content ourselves with the most general statement of the
+nature and bearing of the series of propositions which follow. They
+are illustrated by a large survey of the material universe in its
+manifestations of life, and of the relations between the various
+forms of life to each other and to the inorganic world. These
+propositions, thirty-one in number, might be called an analysis of
+the qualities of the Infinite Mind exhibited in the realm of
+organized and especially of animal being. Nothing but want of space
+prevents our reproducing at full length the very careful
+recapitulation to be found at the close of the chapter, or the
+analysis to be found in the Table of Contents. With something more
+of labor than the task of copying would have been, we have attempted
+to compress the truths already crowded in these brief and pregnant
+sentences into the still narrower compass of a few lines in our
+straitened pages.
+
+The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable
+intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these
+are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity
+of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of
+known material agencies, of special form,--illustrated by repetition
+of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or
+partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying
+conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable
+forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the
+midst of formal differences known as _special homologies_; power of
+combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other
+and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the
+most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time
+and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages
+of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and
+omniscience, as shown in the _prophetic_ types of earlier geological
+ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal
+organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.
+
+The final _résumé_ of Mr. Agassiz is as follows:--
+
+"We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in
+still fewer words.
+
+"All organized beings exhibit in themselves all those categories of
+structure and of existence upon which a natural system may be founded,
+in such a manner, that, in tracing it, the human mind is only
+translating into human language the Divine thoughts expressed in
+Nature in living realities.
+
+"All these beings do not exist in consequence of the continued
+agency of physical causes, but have made their successive appearance
+upon earth by the immediate intervention of the Creator. As proof, I
+may sum up my argument in the following manner:--
+
+"The products of what are commonly called physical agents are
+everywhere the same, (that is, upon the whole surface of the globe,)
+and have always been the same (that is, during all geological periods);
+while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed
+in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no
+causal or genetic connection.
+
+"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful
+conceptions exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation,
+power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In
+one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud
+the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History
+must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the
+Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable
+kingdoms."
+
+To this statement we must add two paragraphs from the pages just
+preceding, (pp. 130, 131.)
+
+  "If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the
+  various relations observed between animals and the physical world,
+  as well as between themselves, exhibit thought, it follows that the
+  whole has an Intelligent Author; and it may not be out of place to
+  attempt to point out, as far as possible, the difference there may
+  be between Divine thinking and human thought."
+
+  "Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me,
+  that, while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is
+  simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past,
+  the present, and the future, the most diversified relations among
+  hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present
+  complications, again, which to study and understand even imperfectly,
+  as, for instance, man himself, mankind has already spent thousands of
+  years. And yet, all this has been done by one Mind, must be the work
+  of one Mind only, of Him before whom man can only bow in grateful
+  acknowledgment of the prerogatives he is allowed to enjoy in this
+  world, not to speak of the promises of a future life."
+
+Chapter Second is entitled, "Leading Groups of the existing systems
+of animals."
+
+Its nine sections treat successively of the great types or branches
+of the animal kingdom, of classes, orders, families, genera, species,
+other natural divisions, successive development of characters, and
+close with some very significant conclusions on the importance of
+the study of classification.
+
+Mr. Agassiz has attempted to give definiteness to the terms above
+enumerated, which have been used with various significance, by
+limiting each one of them to covering a single category of natural
+relationship. Thus:--
+
+  _Branches_ or _types_ are characterized by their plan of structure.
+
+  _Classes_, by the manner in which that plan is executed, so far as
+  ways and means are concerned.
+
+  _Orders_, by the degrees of complication of that structure.
+
+  _Families_, by their form, so far as determined by structure.
+
+  _Genera_, by the details of the execution in special parts.
+
+  _Species_, by the relations of individuals to one another and to
+  the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their
+  parts, their ornamentation, etc.
+
+  "And yet there are other natural divisions which must be acknowledged
+  in a natural zoölogical system; but these are not to be traced so
+  uniformly in all classes as the former,--they are, in reality, only
+  limitations of the other kinds of divisions."
+
+This chapter must be studied in the original text, the arguments by
+which its conclusions are supported hardly admitting of brief analysis.
+The most superficial reader will be interested in Mr. Agassiz's
+account of the mode in which he sought for the natural boundaries
+of the various divisions, by observing the special point of view
+in which various eminent naturalists have considered their subject;
+as, for instance, Audubon, among the biographers of species,--
+Latreille, among the students of genera,--and Cuvier, at the head
+of those who have contemplated the higher groups, such as classes
+and types. The most indifferent reader will be arrested by the
+opinions boldly promulgated with reference to species.
+
+  "The evidence that all animals have originated in large numbers is
+  growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in the
+  beginning in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely
+  by naturalists." "If we are led to admit as the beginning of each
+  species the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if
+  the same species may originate at the same time in different
+  localities, these first representatives of each species, at least,
+  were not connected by sexual derivation; and as this applies equally
+  to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of specific identity
+  must at all events be given up, and with it goes also the pretended
+  real existence of the species, in contradistinction from the mode of
+  existence of genera, families, orders, classes and types; for what
+  really exists are individuals, not species." (pp. 166-167.)
+
+Chapter Third is headed, "Notice of the principal systems of Zoology."
+It is divided into the six following sections: General remarks upon
+modern systems; Early attempts to classify animals; Period of Linnaeus;
+Period of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems; Physiophilosophical systems;
+Embryological systems.
+
+This chapter is invaluable to the general student, as giving him in
+a single view not only a _conspectus_, of the most important
+attempts at classification in Zoology, but an examination of the
+principles involved in each, by the one among all living men most
+fitted to perform the task. No cultivated person who desires to know
+anything of Natural Science can pass over this portion of the work
+without careful study. Those who are not prepared to follow the
+author through the details of the Second Part will yet consider
+these volumes as indispensable companions for reference, as
+containing this brief but comprehensive encyclopedia and commentary,
+covering the whole philosophical machinery of zoological science.
+
+For the first section of this chapter Mr. Agassiz adopts the
+fundamental divisions (branches) of Cuvier, introducing such changes
+among the classes and orders as the progress of science demands. The
+second section gives a short account of the early attempts to
+classify animals, more particularly of the divisions established by
+Aristotle. The third section embraces the period of Linnaeus, and
+gives his classification. The fourth, that of Cuvier, and Anatomical
+systems, with the classifications of Cuvier, Lamark, De Blainville,
+Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Owen, Milne-Edwards, Von Siebold and Stannius,
+Leuckart. The fifth section includes the Physiophilosophical systems,
+with diagrams of Oken's and Fitzinger's classifications, and a
+special article for the circular groups of McLeay. The sixth and last
+section is devoted to Embryological systems, and presents diagrams
+of the classifications of Von Baer, Van Beneden, Kölliker, and Vogt.
+
+The second part of the Monograph introduces us to the consideration
+of a special subject of Natural History,--the North American
+Testudinata. Its three chapters treat successively of this order of
+Reptiles,--of its families,--of its North American genera and species.
+
+The THIRD PART, contained in the second volume, is entitled,
+"Embryology of the Turtle." It consists of two chapters: "Development
+of the Egg, from its first appearance to the formation of the embryo."
+"Development of the Embryo, from the time the egg leaves the ovary
+to that of the hatching of the young." Then follow the explanation
+of the plates and the plates themselves, thirty-four in number.
+
+We need not attempt to give any account of the parts devoted to the
+development of these particular subjects. This we must necessarily
+leave to the journals devoted to scientific matters, and the class
+of students most intimate with these departments of Natural Science.
+
+Yet the American who asks for a model to work by in his
+investigations will find a great deal more than the "North American
+Testudinata" in the part to which that title is prefixed. The
+principles of classification exemplified, the methods of description
+illustrated, the rules of nomenclature tested,--what matter is it
+whether the _gran maestro_ has chosen this or that string to play
+the air upon, when each has compass enough for all its melody?
+
+Still more forcibly does this comment apply to the elaborate and
+ample division of the work embracing the Embryology of the Turtle.
+He who has mastered the details of this section has at his feet the
+whole broad realm of which this province holds one of the
+key-fortresses. _Ex testudine naturam_.
+
+We are unwilling to speak of the illustrations comparatively
+without more extended means of judgment than we have at hand. But
+that they are of superlative excellence, brilliant, delicate,
+accurate, life-like, and nature-like, is what none will dispute.
+Look at these turtles, models of real-estate owners as they are,
+Observe No. 13, Plate IV.,--"Chelydra Serpentina,"--"snapper",
+or "snappin' turtle," in the vernacular. He is out collecting
+rents from the naked-skinned reptiles, his brethren; in default
+thereof, taking the bodies of the aforesaid. Or behold No. 5, Plate
+VI., bewailing the wretchedness of those who have no roofs to cover
+them. Or No. 2, of the same plate, bestowing an archiepiscopal
+benediction on the houseless multitudes, before he retires for the
+night to slumber between his tessellated floor and his frescoed
+ceiling.
+
+Of the smooth, white eggs, with their rounded reliefs and tenderly
+graduated light and shadow, all eyes are judges. But of the
+exquisite figures showing the various stages of development and the
+details of structural arrangement, the uninitiated must take the
+opinions of a microscopic expert: and if they will accept our
+testimony as that of one not unfamiliar with the instrument and the
+mysteries it reveals, we can assure them that these figures are of
+supreme excellence. The hazy semitransparency of the embryonic
+tissues, the halos, the granules, the globules, the cell-walls, the
+delicate membranous expansions, the vascular webs, are expressed
+with purity, softness, freedom, and a conscientiousness which
+reminds us of Donne's microscopic daguerreotypes, while in many
+points the views are literally truer to nature,--just as a
+sculptor's bust of a living person is often more really like him in
+character than a cast moulded on his features.
+
+We have attempted to give a slight idea of the contents of these two
+volumes, in the compass of a few pages. We have called the reader's
+attention to various points of special interest, as we were going
+along. It remains to make such comments as suggest themselves to us,
+either in our character of "the scholiast," or in our own right as a
+freed citizen of the intellectual as well as the political republic.
+
+WHENCE? WHY? WHITHER? These are the three great questions that arise
+in the soul of every race and of every thinking being. He who looks
+at either of them with the least new light, though he whisper what
+he sees ever so softly, has the world to listen to him. No matter
+how he got his knowledge nor what he calls it; it belongs to mankind.
+But "Science" has been mainly engaged with another question, in
+itself of very inferior interest, namely, _How?_
+
+We must be permitted to speak of "Science" in our freest capacity,
+and will endeavor not to abuse our liberty. The study of natural
+phenomena for the sake of the pleasing variety of aspects they
+present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the
+exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for
+the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is
+an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with
+a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even
+constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power
+wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but
+not affix the wrong label to it. Those who possess it acquire
+knowledge sometimes so extensive and uncommon that we regard them
+with a certain admiration. But knowledge is not wisdom. Unless these
+narrow trains of ideas are brought into relation with other and
+wider ranges of thought, or with the conduct of life, they cannot
+aspire to that loftier name.
+
+We must go farther than this. The study of the _How?_ in Nature, or
+the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to
+quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact
+that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or
+out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as
+prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The
+product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the
+body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not
+grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those
+who browse in the sleepy meadows of aimless observation,--loving to
+keep their heads down as they gaze at and gather their narcotic herbs,
+rather than lift them to the horizon beyond or the heaven above,--
+act in obedience to the law of their limited natures. Still, let us
+recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may
+be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be
+ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand,
+that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of
+science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his
+labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer
+may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a
+diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with
+hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some
+of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording
+microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch
+a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and
+give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest
+and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would
+probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that
+of the observer.
+
+Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men,
+unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey
+to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the
+honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type.
+But _Vos non vobis_ is the rule. "Science" is knowledge, it is true,
+but knowledge disarticulated and parcelled out among certain
+specialists, like Truth in Milton's glorious comparison. He who can
+restore each part to its true position, and orient the lesser whole
+in its relations to the universe, he it is to whom science belongs.
+He must range through all time and follow Nature to her farthest
+bounds. Then he can dissect beetles like Straus Derekheim, without
+becoming a myope. But even this is not enough. Let us see what
+qualities would go to make up the ideal model of the truly wise
+student of Nature.
+
+He must have, in the first place, as the substratum of his faculties,
+the power of observation, with the passion that keeps it active and
+the skilful hand to serve its needs. Secondly, a quick eye for
+resemblances and differences. Thirdly, a wide range of mental vision.
+Fourthly, the coordinating or systematizing faculty. Fifthly, a
+large scholarship. Lastly, and without which all these gifts fall
+short of their ultimate aim, an instinct for the highest forms of
+truth,--a centripetal tendency, always seeking the idea behind the
+form, the Deity in his manifestations, and thence working outward
+again to solve those infinite problems of life and its destinies
+which are, in reality, all that the thinking soul most lives for.
+
+It is as easy to find all these qualities separate as it is to turn
+beneath the finger one of the letters of a revolving padlock. But
+they must all be brought together in line before the grand portals
+of Nature's hypaethral temple will open to her chosen student. How
+incomplete the man of science is with only one or two of these
+endowments may be seen by a few examples.
+
+The power and instinct of observation combined with the most
+consummate skill do not necessarily make a great philosophical
+naturalist. Leeuwenhoek had all these. They bore admirable fruits,
+too. We cannot but read the old man's letters to the Royal Society,
+written, if we remember right, after the age of eighty, with delight
+and admiration. Those little lenses in their silver mountings, all
+ground and set and fashioned by his own hand, showed him the
+blood-globules, and the "pipes" of the teeth, which Purkinje and
+Retzius found with their achromatic microscopes a century later. We
+honor his skill and sagacity as they deserve; but a little trick of
+Mr. Dollond's, applied to the microscopic object-glass, has left all
+his achievements a mere matter of curious history.
+
+Few have been more remarkable for perceiving resemblances and
+differences than Oken. This is the poetical side of the scientific
+mind; and he shares with Goethe the honor of that startling and
+far-reaching discovery, the vertebral character of the bones of the
+cranium. At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones
+recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But
+notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great
+merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the
+Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a
+constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the
+solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane,
+if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.
+
+If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great
+learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon
+should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva
+Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was
+observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were
+scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many
+_Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least:
+Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a
+great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This
+in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!
+
+The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing,
+unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned.
+Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but
+where is now the "Zoönomia"?
+
+And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by
+appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It
+would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its
+insignificance. Our shelves bend and crack under the load of unwise
+and learned authorship. There are two stages in every student's life.
+In the first he is afraid of books; in the second books are afraid
+of him. For they are a great community of thieves, and one finds the
+same stolen patterns in all their pockets. Though often dressed in
+sheep's clothing, they have the maw of wolves. When the student has
+once found them out, he laughs at the pretensions of erudition, and
+strides gayly up and down great libraries, feeling that the most
+blustering folio of them all will turn as pale as if it were bound
+in law-calf, if he only lay his hand on its shoulder.
+
+Nor, lastly, can any elevation of aim, any thirst for the divine
+springs of knowledge, enable a man to dispense with the sober habits
+of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the
+stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings
+are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and
+his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may
+suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into
+such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist on laying
+down.
+
+That all these qualities which go to make up our ideal should exist
+in absolute perfection in any single man of mortal birth is not to
+be expected. But there are names in the history of Science which
+recall so imposing a combination of these several gifts, that,
+comparing the men who bore them with the civilization of their time,
+we can hardly conceive that uninspired intellect should come nearer
+the imaginary standard. Such a man was Aristotle. The slender and
+close-shaven fop, with the showy mantle on his ungraceful person and
+the costly rings on his fingers, who hung on the lips of Plato for
+twenty years, and trained the boy of Macedon to whatever wisdom he
+possessed,--whose life was set by destiny between the greatest of
+thinkers and the greatest of conquerors,--seems to have borrowed the
+intellect of the one and the universal aspirations of the other. But
+because he invaded every realm of knowledge, it must not be thought
+he dealt with Nature at second-hand. He was a collector and a
+dissector. He could display the anatomical structure of a fish as
+well as write a treatise on the universe or on rhetoric, or
+government or logic, or music or mathematics. Dethroned we call him;
+and yet Mr. Agassiz quotes his descriptions with respect, and
+confesses that the systematic classification of animals makes but
+one stride from Aristotle to Linnaeus.
+
+Cuvier was such a man. Alone, and unapproached in his own spheres of
+knowledge, his "Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences" is
+only an index to the wide range of his intellect. In one point,
+however, we must own that he seems slow of apprehension or limited
+by preconceived opinions,--in his reception of the homologies pointed
+out by Oken and the Physiophilosophical observers.
+
+In the same range of intellects we should reckon Linnaeus and
+Humboldt, and should have reckoned Goethe, had he given himself to
+science.
+
+We do not assume to say where in the category of fully equipped
+intelligences Mr. Agassiz belongs. But if the union of the most
+extraordinary observing powers with an almost poetic perception of
+analogies, with a wide compass of thought, the classifying instinct
+and habit, large knowledge of books, and personal intimacy with the
+leaders in various departments of knowledge, and with this the
+upward-looking aspect of mind and heart, which is the crowning gift
+of all,--if the union of these qualities can give to the man of
+science a claim to the nobler name of wisdom, it is not flattery,
+but justice, to award this distinction to Mr. Agassiz.
+
+To him, then, we listen, when, after having sounded every note in
+the wide gamut of Nature, after reading the story of life as it
+stands written in the long series of records reaching from Cambrian
+fossils to ovarian germs, after tracing the divine principle of
+order from the starlike flower at his feet to the flower-like circle
+of planets which spreads its fiery corolla, in obedience to the same
+simple law that disposes the leaves of the growing plant,--as our
+eminent mathematician tells us,--he relates in simple and
+reverential accents the highest truths he has learned in traversing
+God's mighty universe. For him, and such as him,--for us, too, if we
+read wisely,--the toiling slaves of science, often working with
+little consciousness of the full proportions of the edifice they are
+helping to construct, have spent their busy lives. All knowledge
+asserts its true dignity when once brought into relation with the
+grand end of knowledge,--a wider and deeper view of the significance
+of conscious and unconscious created being, and the character of its
+Creator.
+
+We shall close this article with some remarks upon the great
+doctrines that dominate all the manifold subordinate thoughts which
+fill these crowded pages. The plan of creation, Mr. Agassiz maintains,
+"has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was
+the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his
+thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms."
+Before Mr. Agassiz, before Linnaeus, before Aristotle, before Plato,
+Timaeus the Locrian spake; the original, together with the version
+we cite, is given with the Plato of Ficinus:--"Duas esse rerum
+omnium causas: mentem quidem, earum quae ratione quadam nascuntur, et
+necessitatem, earum quae existunt vi quadam, secundum corporum
+potentias et faculitates. Harrum rerum, id est, Natunae bonorum,
+optimum esse quoddam rerum optimarum principium, et Deum vocari....
+Esse praeterea in hac Naturae universitate quiddam quod maneat et
+intelligible sit, rerum genitarum, quae quidem in perpetuo quodam
+mutationum fluxu versantur, exemplar, Ideam dici et mente comprehendi....
+Permanet igitur mundus constanter talis qualis est creatus a Deo ...
+proponente sibi non exemplaria quaedam manuum opificio edita, sed
+illam Ideam intelligibilemque essentiam."--So taught the
+half-inspired pagan philosopher whom Plato took as his guide in his
+contemplations of Nature.
+
+We trace the thought again in Dante, amidst the various fragments of
+ancient wisdom which he has embodied in the "Divina Commedia":
+
+  Ciò che non muore e ciò che può morire
+    Non è se non splendor cli quella idea
+  Che partorisco, amando, il nosfro Sire.
+           ----_Paradiso_, XIII. 52-54.
+
+Two thousand years after the old Greek had written, the Christian
+philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, repeats the same doctrine in a new
+phraseology:--"_Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ;
+yet it is true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not
+only before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the idea of God, and the
+decree of that Synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say,
+the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a
+beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be
+_England_, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me
+before she conceived of Cain."
+
+The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical
+whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or
+little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its
+hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the
+pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its
+mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came
+from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in
+various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the
+Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach,
+and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was
+it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the
+whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.
+
+We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained
+by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action
+of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the
+physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As
+opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to
+modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no
+qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force
+or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as
+Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to
+"waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so
+profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm
+foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the vestiges of creation.
+
+There is danger, however, that, in accepting this doctrine as a truth,
+we may be led into an inexact conception of the so-called physical
+laws, unless we closely examine the sense in which we use the
+expression. The forces which act according to these laws, and the
+various forms of the so-called _matter_, or concrete forces, are
+often spoken of as if they were blind agencies and existences, acting
+by an inherent fate-like power of their own. But if everything
+outside of our consciousness resolves itself, in the last analysis,
+into force, or something capable of producing change, and if force
+existing by the will of an omniscient and omnipresent Being, to whom
+time has no absolute significance, is simply God himself in action,
+then we shall find it impossible to limit the causal agency of the
+physical forces. All we can say is, that commonly they appear to
+move in certain rectilinear paths, in which they manifest a degree
+of uniformity and precision so amazing that we are lost in the
+infinite intelligence they display,--unless we become perfectly
+stupid to it, and think, as in the old fable, there is no music in
+it because we are made deaf by its continued harmony. No single leaf
+ever made a mistake in falling, though in so doing it solved more
+problems than were ever held in all the libraries that have changed
+or are changing into dust or ashes.
+
+We are willing to accept the belief of Mr. Agassiz, "that matter
+does not exist as such, but is everywhere and always a specific thing,
+as are all finite beings." But we must extend the same idea to the
+physical forces, and believe them to be specific agencies, and their
+acts specific acts,--in other words, each one of them a Divine
+manifestation. Theology is close upon us in these speculations.
+"Perhaps," says Mr. Robertson, in the volume of admirable sermons
+just republished, "even the Eternal himself is more closely bound to
+his works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps
+matter is only a mode of thought." Looking, then, at our recognized
+forms of matter and physical force as expressions of a self-limiting
+omnipotence, we concede that the uniform lines of action in which
+human observation has hitherto traced them do not, and, so far as we
+can see, cannot, shape the curves of the simplest organism.
+
+It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even
+hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals
+that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have
+taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of
+life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no
+more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day
+engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have
+broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the
+Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he
+fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn
+reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with
+us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection
+proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and
+Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the
+thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal
+and vegetable kingdoms."
+
+
+
+
+TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The weather leech of the topsail shivers,
+    The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
+  The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
+    And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  Open one point on the weather bow
+    Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head;
+  There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
+    And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  I stand at the wheel and with eager eye
+    To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
+  Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!"
+    Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  The ship bends lower before the breeze,
+    As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;
+  And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
+    As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  V.
+
+  It is silence all, as each in his place,
+    With the gathered coils in his hardened hands,
+  By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
+    Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  And the light on Fire Island head draws near,
+    As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
+  From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
+    With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  No time to spare! It is touch and go,
+    And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!"
+  As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
+    While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
+    As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;
+  And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
+    As I answer, "AYE, AYE, SIR! HA-A-R-D A-LEE!"
+
+
+  IX.
+
+  With the swerving leap of a startled steed
+    The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
+  The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
+    And the headland white we have left behind.
+
+
+  X.
+
+  The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
+    And belly and tug at the groaning cleats,
+  The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps,
+    And thunders the order, "TACKS AND SHEETS!"
+
+
+  XI.
+
+  'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
+    Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
+  The sails are aback from clew to clew,
+    And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"
+
+
+  XII.
+
+  And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
+    By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
+  She holds her way, and I look with joy
+    For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
+
+
+  XIII.
+
+  "LET GO AND HAUL!" 'Tis the last command,
+    And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
+  Astern and to leeward lies the land,
+    With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
+
+
+  XIV.
+
+  What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?
+    I steady the helm for the open sea;
+  The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!"
+    And the captain's breath once more comes free.
+
+
+  XV.
+
+  And so off shore let the good ship fly;
+    Little care I how the gusts may blow,
+  In my fo'castle-bunk in a jacket dry,--
+    Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
+
+
+
+
+MAMOUL.
+
+
+THROUGH THE COSSITOLLAH KALEIDOSCOPE.
+
+Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the
+motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;--
+one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace;
+the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;--
+and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the
+hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from
+the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_
+house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent
+eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior,
+and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul
+shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It
+is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in
+Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or
+down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a
+common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean
+rabble.
+
+Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to
+commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same
+Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and
+Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most
+picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most
+directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the
+imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn
+chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless
+and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of
+British enlightenment and accountability.
+
+From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of
+Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_,
+(as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its
+solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by
+whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from
+Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance,
+and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its
+stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the
+pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the
+carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises;
+from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department
+well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and
+Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and
+Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come
+of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most
+profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who
+approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O
+Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and
+with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)--
+from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.
+
+And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the
+characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending
+the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of
+the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preëminently the
+type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs,
+and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;--
+Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and
+_ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of
+pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses,
+_durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_
+or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of
+_banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts;
+together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers,
+horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors,
+British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter
+of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met,
+whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives
+the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the
+shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by
+all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.
+
+Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of
+a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to
+the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but
+nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.
+
+What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with
+elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a
+monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is
+impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!")
+at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.
+
+  "Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  This is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Very small Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Sixpenny Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Holes in his elbows!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Slipshod!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Son of a sea-cook!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will beat us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will kick us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Kick us and curse us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Not he, the greenhorn!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't understand us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't know the lingo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Let's shake the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rattle the pig's bones!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Set down the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Call him a great lord!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Ask him for buksheesh!
+    _Putterum_."
+
+And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the
+pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the
+sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening
+sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within,
+but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud
+of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck,
+with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--
+
+"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord!
+O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon
+whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother
+is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos
+of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy
+abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the
+golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay
+his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"
+
+"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you
+bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'?
+Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga,
+the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all
+your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"
+
+Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar,
+and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at
+first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly,
+and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.
+
+  "_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
+    _Putterum_.
+  Carry him softly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Swiftly and smoothly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rich little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Fierce little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  See how his eyes flash!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hear how his voice roars!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Tremble before him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Serve him and please him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Please him and serve him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will reward us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will protect us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will enrich us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Charity Lord Sa'b!
+    _Putterum._
+  Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Way for the great ...
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rajah of ten crores!
+    _Putter_....
+  .... Ten crores!..
+    _Putter_....
+  Rajah.... ....
+    _Put...._
+  .... Lard.... ..
+    _Putter...._
+  ....  ... Sa'b!
+    _.... rum_.
+
+And so they have turned down Flag Street.
+
+But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,--
+four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate
+coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers,
+supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like
+Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running
+at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made
+from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,--
+a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne,
+behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs,
+that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya
+Mullick, on the back seat.
+
+"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the
+umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes,
+this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is
+honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump,
+_sooa_. Jump!"
+
+And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the
+common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the
+fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our
+_godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman
+of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but
+_Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.
+
+As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the
+place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_
+first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and
+commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our
+Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and
+address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is
+threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard,
+and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the
+last; his life he holds of less account than either.
+
+As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with
+profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the
+very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead
+lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining
+his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality
+of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much
+for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the
+other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm
+applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.
+
+How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks
+all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five
+rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say,
+when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years
+old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling,
+on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the
+occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the
+Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature.
+Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.
+
+And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score
+of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of
+the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest
+corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head
+circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is
+only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen
+rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his
+salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands
+high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the
+Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two
+thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a
+hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts
+of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides
+two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold
+the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture,
+as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo
+condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!
+
+"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle
+bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and
+enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is
+disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,--
+feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot
+blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,--
+ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo
+not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket.
+Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty
+i-strong, plenty proud.
+
+"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar
+Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar
+foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban.
+'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar
+say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master
+und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"
+
+"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the
+Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with
+the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"
+
+"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young
+English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to
+make it their own for a day or two."
+
+"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin.
+They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better
+for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a
+strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for
+the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows
+next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."
+
+"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the
+Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or
+Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and
+we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah
+to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
+'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
+stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
+appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
+of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
+minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
+samples."
+
+Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
+with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
+pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
+its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
+perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
+match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
+astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
+a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
+it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
+who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
+without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
+will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
+while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
+Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
+Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
+the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
+the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
+
+Just now a _palkee-gharree_, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with
+but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a
+footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a
+respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at
+Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window,
+and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing
+barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,--dust that has been
+churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,--
+humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban,
+murmuring a pious _Namaskarum_; for the respectable accountant in the
+Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen
+Brahmin,--only a little more so. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his
+prophet!
+
+At the gate-lodge of the Baboo's garden-house on the Durumtollah
+Road, a gray and withered hag, all crippled and leprosied, sits
+_durhna_.
+
+What may that be?
+
+Be patient; you shall know.
+
+When the Baboo was as yet a youth, his uncle Rajinda, the pride of
+the Mullicks, died of cholera, and the administration of the estate
+devolved upon our free-thinking Kalidas. Of course there were
+mortgages to foreclose, and delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain
+small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern
+for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by
+Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and
+castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt
+_chit_, (that is, note, or _sheet_ of paper, as near as a Bengalee
+can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar
+come down forthwith with the rupees.
+
+But, behold you now, "he had paid," he said. "By the Holy Ganges and
+the Blessed Cow! by the turban of his father and the veil of his
+mother! restitution had been made long ago," the old man said;
+"and the soul of Uncle Rajinda, the pride of the Mullicks, had no
+reason to be disquieted for the rupees, though the seersuckers had
+been but vanity, and the castor-oil vexation of spirit."
+
+"Produce the documents," said the Baboo, with a business-like
+impassibility that in Wall Street would have made him a great bear;--
+"where are the receipts?"
+
+"My Lord, I know not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the
+lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my _gureeb purwar_, the
+destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the
+Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother,
+that I settled the little account long ago!"
+
+That unhappy speculator in seersuckers and castor-oil died in prison,
+and a _gooroo_ (that is, a spiritual teacher) feed by the Baboo,
+desolated his last hour with the assurance that he should
+transmigrate into the bodies of seven generations of _gharree_-horses,
+and drag _feringhee_ sailormen, in a state of beer, from the ghauts
+to the punch-houses, all his miserable lives.
+
+Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
+discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
+and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
+Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
+were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
+
+But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
+once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
+of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
+"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
+be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
+Haranu the Lost!"
+
+But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
+bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
+So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
+leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
+Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
+till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
+this?"
+
+And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
+crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
+have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
+no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
+matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
+hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
+
+The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
+the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
+insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
+Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
+away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
+solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
+louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
+But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
+he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
+lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
+the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
+and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
+durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
+Young Bengal.
+
+  _Mootrib i koosh nuwà bigo,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Baduè dil kooshà bidoh,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Koosh biu sheen bu kilwulé
+  Chung nuwaz-a sa-uté,
+  Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Songster sweet, begin the lay,
+    Ever sweet and ever gay!
+  Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
+    Ever fresh and ever fine!
+  With a heart-alluring lass
+  Gayly let the moments pass,
+  Kisses stealing while you may,
+    Ever fresh and ever gay!"
+
+Now surely she who thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo
+type;--that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream;
+"her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute;
+she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's;
+her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait
+of a young elephant of pure blood." Let us see.
+
+Alas, no! She entertains a set of lazy bearers, smoking the
+hubble-bubble around a palanquin as they wait for a fare; and her
+buksheesh may be a cowry or two. By no means is she of the
+_nautch_-maidens of Lucknow, who were wont to lighten the hours of
+debauched majesty between the tiger-fights and the games of leap-frog;
+by no means is she ringed as to her fingers or belled as to her toes;
+and though she carries her music wherever she goes, she also carries
+a shiny brown baby, slung in a canvas tray between her shoulders.
+
+No excessively voluminous folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber
+her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora
+MacFlimsey would call _skimped_,) and pitifully mean as to quality.
+By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her
+professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price;
+but a narrow red strip of some poor cotton stuff crosses her bosom
+like a scarf, and leaves exposed too much of the ruins of once
+daintier beauties. A string of glass beads, black and red alternate,
+are all her jewels,--save one silver bodkin, all forlorn, in her hair,
+and a ring of thin gold wire piercing the right nostril, and, with
+an effect completely deforming, encircling the lips. Her teeth and
+nails are deeply stained, and the darkness of her eyes is enhanced
+by artificial shadows.
+
+And so, while that baby-Tantalus, catching glimpses, over the
+unveiled shoulder, of the Micawberian fount he cannot reach,
+stretches his little brown arms, bites, kicks, and squalls,--while a
+small female apprentice, by way of chorus, in costume and gesture
+absurdly caricaturing her _prima donna_, (a sort of Cossitollah
+marchioness, indeed, for some Dick Swiveller of the Sahibs,) shuffles
+rheumatically with her feet, or impotently dislocates her slender
+arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy
+cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "_Wah wah!_" and clap
+their sweaty hands,--our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums
+her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks
+corkscrewishly her _Chota, chota natchelee_:--
+
+  _Badi subå choo boog zuree,
+  Bar suri kove an puree,
+  Qassué Hufiz ush bigo
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Zephyrs, while you gently move
+  By the mansion of my love,
+  Softly Hafiz' strains repeat,
+      Ever new and ever sweet!"
+
+Heaven save the key!
+
+"_Ka munkta_, Bearer?--What is it, my gentle Karlee?"
+
+"_Chittee, Sahib!--chittee_ for Master."
+
+"Note, hey? from whom? let us see!"
+
+Pink paper,--scented with sandal-wood, pah!--embossed, too, with
+cornucopias in the corners,--seal motto, _Qui hi?_ ("Who waits?")--
+denoting that the bearer is to bring an answer. Now for the inside:
+
+  "DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR:--"
+
+  "Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an
+  eleëmosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your
+  Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various
+  denominations. For our Heavenly Father's sake, if not inconvenient,--
+  which we have been beneficently bereaved of other paternal
+  description,--we humbly present our implorations to your munificent
+  Excellency, if any small change, to bestow the same, winch it will
+  be eternally acceptable to said eleëmosynary widow of late Colonel
+  with distinguished medal in Honorable Service, deceased of cholera,
+  which it was suddenly attacks, and as pretty near destitute. Therefore,
+  hoping your munificent and respectable Excellency will not order,
+  being scornful, your pitiful Excellency's durwan to disperse us; but
+  five rupees, which nothing to Excellency's regards, and our tenacious
+  gratitude never forget; but kissing Excellency's hands on
+  indifferent occasions, and throwing at mercy feet with two imbecile,
+  offsprings of different denominations, I shall ever pray, &c."
+
+  "MRS. DIANA, THEODOSIA, COMFORT, GREEN."
+
+  "P.S. If not five rupees, two rupees five annas, in name of
+  Excellency's exalted mother, if quite convenient."
+
+There now! for an imposing structure in the florid style of
+half-caste begging-letters, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green
+flatters herself that is hard to beat.
+
+"'_Qui hi_?'--Karlee, who is at the gate?"
+
+"_Mem Sahib_! one chee-chee woman wanch look see Master, ispeakee
+Master buksheesh give; _paunch butcha_ have got."
+
+"_Paunch butcha!--five_ children! why, Karlee, there are but two here.
+But remembering, I suppose, that my Excellency has but two 'mercy
+feet,' and with an eye to symmetry in the arrangement of the grand
+tableau of which she proposes to make me the central figure, she has
+made it two 'imbecile offsprings' for the looks of the thing. Do you
+know her, Karlee?"
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that
+chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,--
+one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good that
+woman, Karlee think."
+
+"Very well, old man; send her away; tell the durwan to disperse
+Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green; but let him not insult her
+decrepit widowhood, nor alarm her imbecile offsprings of various
+denominations. For the 'Eurasian' is a great institution, without
+which polkas at Coolee Bazaar were not, nor pic-nics _dansantes_ at
+Chandernagore."
+
+But now to tiffin. I smell a smell of curried prawns, and the first
+mangoes of the season are fragrant. Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
+cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
+_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
+knows no caste or country.
+
+  _Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
+  Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
+  Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
+
+  "Gentle boy, whose silver feet
+  Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
+  Fill us quick the generous wine,
+      Ever fresh and ever fine!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found, and the
+best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly
+there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and
+do nothing for us. In Plato's "Gorgias," Socrates says, "The
+ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his
+passengers from Aegina or from Pontus, not thinking he has done
+anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are
+the same, and in no respect better than when he took them on board."
+So is it with books, for the most part; they work no redemption in us.
+The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no
+respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The
+volume is dear at a dollar, and, after reading to weariness the
+lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did,
+without surprise, of a surly bank-director, that in bank parlors
+they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
+
+But it is not less true that there are books which are of that
+importance in a man's private experience, as to verify for him the
+fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus
+of Thrace; books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers
+and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so
+revolutionary, so authoritative; books which are the work and the
+proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world
+which they paint, that, though one shuts them with meaner ones, he
+feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living.
+
+Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of
+the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil
+countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results
+of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and
+inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by
+etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom
+friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers
+of another age.
+
+We owe to books those general benefits which come from high
+intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the
+perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the
+moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then
+read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of
+positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing around us who
+will not let us sleep. Then, they address the imagination; only
+poetry inspires poetry. They become the organic culture of the time.
+College education is the reading of certain books which the common
+sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already
+accumulated. If you know that,--for instance, in geometry, if you
+have read Euclid and Laplace,--your opinion has some value; if you
+do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the
+subject. Whenever any skeptic or bigot claims to be heard on the
+questions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with the
+books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once for all been
+disposed of. If not, he has no right to our time. Let him go and
+find himself answered there.
+
+Meantime, the colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries,
+furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much
+wanted. In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
+friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and
+leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two,
+ten, or twenty centuries for us,--some of them,--and are eager to
+give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo
+that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has
+dressed them like battalions of infantry in coat and jacket of one
+cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the
+right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation
+and Combination,--not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half
+a million caskets, all alike. But it happens in our experience, that
+in this lottery there are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a
+prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a
+great deal of time among the false books, and alighting upon a few
+true ones which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in
+naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely
+over dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of sacred cities,
+into palaces and temples. This would be best done by those great
+masters of books who from time to time appear,--the Fabricii, the
+Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons,
+whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning. But private readers,
+reading purely for love of the book, would serve us by leaving each
+the shortest note of what he found.
+
+There are books, and it is practicable to read them, because they
+are so few. We look over with a sigh the monumental libraries of
+Paris, of the Vatican, and the British Museum. In the Imperial
+Library at Paris, it is commonly said, there are six hundred
+thousand volumes, and nearly as many manuscripts; and perhaps the
+number of extant printed books may be as many as these numbers united,
+or exceeding a million. It is easy to count the number of pages
+which a diligent man can read in a day, and the number of years
+which human life in favorable circumstances allows to reading; and
+to demonstrate, that, though he should read from dawn till dark, for
+sixty years, he must die in the first alcoves. But nothing can be
+more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none but a natural method
+is really pertinent. I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and
+I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best
+of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. The
+inspection of the catalogue brings me continually back to the few
+standard writers who are on every private shelf; and to these it can
+afford only the most slight and casual additions. The crowds and
+centuries of books are only commentary and elucidation, echoes and
+weakeners of these few great voices of Time.
+
+The best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a
+mechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a
+pursuit of his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let
+him read what is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd
+of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a
+single book,--as the Bible has been the literature as well as the
+religion of large portions of Europe,--as Hafiz was the eminent
+genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the
+Spaniards; so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer, if all the
+secondary writers were lost,--say, in England, all but Shakspeare,
+Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder study so drawn to those
+wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own genius, let the
+student read one, or let him read many, he will read advantageously.
+Dr. Johnson said, "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son
+shall read first, another boy has read both: read anything five
+hours a day, and you will soon be learned."
+
+Nature is much our friend in this matter. Nature is always
+clarifying her water and her wine. No filtration can be so perfect.
+She does the same thing by books as by her gases and plants. There
+is always a selection in writers, and then a selection from the
+selection. In the first place, all books that get fairly into the
+vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the
+affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel,
+though they cannot say. There has already been a scrutiny and choice
+from many hundreds of young pens, before the pamphlet or political
+chapter which you read in a fugitive journal comes to your eye. All
+these are young adventurers, who produce their performance to the
+wise ear of Time, who sits and weighs, and ten years hence out of a
+million of pages reprints one. Again it is judged, it is winnowed by
+all the winds of opinion, and what terrific selection has not passed
+on it, before it can be reprinted after twenty years, and reprinted
+after a century!--it is as if Minos and Rhadamanthus had indorsed
+the writing. 'Tis therefore an economy of time to read old and famed
+books. Nothing can be preserved which is not good; and I know
+beforehand that Pindar, Martial, Terence, Galen, Kepler, Galileo,
+Bacon, Erasmus, More, will be superior to the average intellect. In
+contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish betwixt notoriety
+and fame.
+
+Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on
+the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn without
+asking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, "he always
+went into stately shops"; and good travellers stop at the best hotels;
+for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is
+the good company and the best information. In like manner, the
+scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best
+thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish
+Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best
+information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day
+by day in the newspaper to the standard authors,--but who dare speak
+of such a thing?
+
+The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are,
+
+1. Never read any book that is not a year old.
+2. Never read any but famed books.
+3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase,
+
+  "No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en;
+  In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Montaigne says, "Books are a languid pleasure"; but I find certain
+books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was; he
+shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others
+than such. And I will venture, at the risk of inditing a list of old
+primers and grammars, to count the few books which a superficial
+reader must thankfully use.
+
+Of the old Greek books, I think there are five which we cannot spare:--
+1. Homer, who, in spite of Pope, and all the learned uproar of
+centuries, has really the true fire, and is good for simple minds,
+is the true and adequate germ of Greece, and occupies that place as
+history, which nothing can supply. It holds through all literature,
+that our best history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in
+Sanscrit, and in Greek. English history is best known through
+Shakspeare; how much through Merlin, Robin Hood, and the Scottish
+ballads! the German, through the Nibelungen Lied; the Spanish,
+through the Cid. Of Homer, George Chapman's is the heroic translation,
+though the most literal prose version is the best of all.--2.
+Herodotus, whose history contains inestimable anecdotes, which
+brought it with the learned into a sort of disesteem; but in these
+days, when it is found that what is most memorable of history is a
+few anecdotes, and that we need not be alarmed, though we should
+find it not dull, it is regaining credit.--3. Aeschylus, the
+grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us under a thin veil
+the first plantation of Europe. The "Prometheus" is a poem of the
+like dignity and scope as the book of Job, or the Norse "Edda."--4.
+Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find
+in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to
+thought,--the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier strains
+of musical wisdom than Homer reached, as if Homer were the youth,
+and Plato the finished man; yet with no less security of bold and
+perfect song, when he cares to use it, and with some harpstrings
+fetched from a higher heaven. He contains the future, as he came out
+of the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe in its causes and
+seed,--all that in thought, which the history of Europe embodies or
+has yet to embody. The well-informed man finds himself anticipated.
+Plato is up with him, too. Nothing has escaped him. Every new crop
+in the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern
+humanity is there. If the student wish to see both sides, and
+justice done to the man of the world, pitiless exposure of pedants,
+and the supremacy of truth and the religious sentiment, he shall be
+contented also. Why should not young men be educated on this book?
+It would suffice for the tuition of the race,--to test their
+understanding, and to express their reason. Here is that which is so
+attractive to all men,--the literature of aristocracy shall I call it?--
+the picture of the best persons, sentiments, and manners, by the
+first master, in the best times,--portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades,
+Crito, Prodicus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the
+lovely background of the Athenian and suburban landscape. Or who can
+overestimate the images with which he has enriched the minds of men,
+and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations? Read the
+"Phaedo," the "Protagoras," the "Phaedrus," the "Timaeus," the
+"Republic," and the "Apology of Socrates." 5. Plutarch cannot be
+spared from the smallest library: first, because he is so readable,
+which is much; then, that he is medicinal and invigorating. The
+Lives of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus
+and the rest, are what history has of best. But this book has taken
+care of itself, and the opinion of the world is expressed in the
+innumerable cheap editions, which make it as accessible as a
+newspaper. But Plutarch's "Morals" is less known, and seldom
+reprinted. Yet such a reader as I am writing to can as ill spare it
+as the "Lives." He will read in it the essays "On the Daemon of
+Socrates," "On Isis and Osiris," "On Progress in Virtue," "On
+Garrulity," "On Love," and thank anew the art of printing, and the
+cheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch charms by the facility
+of his associations; so that it signifies little where you open his
+book, you find yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is like
+the Isthmian Games, where all that was excellent in Greece was
+assembled, and you are stimulated and recruited by lyric verses, by
+philosophic sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, by the
+worship of the gods, and by the passing of fillets, parsley and
+laurel wreaths, chariots, armor, sacred cups, and utensils of
+sacrifice. An inestimable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the
+three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch.
+Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the
+meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of
+ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife,
+and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of
+Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of
+Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,--being a
+repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject of love,--a
+picture of a feast of wits, not less descriptive than Aristophanes,--
+and, lastly, containing that ironical eulogy of Socrates which is
+the source from which all the portraits of that head current in
+Europe have been drawn.
+
+Of course, a certain outline should be obtained of Greek history, in
+which the important moments and persons can be rightly set down; but
+the shortest is the best, and, if one lacks stomach for Mr. Grote's
+voluminous annals, the old slight and popular summary of Goldsmith
+or Gillies will serve. The valuable part is the age of Pericles, and
+the next generation. And here we must read the "Clouds" of
+Aristophanes, and what more of that master we gain appetite for, to
+learn our way in the streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of
+Aristophanes, requiring more genius and sometimes not less cruelty
+than belonged to the official commanders. Aristophanes is now very
+accessible, with much valuable commentary, through the labors of
+Mitchell and Cartwright. An excellent popular book is J. A. St.
+John's "Ancient Greece"; the "Life and Letters" of Niebuhr, even
+more than his Lectures, furnish leading views; and Winckelmann, a
+Greek born out of due time, has become essential to an intimate
+knowledge of the Attic genius. The secret of the recent histories in
+German and in English is the discovery, owed first to Wolff, and
+later to Boeckh, that the sincere Greek history of that period must
+be drawn from Demosthenes, specially from the business orations, and
+from the comic poets.
+
+If we come down a little by natural steps from the master to the
+disciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,--
+who also cannot be skipped,--Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,
+Jamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Julian said, "that he was
+posterior to Plato in time, not in genius." Of Plotinus, we have
+eulogies by Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Emperor
+Gallienus,--indicating the respect he inspired among his
+contemporaries. If any one who had read with interest the "Isis and
+Osiris" of Plutarch should then read a chapter called "Providence,"
+by Synesius, translated into English by Thomas Taylor, he will find
+it one of the majestic remains of literature, and, like one walking
+in the noblest of temples, will conceive new gratitude to his
+fellowmen, and a new estimate of their nobility. The imaginative
+scholar will find few stimulants to his brain like these writers. He
+has entered the Elysian Fields; and the grand and pleasing figures
+of gods and daemons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" and the
+"aquatic gods," daemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the
+Platonic rhetoric, exalted a little under the African sun, sail
+before his eyes. The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave at
+Delphi; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. These guides speak
+of the gods with such depth and with such pictorial details, as if
+they had been bodily present at the Olympian feasts. The reader of
+these books makes new acquaintance with his own mind; new regions of
+thought are opened. Jamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras" works more
+directly on the will than the others; since Pythagoras was eminently
+a practical person, the founder of a school of ascetics and
+socialists, a planter of colonies, and nowise a man of abstract
+studies alone.
+
+The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn's
+Library have done for literature what railroads have done for
+internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have
+named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in
+any book is translatable,--any real insight or broad human sentiment.
+Nay, I observe, that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral
+tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of
+the original into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling
+at translators, _i traditori traduttori_, but I thank them. I rarely
+read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book
+in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be
+beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which
+receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as
+soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to
+Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them
+rendered for me in my mother tongue.
+
+For history, there is great choice of ways to bring the student
+through early Rome. If he can read Livy, he has a good book; but one
+of the short English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should be
+used, that will place in the cycle the bright stars of Plutarch. The
+poet Horace is the eye of the Augustan age; Tacitus, the wisest of
+historians; and Martial will give him Roman manners, and some very
+bad ones, in the early days of the Empire: but Martial must be read,
+if read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring him to Gibbon,
+who will take him in charge, and convey him with abundant
+entertainment down--with notice of all remarkable objects on the way--
+through fourteen hundred years of time. He cannot spare Gibbon, with
+his vast reading, with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though
+never profound, his book is one of the conveniences of civilization,
+like the proposed railroad from New York to the Pacific,--and, I
+think, will be sure to send the reader to his "Memoirs of Himself,"
+and the "Extracts from my Journal," and "Abstracts of my Readings,"
+which will spur the laziest scholar to emulation of his prodigious
+performance.
+
+Now having our idler safe down as far as the fall of Constantinople
+in 1453, he is in very good courses; for here are trusty hands
+waiting for him. The cardinal facts of European history are soon
+learned. There is Dante's poem, to open the Italian Republics of the
+Middle Age; Dante's "Vita Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice; and
+Boccaccio's "Life of Dante,"--a great man to describe a greater. To
+help us, perhaps a volume or two of M. Sismondi's "Italian Republics"
+will be as good as the entire sixteen. When we come to Michel Angelo,
+his Sonnets and Letters must be read, with his Life by Vasari, or,
+in our day, by Mr. Duppa. For the Church, and the Feudal Institution,
+Mr. Hallam's "Middle Ages" will furnish, if superficial, yet
+readable and conceivable outlines.
+
+The "Life of the Emperor Charles V.," by the useful Robertson, is
+still the key of the following age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther,
+Erasmus, Melancthon, Francis I., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Henry IV.
+of France, are his contemporaries. It is a time of seeds and
+expansions, whereof our recent civilization is the fruit.
+
+If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to
+British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history
+takes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and
+mythology to the "Younger Edda" and the "Heimrskringla" of Snorro
+Sturleson, to Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," to Ellis's "Metrical
+Romances," to Asser's "Life of Alfred," and Venerable Bede, and to
+the researches of Sharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him
+for an intelligent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the
+richest period of the English mind, with the chief men of action and
+of thought which that nation has produced, and with a pregnant
+future before him. Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh,
+Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne,
+Herrick; and Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after.
+
+In reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He
+will not repent the time he gives to Bacon,--not if he read the
+"Advancement of Learning," the "Essays," the "Novum Organon," the
+"History of Henry VII.," and then all the "Letters," (especially
+those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business,) and
+all but his "Apophthegms."
+
+The task is aided by the strong mutual light which these men shed on
+each other. Thus, the Works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to bind
+all these fine persons together, and to the land to which they belong.
+He has written verses to or on all his notable contemporaries; and
+what with so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches in his
+"Discoveries," and the gossiping record of his opinions in his
+conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, has really illustrated
+the England of his time, if not to the same extent, yet much in the
+same way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the persons and places of
+Scotland. Walton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write also
+to the times.
+
+Among the best books are certain _Autobiographies_: as, St.
+Augustine's Confessions; Benvenuto Cellini's Life; Montaigne's Essays;
+Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs; Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz;
+Rousseau's Confessions; Linnaeus's Diary; Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's,
+Burns's, Alfieri's, Goethe's, and Haydon's Autobiographies.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to these, and of like interest,
+are those which may be called _Table-Talks_; of which the best are
+Saadi's Gulistan; Luther's Table-Talk; Aubrey's Lives; Spence's
+Anecdotes; Selden's Table-Talk; Boswell's Life of Johnson;
+Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe; Coleridge's Table-Talk; and
+Hazlitt's Life of Northcote.
+
+There is a class whose value I should designate as favorites; such
+as Froissart's Chronicles; Southey's Chronicle of the Cid; Cervantes;
+Sully's Memoirs; Rabelais; Montaigne; Izaak Walton; Evelyn; Sir
+Thomas Browne; Aubrey; Sterne; Horace Walpole; Lord Clarendon;
+Doctor Johnson; Burke, shedding floods of light on his times; Lamb;
+Landor; and De Quincey;--a list, of course, that may easily be
+swelled, as dependent on individual caprice. Many men are as tender
+and irritable as lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed,
+a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender
+readers have a great prudencey in showing their books to a stranger.
+
+The annals of bibliography afford many examples of the delirious
+extent to which book-fancying can go, when the legitimate delight in
+a book is transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. This
+mania reached its height about the beginning of the present century.
+For an autograph of Shakspeare one hundred and fifty-five guineas
+were given. In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was
+sold. The sale lasted forty-two days,--we abridge the story from
+Dibdin,--and among the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio
+published by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of
+this edition. Among the distinguished company which attended the
+sale were the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of
+Marlborough, then Marquis of Blandford. The bid stood at five hundred
+guineas. "A thousand guineas," said Earl Spencer: "And ten," added
+the Marquis. You might hear a pin drop. All eyes were bent on the
+bidders. Now they talked apart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet,
+but without the least thought of yielding one to the other.
+"Two thousand pounds," said the Marquis. The Earl Spencer bethought
+him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed and waste of powder,
+and had paused a quarter of a minute, when Lord Althorp with long
+steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to
+renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and Earl Spencer
+exclaimed, "Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!" An electric
+shock went through the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis.
+There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused;
+the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when
+the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest
+shores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries
+of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five
+hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal
+alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio.
+
+Another class I distinguish by the term _Vocabularies_. Burton's
+"Anatomy of Melancholy" is a book of great learning. To read it is
+like reading in a dictionary. 'Tis an inventory to remind us how
+many classes and species of facts exist, and, in observing into what
+strange and multiplex by-ways learning has strayed, to infer our
+opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no
+cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion,--
+the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing is wanting
+but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of a
+hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "On the Vanity of Arts and
+Sciences" is a specimen of that scribatious-ness which grew to be
+the habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern
+Germans, they read a literature, whilst other mortals read a few
+books. They read voraciously, and must disburden themselves; so they
+take any general topic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or
+Praise of Folly, and write and quote without method or end. Now and
+then out of that affluence of their learning comes a fine sentence
+from Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boëthius, but no high method, no
+inspiring efflux. But one cannot afford to read for a few sentences;
+they are good only as strings of suggestive words.
+
+There is another class more needful to the present age, because the
+currents of custom run now in another direction, and leave us dry on
+this side;--I mean the _Imaginative_. A right metaphysics should do
+justice to the coördinate powers of Imagination, Insight,
+Understanding, and Will. Poetry, with its aids of Mythology and
+Romance, must be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men are
+ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not
+ciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is
+hustled out of sight. Our orators and writers are of the same poverty,
+and, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagination, the great awakening
+power, nor the Morals, creative of genius and of men, are addressed.
+But though orator and poet are of this hunger party, the capacities
+remain. We must have symbols. The child asks you for a story, and is
+thankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with
+meaning. The man asks for a novel,--that is, asks leave, for a few
+hours, to be a poet, and to paint things as they ought to be. The
+youth asks for a poem. The very dunces wish to go to the theatre.
+What private heavens can we not open, by yielding to all the
+suggestion of rich music! We must have idolatries, mythologies, some
+swing and verge for the creative power lying coiled and cramped here,
+driving ardent natures to insanity and crime, if it do not find vent.
+Without the great and beautiful arts which speak to the sense of
+beauty, a man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. These
+are his becoming draperies, which warm and adorn him. Whilst the
+prudential and economical tone of society starves the imagination,
+affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The novel is that
+allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything else pins it
+down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas, Sand,
+Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their education is neglected;
+but the circulating library and the theatre, as well as the
+trout-fishing, the Notch Mountains, the Adirondac country, the tour
+to Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts, make such amends
+as they can.
+
+The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It
+has a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like
+planets, and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the
+music, they never quite subside to their old stony state. But what
+is the Imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy;
+only the precursor of the Reason. And books that treat the old
+pedantries of the world, our times, places, professions, customs,
+opinions, histories, with a certain freedom, and distribute things,
+not after the usages of America and Europe, but after the laws of
+right reason, and with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put
+us on our feet again, enable us to form an original judgment of our
+duties, and suggest new thoughts for to-morrow.
+
+"Lucrezia Floriani," "Le Péché de M. Antoine," "Jeanne," of George
+Sand, are great steps from the novel of one termination, which we
+all read twenty years ago. Yet how far off from life and manners and
+motives the novel still is! Life lies about us dumb; the day, as we
+know it, has not yet found a tongue. These stories are to the plots
+of real life what the figures in "La Belle Assemblée," which
+represent the fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the novel
+will find the way to our interiors one day, and will not always be
+the novel of costume merely. I do not think them inoperative now. So
+much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched;
+and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young
+study noble behavior; and as the player in "Consuelo" insists that
+he and his colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine
+etiquette and strokes of grace and dignity which they practise with
+so much effect in their villas and among their dependents, so I
+often see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in the courtesy
+and brilliancy of young midshipmen, collegians, and clerks. Indeed,
+when one observes how ill and ugly people make their loves and
+quarrels, 'tis pity they should not read novels a little more, to
+import the fine generosities, and the clear, firm conduct, which are
+as becoming in the unions and separations which love effects under
+shingle roofs as in palaces and among illustrious personages.
+
+In novels the most serious questions are really beginning to be
+discussed. What made the popularity of "Jane Eyre," but that a
+central question was answered in some sort? The question there
+answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated
+according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding
+individualism will answer it as Rochester does,--as Cleopatra, as
+Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the exception into a rule,
+dwarfing the world into an exception. A person of less courage, that
+is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does,--giving
+way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of
+men and women.
+
+For the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We
+admire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,
+and parliaments. They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to
+wealth and social position.
+
+I remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the
+oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were
+tied to the twigs by thread. I fear 'tis so with the novelist's
+prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his
+fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist
+plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly
+to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying
+success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole,
+'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which
+only oddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element,
+no power, no furtherance. 'Tis only confectionery, not the raising
+of new corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was
+beautiful, and he fell in love_. Money, and killing, and the
+Wandering Jew, and persuading the lover that his mistress is
+betrothed to another,--these are the mainsprings; new names, but no
+new qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain endeavor to keep
+any bit of this fairy gold, which has rolled like a brook through
+our hands. A thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows seemed to span
+the sky; a morning among the mountains;--but we close the book, and
+not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for
+romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real
+elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and
+night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and
+circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like
+impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.
+
+If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of
+rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.
+Every good fable, every mythology, every biography out of a
+religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
+when they proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not
+detached and critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables,
+the Persian history, (Firdousi,) the "Younger Edda" of the
+Scandinavians, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the poem of Dante, the
+Sonnets of Michel Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont
+and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in
+our time, the ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of
+Goethe, have this richness, and leave room for hope and for generous
+attempts.
+
+There is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as
+to leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles
+of the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
+each the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and
+Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,
+these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;
+the Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the
+Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the
+"Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius
+and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical
+authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope
+of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be
+Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus;
+the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the
+"Imitation of Christ," of Thomas à Kempis; and the "Thoughts" of
+Pascal.
+
+All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal
+conscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year's
+almanac or this day's newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to
+be read on the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given
+or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the
+glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should
+give and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and
+enact them. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but
+are living characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.
+I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;
+they fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter
+and blushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures
+which the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean,
+to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which
+is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--
+was there already long before him. The missionary must be carried by
+it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
+these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
+perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
+and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
+ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
+few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
+Bible.
+
+These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
+yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
+the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
+be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
+sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
+British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
+each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
+so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
+on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
+or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
+the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
+the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
+time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
+study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
+give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
+keeping nothing back. Another member, meantime, shall as honestly
+search, sift, and as truly report on British mythology, the Round
+Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry; a third, on
+the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmesbury;
+a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, "Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and
+Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold,
+after the washing; and every other shall then decide whether this is
+a book indispensable to him also.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND LENS.
+
+
+I.
+
+THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.
+
+From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my
+inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was
+not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,
+hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope
+for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a
+drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very
+primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it
+is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently
+wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of
+excitement.
+
+Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
+to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope,
+related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished
+through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly
+constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the
+days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
+and his departure.
+
+Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
+remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
+vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
+construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
+containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
+"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
+lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
+crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
+endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
+to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
+a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
+properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
+totally failed.
+
+At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
+Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
+dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
+could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
+on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
+comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
+Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
+across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
+land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might
+feel towards the ordinary masters of men. I held conversations with
+Xanure in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily
+communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in
+their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of
+things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a
+drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe
+of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life,
+and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and
+protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my
+mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from
+her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
+enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
+foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
+boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering
+with green and silver and gold.
+
+It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
+the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
+disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
+microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night
+poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
+having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its
+primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never
+betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was
+bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.
+
+Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
+ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
+the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantages of instruments a
+thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
+Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and
+Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
+ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
+specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I
+believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
+ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that
+shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel
+animalcule (_Rotifera vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its
+flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as
+I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study,
+I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the
+investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were
+devoting their lives and intellects.
+
+As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
+practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops
+of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious
+that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should
+enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous
+merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I
+decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a
+failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.
+
+But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
+staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor;
+and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha,
+I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to
+place me above want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for
+this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
+in rendering myself independent.
+
+After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
+selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New
+York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
+from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased,
+without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I
+might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
+the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no
+danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place
+for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest
+publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,--in
+short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my
+life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires
+that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my
+object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my
+becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was
+with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and
+established myself in New York.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
+
+My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
+obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
+pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
+and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
+furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
+all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I
+visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
+splendid collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Higham's,
+Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular, (that founded on the principles of
+the stereoscope,) and at length fixed upon that form known as
+Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
+improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with
+this I purchased every possible accessory,--drawtubes, micrometers,
+a _camera-lucida_, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud
+illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus,
+forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles,
+all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced
+microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the
+slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
+how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
+suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently
+was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or
+a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
+mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is
+greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.
+
+Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
+students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to
+the delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the
+most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest
+hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile
+manipulation.
+
+For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of
+my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every
+possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was
+that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
+never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
+understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
+could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
+fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
+that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
+became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
+
+During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
+every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
+lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
+was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
+Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
+proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
+of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
+their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
+generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
+higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
+resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
+plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
+Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
+optical illusion.
+
+But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
+made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
+found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like
+all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed,
+it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the
+defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I
+imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of
+my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night
+constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which
+I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its
+original atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity
+through ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the
+secret of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be limited
+only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time
+should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short
+from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds
+himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
+microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power,
+was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound
+microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the
+wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
+to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if
+conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.
+
+It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
+After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on
+every imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals,
+artificial crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--
+in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus
+had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing
+gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost
+dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of
+progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended one lecture
+since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses of my mad pursuit
+had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.
+
+I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
+on a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power,
+having always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a
+young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the
+habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.
+
+I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
+character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There
+was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell,
+and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should
+perhaps have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined
+to the disposal of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a
+rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress
+of a Mexican _caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he
+paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
+which he assured me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for
+that,--and some other knick-knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
+should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He apparently
+had plenty of money, and had the _entrée_ of the best houses in the
+city,--taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within
+the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
+conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater
+object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to
+be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
+affair.
+
+On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
+considerable excitement.
+
+"_Ah! mon ami_!" he cried, before I could even offer him the
+ordinary salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the
+most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the
+house of Madame -----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name
+himself in the Latin?"
+
+"Vulpes," I answered.
+
+"Ah! yes, Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."
+
+"The spirit medium?"
+
+"Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman! I write on a
+slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--
+affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most
+profound; and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman
+makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me
+of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
+I am fixed to the earth!"
+
+"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
+questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
+known only to yourself?"
+
+"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
+some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
+pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
+these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
+saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
+It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
+can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
+Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
+it to you."
+
+I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
+and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
+dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
+Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
+should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
+subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
+goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
+enable me to attain?
+
+While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
+mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK.
+
+Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
+promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
+residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with a keen and
+rather cruel dark eye, and an exceedingly sensual expression about
+her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an
+apartment on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre
+of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common
+round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her
+chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my
+appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with any awe.
+Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with
+the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
+Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.
+
+"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
+business-like tone of voice.
+
+"By appointment,--yes."
+
+"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"
+
+"Yes,--I wish for a written one."
+
+"From any particular spirit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"
+
+"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
+him some information which he ought to be able to give better than
+any other."
+
+"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
+"and place your hands upon it?"
+
+I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite me, with her hands also
+on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
+violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
+on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window panes.
+Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.
+
+"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate."
+She then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"
+
+Vigorous affirmative.
+
+"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"
+
+A very confused rapping followed this question.
+
+"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
+"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
+you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
+invisible guests.
+
+That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
+While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
+scribbled a name under the table.
+
+"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
+the medium once more.
+
+After a moment's pause her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
+tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
+spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
+of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
+loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper
+with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few
+moments had elapsed she handed me the paper, on which I found written,
+in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
+been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which
+Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at
+regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
+hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and
+she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper,
+which she handed to me. They were as follows:
+
+"I am here. Question me.
+
+"LEEUWENHOEK."
+
+I was, astounded. The name was identical with that I had written
+beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at
+all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know
+even the name of the great father of microscopies. It may have been
+Biology; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on
+my slip--still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of
+questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the
+responses in the order in which they occurred.
+
+I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
+
+SPIRIT.--Yes.
+
+I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
+
+SPIRIT.--You are.
+
+I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
+which you bear to science, help me!
+
+SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
+electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
+rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
+form the universal lens.
+
+I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
+
+SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.
+
+I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
+image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
+surmounted?
+
+SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
+obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
+itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!
+
+I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
+communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
+biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
+medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
+gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
+But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
+would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
+defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some
+such theory may have passed through my head, it is true, but if so,
+I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no
+course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the
+most painful nervous exultation that I left the medium's house that
+evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
+The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the
+balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily
+expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night
+air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me,--how to
+obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means
+multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its
+purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I
+could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EYE OF MORNING.
+
+There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
+impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his
+sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
+over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some
+object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly,
+thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
+crimson with confusion.
+
+"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
+don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
+
+Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
+protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
+
+"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
+
+This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
+if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some
+incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually
+kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too
+preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
+
+"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
+continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather
+was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only
+get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
+
+Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
+lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
+savagely, and rushing to the mantel-piece, where some foreign weapons
+hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it
+furiously before him.
+
+"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited.
+"No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted
+with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I
+am brave! You cannot make me fear!"
+
+All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement,
+astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon
+the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to
+reassure him.
+
+"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
+mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
+problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
+size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
+the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What
+can be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
+valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
+The diamond which I require you could not possess; or if you did
+possess it, you would not be living here."
+
+Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
+expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
+combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my
+movements. He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he
+was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which
+betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
+off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making
+this explanation, and endeavored, with some success, to assume a
+more cheerful air.
+
+All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much
+accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I
+determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.
+
+"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
+Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vongeot_ down-stairs,
+fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
+Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
+
+"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
+
+I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
+famous vintage, that of 1818, a year when war and wine throve
+together, and its pure, but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
+vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
+bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
+while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to
+send a flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became
+more and more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a
+not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the
+conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eyes on
+him with a quiet smile, said:
+
+"Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You
+may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather, one of her
+spirits, told me all."
+
+He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to
+fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a
+short time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
+
+"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
+shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
+
+"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell
+me all about it."
+
+The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin
+earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated;
+then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
+mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy
+look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he
+drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the
+mild lamp-light was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it
+fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no
+judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare
+size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and--must I confess
+it?--with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply
+to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements
+(of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had
+been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
+Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead
+of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he
+saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up, and fled with it,
+but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly,--
+so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention
+to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to discover
+any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed
+away safely. He added, that, in accordance with Oriental practice,
+he had named his diamond by the fanciful title of "The Eye of Morning."
+
+While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
+attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the
+glories of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in
+its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was
+exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence.
+The hand of Destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
+spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the
+microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start
+up within my easy reach! I determined, with the most perfect
+deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.
+
+I sat opposite him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
+revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
+foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
+or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
+interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
+taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a hide
+peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human
+beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be
+experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own
+confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer.
+He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws;
+why should I not, like government, contrive that his punishment
+should contribute to the progress of human knowledge?
+
+The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
+There stood upon the mantel-piece a bottle half full of French
+laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
+restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his
+glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
+
+I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket
+in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I
+laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
+myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while
+with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation
+the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the
+aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I
+calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon,
+if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with
+one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which
+I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs.
+I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
+bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches
+the surface of the water; he turned half round on his side, and as if
+to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
+more spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the creese, which it
+remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this
+there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralyzed
+the usual nervous action. He must have died instantaneously.
+
+There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
+suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
+house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be
+found in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and
+afterwards escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical
+impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also
+should he found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended
+softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for
+holding small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass,
+etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice,
+with a very powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last
+was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was
+simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its
+stem in this vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock
+the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of
+papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before
+they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into
+Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all traces of wine,--
+cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles away with me.
+If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the
+question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides,
+the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The
+laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in
+case of _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be
+that he first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a
+little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed
+his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
+arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
+door with my vice, and went to bed.
+
+Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
+The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light
+streaming on the dark landing from under the door, peeped through
+the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door
+was burst open, and the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.
+
+Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
+inquest; but no clue to his death, beyond that of suicide, could be
+obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
+friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
+One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that
+"he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed, that Simon, when
+paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he would not pay
+him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded, the door
+locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I
+anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon,
+so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a
+prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
+neighborhood once more settled down into its accustomed quiet.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+ANIMULA
+
+The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and
+day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast, galvanic battery,
+composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I
+dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this
+enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
+electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
+me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I
+commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense
+toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the
+care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the
+lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had
+yet undergone.
+
+At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
+trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
+Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
+to be placed upon its platform, my hand fairly shook as I enveloped
+a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
+to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the
+rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip
+of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid
+of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my
+eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an
+instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a
+vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and
+seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently,
+and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'
+breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens
+approached the object, a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded
+to my view.
+
+I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
+beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
+the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
+animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that
+dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous
+power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
+aqueous matter, beyond the realms of Infusoria and Protozoa, down to
+the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was
+gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
+radiance.
+
+It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
+side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and
+colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
+appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific
+definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they
+undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with
+splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is
+as dross compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance
+stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
+and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The
+pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista
+seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping
+silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied
+with a thousand hues lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the
+crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no
+forms animate or inanimate were to be seen, save those vast auroral
+copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves
+and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealizable by
+mere imagination.
+
+How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
+solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
+life,--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
+present acquainted,--but still, some living organism. I find my
+newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic
+desert.
+
+While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
+economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
+our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
+through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more at
+tentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict
+the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this
+mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in
+suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an
+animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting
+behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly
+revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed
+nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and the form
+floated out into the broad light.
+
+It was a female human shape. When I say "human," I mean it possessed
+the outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable
+beauty lifted it inimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
+Adam.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
+revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
+serene, evade my words. Her long lustrous hair following her
+glorious head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a
+falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its
+splendors. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would
+still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that
+enclosed her form.
+
+She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
+into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
+of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
+clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She
+floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending
+through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of
+her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening
+to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the
+harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply
+purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal
+of this wonder through another's blood? I would have given my own to
+enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.
+
+Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
+instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
+microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that
+lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from
+prism sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny
+bead of dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet
+Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more
+to apply my eye to the microscope.
+
+Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
+bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
+the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
+of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
+with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on
+its summit, and sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula.
+The sylph took it in her delicate hand, and began to eat. My
+attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply
+myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or
+was not instinct with volition.
+
+I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
+attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
+through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
+eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
+have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
+luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple
+and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement,
+she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then
+cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash
+of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
+
+Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
+seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
+still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
+sudden disappearance? Had she a lover, or a husband? Yes, that was
+the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
+through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
+
+The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion,
+startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced
+upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was
+so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
+
+It is true, that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope,
+she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the
+revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle
+and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop,
+she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what
+account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the
+instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I
+must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.
+
+Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the
+mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper
+all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest
+of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be
+something to have established even the faintest personal link to
+bind us together--to know that at times, when roaming through those
+enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had
+broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle
+memory in her heart!
+
+But it could not be. No invention, of which human intellect was
+capable, could break down the barriers that Nature had erected. I
+might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always
+remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her,
+and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of
+anguish I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed
+myself to sleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+THE SPILLING OF THE CUP.
+
+I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
+microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
+that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
+surrounded by its moderator's, burning, when I went to bed the night
+before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
+pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
+surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
+shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the
+transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and
+gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might
+have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus.
+I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection
+were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably. By the dim
+light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
+her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
+flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
+and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some
+substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips
+moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
+reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of
+happiness would then have entranced my ears! What jubilant hymns to
+Adonaïs would have thrilled the illumined air!
+
+I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
+mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
+lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
+purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
+practically realized.
+
+How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
+know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
+the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
+saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
+for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
+that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
+divine form strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always
+overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could
+gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!
+
+At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and
+continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions,
+that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it.
+"Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has
+bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess.
+Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of
+mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and
+this false enchantment will vanish."
+
+I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
+advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at
+Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the
+most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I
+instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
+
+The curtain drew up. The usual semi-circle of fairies in white
+muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled
+flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was
+sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees
+open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters.
+It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause,
+and lighting on one foot remained poised in air. Heavens! was this
+the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels?
+Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes,
+that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted checks! Where were the
+vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
+Animula?
+
+The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of
+her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
+athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I
+could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew
+every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the
+Signorina's _pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.
+
+I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
+sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
+impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Aninula was there,--but
+what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
+place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
+lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and
+haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her
+golden hair had faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her!
+I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to
+my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size
+of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had
+forever divided me.
+
+I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
+afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
+contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony.
+The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty.
+Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I
+watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed
+absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered
+that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I
+hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between
+Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the
+microscope. The slide was still there,--but, great heavens! the
+water-drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had
+evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the
+naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
+Animula,--and she was dying!
+
+I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas!
+the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all
+melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
+a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so
+round and lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes
+that shone like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
+golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld
+that final struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
+
+When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
+the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as
+it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
+
+They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
+have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
+and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke
+invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me,
+and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is
+the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture.
+Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly
+memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the
+radiant form of my lost Animula!
+
+
+
+
+THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.
+
+  Amid the aisle, apart, there stood
+  A mourner like the rest;
+  And while the solemn rites were said,
+  He fashioned into verse his mood,
+  That would not be repressed.
+
+  Why did they bring him home,
+  Bright jewel set in lead?
+  Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
+  And lay him with the mighty dead,--
+  With Adonais, and the rest
+  Of all the young and good and fair,
+  That drew the milk of English breast,
+  And their last sigh in Latian air!
+
+  Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
+  Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;
+  For many a lustre, many an aeon,
+  He might sleep well in the Panthéon,
+  Deep in the sacred city's womb,
+  The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
+
+  Lay him 'neath Diocletian's dome,
+  Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
+  Near to that house in which he dwelt,--
+  House that to many seemed a home,
+  So much with him they loved and felt.
+  We were his guests a hundred times;
+  We loved him for his genial ways;
+  He gave me credit for my rhymes,
+  And made me blush with praise.
+
+  Ah! there be many histories
+  That no historian writes,
+  And friendship hath its mysteries
+  And consecrated nights;
+  Amid the busy days of pain,
+  Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
+  Weary midnight, weary morn,
+  Years of struggle paid with scorn;--
+  Yet oft amid all this despair,
+  Long rambles in the Autumn days
+  O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
+  Bright moments snatched from care,
+
+    When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
+      We roved and dined on crust and curds,
+      Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
+    And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
+      And then returning late,
+      After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
+      Suppers and nights of gods; and then
+      Mornings that made us new-born men;
+      Rare nights at the Minerva tavern,
+      With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
+      Free nights, but fearless and without reproof,--
+      For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
+
+    O Rome! what memories awake,
+      When Crawford's name is said,
+    Of days and friends for whose dear sake
+    That path of Hades unto me
+      Will have no more of dread
+    Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice!
+      O Crawford! husband, father, brother
+    Are in that name, that little word!
+      Let me no more my sorrow smother;
+    Grief stirs me, and I must be stirred.
+
+    O Death, thou teacher true and rough!
+      Full oft I fear that we have erred,
+    And have not loved enough;
+    But oh, ye friends, this side of Acheron,
+      Who cling to me to-day,
+    I shall not know my love till ye are gone
+      And I am gray!
+      Fair women with your loving eyes,
+    Old men that once my footsteps led,
+      Sweet children,--much as all I prize,
+    Until the sacred dust of death be shed
+      Upon each dear and venerable head,
+    I cannot love you as I love the dead!
+
+    But now, the natural man being sown,
+    We can more lucidly behold
+      The spiritual one;
+      For we, till time shall end,
+      Full visibly shall see our friend
+    In all his hand did mould,--
+    That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!
+
+    When on some blessed studious day
+    To my loved Library I wend my way,
+    Amid the forms that give the Gallery grace
+    His thought in that pale poet I shall trace,--
+      Keen Orpheus with his eyes
+        Fixed deep in ruddy hell,
+
+  Seeking amid those lurid skies
+  The wife he loved so well,--
+  And feel that still therein I see
+  All that was in my Master's thought,
+  And, in that constant hand wherewith he wrought,
+  The eternal type of constancy.
+  Thou marble husband! might there be
+  More of flesh and blood like thee!
+
+  Or if, in Music's festive hall,
+  I come to cheat me of my care,
+  Amid the swell, the dying fall,
+  His genius greets me there.
+  O man of bronze! thy solemn air--
+  Best soother of a troubled brain--
+  Floods me with memories, and again
+  As thou stand'st visibly to men,
+  Beloved musician! so once more
+  Crawford comes back that did thy form restore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Well,--_requiescat_! let him pass!
+
+  Good mourners, go your several ways!
+  He needs no further rite, nor mass,
+  Nor eulogy, who best could praise
+  Himself in marble and in brass;
+  Yet his best monument did raise,
+  Not in those perishable things
+  That men eternal deem,--
+  The pride of palaces and kings,--
+  But in such works as must avail him there,
+  With Him who, from the extreme
+  Love that was in his breast,
+  Said, "Come, all ye that heavy burdens bear,
+  And I will give you rest!"
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
+
+As a mere literary production, the Message of Mr. Buchanan is so
+superior to any of the Messages of his immediate predecessor, that
+the reader naturally expects to find in it a corresponding
+superiority of sentiment and aim. When we meet a man who is
+well-dressed, and whose external demeanor is that of a gentleman, we
+are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and
+honorable feelings. But we are very often mistaken in this inference;
+the nice garment proves to be little better than a nice disguise;
+and the robe of respectability may cover the heart of a very scurvy
+fellow.
+
+Mr. Buchanan's sentences run smoothly enough; they are for the most
+part grammatical; the tone throughout is sedate, if not dignified;
+and the general spirit unambitious and moderate. But the doctrine,
+in our estimation, is, on the most essential point, atrocious, and
+the objects which are sought to be compassed are unworthy of the man,
+the office, the country, and the age. We refer, of course, to what
+is said of the one vital question with us now, the question of
+Slavery in Kansas; but before proceeding to a discussion of that,
+let us say a word or two of other parts of this important document.
+
+The President introduces, as the first of his topics, the prevailing
+money pressure, which he treats at considerable length, with some
+degree of truth, but without originality or comprehensiveness of view.
+He profiles to inquire into the causes of the unfortunate disasters
+of trade, and into the remedies which may be devised against their
+recurrence; but on neither head is he remarkably profound or
+instructive. It is merely reiterating the commonplaces of the
+newspapers, to talk about "the excessive loans and issues of the
+banks," and to ring changes of phraseology on the vices of
+speculation, over-trading, and stock-jobbing. All the world is as
+familiar with all that as the President can be, and scarcely needed
+a reminder on either score; what we wanted of the head of the nation,--
+what a real statesman, who understood his subject, would have given
+us,--that is, if he had pretended to go at all beyond the simple
+statement of the fact of commercial revulsion, into a discussion of
+it,--was a comprehensive and philosophic analysis of all the causes
+of the phenomenon, a calm and careful review of all its circumstances,
+and a rigid deduction of broad general principles from an adequate
+study of the entire case. But this the President has not furnished.
+In connecting our commercial derangements with the disorders of the
+banking system he has unquestionably struck upon a great and
+fundamental truth; but it is merely a single truth, and he strikes
+it in rather a vague and random way. In considering these reverses,
+there are many things to be taken into account besides the
+constitution and customs, whether good or bad, of our American banks,--
+many things which do not even confine themselves to this continent,
+but are spread over the greater part of the civilized world.
+
+Mr. Buchanan is still lamer in his suggestion of remedies than he is
+in his inquiry after causes. The Federal Government, he thinks, can
+do little or nothing in the premises,--a fatal admission at the
+outset,--and we are coolly turned over to the most unsubstantial and
+impracticable of all reliances, "the wisdom and patriotism of the
+State legislatures"! Why cannot the Federal Government do anything
+in the premises? The President tells us that the Constitution has
+conferred upon Congress the exclusive right "to coin money _and
+regulate the value thereof_," and that it has prohibited the States
+from "issuing bills of credit,"--which phrase, if it mean anything,
+means making paper-money; and the inference would seem to be
+inevitable that Congress has a sovereign authority and power over
+the whole matter. It may, moreover, touch the circulation of bills,
+by means of its indisputable right to lay a stamp-tax upon paper;
+and Mr. Gallatin long ago recommended the exercise of this power, as
+an effectual method of restraining the emission of small notes. Upon
+what principle, then, can the President assert so dictatorially as
+he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If
+the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents,
+and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not
+interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the
+proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of
+which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not
+ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main
+force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we
+think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency;
+but from the stand-point of the President, and with his views of the
+efficiency of legislative restrictions upon banks, we do not see how
+he could consistently avoid recommending the instant action of
+Congress. On the heel of his grandiloquent description of the evils
+of redundant paper money,--evils which are felt all over the country,--
+it is a lamentably impotent conclusion to say, "After all, we can't
+do much to help it! Yes, let us confide piously in 'the wisdom and
+patriotism of the State legislatures,'"--which are almost the last
+places in the world, as things go, where we should look for either
+quality.
+
+Not being able to do anything himself, however, what does he urge
+upon the wise and patriotic State legislatures? Why, a series of
+flimsy restrictions, which would have about as much effect in
+preventing the tremendous abuses of banking which he himself depicts,
+as a bit of filigree iron-work would have in restraining the
+expansion of steam. Restrictions! restrictions! _toujours_
+restrictions!--as if that method of correcting the evil had not been
+utterly exploded by nearly two centuries of experience! Mr. Buchanan
+calls himself a Democrat; he is loud in his protestations of respect
+for the sagacity, the good-sense, and the virtue of the people; his
+political school takes for its motto the well-known adage, "That
+government is best which governs least"; his party, if he does not,
+purports to be a great advocate of the emancipation of trade from
+all the old-fashioned restraints which take the names of protections,
+tariffs, bounties, etc. etc.; and we wonder how it is, that, in his
+presumed excursions over the entire domain of free-trade, he should
+have got no inkling of a thought as to the benefits of free-trade in
+banking. We wonder that so great a subject could be dismissed with
+the suggestion of a few petty restraints.
+
+"If the State legislatures," remarks the President, summing up his
+entire thought, "afford us a real specie basis for our circulation,
+by increasing the denomination of bank-notes, first to twenty, and
+afterwards to fifty dollars; if they will require that the banks
+shall at all times keep on hand at least one dollar of gold and
+silver for every three dollars of their circulation and deposits;
+and if they will provide, by a self-executing enactment, which
+nothing can arrest, that the moment they suspend they shall go into
+liquidation; I believe that such provisions, with a weekly
+publication by each bank of a statement of its condition, would go
+far to secure us against future suspensions of specie payments."
+
+Singular blindness! Mr. Buchanan lived for several years, as
+American ambassador, in England. It is to be presumed that while
+there he used his eyes, and possibly his brains. He must have
+noticed occasionally, at least, in his walks through "the city," the
+immense marble structure in Threadneedle Street, known as the Bank
+of England. It is certain that he has read the history of that bank,
+inasmuch as it is twice or thrice alluded to in his Message; he
+cannot be ignorant, therefore, that the "circulation" of England has
+essentially "a specie basis"; that no bank-notes are issued there for
+less than the amount of twenty-five dollars; that the banks at all
+times keep on hand "one dollar of gold for every three dollars of
+their circulation and deposits"; and that the laws of bankruptcy are
+alike rigid in regard to institutions and individuals. These are
+precisely the provisions which he commends to the adoption of wise
+and patriotic State legislatures as an admirable corrective for
+suspensions; yet he forgets to explain to us how it happens that the
+Bank of England, to which they are all applied, has virtually
+suspended payment six times in the course of its existence, having
+been saved from open dishonor only by the timely assistance of the
+government,--while the trade of England, in spite of the staid and
+conservative habits of the people, is quite as liable to those
+terrific tarantula-dances, called revulsions, as our own. Before
+urging his "restraints," the President ought to have inquired a
+little into the history of such restraints; and he would then have
+saved himself from the absurdity of patronizing remedies which an
+actual trial had proved ludicrously inapt and inefficacious.
+
+With regard to the second topic of the Message,--our foreign
+relations,--it may be said that the positions assumed are frank,
+manly, and explicit; unless we have reason to suspect, in the
+slightly belligerent attitude towards Spain, a return, on the part
+of the President, to one of his old and unlawful loves,--the
+acquisition of Cuba. In that case, we should deplore his language,
+and be inclined to doubt also the sincerity of his just
+denunciations of Walker's infamous schemes of piracy and brigandage.
+Until events, however, have developed the signs of a sinister policy
+of this sort, we must bestow an earnest plaudit upon his decided
+rebuke of the filibusters, coupling that praise with a wish that the
+"vigilance" of his subordinates may hereafter prove of a more
+wide-awake and energetic kind than has yet been manifested.
+
+But for the terms in which the President has disposed of his third
+topic,--the Kansas difficulty,--we can scarcely characterize their
+disingenuousness and meanings. We have already spoken of the object
+of this part of the document as atrocious,--and we repeat the word,
+as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing
+less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked
+the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their
+initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts.
+Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached
+when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the
+antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of
+the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes that the
+late Lecompton Convention was a legitimate Convention, and that the
+Constitution framed by it (or said to have been framed by it,--for
+there is no official report of the instrument as yet) was framed in
+pursuance of proper authority or law. He does not tell us that the
+Territorial legislature which called this Convention was a usurping
+legislature, brought together, as the Congressional records show, by
+an invading horde from a neighboring State; he does not tell us, that,
+even if it had been a properly constituted body in itself, it had no
+right to call a Convention for the purpose of superseding the
+Territorial organization; he does not tell us that the Convention,
+as assembled, represented but one-tenth of the legal voters of the
+Territory; nor does he seem to regard the fact, that the other
+nine-tenths of the people were virtually disfranchised by that
+Convention, so far as their right to determine the provisions of
+their organic law is concerned, as at all a vital and important fact.
+By a miserable juggle, worthy of the frequenters of the
+gambling-house or the race-course, the people of Kansas have been
+nominally allowed to decide the question of Slavery, and that
+permission, according to Mr. Buchanan, fulfils and completes all that
+he ever meant, or his associates ever meant, by the promise of
+popular sovereignty!
+
+Now this may be all that the President and his party ever meant by
+that phrase, but it is not all that their words expressed or the
+country expected. In the course of the last three or four years, and
+by a series of high-handed measures, the established principles of
+the Federal Government, in regard to its management of the
+Territories,--principles sanctioned by every administration from
+Washington's down to Fillmore's,--have been overruled for the sake
+of a new doctrine, which goes by the name of Popular Sovereignty.
+The most sacred and binding compacts of former years were annulled
+to make way for it; and the judicial department of the government
+was violently hauled from its sacred retreat, into the political
+arena, to give a gratuitous _coup-de-grace_ to the old opinions and
+the apparent sanction of law to the new dogma, so that Popular
+Sovereignty might reign triumphant in the Territories. At the
+convention of the party which nominated Mr. Buchanan as a candidate
+for his present office,--"a celebrated occasion," as he calls it,--
+the members affirmed in the most emphatic manner the right of the
+people of all the Territories, including Kansas, to form their own
+Constitutions as they pleased, under the single condition that it
+should be republican. Mr. Buchanan reiterated that assertion in his
+Inaugural address, and in subsequent communications. When he
+appointed Mr. Robert J. Walker Governor of the Territory, he
+instructed him to assure the people that they should be guarantied
+against all "fraud or violence" when they should be called upon
+"to vote for or against the Constitution which would be submitted to
+them," so that there might be "a fair expression of the popular will."
+Nothing, in short, could have been clearer, more direct, more
+frequently repeated, than the asseverations of the "Democratic Party,"
+made through its official representatives, its newspapers, and its
+orators,--to the effect, that its only object, in its Kansas policy,
+was to secure "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty." On the
+strength of these assurances alone, it was enabled to achieve its
+hard-won victory in the last Presidential campaign. Mr. Buchanan
+owes his position to them, as is repeatedly admitted by Mr. Douglas
+in his speech of December 9th last,--and the whole nation, having
+discussed and battled and voted on the principle, acquiesced, as it
+is accustomed to do after an election, in the ascendency of the
+victors. It prepared itself to see the application of the principle
+which had been announced and defended as so important and wise.
+
+Under these pledges and promises, what has been the performance? A
+Convention, for which, inasmuch as it was illegally called by an
+illegal body, a large proportion of the citizens of Kansas refused
+to vote, frames a Constitution, in the interest and according to the
+convictions of the slenderest minority of the people; it
+incorporates in that Constitution a recognition of old Territorial
+laws to the last degree offensive to the majority of the people; it
+incorporates in it a clause establishing slavery in perpetuity; it
+connects with it a Schedule perpetuating the existing slavery,
+whatever it may be, against all future remedy which has not the
+sanction of the slave-master; and then, by a miserable chicane, it
+submits the Constitution to a vote of the people, but it submits it
+under such terms, that the people, if they vote at all, must vote
+_for_ it, whether they like it or not, while the only part in
+which they can exercise any choice is the _clause_ which relates to
+future slavery. The other parts, especially the Schedule, which
+recognizes the existing slavery, and that almost irremediably, the
+people are not allowed to pronounce upon. They are not allowed to
+pronounce upon the thousand-and-one details of the State organization;
+they are fobbed off with a transparent cheat of "heads I win,--tails
+you lose";--and the whole game is denominated, Popular Sovereignty.
+
+What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this
+would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise
+of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is
+amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle,"
+as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the
+approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only
+mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically
+ascertained is by a direct vote"; he admits that the "friends and
+supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when struggling to sustain
+its provisions before the great tribunal of the American people,"
+"everywhere, throughout the Union, publicly pledged their faith and
+honor" to submit the question of their domestic institutions
+"to the decision of the _bonâ-fide_ people of Kansas, without any
+qualification or restriction whatever"; but then,--and here is the
+subterfuge,--"domestic institutions" means only the single
+institution of slavery; and the Convention, in consenting to yield
+_that_ (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the
+people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of
+Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the
+questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative,
+and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their
+distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of
+taxation, etc., etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and
+provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the
+existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept.
+Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes
+already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced;
+for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is
+already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must
+not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that
+would be "an act of gross injustice." In other words, Popular
+Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to
+vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body,
+under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which
+officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,--
+while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. It is just the
+sort of sovereignty for which Louis Napoleon provided when he wished
+to procure a popular sanction for the numberless atrocities of the
+_coup-d'état_ of the 2d December.
+
+An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks";
+and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in
+kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed
+himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of
+his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to
+how he shall hide his tracks. He knows, as all the world knows, that
+this jugglery in Kansas has been performed for no other purpose than
+to secure a foothold for Slavery there, against the demonstrated
+opinion of nine-tenths of the people; he knows, as all the world
+knows, that if the Convention had had the least desire to arrive at
+a fair expression of the popular will, on the question of Slavery or
+any other question, it was easy to make a candid and honorable
+submission of it to an election to be held honestly under the
+recognized officers of the Territory; but he knows, also, that under
+such circumstances the case would have been carried overwhelmingly
+against the "domestic institution," and thus have rebuked, with all
+the emphasis that an outraged community could give to the expression
+of its will, the nefarious conduct which "the party" has pursued
+from the beginning,--and this was a consummation not to be wished.
+He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent
+inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely
+about "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty."
+
+The President thinks that it is time that these troubles in Kansas
+were at an end, and we cordially agree with him in the sentiment;
+but he needs scarcely to be reminded that they never will be at an
+end, until the wicked schemes, which have been so long persisted in,
+to override the convictions and hopes and interests of a large
+majority of the Kansas settlers, are utterly abandoned by those who
+are in power.
+
+Of the remaining and mostly routine topics of the Message we have no
+occasion to speak; and we only regret that the deficiencies of the
+most important parts are so glaring as to oblige us to treat them
+with undisguised severity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WEDDING VEIL.
+
+  Dear Anna, when I brought her veil,
+  Her white veil, on her wedding-night,
+  Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds,
+  And, laughing, turned me to the light.
+
+  "See, Bessie, see! you wear for once
+  The bridal veil, forsworn for years!"
+  She saw my face,--her laugh was hushed,
+  Her happy eyes were filled with tears.
+
+  With kindly haste and trembling hand
+  She drew away the gauzy mist;
+  "Forgive, dear heart!"--her sweet voice said;
+  Her loving lips my forehead kissed.
+
+  We passed from out the searching light;
+  The summer night was calm and fair:
+  I did not see her pitying eyes,
+  I felt her soft hand smooth my hair.
+
+  Her tender love unlocked my heart;
+  'Mid falling tears, at last I said,
+  "Forsworn indeed to me that veil,
+  Because I only love the dead!"
+
+  She stood one moment statue-still,
+  And, musing, spake in under-tone,
+  "The living love may colder grow;
+  The dead is safe with God alone!"
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+  _The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History
+  of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
+  I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
+
+This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
+account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
+beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
+as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
+planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
+has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
+
+Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
+historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
+wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
+sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
+vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
+excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
+religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
+his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
+long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
+strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
+reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
+the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
+book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
+priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
+they were engaged.
+
+Mr. Helps has investigated his subject with zeal, industry, and
+patience. He has sought out the original authorities, has brought to
+light many important facts, has redeemed some great memories from
+unjust oblivion, and has presented a new view of several of the
+chief features of the history. In a graceful advertisement to the
+third volume he says, "The reader will observe that there is
+scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern
+writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for
+the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the
+conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object
+in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs;
+and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these
+eminent persons might have exercised upon it."
+
+A considerable space in these volumes is devoted to an investigation
+of the character and condition of the native races of the continent
+at the period of the Spanish Conquest. This subject is treated with
+peculiar skill and learning, and with unusual power of sympathetic
+analysis and appreciation of remote and obscure developments of
+society. Another portion of the history, which his plan has led
+Mr. Helps to treat at length and with exhaustive thoroughness, is
+the early relations between the conquerors and the conquered,
+embracing the method of settlement of the different countries, the
+whole disastrous system of _ripartimientos_ and _encomiendas_, which,
+in its full development, led to the destruction of the native
+population of Hispaniola, and to the introduction of negroes into
+this and the other West India islands to supply the demand for
+laborers.
+
+Another most interesting portion of his subject, and one which has
+never till now been fairly exhibited, relates to the labors of the
+Dominican and Franciscan monks, and their admirable and unwearied
+efforts to counteract and to remedy some of the bitterest evils of
+the conquest. Theirs were the first protests that were raised
+against slavery in America, and their ranks afforded the first
+martyrs in the cause of the Indian and the Negro. Las Casas has
+found an eloquent and just biographer, and Mr. Helps has the
+satisfaction of having securely placed his name among the few that
+deserve the lasting honor and remembrance of the world. The
+narrative of Las Casas's life is one of strong dramatic interest.
+His life was a varied and remarkable one, even for those times of
+striking contrasts and varieties in the fortunes of men; and in
+Mr. Helps's pages one sees the man himself, with his simplicity and
+elevation of purpose, his honesty of motive, his energy, his
+impetuosity, his courage, and his faith.
+
+The three volumes already published embrace the progress of Spanish
+conquest from the first discoveries of Columbus to Pizarro's
+incursion into Peru. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Helps may
+continue his work, at least to the period when the Spanish conquest
+and colonization were met and limited by the conquest and the
+colonization of the other European nations. Its importance, as a wise,
+thoughtful, unpolemic investigation of the origin and the results of
+Slavery, is hardly to be overestimated. The space allowed to a
+critical notice does not permit us to render it full justice. We can
+do little more than recommend it warmly to the readers of history
+and to the students of the most difficult and the darkest social
+problem of the age.
+
+
+
+  _Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American
+  Engineers. Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae for
+  the Location, Construction, Equipment, and Management of Railroads,
+  as built in the United States_. With 158 Illustrations. By GEORGE L.
+  VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1857. 12 mo. pp. 480.
+
+All who trust their persons to railroad cars, or their estates to
+railroad stocks, will welcome every effort to enlighten that
+irresponsible body of railroad builders and managers in whose wits
+we put our faith.
+
+The work which we here notice is intended for uneducated American
+engineers, of whom there are unfortunately too many. The rapidity
+with which our railroads have been built, and the experimental
+character of this new branch of engineering, have obliged us to
+resort to such native ability and mother wit as our people could
+afford. The great body of our railroad engineers have had no training
+but the experience they have blundered through; and even our
+railroad financiers are men more distinguished for courage and
+energy than for experimental skill. Mr. Vose's book will doubtless
+be of great service in remedying these evils, by bringing within the
+reach of every intelligent man a valuable and very carefully
+prepared summary of such rules, formulas, and statistics as our
+railroad experiences have furnished and proved.
+
+Railroad engineering and management have united almost every branch
+of mechanical and financial science, and have developed several new
+and peculiar arts; so that the successful construction, equipment,
+and management of a railroad require a rare combination of
+accomplishments. Managers hitherto have been too little acquainted
+with their business to settle many questions of economy, but they
+are now beginning to look upon their enterprises with cooler
+judgments.
+
+The "Handbook" discusses several questions of economy, but seeks,
+especially in its rules and formulas, to avoid those risks by which
+economy has often been turned into the most ruinous extravagance. On
+the question of fuel, our author advocates the use of coke as the
+most economical and convenient, and every way preferable where it
+can be readily obtained. He also urges, on economical grounds, a
+more moderate rate of speed in railroad travel; thus showing that we
+may save our forests, our lives, and a considerable expense all at
+the same time.
+
+The style is clear, and, for a work not professing to be a complete
+treatise, but only a manual of useful facts, the arrangement is
+admirable. The book is thoroughly practical, and touches upon such
+matters, and for the most part upon such matters only, as are likely
+to be of service to the practical man; yet it is quite elementary in
+its character, and free from unnecessary technicalities.
+
+The book has, however, one great fault. It is full of errata. No
+carefully prepared table of corrections can make amends for such a
+fault in a book in which typographical correctness is of the
+greatest importance. To insert in their places with a pen more than
+two hundred published corrections is a labor which no reader would
+willingly undertake. We hope, therefore, that a new and correct
+edition will soon be published.
+
+
+
+  _The Life of Handel_. By VICTOR SCHOELCHER. Reprinted from the
+    London Edition. New York: Mason, Brothers.
+
+It is a remarkable fact, and one not very creditable to the musical
+public of England, that the works of Mainwaring, Hawkins, Barney,
+and Coxe should remain for almost an entire century after the death
+of Handel our main sources of information concerning his career, and
+that the first attempt to write a complete biography of that great
+composer, correcting the errors, reconciling the contradictions, and
+supplying the deficiencies of those authors, should be from the pen
+of a French exile. And yet during all this time materials have been
+accumulating, the fame of the composer has been extending, the demand
+for such a work increasing, and the number of intelligent and
+elegant English writers upon music growing greater.
+
+M. Schoelcher's work, though perhaps the most valuable contribution
+to musical historical literature which has for many years appeared
+from the English press, leaves much to be desired. Excepting a
+correction of the chronology of Handel's visit to Italy, very little,
+if anything, of importance is added to what we already possessed in
+regard to the early history of the composer. We look in vain for the
+means of tracing the development of his genius. The impression left
+upon the mind of the reader is, that his powers showed themselves
+suddenly in full splendor, and that at a single bound he placed
+himself at the head of the dramatic composers of his age. This was
+not true of Hasse, Mozart, Gluck, Cherubini, Weber, in dramatic
+composition; nor of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, in other branches of the
+musical art. However great a man's genius may be, he must live and
+learn. To attain the highest excellence, long continued study is
+necessary; and Handel, as we believe, was no exception to the
+general law.
+
+The list of works consulted by M. Schoelcher, prefixed to the
+biography, shows that he has by no means exhausted the German
+authorities which may be profitably used in writing upon the early
+history of Handel: indeed, the author, though of German descent, is
+unacquainted with the German language. We can learn from them the
+state of dramatic music at that time in Berlin, Leipsic, Brunswick,
+Hanover, Köthen; we can form from them some correct idea of the
+powers of Keiser, Steffani, Graupner, Schieferdecker, Telemann,
+Grünwald, and others, then in possession of the lyric stage; we can
+thus estimate the influences which led Handel from the path that
+Bach so successfully followed, into that which he pursued with equal
+success; and though the amount of matter relating to him personally
+be small, much that throws light upon his early life still remains
+inaccessible to the English reader.
+
+The biography of a great creative artist must in great measure
+consist of a history of his works; and the great value of the
+book before us arises from the searching examination to which
+M. Schoelcher has subjected the several collections of Handel's
+manuscripts which are preserved in England, one of which, in some
+respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This
+examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful
+and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the
+various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to
+correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by
+step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio,
+which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general
+reader, perhaps, M. Schoelcher has been drawn too far into detail,
+and some passages of his work might have been better reserved for
+his "Catalogue of Handel's Works"; but these details are of the
+highest value to the student of musical literature, and, indeed,
+form for him the principal charm of the work. The importance of the
+author's labors can be duly appreciated only by those who have had
+occasion to study somewhat extensively the musical history of the
+last century. For them the results of those labors as here presented
+are invaluable.
+
+
+
+  _Sermons of the_ REV. C. H. SPURGEON, of London. Third Series.
+    New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
+
+There can be no doubt of the merit of these sermons, considered as
+examples of method and embodiments of character. Whatever elements
+of Christianity may be left unexpressed in them, it is certain that
+Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in expressing himself. His discourses at
+least give us Christianity as he understands, feels, and lives it.
+They should be studied by all clergymen who desire to master the
+secret of influencing masses of men. They will afford valuable hints
+in respect to method, even when their spirit, tone, and teaching
+present no proper model for imitation. Mr. Spurgeon, we suppose,
+would be classed among Calvinists, but he is not merely that.
+Without any force, depth, amplitude, or originality of thought, he
+has considerable force and originality of nature. He detaches from
+their relations certain doctrines of Calvinism which especially
+interest him, and so emphasizes and intensifies them, so blends them
+with his personal being and experience, that the impression he
+stamps upon the mind is rather of Spurgeonism than Calvinism. He
+gives vivid reality to his doctrines, because they are incorporated
+with his nature,--and not merely with his spiritual, but with his
+animal nature. He is thoroughly in earnest from the fact that he
+preaches himself. His converts, therefore, are likely to mistake
+being Spurgeonized for being Christianized; for the Christianity he
+preaches is not so much vital Christianity as it is Christianity
+passed through the vitalities of his own nature, and essentially
+modified and lowered in the process. To understand, then, the kind
+of influence he exerts, we have simply to inquire, What kind of man
+is Mr. Spurgeon?
+
+The answer to this question is given on every page of his sermons.
+He has no reserves, but lets his character transpire in every
+sentence. He is a bold, eager, earnest, devout, passionate,
+well-intentioned man, with considerable experience in the sphere of
+the religious emotions, full of sympathy with rough natures, full of
+mother wit and practical sagacity, but, as a theologian, coarse,
+ignorant, narrow-minded, and strikingly deficient in fine spiritual
+perceptions. These qualities inhere in a nature of singular vigor,
+intensity, and directness, that sends out words like bullets. Warmth
+of feeling combined with narrowness of mind makes him a bigot; but
+his bigotry is not the sour assertion of an opinion, but the racy
+utterance of a nature. He believes in Spurgeonism so thoroughly and
+so simply that toleration is out of the question, and doctrines
+opposed to his own he refers, with instantaneous and ingenuous
+dogmatism, to folly or wickedness. "I think," he says, in one of his
+sermons, "I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites.
+I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one
+person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe
+the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so
+nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts
+that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were
+taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe
+it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort,
+that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to some of
+the dogmas of their assailant. Indeed, the incapacity of our
+preacher to discern, or mentally to reproduce, a religious character
+differing in creed from his own, makes him the most amusingly
+intolerant of Popes, not because he is malignant, but because he is
+Spurgeon. If he had learning or largeness of mind, he would probably
+lose the greater portion of his power. He gets his hearers into a
+corner, limits the range of their vision to the doctrine he is
+expounding, refuses to listen to any excuses or palliations, and
+then screams out to them, "Believe or be damned!" In his own mind he
+is sure they will be damned, if they do not believe. So far as
+regards his influence over those minds whose religious emotions are
+strong, but whose religious principles are weak, every limitation of
+his mind is an increase of his force.
+
+This theological narrowness is unaccompanied with theological rancor.
+A rough but genuine benevolence is at the heart of Mr. Spurgeon's
+system. He wishes his opponents to be converted, not condemned. He
+very properly feels, that, with his ideas of the Divine Government,
+he would be the basest of criminals, if he spared himself, or spared
+either entreaty or denunciation, in the great work of saving souls.
+He throws himself with such passionate earnestness into his business,
+that his sermons boil over with the excitement of his feelings.
+Indeed, it is difficult to say whether our impressions of him,
+derived from the written page, come to us more from the eye than the
+ear. His very style foams, rages, prays, entreats, adjures, weeps,
+screams, warns, and execrates. His words are words that everybody
+understands,--bold, blunt, homely, quaint, level to his nature, all
+alive with passion, and directed with the single purpose of carrying
+the fortresses of sin by assault. The reader who contrives to
+preserve his calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed
+that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions
+so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so
+materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest
+living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian
+spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and
+purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all,
+little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican,
+easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of
+his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may
+thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify
+him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does
+he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure,
+as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny
+nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to
+insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, if alive,
+would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the
+doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his
+hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted
+religion in order that the public "might be more generally
+accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's
+celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine"
+from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's
+nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination,
+and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously
+impressed, he animalizes his creed in attempting to give it
+sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this
+process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by
+more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened
+to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind
+than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on
+"Regeneration." But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon's preaching is
+liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but
+because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original,
+exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It
+is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of
+every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people.
+But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded
+nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for
+the poor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Roumania: the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk.
+  Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia_.
+  By JAMES O. NOYES, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd &
+  Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
+
+Dr. James Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all
+over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny
+atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough
+not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness,
+energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a
+book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him
+a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of
+labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,--or unless some African prince
+cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their
+Thanksgiving-time.
+
+Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
+so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake,
+so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so
+perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers,
+and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who
+missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he
+had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval,
+but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
+
+In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change
+Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and
+lively descriptions,--perhaps a little too overlarded and
+oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,--but as lively as a
+golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most
+readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new
+costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make
+its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the
+work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the
+card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will
+very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be
+the better for the acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Dante's Hell_. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation.
+    By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
+
+A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real
+learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the
+present day a _new_ translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might
+claim exemption from this _dictum_, on the ground that his
+translation is not a _new_ one; but he himself does not put in this
+plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or
+declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his
+Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent,
+"The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and
+must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of
+disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who
+have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as
+their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more
+literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all."
+Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous
+translations of Dante could descend to _such_ labor and plodding as
+his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of
+the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has
+afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first
+progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or
+refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of
+the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not
+divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "Art thou, then, that Virgil and that fountain
+  which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? I answered him with bashful front.
+  O glory and light of other poets! May the
+  long zeal avail me and the great love which
+  made me search thy volume. Thou art my
+  master and my author."
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "Art thou that Virgil and that fountain,
+  then, which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? With bashful forehead him I gave
+  reply. O light and glory of the other bards!
+  May the long zeal and the great love avail me
+  that hath caused me thy volume to explore.
+  Thou art my master, thou my author art."
+
+Opening again at random, we take the two translations at the
+beginning of the Eighth Canto.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before we
+  reached the foot of the high tower our eyes
+  went upward to the summit, because of two
+  flamelets that we saw put there; and another
+  from far gave signal back,--so far that the
+  eye could scarcely catch it. And I, turning
+  to the Sea of all knowledge, said: What says
+  this? and what replies yon other light? And
+  who are they that made it?"
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before unto
+  the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
+  unto its summit upward went, cause of two
+  flamelets that we saw there placed; while
+  signal back another gave from far; so far the
+  eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
+  the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
+  sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
+  And who are they that made it?"
+
+We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
+between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
+perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
+the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
+text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
+striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
+Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
+unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
+acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
+little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
+_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
+In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
+greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
+appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
+all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
+Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
+translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
+narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
+of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
+read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
+quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchià" would have set him
+right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
+has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
+to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
+with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
+give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
+the following lines:--
+
+  Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
+  Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
+
+Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
+displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
+familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
+
+  Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
+
+Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
+Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
+which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
+and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
+
+Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
+learning; witness such lines as these:--
+
+  "My parents natives of Lombardy were."
+  "They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
+  "Like as at Palo near the Quarnãro."
+  "I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
+
+We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author
+declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He
+says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a
+specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one,
+the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear
+until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for
+which we may yet have to wait some time.
+
+We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of
+Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character
+of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name
+to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious
+participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will
+soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent
+translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long
+since, bearing their imprint.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and
+    other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+
+On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became
+light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric
+in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which
+we cannot find some novel image, _some Shakspearian felicity_ of
+expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the
+"Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another
+exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
+compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
+you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
+however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
+"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
+extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
+that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
+the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
+creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
+fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
+splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
+as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
+total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
+of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
+satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
+idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
+one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
+small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
+itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
+for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
+imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
+which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the
+luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
+pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
+his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
+has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
+demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
+not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
+should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
+are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
+and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
+each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
+exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
+subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
+are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
+the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
+striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
+many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
+close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
+award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOREIGN.
+
+
+  _Der Reichspostreiter in Ludwigsburg, Novelle auf geschichtlichem
+  Hintergrunde_. Von Robert Heller. 1858.
+
+A very interesting novel indeed, sketching life at the little court
+of the Duke of Wurtemberg at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
+and the overthrow of the government of a famous mistress of the Duke,
+the Countess Würben. The main points of interest in the story are
+historical, and the tissue of fiction interwoven with these is
+remarkably well arranged. Herr Heller belongs to the school of
+German novelists who, like Hermann Kurz, and others of minor mark,
+make a copious and comprehensive use of historical facts in Art.
+Their object and aim seem to be rather to illustrate and embody the
+historical facts in the flesh and blood of tangible reality, than
+merely to amuse by transforming history into a material for poetical
+entertainment. With all that, the abovenamed little volume is amply
+worth reading.
+
+
+
+  _Une Eté dans le Sahara_, par Eugene Fromentin. Paris. 1857.
+
+A painter describes here a summer journey through the Desert of
+Sahara, as far south from Algiers as El Aghouat, in the year 1853.
+There is not much that is new in this book, considering the many
+later and far more comprehensive and extensive illustrations of life
+in the Great Desert, since published by Bayard Taylor, Barth, and
+others; but it is a very interesting picture of this life, as seen
+and drawn by a painter. His descriptions contain many landscape and
+_genre_ pictures, by means of which a vivid idea of the scenery
+and life are conveyed to the imagination of the reader.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JANUARY 1858 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 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. I., No. 3, January 1858
+       A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #8947]
+Release Date: September, 2005
+First Posted: August 28, 2003
+Last Updated: May 4, 2005
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JANUARY 1858 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Robert Prince and Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS
+
+VOL. I--JANUARY, 1858.--NO. III.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
+
+If building many houses could teach us to build them well, surely we
+ought to excel in this matter. Never was there such a house-building
+people. In other countries the laws interfere,--or customs,
+traditions, and circumstances as strong as laws; either capital is
+wanting, or the possession of land, or there are already houses
+enough. If a man inherit a house, he is not likely to build another,--
+nor if he inherit nothing but a place in an inevitable line of
+lifelong hand-to-mouth toil. In such countries houses are built
+wholesale by capitalists, and only by a small minority for themselves.
+
+And where the man inherits no house, he at least inherits the
+traditional pattern of one, or the nature of the soil decides the
+main points; as you cannot build of brick where there is no clay,
+nor of wood where there are no forests. But here every man builds a
+house for himself, and every one freely according to his whims. Many
+materials are nearly equally cheap, and all styles and ways of
+building equally open to us; at least the general appearance of most
+should be known to us, for we have tried nearly all. Our public
+opinion is singularly impartial and cosmopolitan, or perhaps we
+should rather say knowing and unscrupulous. All that is demanded of
+a house is, that it should be of an "improved style," or at least
+"something different." Nothing will excuse it, if old-fashioned,--
+and hardly anything condemn it, if it have novelty enough.
+
+And this latitude is not confined to the owner's scheme of his house,
+but extends also to the executive department. In other countries,
+however extravagant your fancy, you are brought within some bounds
+when you come to carry it out; for the architect and the builder have
+been trained to certain rules and forms, and these will enter into
+all they do. But here every man is an architect who can handle a
+T-square, and every man a builder who can use a plane or a trowel;
+and the chances are that the owner thinks he can do all as well as
+either of them. For if every man in England thinks he can write a
+leading article, much more every Yankee thinks he can build a house.
+Never was such freedom from the rule of tradition. A fair field and
+no favor; whatever that can accomplish we shall have.
+
+The result, it must be confessed, is not gratifying. For if you
+sometimes find a man who is satisfied with his own house, yet his
+neighbors sneer at it, and he at his neighbors' houses. And even with
+himself it does not usually wear well. The common case is that even
+he accepts it as a confessed failure, or at best a compromise. And
+if he does not confess the failure, (for association, pride,
+use-and-wont reconcile one to much), the house confesses it. For
+what else but self-confessed failures are these thin wooden or cheap
+brick walls, temporarily disguised as massive stone,--this roof,
+leaking from the snow-bank retained by the Gothic parapet, or the
+insufficient slope which the "Italian style" demands?
+
+There is no lack of endeavor to make the house look well. People
+will sacrifice almost anything to that. They will strive their
+chambers into the roof,--they will have windows where they do not
+want them, or leave them out where they do,--in our tropical summers
+they will endure the glare and heat of the sun, rather than that
+blinds should interfere with the moulded window-caps, or with the
+style generally,--they will break up the outline with useless and
+expensive irregularity,--they will have brackets that support nothing,
+and balconies and look-outs upon which no one ever steps after the
+carpenter leaves them,--all for the sake of pleasing the eye. And
+all this without any real and lasting success,--with a success,
+indeed, that seems often in an inverse ratio to the effort. If a man
+have a pig-stye to build, or a log-house in the woods, he may hit
+upon an agreeable outline; but let him set out freely and with all
+deliberation to build something that shall be beautiful, and he fails.
+
+Not that the failure is peculiar at all to us. In Europe there may,
+perhaps, be less bad taste,--though I am not sure of that; but there,
+and everywhere, I think, the memorable houses, among those of recent
+date, are not those carefully elaborated for effect,--the
+premeditated irregularity of the English Gothic, the trig regularity
+of the French Pseudo-Classic, or the studied rusticity of Germany,--
+but such as seem to have grown of themselves out of the place where
+they stand,--Swiss _chalets_, Mexican or Manila plantation-houses,
+Italian farm-houses, built, nobody knows when or by whom, and built
+without any thought of attracting attention. And here I think we get
+a hint as to the reason of their success. For a house is not a
+monument, that it should seek to draw attention to itself,--but the
+dwelling-place of men upon the earth; and it must show itself to be
+wholly secondary to its purpose.
+
+We have had a good deal of exhortation lately, now getting rather
+wearisome, about avoiding pretence in architecture, and that we
+should let things show for what they are. The avoidance of pretence
+should begin farther back. If the house is _all_ pretence, we shall
+not help it by "frankness of treatment" in details.
+
+The house is the sign of man's entering into possession of the earth.
+A houseless savage, living on wild game and accidental fruits, is an
+alien in nature, or a minor not yet come to his estate. As soon as
+he begins to cultivate the soil he builds him a house,--no longer a
+hut or a cave but the work of his own hands, and as permanent as his
+tenure of the cultivated field. If that is to descend to his children,
+the house must be so built as to endure accordingly. It is the
+material expression of the _status_ of the family,--such people in
+such a place. Hence the two-fold requirement of fitness for its use
+and of harmony with its surroundings. A log-house is the appropriate
+dwelling of the lumberer in the woods; but transplant it to a
+suburban lawn and it becomes an absurdity, and a double absurdity.
+It is not in harmony with the place, nor fit for the use of the
+citizen. Nothing more satisfactory in their place than the old
+English parish-churches; but transfer one of them from its natural
+atmosphere and surroundings to the midst of one of our raw villages
+or bustling cities, exposed to the sudden and violent changes of our
+climate,--the open timber roof admitting the heat and the cold, and
+the stone walls bedewed with condensed moisture,--and after the first
+pleasant impression of the moment is over, there is left only a
+painful feeling of mimicry, not to be removed by any precision of
+copying, nor by the feeble attempts at ivy in the corners.
+
+This is all evident enough, and in principle generally admitted; but
+we dodge the application of the principle, because we are not ready
+to admit to ourselves, what history, apart from any reasoning, would
+show us, that those importations are failures, and that not
+accidentally in these particular cases, leaving the hope of better
+success for the next trial, but necessarily, and because they are
+importations.
+
+All good architecture must be the gradual growth of its country and
+its age,--the accumulation of men's experience, adding and leaving
+out from generation to generation. The air of permanence and stability
+that we admire in it must be gained by a slow and solid growth.
+It is the product, not of any one man's skill, but of a nation's;
+and its type, accordingly, must be gradually formed.
+
+But in this, as in everything else, there must be an aim, and one
+persisted in, else no experience is gained. A mere succession of
+generations will do nothing, if for each of them the whole problem
+is changed. The man of to-day cannot profit by his father's
+experience in the building of his house, if his culture, his habits,
+his associates, are different from his father's,--much less if they
+have changed since his own youth, and are changing from year to year.
+He will not imitate, he will not forbear to alter. On such shifting
+sands no enduring structure is possible, but only a tent for the
+night.
+
+We talk of the laws of architecture; but the fundamental law of all,
+and one that is sure to be obeyed, is, that the dwelling shall
+typify man's appropriation of the earth and its products,--what we
+call property. A man's house is naturally just as fixed a quantity
+as the kind and the amount of his possessions, and no more so. The
+style of it, depending on the inherited ideas of the class to
+which he belongs, will be as formed and as fixed as that class.
+Then where there is no fixed class, and where the property of
+every man is constantly varying, our quantity will be just so
+variable, and the true type of our architecture will be the
+tent,--of the frame-and-clapboard variety suited to the climate.
+
+For good architecture, then, we need castes in society, and fixed
+ways of living. We see the effect in the old parsonages in England,
+where from year to year have dwelt men of the same class, education,
+income, tastes, and circumstances generally, and so bringing from
+generation to generation nearly the same requirements, with the
+unessential changes brought in from time to time by new wants or
+individual fancies, here and there putting out a bay-window or
+adding a wing, but always in the spirit of the original building,
+and the whole getting each year more weather-stained and ivy-grown,
+and so toned into more complete harmony with the landscape, yet
+still living and expansive.
+
+It may be said that the result is here a partly accidental one, and
+not a matter of art. But domestic architecture is only half-way a
+fine art. It does not aim at a beauty of the monumental kind, as a
+statue, a triumphal arch, or even a temple does. Its primary aim is
+shelter, to house man in nature,--and it forms, as it were, the
+connecting link between him and the outward world. Its results,
+therefore, are partly the free artistic production, and partly
+retain unmodified their material character. In the image carved by
+the sculptor, the stone or wood used derive little of their effect
+from the original material; the important character is that imparted
+to them by his skill. Still more the canvas and pigments of the
+painter. But in architecture the wood and stone still fulfil the
+offices of covering, connecting, and supporting, as they did in the
+tree and the quarry, and their physical properties play an essential
+part in the work. The house, therefore, is a work of art only half
+emancipated from nature, and must depend on nature for much of its
+beauty also. It must not be isolated, as something merely to be
+looked at, apart from its position and its material use.
+
+The common mistake in our houses is, that they are designed, as
+inexperienced persons choose their paper-hangings, to be something
+of themselves, and not as mere background, as they should be. Thus
+it is that people seek to beautify their houses by ornamenting them,
+as a vulgar person sticks himself over with jewelry. A man's house
+is only a wider kind of dress; and as we do not call a man
+well-dressed when we are forced to see his dress before we see him,
+so a house cannot be satisfactory when it isolates itself from its
+inmates and from the landscape. In such houses, the more _effort_
+the worse they are; they may cheat us for the moment, but the oftener
+we see them the less we like them. Does not the uncomfortable
+sensation with which fine houses so often oppress us arise from the
+vague feeling that the owner has built himself out of his house, and
+his house out of the landscape?
+
+Hence it is mostly the novices that build the fine houses. A man of
+sense, I think, will generally build his second house plainer than
+his first. Not that he desires, perhaps, any the less what he
+desired before, but he is more alive to the difficulties and to the
+cost, and takes refuge in the safety of a lower scale. His
+experience has taught him that where he succeeded best he was really
+farthest from the end he sought. The fine house requires that its
+accessories should be in kind. All things within and without, the
+approach, the grounds, the furniture, must be brought up to the same
+pitch, and kept there. And when all is done, it is not done, but
+forever demands retouching. What is got in this kind cannot be paid
+for with money, nor finished once for all, but is a never-sated
+absorbent of time, thought, life. And it attacks the owner, too; he
+must conform, in his dress, his equipage, and his habits generally;
+he must be as fine as his house. The nicer his taste the more any
+incongruity will offend him, and the greater the danger of his
+becoming more or less an appendage to his house.
+
+Much of that chronic ailment of our society, the "trials of
+housekeeping," is traceable to this source. This is a complicated
+trouble, and probably other causes have their share in it. But we
+cannot fail to recognize in these seemingly accidental obstructions
+a stern, but beneficent adjustment of our circumstances to enforce a
+simplicity which we should else neglect. One cannot greatly
+deprecate the terrors of high rents and long bills, and the
+sufferings from clumsy and careless domestics, if they help to keep
+down senseless profusion and display.
+
+Our problem is, in truth, one of greater difficulty than at first
+appears. For we are each of us striving to do, by the skill and
+forethought of one man, what naturally accomplishes itself in a
+succession of generations and with the aid of circumstances. It is
+from our freedom that the trouble arises. Were our society composed
+of few classes, widely and permanently distinct, a fitting style for
+each would naturally arise and become established and perfected.
+There would be fewer occasions for new houses, and the new house
+would be less novel in style, and so two difficulties would be
+overcome. For novelty of style is a drawback to effect, as tending
+to isolate the house; and a new house is always at a disadvantage.
+Nature, in any case, is slow to adopt our handiwork into the
+landscape; sometimes the assimilation is so difficult that it must
+be ruined for its original purpose before it will be accepted.
+Sooner or later, indeed, it will be accepted. For though most of our
+buildings seem even in decay to resist the harmonizing hand of Nature,
+and to grow only ghastly and not venerable in dilapidation, yet
+leave them long enough and what of beauty was possible to them will
+appear, though it be only a crumbling heap of bricks where the
+chimney stood, or the grassy slope where the cellar-wall has fallen
+in.
+
+It is for this reason that persons of taste have taken pains to face
+their houses with weather-stained and lichen-crusted stone, or
+invent proper names for them, in imitation of the English
+manor-houses. But Nature is jealous of this helping, and neither the
+lichens nor the names will stick, for the reason that they never
+grew there. They cannot be naturalized without naturalizing their
+conditions. The gray ancestral houses of England are the beautiful
+symbols of the permanence of family and of caste. They are the
+embodiments of traditional institutions and culture. When we speak
+of the House of Stanley or of Howard, the expression is not wholly
+figurative. We do not mean simply the men and women of these families,
+but the whole complex of this manifold environment which has
+descended to them and in the midst of which they have grown up,--no
+more to be separated from it than the polyp from the coral stem.
+All this is centralized and has its expression in the House.
+
+Now as these conditions are not our conditions, the attempt to build
+fine houses is an attempt to import an effect where the cause has
+not existed. Our position is that of a perpetually shifting
+population,--the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place,
+circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and,
+whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally
+build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance
+rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the
+feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in
+outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so
+niched into the rock, that a change of fortune, or even a change in
+the direction of a town-road, shall leave us high and dry, like the
+fossils of the Norwegian cliffs, but rather, like the shell-fish of
+our beaches, free to travel up and down with the tide.
+
+The imitating of foreign examples comes from no real, heart-felt
+demand, but only from a fancied or simulated demand,--from tradition,
+association; at second-hand in one shape or another. It is at bottom
+something of the same flunkeyism that in a more exaggerated form
+assumes heraldic bearings and puts its servants into livery.
+
+It may well reconcile us to our deprivation to remember at what cost
+these things we admire are established and kept up. The imagination
+is pleased with this stability; but it is bought too dear, if
+progress is to be sacrificed to it, if the freedom and the true
+lives of the members are to be merged in the family, and if they are
+to be the stones of which the house is built. It is not desirable to
+be _adscriptus glebes_, whether the bonds be physical or only moral
+ones. We may well be content to have our limits free, even though
+our architecture suffer for it. It is better that houses should
+belong to men, and not men to houses.
+
+But whether we are content or not, it is evident that all hope of
+improvement lies in the tendency, somewhat noticeable of late, to
+the abnegation of exotic styles and graces. We have survived the
+Parthenon pattern, and there seems to be a prospect that we shall
+outlive the Gothic cottage. Even the Anglo-Italian bracketed villa
+has seen its palmiest days apparently, and exhausted most of its
+variations. We are in an extremely chaotic state just now; but there
+seems to be an inclination towards more rational ways, at least in
+the plans and general arrangement of houses.
+
+Of course mere negation cannot carry us far. We sometimes hear it
+said that it is as easy for a house to look well as to look ill, and
+those who say this seem to think that the failure is due solely to
+want of due consideration of the problem on the part of our builders,
+and that we have but to leave out their blunders to get at a
+satisfactory result. But if we look at the facts of the case, we
+find the builders have some reason on their side.
+
+Nothing can be more unsightly than the stalky, staring houses of our
+villages, with their plain gable-roofs, of a pitch neither high
+enough nor low enough for beauty, and disfigured, moreover, by mere
+excrescences of attic windows, and over the whole structure the
+awkward angularity, and the look of barren, mindless conformity and
+uniformity in the general outlines, and the meagre, frittered effect
+inherent in the material. But when we come to build, we find that
+the blockheads who invented this style, or no-style, have got at the
+cheapest way of supplying the first imperative demands of the people
+for whom they build,--namely, to be walled in and roofed
+weather-tight, and with a decent neatness, but without much care
+that the house should be solid and enduring,--for it cannot well be
+so flimsy as not to outlast the owner's needs. He does not look to
+it as the habitation of his children,--hardly as his own for his
+lifetime,--but as a present shelter, easily and quickly got ready,
+and as easily plucked up and carried off again. The common-law of
+England looks upon a house as real estate, as part of the soil; but
+with us it is hardly a fixture.
+
+Surely nothing can be more simple and common-sense than an ordinary
+New England house, but at the same time nothing can be uglier. The
+outline, the material, the color and texture of the surface are at
+all points opposed to breadth of effect or harmony with the
+surroundings. There is neither mass nor elegance; there are no lines
+of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of
+shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be
+impressive, and too large to be overlooked,--and finally, the paint,
+of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky
+blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of
+assimilation,--all combine to form something that shall forever
+remain a blot in the landscape.
+
+Evidently it is not merely a more common-sense treatment that we want;
+for here is sufficient simplicity, but a simplicity barren of all
+satisfaction. And singularly enough, it seems, with all its
+meagreness, to pass easily into an ostentatious display. In these
+houses there is no thought of "architecture"; that is considered as
+something quite apart, and not essential to the well-building of the
+house. But for this very reason matters are not much changed when
+the owner determines to spend something for looks. The house remains
+at bottom the same rude mass, with the "architecture" tacked on. It
+is not that the owner has any deeper or different sentiment towards
+his dwelling, but merely that he has a desire to make a flourish
+before the eyes of beholders. There is no heartfelt interest in all
+this on his part; it gives him no pleasure; how, then, should it
+please the spectator?
+
+The case is the same, whether it be the coarse ornamentation of the
+cheap cottage, or the work of the fashionable architect; we feel
+that the decoration is superficial and may be dispensed with, and
+then, however skillful, it becomes superfluous. The more elaborate
+the worse, for attention is the more drawn to the failure.
+
+What is wanted for any real progress is not so much a greater skill
+in our house-builders, as more thoughtful consideration on the part
+of the house-owners of what truly interests them in the house. We do
+not stop to examine what really weighs with us, but on some fancied
+necessity hasten to do superfluous things. What is it that we really
+care for in the building of our houses? Is it not, that, like dress,
+or manners, they should facilitate, and not impede the business
+of life? We do not wish to be compelled to think of them by
+themselves either as good or bad, but to get rid of any obstruction
+from them. They are to be lived in, not looked at; and their beauty
+must grow as naturally from their use as the flower from its stem,
+so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and
+the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be
+the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come.
+But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying
+to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has
+been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances.
+Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt
+to conceal it by our affectation of foreign airs and graces.
+
+
+
+
+MAYA, THE PRINCESS.
+
+The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its
+inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue
+sky was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver
+moon-fringes, or spangled with careless stars; the air was full of
+south-winds that had fluttered the hearts of a thousand roses and a
+million violets with long, deep kisses, and then flung the delicate
+odors abroad to tell their exploits, and set the butterflies mad
+with jealousy, and the bees crazy with avarice. And all this bloom
+was upon the country of Larrierepensee, when Queen Lura's little
+daughter came to life in the Topaz Palace that stood on Sunrise Hills,
+and was King Joconde's summer pavilion.
+
+Now there was no searching far and wide for godfathers, godmothers,
+and a name, as there is when the princesses of this world are born:
+for, in the first place, Larrierepensee was a country of pious
+heathen, and full of fairies; the people worshipped an Idea, and
+invited the fairy folk to all their parties, as we who are proper
+here invite the clergy; only the fairy folk did not get behind the
+door, or leave the room, when dancing commenced.
+
+And the reason why this princess was born to a name, as well as to a
+kingdom, was, that, long ago, the people who kept records in
+Larrierepensee were much troubled by the ladies of that land never
+growing old: they staid at thirty for ten years; at forty, for twenty;
+and all died before fifty, which made much confusion in dates,--
+especially when some women were called upon to tell traditions, the
+only sort of history endured in that kingdom; because it was against
+the law to write either lies or romances, though you might hear and
+tell them, if you would, and some people would; although to call a
+man a historian there was the same thing as to say, "You lie!" here.
+
+But as I was saying, this evergreen way into which the women fell
+caused much trouble, and the Twelve Sages made a law that for six
+hundred years every female child born in any month of the
+seventy-two hundred following should be named by the name ordained
+for that month; and then they made a long list, containing
+seventy-two hundred names of women, and locked it up in the box of
+Great Designs, which stood always under the king's throne; and
+thenceforward, at the beginning of every month, the Twelve Sages
+unlocked the box, consulted the paper, and sent a herald through the
+town to proclaim the girl-name for that month. So this saved a world
+of trouble; for if some wrinkled old maid should say, "And that
+happened long ago, some time before I was born," all her gossips
+laughed, and cried out, "Ho! ho! there's a historian! do we not all
+know you were a born Allia, ten years before that date?"--and then
+the old maid was put to shame.
+
+Now it happened well for Queen Lura's lovely daughter, that on her
+birth-month was written the gracious name of Maya, for it seemed
+well to fit her grace and delicacy, while but few in that country
+knew its sad Oriental depth, or that it had any meaning at all.
+
+It was all one flush of dawn upon Sunrise Hills, when the
+maids-of-honor, in curls and white frocks, began to strew the great
+Hall of Amethyst with geranium leaves, and arrange light tripods of
+gold for the fairies, who were that day gathered from all
+Larrierepensee to see and gift the new princess. The Queen had
+written notes to them on spicy magnolia-petals, and now the
+head-nurse and the grand-equerry wheeled her couch of state into the
+Hall of Amethyst, that she might receive the tender wishes of the
+good fairies, while yet the sweet languor of her motherhood kept her
+from the fresh wind and bright dew out of doors.
+
+The couch of state was fashioned like a great rose of crimson velvet;
+only where there should have been the gold anthers of the flower lay
+the lovely Queen, wrapped in a mantle of canary-birds' down, and
+nested on one arm slept the Child of the Kingdom, Maya. Presently a
+cloud of honey-bees swept through the wide windows, and settling
+upon the ceiling began a murmurous song, when, one by one, the
+flower-fairies entered, and flitting to their tripods, each garlanded
+with her own blossom, awaited the coming of their Head,--the Fairy
+Cordis.
+
+As the Queen perceived their delay, a sudden pang crossed her pale
+and tranquil brow.
+
+"Ah!" said she, to the nurse-in-chief, Mrs. Lita, "my poor baby, Maya!
+What have I done? I have neglected to ask the Fairy Anima, and now
+she will come in anger, and give my child an evil gift, unless
+Cordis hastens!"
+
+"Do not fear, Madam!" said Mrs. Lita, "your nerves are weak,--take a
+little cordial."
+
+So she gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she
+called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then
+Queen Lura drank it down nicely;--so much depends on names, even in
+Larrierepensee!
+
+But as Mrs. Lita set away the glass, the bees upon the ceiling began
+to buzz in a most angry manner, and rally about the queen-bee; the
+south-wind cried round the palace corner; and a strange light, like
+the sun shining when it rains, threw a lurid glow over the graceful
+fairy forms. Then the door of the hall flung open, and a beautiful,
+wrathful shape crossed the threshold;--it was the Fairy Anima. Where
+she gathered the gauzes that made her rainbow vest, or the
+water-diamonds that gemmed her night-black hair, or the sun-fringed
+cloud of purple that was her robe, no fay or mortal knew; but they
+knew well the power of her presence, and grew pale at her anger.
+
+With swift feet she neared the couch of state, but her steps
+lingered as she saw within those crimson leaves the delicate,
+fear-pale face of the Queen, and her sleeping child.
+
+"Always rose-folded!" she murmured, "and I tread the winds abroad! A
+fair bud, and I am but a stately stem! You were foolish and frail,
+Queen Lura, that you sent me no word of your harvest-time; now I
+come angry. Show me the child!"
+
+Mrs. Lita, with awed steps, drew near, and lifted the baby in her
+arms, and the child's soft hazel eyes looked with grave innocence at
+Anima. Truly, the Princess was a lovely piece of nature: her hair,
+like fine silk, fell in dark, yet gilded tresses from her snow-white
+brow; her eyes were thoughtless, tender, serene; her lips red as the
+heart of a peach; her skin so fair that it seemed stained with
+violets where the blue veins crept lovingly beneath; and her dimpled
+cheeks were flushed with sleep like the sunset sky.
+
+Anima looked at the baby.--"Ah! too much, too much!" said she.
+"Queen Lura, a butterfly can eat honey only; let us have a higher
+life for the Princess of Larrierepensee. Maya, I give thee for a
+birth-gift another crown. Receive the Spark!"
+
+Queen Lura shrieked; but Anima stretching out her wand, a snake of
+black diamonds, with a blood-red head, touched the child's eyes, and
+from the serpent's rapid tongue a spark of fire darted into either
+eye, and sunk deeper and deeper,--for two tears flowed above, and
+hung on Maya's silky lashes, as she looked with a preternatural
+expression of reproach at the Fairy.
+
+Now all was confusion. Queen Lura tried to faint,--she knew it was
+proper,--and the grand-equerry rang all the palace bells in a row.
+Anima gave no glance at the little Princess, who still sat upright
+in Mrs. Lita's petrified arms, but went proudly from the hall alone.
+
+The flower-fairies dropped their wands with one sonorous clang upon
+the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one
+after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted
+gifts and powers.
+
+"Why should I give her beauty?" cried the Fairy Rose; "all eyes will
+be dazzled with the Spark; who will know on what form it shines?"
+
+So the red rose dropped and died.
+
+"Why should I bring her innocence?" said the Fairy Lily; "the Spark
+will burn all evil from her, thought and deed!"
+
+Then the white lily dropped and died.
+
+"Is there any use to her in grace?" wept the Fairy Eglantine;
+"the Spark will melt away all mortal grossness, till she is light
+and graceful as the clouds above."
+
+And the eglantine wreaths dropped and died.
+
+"She will never want humility," said the Fairy Violet; "for she will
+find too soon that the Spark is a curse as well as a crown!"
+
+So the violet dropped and died.
+
+Then the Sun-dew denied her pity; the blue Forget-me not, constancy;
+the Iris, pride; the Butter-cup, gold; the Passion-flower, love; the
+Amaranth, hope: all because the Spark should gift her with every one
+of these, and burn the gift in deeply. So they all dropped and died;
+and she could never know the flowers of life,--only its fires.
+
+But in the end of all this flight came a ray of consolation, like
+the star that heralds dawn, springing upward on the skirt of night's
+blackest hour. The raging bees that had swarmed upon the golden
+chandelier returned to the ceiling and their song; the scattered
+flowers revived and scented the air: for the Fairy Cordis came,--too
+late, but welcome; her face bright with flushes of vivid, but
+uncertain rose,--her deep gray eyes brimming with motherhood, a
+sister's fondness, and the ardor of a child. The tenderest
+garden-spider-webs made her a robe, full of little common blue-eyed
+flowers, and in her gold-brown hair rested a light circle of such
+blooms as beguile the winter days of the poor and the desolate, and
+put forth their sweetest buds by the garret window, or the bedside
+of a sick man.
+
+Mrs. Lita nearly dropped the baby, in her great relief of mind; but
+Cordis caught it, and looked at its brilliant face with tears.
+
+"Ah, Head of the Fairies, help me!" murmured Queen Lura, extending
+her arms toward Cordis; for she had kept one eye open wide enough to
+see what would happen while she fainted away.
+
+"All I can, I will," said the kindly fairy, speaking in the same key
+that a lark sings in. So she sat down upon a white velvet mushroom
+and fell to thinking, while Maya, the Princess, looked at her from
+the rose where she lay, and the Queen, having pushed her down robe
+safely out of the way, leaned her head on her hand, and very
+properly cried as much as six tears.
+
+Soon, like a sunbeam, Cordis looked up. "I can give the Princess a
+counter-charm, Queen Lura," said she,--"but it is not sure. Look you!
+she will have a lonely life,--for the Spark burns, as well as shines,
+and the only way to mend that matter is to give the fire better fuel
+than herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in
+peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no
+more be hidden,--since to be a woman is to have power and pain,--
+then let her veil herself, and with a staff and scrip go abroad into
+the world, for her time is come. Now in this kingdom of
+Larrierepensee there stand many houses, all empty, but swept and
+garnished, and a fire laid ready on the hearth for the hand of the
+Coming to kindle. But sometimes, nay, often, this fire is a cheat:
+for there be men who carve the semblance of it in stone, and are so
+content to have the chill for the blaze all their lives; and on some
+hearths the logs are green wood, set up before their time; and on
+some they are but ashes, for the fire has burned and died, and left
+the ghostly shape of boughs behind; and sometimes, again, they are
+but icicles clothed in bark, to save the shame of the possessor. But
+there are some hearths laid with dry and goodly timber; and if the
+Princess Maya does not fail, but chooses a real and honest heap of
+wood, and kindles it from the Spark within her, then will she have a
+most perfect life; for the fire that consumes her shall leave its
+evil work, and make the light and warmth of a household, and rescue
+her forever from the accursed crown of the Spark. But I grieve to
+tell you, yet one of my name cannot lie--if the Princess mistake the
+false for the true, if she flashes her fire upon stone, or ice, or
+embers, either the Spark will recoil and burn her to ashes, or it
+will die where she placed it and turn her to stone, or--worst fate
+of all, yet likeliest to befall the tenderest and best--it will
+reenter her at her lips, and turn her whole nature to the bitterness
+of gall, so that neither food shall refresh her, sleep rest her,
+water quench her thirst, nor fire warm her body. Is it worth the
+trial? or shall she live and burn slowly to her death, with the
+unquenchable fire of the Spark?"
+
+"Ah! let her, at the least, try for that perfect life," said Queen
+Lura.
+
+Then the Fairy Cordis drew from her delicate finger a ring of
+twisted gold, in which was set an opal wrought into the shape of a
+heart, and in it palpitated, like throbbing blood, one scarlet flash
+of flame.
+
+"Let her keep this always on her hand," said Cordis. "It will serve
+to test the truth of the fire she strives to kindle; for if it be
+not true wood, this heart will grow cold, the throb cease, the glow
+become dim. The talisman may, will, save her, unless in the madness
+of joy she forget to ask its aid, or the Spark flashing upon its
+surface seems to create anew the fire within, and thus deceives her."
+
+So the Fairy put the ring upon Queen Lura's hand, and kissed Maya's
+fair brow, already shaded with sleep. The bees upon the ceiling
+followed her, dropping honey as they went; the maids-of-honor
+wheeled away the couch of state; the castle-maids swept up the fading
+leaves and blossoms, drew the tulip-tree curtains down, fastened the
+great door with a sandal-wood bar, sprinkled the corridors with
+rosewater; and by moonrise, when the nightingales sung loud from the
+laurel thickets, all the country slept,--even Maya; but the Spark
+burned bright, and she dreamed.
+
+So the night came on, and many another night, and many a new day,--
+till Maya, grown a girl, looked onward to the life before her with
+strange foreboding, for still the Spark burned.
+
+Hitherto it had been but a glad light on all things, except men and
+women; for into their souls the Spark looked too far, and Maya's
+open brow was shadowed deeply and often with sorrows not her own,
+and her heart ached many a day for pains she could not or dared not
+relieve; but if she were left alone, the illumination of the Spark
+filled everything about her with glory. The sky's rapturous blue,
+the vivid tints of grass and leaves, the dismaying splendor of
+blood-red roses, the milky strawberry-flower, the brilliant
+whiteness of the lily, the turquoise eyes of water-plants,--all
+these gave her a pleasure intense as pain; and the songs of the winds,
+the love-whispers of June midnights, the gathering roar of autumn
+tempests, the rattle of thunder, the breathless and lurid pause
+before a tropic storm,--all these the Spark enhanced and vivified;
+till, seeing how blest in herself and the company of Nature the
+Child of the Kingdom grew, Queen Lura deliberated silently and long
+whether she should return the gift of the Fairy Cordis, and let Maya
+live so tranquil and ignorant forever, or whether she should awaken
+her from her dreams, and set her on her way through the world.
+
+But now the Princess Maya began to grow pale and listless. Her eyes
+shone brighter than ever, but she was consumed with a feverish
+longing to see new and strange things. On her knees, and weeping,
+she implored her mother to release her from the court routine, and
+let her wander in the woods and watch the village children play.
+
+So Queen Lura, having now another little daughter, named Maddala,
+who was just like all other children, and a great comfort to her
+mother, was the more inclined to grant Maya's prayer. She therefore
+told Maya all that was before her, and having put upon her tiny
+finger the fairy-ring, bade the tiring-woman take off her velvet robe,
+and the gold circlet in her hair, and clothe her in a russet suit of
+serge, with a gray kirtle and hood. King Joconde was gone to the wars.
+Queen Lura cried a little, the Princess Maddala laughed, and Maya
+went out alone,--not lonely, for the Spark burned high and clear,
+and showed all the legends written on the world everywhere, and Maya
+read them as she went.
+
+Out on the wide plain she passed many little houses; but through all
+their low casements the red gleam of a fire shone, and on the
+door-steps clustered happy children, or a peasant bride with warm
+blushes on her cheek sat spinning, or a young mother with pensive
+eyes lulled her baby to its twilight sleep and sheltered it with
+still prayers.
+
+One of these kindly cottages harbored Maya for the night; and then
+her way at dawn lay through a vast forest, where the dim tree-trunks
+stretched far away till they grew undefined as a gray cloud, and
+only here and there the sunshine strewed its elf-gold on ferns and
+mosses, feathery and soft as strange plumage and costly velvet.
+Sometimes a little brook with bubbling laughter crept across her
+path and slid over the black rocks, gurgling and dimpling in the
+shadow or sparkling in the sun, while fish, red and gold-speckled,
+swam noiseless as dreams, and darting water-spiders, poised a moment
+on the surface, cast a glittering diamond reflection on the yellow
+sand beneath.
+
+The way grew long, and Maya weary. The new leaves of opalescent tint
+shed odors of faint and passionate sweetness; the birds sang
+love-songs that smote the sense like a caress; a warm wind yearned
+and complained in the pine boughs far above her; yet her heart grew
+heavy, and her eyes dim; she was sick for home;--not for the palace
+and the court; not for her mother and Maddala; but for home;--she
+knew her exile, and wept to return.
+
+That night, and for many nights, she slept in the forest; and when
+at length she came out upon the plain beyond, she was pale and wan,
+her dark eyes drooped, her slender figure was bowed and languid, and
+only the mark upon her brow, where the coronet had fretted its
+whiteness, betrayed that Maya was a princess born.
+
+And now dwellings began to dot the country: brown cottages, with
+clinging vines; villas, aerial and cloud-tinted, with pointed roofs
+and capricious windows; huts, in which some poor wretch from his bed
+of straw looked out upon the wasteful luxury of his neighbor, and,
+loathing his bitter crust and turbid water, saw feasts spread in the
+open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish
+thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and
+turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm,
+while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal
+music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes of a
+warrior's return.
+
+All these Maya passed by, for no door was open, and no fireless
+hearth revealed; but before night dropped her starry veil, she had
+travelled to a mansion whose door was set wide, and, within, a cold
+hearth was piled with boughs of oak and beech. The opal upon Maya's
+finger grew dim, but she moved toward the unlit wood, and at her
+approach the false pretence betrayed itself; the ice glared before
+her, and chilled her to the soul, as its shroud of bark fell off.
+She fled over the threshold, and the house-spirit laughed with
+bitter mirth; but the Spark was safe.
+
+Now came thronging streets, and many an open portal wooed Maya, but
+wooed in vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque
+cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure,
+and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look
+tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and
+likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with
+the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever
+changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness,
+and beauty-love, she would have drawn near the hearth, a sigh like
+the passing of a soul shivered by her, and before its breath the
+shapely embers fell to dust, the hearth beneath was heaped with ashes,
+and with tearful lids Maya turned away, and the house-spirit, weeping,
+closed the door behind her.
+
+Long days and nights passed ere she essayed again; and then, weary
+and faint with home-woe, she lingered on the steps of a lofty house
+whose carved door was swung open, whose jasper hearthstone was
+heaped with goodly logs, and beside it, on the soft flower-strewn
+skin of a panther, slept a youth beautiful as Adonis, and in his
+sleep ever murmuring, "Mother!" Maya's heart yearned with a kindred
+pang. She, too, was orphaned in her soul, and she would gladly have
+lit the fire upon this lonely hearth, and companioned the solitude
+of the sleeper; but, alas! the boughs still wore their summer garland,
+and from each severed end slow tears of dryad-life distilled
+honeyedly upon the stone beneath. Of such withes and saplings comes
+no living fire! Maya, smiling, set a kiss upon the boy-sleeper's brow,
+but the Spark lay quiet, and the house-spirit flung a blooming
+cherry-bough after its departing guest.
+
+The year was now wellnigh run. The Princess Maya despaired of home.
+The earth seemed a harsh stepmother, and its children rather stones
+than clay. A vague sense of some fearful barrier between herself and
+her kind haunted the woman's soul within her, and the unquenchable
+flames of the Spark seemed to girdle her with a defence that drove
+away even friendly ingress. Night and day she wept, oppressed with
+loneliness. She knew not how to speak the tongues of men, though
+well she understood their significance. Only little children mated
+rightly with her divine infancy; only the mute glories of nature
+satisfied for a moment her brooding soul. The celestial impulses
+within her beat their wings in futile longing for freedom, and with
+inexpressible anguish she uttered her griefs aloud, or sung them to
+such plaintive strains that all who heard wept in sympathy. Yet she
+had no home.
+
+After many days she came upon a broad, champaign, fertile land, where,
+on a gentle knoll, among budding orchards, and fields green with
+winter grains, stood a low, wide-eaved house, with gay parterres and
+clipped hedges around it, all ordered with artistic harmony, while
+over chimney and cornice crept wreaths of glossy ivy, every deep
+green leaf veined with streaks of light, and its graceful sprays
+clasping and clinging wherever they touched the chiselled stone
+beneath. Upon the lawn opened a broad, low door, and the southern sun
+streamed inward, showing the carved panels of the fireplace and its
+red hearth, where heavy boughs of wood and splinters from the heart
+of the pine lay ready for the hand of the Coming to kindle. Upon the
+threshold, plucking out the dead leaves of the ivy, stood one from
+whose face strength, and beauty, and guile that the guileless knew
+not, shone sunlike upon Maya; and as she faltered and paused, he
+spoke a welcome to her in her own language, and held toward her the
+clasping hand of help. A thrill of mad joy cleft the heart of the
+Princess, a glow of incarnate summer dyed with rose her cheek and lip,
+the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished.
+"Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of
+the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and
+staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and,
+heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes
+the Spark,--the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning
+speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre;
+so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and--is gone!
+The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay
+unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long
+respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like
+a hot iron, and entered into her heart,--the blighting canker of her
+fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.
+
+Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought
+stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as
+she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath
+her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the
+threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones
+together strike fire, Maya!"--while from the casement above looked
+forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and
+disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that
+ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.
+
+With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her
+laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the
+stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a
+scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its
+wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,--
+but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood
+had dropped away, and the jewel was broken across.
+
+So the wide world heard of Maya, the Child of the Kingdom, and from
+land to land men carried the stinging arrows of her wit, or
+signalled the beacon-fires of her scorn, while seas and shores
+unknown echoed her mad and rapt music, or answered the veiled agony
+that derided itself with choruses of laughter, from every mystic
+whisper of the wave, or roar of falling headlands.
+
+And then she fled away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the
+Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with
+wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,--or if it dared,
+standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was
+neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the
+thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine or crystal water,
+translucent grapes or the crimson fruits that summer kisses into
+sweetness with her heats; forever longing, and forever unsated, it
+parched her lips and burnt her gasping mouth, but there was no
+draught to allay it. And even so food failed of its office. Kindly
+hands brought to her, whose queenliness asserted itself to their
+souls with an innocent loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all
+delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and
+stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest
+bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat.
+The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet,
+sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those
+lips of fire burned all things in their touch to tasteless ashes.
+
+So she fled away; for the forest was cool and lonely, and even as
+she learned the lies and treacheries of men, so she longed to leave
+them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude.
+But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of
+despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled
+hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no
+rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and
+dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the
+ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation she flung
+herself by the clear fountain that had already fallen upon her lips
+and cooled them with bitter water, and hiding her head under the
+broad, fresh leaves of a calla that bent its marble cups above her
+knitted brow and loosened hair, she lay in deathlike trance, till the
+Fairy Anima swept her feet with fringed garments, and cast the
+serpent wand writhing and glittering upon her breast.
+
+"Wake, Maya!" said the organ-tones of the Spark-Bringer; and Maya
+awoke.
+
+"So! the Spark galls thee?" resumed those deep, bitter-sweet tones;
+and for answer the Princess Maya held toward her, with accusing eyes,
+the broken, bloodless opal.
+
+"Cordis's folly!" retorted Anima. "Thou hadst done best without it,
+Maya; the Spark abides no other fate but shining. Yet there is a
+little hope for thee. Wilt thou die of the bitter fire, or wilt thou
+turn beggar-maid? The sleep that charity lends to its couch shall
+rest thee; the draught a child brings shall slake thy thirst; the
+food pity offers shall strengthen and renew. But these are not the
+gifts a Princess receives; she who gathers them must veil the Crown,
+shroud the Spark, conceal the Curse, and in torn robes, with bare
+and bleeding feet, beg the crumbs of life from door to door. Wilt
+thou take up this trade?"
+
+Maya rose up from the leaves of the cool lily, and put aside the
+veiling masses of her hair.
+
+"I will go!" she whispered, flutelike, for hope beat a living pulse
+in her brain.
+
+So with scrip and hood she went out of the forest and begged of the
+world's bounty such life as a beggar-maid may endure.
+
+Long ago the King and Queen died in Larrierepensee, and there the
+Princess Maddala reigns with a goodly Prince beside her, nor cares
+for her lost sister; but songless, discrowned, desolate, Maya walks
+the earth.
+
+All ye whose fires burn bright on the hearth, whose dwellings ring
+with child-laughter, or are hushed with love-whispers and the peace
+of home, pity the Princess Maya! Give her food and shelter; charm
+away the bitter flames that consume her life and soul; drop tears
+and alms together into the little wasted hand that pleads with dumb
+eloquence for its possessor; and even while ye pity and protect,
+revere that fretted mark of the Crown that still consecrates to the
+awful solitude of sorrow Maya, the Child of the Kingdom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CATAWBA WINE.
+
+      This song of mine
+        Is a Song of the Vine,
+  To be sung by the glowing embers
+        Of wayside inns,
+        When the rain begins
+  To darken the drear Novembers.
+
+      It is not a song
+        Of the Scuppernong,
+  From warm Carolinian valleys,--
+        Nor the Isabel
+        And the Muscatel
+  That bask in our garden alleys,--
+
+      Nor the red Mustang,
+      Whose clusters hang
+  O'er the waves of the Colorado,
+      And the fiery flood
+      Of whose purple blood
+  Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
+
+      For richest and best
+      Is the wine of the West,
+  That grows by the Beautiful River;
+      Whose sweet perfume
+      Fills all the room
+  With a benison on the giver.
+
+      And as hollow trees
+      Are the haunts of bees
+  Forever going and coming,
+      So this crystal hive
+      Is all alive
+  With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
+
+      Very good in their way
+      Are the Verzenay,
+  And the Sillery soft and creamy;
+      But Catawba wine
+      Has a taste more divine,
+  More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
+
+      There grows no vine
+      By the haunted Rhine,
+  By Danube or Guadalquivir,
+      Nor on island or cape,
+      That bears such a grape
+  As grows by the Beautiful River.
+
+      Drugged is their juice
+      For foreign use,
+  When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
+      To rack our brains
+      With the fever pains
+  That have driven the Old World frantic.
+
+      To the sewers and sinks
+      With all such drinks,
+  And after them tumble the mixer!
+      For a poison malign
+      Is such Borgia wine,
+  Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
+
+      While pure as a spring
+      Is the wine I sing,
+  And to praise it, one needs but name it;
+      For Catawba wine
+      Has need of no sign,
+  No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
+
+      And this Song of the Vine,
+      This greeting of mine,
+  The winds and the birds shall deliver
+      To the Queen of the West,
+      In her garlands dressed,
+  On the banks of the Beautiful River.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDS AND THE WEATHER.
+
+
+  _The Physical Geography of the Sea_. By M. F. MAURY. New York:
+    Harper & Brothers. 1857.
+
+  _Climatology of the United States and of the Temperate Latitudes
+    of the North American Continent_. By LORIN BLODGET. Philadelphia: J.
+    B. Lippincott & Co. 1857.
+
+  _Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of
+    Science_. 1857.
+
+An eloquent philosopher, depicting the deplorable results that would
+follow, if some future materialist were "to succeed in displaying to
+us a mechanical system of the human mind, as comprehensive,
+intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian mechanism of the
+heavens," exclaims, "Fallen from their elevation, Art and Science
+and Virtue would no longer be to man the objects of a genuine and
+reflective adoration." We are led, in reflecting upon the far more
+probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon
+the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced
+when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes
+of the atmosphere to rules and predictions,--when the rain shall
+fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth,"
+and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature. But we
+console ourselves by contemplating the difficulties of the problem,
+and the improbability, that, in our generation at least, we shall be
+deprived of these subjects of general news and universal interest.
+
+During the last half-century, the progress of experimental
+philosophy in the direction of the weather, though its results are
+for the most part of a negative character, has yet been sufficient
+to excite the apprehensions of the philanthropist. We have unlearned
+many fables and false theories, and have made great advancement in
+that knowledge of our ignorance, which is the only true foundation
+of positive science.
+
+The moon has been deposed from the executive chair, though she still
+has her supporters and advocates; and an innumerable host of minor
+causes are found to constitute, upon strictly republican principles,
+the ruling power of the winds and the rain. That regularity, however
+complicated, which reason still demands, and expects even from the
+weather, is not found to be so simple as our rules and signs of the
+weather indicate; for the operation of these innumerable causes is
+so complicated, that the repetition of similar phenomena or similar
+combinations of causes, to any great extent, is the most improbable
+of events. Perhaps the meteorologist will ultimately find that
+Nature has succeeded, in what seems, indeed, to be her aim, in
+completely retracing her steps, and reducing the operation of that
+simple and regular system of causes, which she brought out of chaos,
+back to a confusion of detail, from which all law and regularity are
+obliterated.
+
+Meteorological observations have, however, determined many regular
+and constant causes and a few regular phenomena. The method pursued
+in these investigations is, for the most part, the elimination, by
+general averages, of limited and temporary changes in the elements
+of the weather, and the determination of those changes which depend
+upon the constant influences of locality, of season, and of constant
+or slowly varying causes. These constant influences constitute the
+climate; and the study of climates is thus the first step towards
+the solution of the problem of the weather. Climates, in their
+changes and distribution, are very important elements in the
+determination of the movements of the weather, and are to the
+meteorologist what the elements of the planetary orbits are to the
+astronomer; but, unlike planetary perturbations, the weather makes
+the most reckless excursions from its averages, and obscures them by
+a most inconsequent and incalculable fickleness.
+
+Whether mechanical science will hereafter succeed in calculating
+these perturbations of climate, as we may style the weather, or will
+find the problem beyond its capacity, it will yet, doubtless, account
+for much that is now obscure, as observation brings the facts more
+distinctly to view. We propose to give a brief general survey of the
+mechanics of the atmosphere in its present state, and to indicate
+the nature and limits of our knowledge on this subject.
+
+Among the first noticed and most remarkable features of regularity
+in atmospheric changes are constant, periodic, and prevailing winds.
+The most remarkable instances of these are the trade-winds of the
+torrid zone, the monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and the prevailing
+southwest wind of our northern temperate latitudes. Of these, the
+trade-winds are the most important to science, as furnishing the key
+to that general explanation of the winds which was first advanced by
+the distinguished Halley.
+
+In Halley's celebrated theory, the trade-winds are explained as the
+effects of the unequal distribution of the sun's heat in different
+latitudes. The air of the equator, heated more than the northern or
+southern air, expands more, and overflows, moving in the upper
+regions of the atmosphere toward the poles; while the lower, colder
+air on both sides moves toward the equator to preserve equilibrium.
+Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface
+of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns
+as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises and moves
+toward the poles.
+
+Now the air of the equator, moving with the earth's rotary motion,
+has a greater velocity than the earth itself at high northern or
+southern latitudes, and consequently appears to gain an eastward
+motion in its progress toward the poles. Without friction, this
+relative eastward motion would increase as the air moves toward the
+poles, and diminish at the same rate as the air returns, till at the
+equator the velocity of the earth and of the air would again be equal;
+but friction reduces the motion of the returning air to that of the
+earth, at or near the calms of the tropics; so that the air, passing
+the tropics, gains a relative westward motion in its further
+progress through the torrid zone. The southwestward motion thus
+produced between the tropic of Cancer and the equator is the
+well-known trade-wind.
+
+Now, according to this theory, the prevailing winds of our temperate
+latitudes ought to have a southeastward motion as far as the calms
+of Cancer or "the horse latitudes." Moreover, instead of these calms,
+there should still be a southward motion. But observation has shown,
+that though the prevailing lower winds of our latitude move eastward,
+still their motion is toward the north rather than the south; so
+that they appear to contradict the theory by which the trade-winds
+are explained.
+
+To account for these anomalies, Lieut. Maury has invented a very
+ingenious hypothesis, which is published in his "Physical Geography
+of the Sea." He supposes that the air, which passes from the equator
+toward the poles in the upper regions of the atmosphere, is brought
+down to the surface of the earth beyond the calms of the tropics,
+and that it thence proceeds with an increasing eastward motion,
+appearing in our northern hemisphere as the prevailing northeastward
+winds. Approaching the poles with a spiral motion, the air there
+rises, according to this hypothesis, in a vortex, and returns toward
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually acquiring a westward
+motion; till, returning to the tropics, it is again brought down to
+the earth, and thence proceeds, with a still increasing westward
+motion, as the trade-winds. At the equator the air rises again, and,
+according to Lieut. Maury, crosses to the other side, and proceeds
+through a similar course in the other hemisphere.
+
+The rising of the air at the equator is supposed to cause the
+equatorial rains; and the drought of the tropics is also explained
+by that descent of the air, in these latitudes, which this
+hypothesis supposes.
+
+Now although this hypothesis explains the phenomena, it has still
+met with great opposition. The motions which Lieut. Maury supposes
+can hardly be accounted for without resorting, as is usual in such
+cases, to electricity or magnetism,--to some occult cause, or some
+occult operation of a known cause. Moreover, it has been difficult
+for the mechanical philosopher to understand how the winds manage to
+cross each other, as Lieut. Maury supposes them to do, at the
+equator and the tropics, without getting into "entangling alliances."
+If this hypothesis were advanced, not as a physical explanation of
+the phenomena, but, like the epicycles and eccentrics of Ptolemy,
+"to save the appearances," its ingenuity would be greatly to its
+author's credit; but, like the epicycles and eccentrics, though it
+represents the phenomena well enough, it contradicts laws of motion,
+now well known, which ought to be familiar to every physical
+philosopher. But these speculations of Lieut. Maury will now be
+superseded by a new theory of atmospheric movements, an account of
+which was presented by its author, Mr. J. Thompson, at the recent
+meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A fuller discussion of this theory the author
+reserved for the Royal Society. The _London Athenaeum_ gives a brief
+abstract of his paper, in its report of the proceedings of the
+Association.]
+
+Mr. Thompson's theory takes account of forces, hitherto unnoticed,
+which are generated by the eastward circulation of the atmosphere in
+high latitudes. He shows that these forces cause the prevailing
+northeastward under-current of our latitudes, while above this, yet
+below the highest northeastward current, the air ought still to move
+southward according to Halley's theory.
+
+This under-current is not the immediate effect of differences of
+temperature, but a secondary effect induced by the friction of the
+earth's surface and the continual deflection of the air's eastward
+motion from a great circle, (in which the air tends to move,) into
+the small circle of the latitude, in which the air actually does move.
+The force of this deflection, measured by the centrifugal force of
+the air as it circulates around the pole, retards the movement from
+the equator, and finally wholly suspends it; so that the upper air
+circulates around in the higher latitudes as water may be made to
+circulate in a pail; and the air is drawn away from the polar
+regions as this circulatory motion is communicated to it, and tends
+to accumulate in the middle latitudes, as the circulating water is
+heaped up around the sides of the pail. Hence, in the middle
+latitudes there is a greater weight of air than at the poles, and
+this tends to press the lower air to higher latitudes. Centrifugal
+force, however, balances this pressure, so long as the lower air
+moves with the velocity of the upper strata; but as the friction of
+the earth retards its motion and diminishes its centrifugal force,
+it gradually yields to the pressure of the air above it, and moves
+toward the poles. Near the polar circles it is again retarded by its
+increasing centrifugal force, and it returns through the middle
+regions of the atmosphere.
+
+Thus there are two systems of atmospheric circulation in each
+hemisphere. The principal one extends from the equator to high
+middle latitudes and partly overlies the other, which extends from
+the tropical calms to the polar circles. These two circulations move
+in opposite directions; like two wheels, when one communicates its
+motion to the other by the contact of their circumferences.
+
+In the middle latitudes the lower current of the principal
+circulation lies upon the upper current of the secondary circulation,
+and both move together toward the equator. This principal lower
+current first touches the earth's surface beyond the tropical calms,
+and having lost its relative eastward motion and now tending westward,
+it appears as the trade-wind, very regular and constant; while the
+upper secondary current returns, without reaching the tropics, as an
+undercurrent, and in our latitude appears as the prevailing
+northeastward wind,--a very feeble motion, usually lost in the
+weather winds and other disturbances, and only appearing distinctly
+in the general average.
+
+Mr. Thompson illustrates the effect of the friction of the earth's
+surface on the eastward circulation of the air by a very simple
+experiment with a pail of water. If we put into the pail grains of
+any material a little heavier than water, and then give the water a
+rotatory motion by stirring it, the grains ought, by the centrifugal
+force imparted to them, to collect around the sides of the pail; but,
+sinking to the bottom, they do in fact tend to collect at the centre,
+carried inward by those currents which the friction of the sides and
+bottom indirectly produces.
+
+Thus Mr. Thompson's beautiful and philosophical theory completes
+that of Halley, and explains all those apparent anomalies which have
+hitherto seemed irreconcilable with the only rational account of the
+trade-winds. The rainless calms of the tropics are explained by this
+theory without that crossing and interference of winds which Lieut.
+Maury supposes; for the secondary circulation returns as an
+under-current toward the poles without reaching the tropics, and the
+dry lower current of the principal circulation passes over the
+tropical latitudes, in its gradual descent, before it reaches the
+earth as the trade-winds.
+
+These trade-winds, absorbing moisture from the sea, precipitate it
+as they rise again, and produce the constant equatorial rains; and
+these rains, doubtless, tend much more powerfully than the mere
+unequal distribution of heat to direct the wind toward the equator;
+for the fall of rain rapidly diminishes the pressure of the air and
+disturbs its equilibrium, so that violent winds are frequently
+observed to blow toward rainy districts. Thus, primarily, the unequal
+distribution of heat, and, more immediately, the equatorial rains
+cause the principal circulation of our atmosphere; and this
+indirectly produces the secondary circulation of Mr. Thompson's
+theory. Both these regular movements are, however, greatly disturbed,
+and especially the latter, by winds which are occasioned by local
+and irregular rains.
+
+In these movements and their causes we have the general outline of
+our subject, within which we must now sketch the weather. The causes
+of atmospheric movement, which we have thus far considered, are the
+unequal distribution of the sun's heat, the absorption and
+precipitation of moisture, the direct and the inductive action of
+the earth's rotation and friction. If to these we should add the
+tidal action of the sun's and moon's attractions, we should perhaps
+complete the list of _vera causae_ which are certainly known to
+exert a more or less general influence upon the atmosphere. But this
+short list is long enough, as we shall soon see.
+
+If the earth were wholly covered with water of a uniform depth, its
+climates would be distributed with greater regularity, and the
+perturbations of climate would be comparatively small and regular;
+though even under such circumstances there would still exist a
+tendency to discontinuity and complexity of movements from that
+influence of rain, the peculiar character of which we shall soon
+consider.
+
+The irregular distribution of land and water, and the peculiar
+action of each in imparting the heat of the sun to the incumbent air,--
+the irregular distribution of plains and mountains, and their various
+effects in different positions and at different altitudes,--the
+distribution of heat effected by ocean currents,--all these tend to
+produce permanent derangements of climate and great irregularities
+in the weather. To these we must add what the astronomer calls
+disturbing actions of the second order,--effects of the disturbances
+themselves upon the action of the disturbing agencies,--effects of
+the irregular winds upon the distribution of heat and rain, and upon
+the action of lands and seas, mountains and plains. Though such
+disturbances are comparatively insignificant in the motions of the
+planets, yet in the weather they are often more important than the
+primary causes.
+
+The aggregate and permanent effect of all these disturbing causes,
+primary and secondary, is seen in that irregular distribution of
+climates, which the tortuous isothermal lines and the mottled
+raincharts illustrate. The isothermal lines may be regarded as the
+topographical delineations of that bed of temperatures down which
+the upper atmosphere flows from the equator toward the poles, till
+its downward tendency is balanced by the centrifugal force of its
+eastward motion. This irregular bed shifts from month to month, from
+day to day, and even from hour to hour; and the lines that are drawn
+on the maps are only averages for the year or the season.
+
+In the midst of these irregular, but continuous agencies, the rain
+introduces a peculiar discontinuity, and turns irregularity into
+discord. We have shown that the rain is an immediate cause of wind;
+but how is the rain itself produced? For so marked an effect we
+naturally seek a special cause; but no adequate single cause has
+ever been discovered. The combination of many conditions, probably,
+is necessary, such as a peculiar distribution of heat and moisture
+and atmospheric movements; though the immediate cause of the fall of
+rain is doubtless the rising, and consequent expansion and cooling,
+of the saturated air.
+
+The winds that blow hither and thither, vainly striving to restore
+equilibrium to the atmosphere, burden themselves with the moisture
+they absorb from the seas; and this moisture absorbs their heat,
+retards their motion, and slowly modifies the forces which impel them.
+Now when the saturated air, extending far above the surface of the
+earth, and carried in its movements still higher, is relieved of an
+incumbent weight of air, it becomes rarefied, and its temperature
+and capacity for moisture are simultaneously diminished; its moisture,
+suddenly precipitated, appears as a cloud, the particles of which
+collect into rain-drops and fall to the earth. Thus the air suddenly
+loses much of its weight, and instead of restoring equilibrium to
+the troubled atmosphere, it introduces a new source of disturbance.
+Though the weight of the air is diminished by the fall of rain, yet
+the bulk is increased by the expansive force of the latent heat
+which the condensed vapors set free. Thus the rainy air expands
+upwards and flows outwards, and no longer able to balance the
+pressure of the surrounding air, it is carried still higher by
+inblowing winds, which rise in turn and continue the process, often
+extending the storm over vast areas. The force of these movements is
+measured partly by the force of latent heat set free, and partly by
+the mechanical power of the rain-fall, a very small fraction of
+which constitutes the water-power of all our rivers. Such a fruitful
+source of disturbance, generated by so slight an accident as the
+upward movement of the saturated air, expanded by its own agency to
+so great an extent, so sudden and discontinuous in its action, so
+obscure in its origin, and so distinct in its effects,--such a
+phenomenon defies the powers of mathematical prediction, and rouses
+all the winds to sedition.
+
+A storm not only disturbs the lower winds, but its influences reach
+even to the upper movements. The sudden expansion and rising of the
+rainy air delay these movements, which afterwards react as violent
+winds.
+
+The forces stored away by the gradual rise of vapor and its
+absorption of heat, and then suddenly exhibited in a mechanical form
+by the effects of rain, afford an illustration of that principle of
+conservation and economy of power, of which there are so many
+examples in modern science. No power is ever destroyed. Whether
+exhibited as heat or mechanical force, in the products and forces of
+chemical or of vital action, in movement or in altered conditions of
+motion,--whether changed by the growth of plants into fuel or into
+food, and converted again to heat by combustion or by vital processes,
+and brought out as mechanical power in the steam-engine or in the
+horse,--it is still the same power, and is measured in each of its
+forms by an invariable standard. It first appears as the heat of the
+sun, and a portion escapes at once back into space, while the rest
+passes first through a series of transformations. A part is changed
+into moving winds or into suspended vapor, and a part into fuel or
+food. From conditions of motion it is changed into motion; from
+motion it is changed by friction or resistance into heat, electric
+force, molecular vibrations, or into new conditions of motion, and
+passing through its course of changes, it remains embroiled in its
+permanent effects or escapes into space as heat.
+
+Though mechanical science will probably never be able to predict the
+beginning or duration of storms, it will yet, doubtless, be able to
+account for all their general features, and for such distinct local
+peculiarities as observation may determine. Great advancement has
+already been made in the determination of prevailing winds and in
+the study of storms. Two theories have been brought forward upon the
+general movements of storms; both have been proved, to the entire
+satisfaction of their advocates, by the storms themselves; and
+probably both are, with some limitations, true. The first of these
+theories we have already described. According to it, the winds move
+inward toward the centre of the storm; according to the other theory,
+they blow in a circumference around the centre.
+
+Observations upon storms of small extent, such as thunder-storms or
+tornadoes, show very clearly that the winds blow toward the stormy
+district. But when observations are made upon the winds within the
+district of such extensive storms as sometimes visit the United
+States, the directions of the wind are found to be so various, that
+the advocates of either theory, making due allowance for local
+disturbances, can triumphantly refute their adversaries. In such
+storms there are doubtless many centres or maxima of rain, and
+whether the wind move around or toward these centres, it would
+inevitably get confused.
+
+The opinion, that the winds move around the central point or line of
+the storm, was strenuously maintained by the late Mr. Redfield,
+whose activity in his favorite pursuit has connected his name
+inseparably with meteorology. Others have maintained the same opinion,
+and the rotatory motion of the tropical hurricanes is offered as a
+principal proof. It is obvious from the causes of motion already
+considered, that, if the air is carried far, by its tendency toward a
+rainy district, it will acquire a secondary relative motion from its
+change of latitude; and this, in our hemisphere, if the air move
+toward the south, will be westward,--if toward the north, eastward.
+Hence the motion of the air from both directions toward a stormy
+district is deflected to the right side of the storm; and this gives
+rise to that motion from right to left which is observed in the
+hurricanes of the northern hemisphere.
+
+To suppose, as many do, that regular winds, arising from constant
+and extensive causes, can come into bodily conflict and preserve
+their identity and original impetus for days, without immediate and
+strongly impelling forces to sustain their motion, implies a
+profound ignorance of mechanical science, and is little better than
+those ancient superstitions which gave a personal identity to the
+winds. The momentum of ordinary winds is a feeble force in
+comparison with those forces of pressure and friction which
+continually modify it. Hence sudden changes in the direction and
+intensity of winds must primarily arise from similar changes in
+these forces. But there are no known forces which change so suddenly,
+except the pressure and latent heat of suspended vapor; and therefore
+the fall of rain is the only adequate known cause of those
+storm-winds which, interpolated among the gentler winds, keep the
+atmosphere in perpetual commotion.
+
+Storms have, however, certain habits and peculiarities, more or less
+regular and distinct, which depend upon locality and season. And
+this is what ought to be expected; for, though the storms themselves
+are essentially anomalous, yet many of the causes which cooperate to
+induce them are constant or periodic, while others are subject to
+but slight perturbations. It is obvious that no more moisture can be
+precipitated than has been evaporated, and that the winds only gain
+suddenly by the fall of rain the forces which they have lost at their
+leisure in the absorption of moisture. Thus the rage of the storm is
+kept within bounds, and though the exact period at which the winds
+are set free cannot be determined, yet their force and frequency
+must be subject to certain limitations. The study of the habits and
+peculiarities of storms is of the greatest importance to navigation
+and agriculture, and these arts have already been benefited by the
+labors of the meteorologist.
+
+The lawlessness of the weather, within certain limitations, though
+discouraging to the physical philosopher, has yet its bright side
+for the student of final causes. The uses of the weather and its
+adaptation to organic life are subjects of untiring interest. The
+progression of the seasons, varied by differences of latitude, is
+also diversified and adapted to a fuller development of organic
+variety by irregularities of climate.
+
+The regular alternations of day and night, summer and winter, dry
+seasons and wet, are adapted to those alternations of organic
+functions which belong to the economy of life. The vital forces of
+plants and of the lower orders of animals have not that
+self-determining capacity of change which is necessary to the
+complete development of life; but they persist in their present mode
+of action, and, when they are not modified by outward changes,
+reduce life to its simplest phases. Changes of growth are effected
+by those apparent hardships to which life is subject; and progression
+in new directions is effected by retrogression in previous modes of
+growth. The old leaves and branches must fall, the wood must be
+frost-bitten or dried, the substance of seeds must wither and then
+decay, the action of leaves must every night be reversed, vines and
+branches must be shaken by the winds, that the energies and the
+materials of new forms of life may be rendered active and available.
+
+Some of the outward changes of nature are regular and periodic, while
+others, without law or method, are apparently adapted by their
+diversity to draw out the unlimited capacities and varieties of life;
+so that as inorganic nature approaches a regulated confusion, the
+more it tends to bring forth that perfect order, of which fragments
+appear in the incomplete system of actual organic life.
+
+The classification of organic forms presents to the naturalist, not
+the structure of a regular though incomplete development, but the
+broken and fragmentary form of a ruin. We may suppose, then, with a
+recent physiological writer, that the creation of those organic
+forms which constitute this fragmentary system was effected in the
+midst of an elemental storm, a regulated confusion, uniting all the
+external conditions which the highest capacities and the greatest
+varieties of organized life require for their fullest development;
+and that as the storm subsided into a simpler, but less genial
+diversity,--into the weather,--whole orders and genera and species
+sank with it from the ranks of possible organic forms. The weather,
+fallen from its high estate, no longer able to develope, much less to
+create new forms, can only sustain those that are left to its care.
+
+Man finds himself everywhere mirrored in nature. Wayward, inconstant,
+always seeking rest, always impelled by new evils, the greatest of
+which he himself creates,--protecting and cherishing or blighting and
+destroying the fragmentary life of a fallen nature,--incapable
+himself of creating new capacities, but nourishing in prosperity and
+quickening in adversity those that are left,--he sees the workings of
+his own life in the strife of the elements. His powers and activities
+are related to his spiritual capacities, as inorganic movements are
+related to an organizing life. The resurrection of his higher nature
+is like a new creation, secret, sudden, inconsequent. "The wind
+bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
+canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every
+one that is born of the Spirit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AKIN BY MARRIAGE [Continued]
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The designs of Mr. Elam Hunt upon the hand of Laura Stebbins have
+already been mentioned, in a former chapter of this history, as well
+as the fact that his hopes were encouraged by Mrs. Jaynes who
+(to make no secret of the matter) had pledged her word to the
+enamored Elam, that when he should be settled in a parish of his own,
+Laura should be added to complete the sum of his felicity.
+
+To this agreement Laura herself was not a party; nay, her consent
+had never been so much as asked; for though Elam knew that marriage
+by proxy was impossible, and, indeed, would doubtless have preferred
+to be the bridegroom at his own wedding, he had no objection
+whatever to a vicarious courtship; for he was not a forward suitor,
+delighting to prattle of his pains to his fair tormentor, as the way
+of many is. But touching all the terms and conditions of this
+contract Laura was informed by Mrs. Jaynes, who, when the other
+protested with tears and sobs against this disposition of her person
+without even asking her leave thereto, replied, with a quiet voice
+and manner, that she had the right to make the promise in Laura's
+name, and had done so upon due consideration.
+
+This ominous reserve frightened Laura far more than an angry reply
+would have done; for when her sister spoke with such brief decision,
+it was a sign that her mind was made up; and Laura knew full well
+the resolute purpose with which Mrs. Jaynes was wont to pursue any
+design that she had once formed. She distrusted her own ability to
+withstand her sister's inflexible will, and felt a secret misgiving,
+that, in spite of herself, she would by some means be forced or
+persuaded to yield at last. This very lack of faith in her own power
+of resistance caused her more distress and terror than all her other
+fears. Sometimes she almost fancied a spell of enchantment had been
+put upon her, which would render all her efforts to escape her fate
+as unavailing as the struggles of a gnat in a spider's web.
+
+A friend in time of trouble is like a staff to one that is lame or
+weary. But when Laura, in these straits, leaned upon her dearest
+friend, Cornelia, for aid and comfort, she found but a broken reed;
+for, instead of words of consolation and encouragement, Cornelia
+uttered only dismal prophecies that Laura was surely doomed to be
+the young parson's bride.
+
+"If you only had another lover to run away with, now," said she,
+"why, then it would be delightful to have your sister act as she does;
+but, as it is, I'm sure I don't see any way to avoid it."
+
+"Nor I," cried Laura, sinking still deeper in despair. "Oh, dear!
+what shall I do?"
+
+"In novels, you know," pursued Cornelia, "where there's a cruel,
+tyrannical father, like your sister, there's always a hero in love
+with the heroine----"
+
+"I'm sure I wish there was a hero in love with me," said Laura,
+thinking of her own hero in regimentals. "I'd run away with him,"
+she added, with animation, "if--if both his legs were shot off,"--not
+considering duly, I dare say, how greatly such a dreadful mutilation,
+however glorious in itself, would conflict with the rapid locomotion
+essential to her plan of elopement.
+
+But when Tira Blake came to be told of Laura's trouble, and the
+reasons of it, that sage and prudent friend gave counsel that
+cheered her like a cordial, telling her it would be sinful to marry
+a man whom she disliked so heartily, and that in such a matter no
+one had the right to demand or enforce obedience.
+
+"It's bad enough to be married when you're willin'," said she;
+"but when you a'n't willin', there's no law nor no gospel to make you."
+
+"But if Maria should compel me, what should I do?" cried Laura, to
+whom her sister's will seemed more mighty than both law and gospel.
+
+"She can't," replied Statira, sententiously; "she can't. Her 'yes,'
+in such a case, is only good for herself; it can't make you any
+man's wife.--What shall you do? Why, nothin',--nothin' in the world.
+If they should bring bridegroom and parson, and stand you up side of
+him by main force, (which of course is foolish to think of their
+doing so, only I suppose it just to show you what I mean,) even in
+such a case you needn't do anything. Keep your mouth shut and your
+head from bobbin', and there a'n't lawyers, nor squires, nor parsons,
+nor parsons' wives either for that matter, enough in all Connecticut
+to marry you to a mouse, let alone a man. Humph!" added Miss Blake,
+with scornful accent, "I should like to see 'em set out to marry me
+to anybody I didn't want to have!"
+
+There was nothing in all that Tira said which Laura did not know
+before; but it was uttered in such a way that it sounded in her ears
+like a new revelation, filling her heart with peace and comfort, and
+inspiring her with hope and courage. The magic spell that had
+enthralled her spirit was broken by the power of a few cheery,
+confident, assuring words. A heavy weight seemed lifted from her
+heart, and, relieved from the pressure, her spirits rose, joyous and
+elastic. The shadow was dispelled which had darkened her future, and
+the sun seemed to shine brighter and the birds to sing more sweetly.
+She herself was changed,--or at least it was hard to believe she was
+the same Laura Stebbins who, the night before, had cried herself to
+sleep, and whose doleful visage, that very morning, had looked out
+at her from the mirror. She flew at Tira in a transport, and,
+without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a
+minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have
+tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she
+danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step,
+singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near
+the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball,
+bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture
+of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed
+teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow,
+that, never, _never_, the longest day she lived, would she marry
+Elam Hunt, to please anybody,--as her sister Maria (said she, with a
+saucy toss of the head) would find, if she tried to make her!
+
+I doubt greatly, whether, if Laura had known what I am now going to
+tell my reader, she would have indulged in such vivacious pranks,
+and bold, defiant words: namely, that Mrs. Jaynes was hearing
+everything she said, and, in fact, had listened to and taken special
+heed of nearly the whole conversation, a part of which has been set
+forth above. Coming through the wicket in the garden fence, on an
+errand to the Bugbee kitchen, the sound of her own name, in Laura's
+excited tones, struck Mrs. Jaynes's ear and excited her curiosity.
+Walking nearer to the house, and concealing herself behind a little
+thicket of lilac bushes, near the open window of Statira's bedroom,
+she was enabled to hear with distinctness almost every word uttered
+by the unconscious conspirators, who were plotting against the
+fulfilment of her cherished project.
+
+There is good reason for believing that what Mrs. Jaynes overheard,
+while lying in ambush, as has been related, excited in her heart
+emotions of indignation and resentment. Be that as it may, no trace
+of displeasure was visible upon her face or in her voice or manner,
+when, a few minutes afterwards, she stood by the side of the
+unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her
+hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from
+the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the
+curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then
+could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the
+shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces.
+Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their
+first glad rebound from recent despondency, being wild with gayety,
+enjoying the sport no less than the merry child, her playmate.
+Laura's glowing face was fairly radiant with beauty, and her figure
+was unconsciously displayed in such a variety of bewitching
+attitudes and dainty postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens,
+that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down
+the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still,
+crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if
+taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard
+Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say
+for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though
+her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter
+she held in her hand would not have melted in her pursed-up mouth.
+
+Mrs. Jaynes, for reasons of her own, thought proper to keep
+her temper in control, abstaining from any manifestation of
+displeasure for a much longer time than while she remained
+standing in the back veranda of Doctor Bugbee's house. She did not
+think it prudent to apprise Laura that her rebellious conference
+with Statira had been discovered, nor to forbid her from holding
+further communication with her evil counsellors; but contented
+herself, for the present, with keeping a stricter watch over her
+sister's conduct, by practising with increased rigor and vigilance
+that efficient system of tactics hereinbefore commemorated, by which
+the ardor of Laura's chance admirers was repressed and their
+advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's
+prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or,
+at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had
+engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and
+was only waiting to be asked to name the wedding-day.
+
+It was many months after Elam left the shady height of East Windsor
+Hill before he received a call to settle; for though he preached in
+different parts on trial, before many congregations that were
+destitute of pastors, none of these fastidious flocks would listen
+to his voice a second time, or agree to choose him for its shepherd.
+At last, however, the people of Walbury, a town in Windham County,
+lying nearly twenty miles from Belfield, made choice of Mr. Hunt to
+be their spiritual guide, and accordingly extended to him an
+invitation to be ordained and installed as the settled minister over
+their ancient parish. Upon receiving this proposal, Elam at once
+despatched a letter to his friend and ally, Mrs. Jaynes, informing
+her of his good fortune, and suggesting that Laura should at once
+bestir herself in preparations for their wedding, in order that this
+blissful event might precede his ordination. Then, after waiting for
+the lapse of that period of decorous delay which immemorial usage
+has prescribed in such cases, he indited an epistle to the church in
+Walbury, stating, in proper and accustomed form, that his native
+humility inclined him to refuse their request; but that, after a
+wrestle with his inclinations, he had got the better of them, and
+had resolved to sacrifice his own wishes and feelings, and to enter
+the field of labor to which the Israel in Walbury had invited him.
+
+A year and more had elapsed since Laura, encouraged by Tira Blake's
+assuring words, had begun to hope that a better fate was in store
+for her than to become the wife of a man she detested. Meanwhile,
+Elam had often come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for
+Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without
+having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At
+his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond
+about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to
+entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she
+would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero
+in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever,
+continually waiting for Elam, if she could have been assured the
+time would never come for him to claim her.
+
+But, one morning, after breakfast, having made her bed and arranged
+her chamber, singing blithely all the while, she was just going to
+sit down by the window with her sewing, when Mrs. Jaynes came in
+with a letter in her hand. Laura guessed at once that the letter was
+from Elam, and that it contained the news of which the reader has
+been apprised already. Though she did not need to read the letter in
+order to inform herself of its contents, she took it in her hand,
+when her sister bade her read it, and made a pretence of obedience,
+shuddering, meanwhile, with disgust and terror. At last she came to
+the conclusion of the epistle, where Elam had mentioned his desire
+to be married before being ordained, and had subscribed himself as
+united in gospel bonds to the worthy lady to whom the letter was
+addressed. Then, folding up the paper with trembling hands, she held
+it towards her sister, without daring to look up, or to say a word.
+
+"Now, Laura," asked Mrs. Jaynes, in a quiet tone, "when can you be
+ready to be married?"
+
+Laura tried to speak, and looked up, with a pale, frightened face,
+into her sister's impassive countenance. Her white lips failed to
+form the words she strove to utter.
+
+"When shall the wedding be?" said Mrs. Jaynes, with a smile of
+affected sportiveness. "Name the happy day, my love."
+
+"Happy day!" repeated poor Laura. "Oh, Maria!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter, child?" said Mrs. Jaynes; "what are you
+crying for?"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear sister!" sobbed Laura, falling on her knees at
+Mrs. Jaynes's feet, "do hear me! You are my mother, for you fill her
+place."
+
+"I have endeavored to do so," said Mrs. Jaynes.
+
+"Then, for God's sake, don't make me marry this horrid man!" pursued
+Laura. "Don't tell me that I must! Don't force me to such a fate!"
+And with many passionate words like these, Laura implored her
+sister not to lay any command upon her to marry Elam Hunt.
+
+"Hush, Laura! hush, my dear child!" said Mrs. Jaynes, who had
+anticipated this scene, and was well prepared with her replies.
+"Be calm; you behave absurdly. I have no power to force you to marry
+any man. I don't expect to compel you to accept Mr. Hunt for a
+husband. For at least two years past I had supposed, however, that
+it was your intention to do so. If you have changed your mind, and
+if you wish to break an engagement that has subsisted so long,
+whether for or without cause, I cannot prevent it. You have read so
+many foolish romances, that your head is turned, and you fancy
+yourself a heroine in distress. But let me tell you, my dear, that
+in real life, here, in New England, a woman cannot be forced to marry.
+So calm your transports, wipe your eyes, and get up from your knees.
+I'm not to be kneeled to, pray remember."
+
+Laura did as she was told,--so much abashed that she dared not look
+up. To increase her confusion, her sister began to laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, dear," said she, "but, ha, ha, ha! it was so
+funny!--like a scene in a play, I should think."
+
+"I know I've been silly, Maria," said Laura, weeping again,--with
+shame, this time.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said her sister, in a kind tone, "we're all
+silly sometimes. You'll never be guilty of the folly again, at any
+rate, of supposing that girls can be married, in spite of themselves,
+by cruel sisters; eh, Laura?"
+
+"Oh, Maria, do forgive me!" cried Laura, blushing crimson. "I was so
+very silly!"
+
+"Well, let it all go," said Mrs. Jaynes, kissing her. "Now we'll
+talk about this letter. Tell me why you don't wish to marry Mr. Hunt.
+If you have any good reason against it, I'm sure I don't desire it;
+though, I confess, having supposed so long it was a settled thing, I
+had set my heart upon it. Perhaps this disappointment has been sent
+to me for some wise purpose," added Mrs. Jaynes, with a pious sigh.
+
+Thus encouraged, Laura opened her heart and began to talk, saying
+that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, that she didn't love him, that she
+disliked him, and hated him, and that he was hateful, and horrid, and
+awful, and dreadful, and so homely, and pale, and pimpled, and, ugh!
+she should never like him, nor love him, but always dislike him, and
+hate him. And on she went in this manner, till her fervor was cooled,
+and she had exhausted, by frequent repetition, every form of speech
+capable of expressing her great repugnance to a union with Elam Hunt.
+In conclusion, she said she was willing never to marry, but would
+remain with her sister and work for her and the children all her life.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Jaynes. "We'll talk of your kind offer
+presently; and you will see, I think, that I have no desire that you
+should live and die an old maid, even in case you do not marry
+Mr. Hunt."
+
+"I'm sure I'd rather than not," said Laura, with a twinge of
+conscience at the thought of her hero.
+
+"Have you said all that you've got to say?" asked Mrs. Jaynes, very
+quietly.
+
+Laura looked up into her sister's grave, sober face, and felt a
+chill of vague apprehension begin to take the place of the hopeful
+glow in her heart.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Jaynes, inquiringly.
+
+"Y--yes," faltered Laura, "only this,--I don't like him, and he's
+such a horrid, disgusting man,--and--and--that's all, I believe,
+except that I don't like him, and think he's so disagreeable,--and--
+oh, yes! there's another thing,--he wears blue spectacles,--ugh!
+_blue_ spectacles!"
+
+"Is there anything more?" said Mrs. Jaynes, still speaking with the
+same even, quiet voice.
+
+"N--no," said Laura, "only I--" and here she paused.
+
+"Don't like him," added Mrs. Jaynes, supplying the words.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Laura. "I know I'm foolish, but--"
+
+"It's much to confess it," said Mrs. Jaynes. "Now that I've
+patiently heard all that you have to say, I wish to be heard a few
+words in favor of a dear and worthy friend of mine, against whom you
+appear to entertain a groundless antipathy."
+
+"No, not groundless," interposed Laura.
+
+"Well, I'll agree that a pale, studious face and blue spectacles are
+good reasons for hating a man. Now let me say a word or two in his
+favor, notwithstanding, and also in favor of a plan which I had
+supposed was agreed upon, and which I dislike extremely to see
+abandoned. You have reasons against it, which you have stated. I
+have reasons for it, which I will state. But first answer me two or
+three simple questions, 'yes' or 'no,'--will you, dear?"
+
+And Laura assenting, she went on to ask if Mr. Hunt was not good,
+and pious, and of blameless life and reputation; extorting from
+Laura an affirmative reply to each separate inquiry.
+
+"He's all these good qualities, then, to offset the complexion of
+his face and spectacles," resumed Mrs. Jaynes. "Now let us look at
+the matter in a worldly point of view. He is able to give you not
+only a place, but the very highest position in society; he can offer
+you, not wealth, but competence, which is better than either poverty
+or riches. Why, my dear, there are a hundred girls in this town,
+many of whom excel you in everything which men think desirable in a
+wife, except, perhaps, the poor, perishable quality of beauty,--
+girls of good family, rich, or likely to be so, intelligent, well
+educated, some of them, to say the least, almost as pretty as you,
+any one of whom would think herself honored by this offer which you
+despise; for most people are aware that to be a minister's wife, in
+New England, is, my dear, to occupy, as I have just said, the very
+summit of the social structure."
+
+Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words.
+After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain
+with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened
+with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet,
+Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had
+been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no
+claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.
+
+"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes,
+"to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would
+bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But
+young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It
+is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event
+was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's
+warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this
+good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you
+prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to
+marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue
+spectacles and pale complexion?"
+
+Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor
+paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.
+
+"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms
+together, in sore distress.
+
+"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and
+speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It
+used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are
+getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more,
+and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez
+has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If--well, never
+mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of
+Mr. Hunt,--such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances,
+from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose
+preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands,
+would be glad to win,--who is going to be settled in a good old
+parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large,
+I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,--I _do_ say, Laura, that you ought to
+give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a
+two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his
+spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a
+home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but
+Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we
+have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection.
+To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will
+be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind,
+imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish
+whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and
+opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had
+better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner.
+If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear,
+I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice
+against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."
+
+With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought
+she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and
+went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting
+with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.
+
+At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely
+have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the
+door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a
+sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro
+across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and
+sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the
+while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some
+reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person,
+nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that
+her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who
+provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those
+who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to
+her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained
+for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first
+time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and
+felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.
+
+At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of
+frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on
+purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new
+exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a
+whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing
+but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she
+must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to
+think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what
+good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister
+that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told
+her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had
+been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that
+she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was
+all true and reasonable,--but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she
+conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,--his lank, slim figure,
+arrayed in sombre black,--his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with
+pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,--his spectral
+glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She
+imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers,
+and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the
+certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an
+invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she
+screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting
+herself, she sank down moaning.--Oh, heavens! she thought, there was
+no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all
+alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor
+father, nor mother, nor brother,--with only a sister who had a
+husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than
+she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,--
+nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her
+heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What
+could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was
+worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer.
+If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her
+and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only
+knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so
+pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put
+upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared.
+For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to
+write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the
+dictionary, to see how they were spelt;--and parsing! and doing sums!--
+oh, gracious! she never could teach school,--that was out of the
+question!
+
+At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit
+her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam
+of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit
+upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always
+been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange
+laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and
+trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it
+would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing
+and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than
+marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she
+began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied
+herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps,
+among a group of other girls,--sometimes rising to attend upon a
+customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in
+the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be
+ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to
+see her in Hartford.
+
+What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl
+that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking
+how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was
+a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping
+of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her
+new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford,
+and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get
+a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the
+city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there,
+and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it
+was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of
+Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the
+great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small,
+for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen
+scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee
+could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay,
+even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask
+him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her,
+unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would
+not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see
+Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and
+forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon
+his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so
+much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children
+complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed
+the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she
+troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause
+to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless
+gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened
+to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of
+sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his
+aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense
+benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to
+refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to
+help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn
+her away. At all events, she could try.
+
+Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and
+strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face,
+arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then
+sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for
+Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed
+visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very
+day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was
+represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable
+temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at
+the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated
+and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by
+his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by
+a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by
+robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even
+teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a
+jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and
+himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.
+
+Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose
+unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of
+even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page
+near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit
+of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces
+her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then
+Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten
+at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught
+sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of
+coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted
+the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the
+message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information
+that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.
+
+Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and
+console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite
+of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this
+lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward
+accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she
+never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this
+interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor
+would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference
+to appear at the end of a chapter.
+
+[To be continued in the next Number.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPARTACUS.
+
+The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the
+virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity.
+They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The
+quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,
+
+  "Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"
+
+Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who
+resisted them, and enslaved the rest."
+
+But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited
+their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that
+are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high
+as well as the low,--of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks
+and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.
+
+The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their
+bondmen,--by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,--affecting as they
+did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made
+slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians
+and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their
+necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses,
+and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of
+their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the
+head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae.
+One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the
+greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since
+that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his
+javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.
+
+The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that
+which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are
+many facts which show that the relations between master and slave
+were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were
+exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be
+where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and
+the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where
+cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the
+slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were
+the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love
+of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men
+were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and
+abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So
+ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway,
+and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the
+private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves.
+Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their
+maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but
+little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded
+as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the
+ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters
+manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by
+Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates
+this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade
+slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size
+was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its
+size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed
+that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave,
+not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to
+present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the
+animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor
+ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of
+thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through
+many generations.
+
+The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the
+efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to
+the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in
+Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should
+become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the
+Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians,
+about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property
+ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says
+Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large
+tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates
+which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had
+been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners.
+The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became
+rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had
+cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was
+suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded
+with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors,
+whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that
+they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer
+Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were
+well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of
+others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus,
+although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and
+though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with
+evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the
+horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318,
+London edition.]
+
+The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the
+destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of
+the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline
+may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two
+or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred
+thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He
+was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and
+conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his
+elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts,
+he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be
+recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The
+victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the
+credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he
+must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his
+position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said
+to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only
+that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner,
+but died before he could be brought to punishment,--no doubt, to the
+vast regret of his savage captors.
+
+In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and
+was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting.
+The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a
+Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their
+leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to
+his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was
+not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves
+were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one
+arising to make their place good.
+
+The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer,
+than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it
+was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military
+genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps,
+of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies,
+and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the
+Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war
+took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with
+Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the
+exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,--the great
+Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in
+contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with
+Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to
+Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their
+walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their
+assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man
+of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means
+at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing
+powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and
+in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were,
+of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a
+long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus.
+The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his
+father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian,
+without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his
+enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most
+heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The
+palm must be aligned to the latter.
+
+To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a
+Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave
+people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual
+superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large
+views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch
+pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he
+deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was,
+says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength,
+but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition,
+and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation."
+It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace
+was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion
+of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found
+in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to
+Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were
+Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians
+themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior
+physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from
+attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for
+soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the
+preference as gladiators,--a dubious honor, to say the best of it.
+
+How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is
+a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it
+was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie
+for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was
+first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter
+and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from
+choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he
+writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that
+Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly
+gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a
+contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by
+the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals.
+Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been
+a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,--
+a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek,
+who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a
+word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but
+introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us,
+"that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was
+seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the
+same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and
+possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this
+was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him
+to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress,
+being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when
+he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War
+of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain
+know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was
+loved by such a man.
+
+The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known.
+Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and
+had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who
+wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators,
+the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were
+maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account,
+Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and
+afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators,
+who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome.
+But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a
+destiny as the being "butchered to make a Roman holiday." Most of
+his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who
+bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their
+escape,--the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who
+were subsequently made his lieutenants,--Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus,
+a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a
+portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says
+that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number
+to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed
+themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook's shop,
+they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell
+in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators' weapons, which
+they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition.
+Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom
+they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial,
+deeming these no longer worthy of them.
+
+They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers,
+with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from
+time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive.
+Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus
+and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that
+they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and
+such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans
+little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible
+of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent
+against the "robbers," as they were considered to be. He found them
+so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to
+them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to
+blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight
+at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of
+genius, against whom even Rome's military system could not then
+succeed. He despised his enemy,--a sort of gratification which to
+those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused
+ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his
+followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point
+which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered
+inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently
+affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In
+the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the
+Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep,
+the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed
+into the hands of the despised enemy.
+
+Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to
+assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them.
+Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of
+the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which,
+while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who
+groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how
+strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining
+that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful
+submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land
+belonged of right to the bravest,--a sentiment as natural and proper
+when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding
+from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his
+own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is
+contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for
+a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust,
+but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as
+Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to
+disregard keeping in what he wrote.
+
+Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been
+men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made
+captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost
+entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had
+pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that
+the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry
+to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his
+murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate,
+the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery
+to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural
+population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been
+conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to
+baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of
+Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the
+Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were
+indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An
+anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the
+character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty
+years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius
+Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the
+brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed,
+"Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you
+in chains to Rome!"
+
+The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves,
+Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was
+particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of
+Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the
+Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness
+that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the
+cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having
+asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no
+travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell,
+"was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti,
+and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
+adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder
+the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged
+to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the
+year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for
+brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land
+of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were
+shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they
+talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The
+century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus
+had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them
+ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number,
+men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible
+material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to
+the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and
+active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority
+of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular
+manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the
+men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some
+discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the
+men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the
+hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had
+to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to
+the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military
+force then to be found in the world.
+
+[Footnote 3: Liddell, _History of Rome_, Vol. II, p. 144]
+
+With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led,
+Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name.
+Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were
+perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species
+of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation
+which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and
+which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and
+destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the
+conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the
+fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without
+supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw
+that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it
+unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
+
+[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on
+the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later
+Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of
+Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young
+slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War,
+"If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus."
+The manner in which he, the son of a _libertinus_, speaks of
+Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but
+is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working
+out more important results than could have followed from all the
+acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense
+connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
+
+Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it
+was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The
+government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at
+the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was
+not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later,
+Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy;
+and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate
+of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong
+enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently
+skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But
+they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of
+invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time
+apparently justified their confidence.
+
+The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly
+armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to
+use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"--never yet having been
+matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were
+chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made
+by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon
+retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his
+lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated
+themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly
+routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and
+even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted.
+Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military
+principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a
+Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly
+after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting
+him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground
+hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters,
+and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of
+those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when,
+one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a
+state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had
+happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond
+their reach.
+
+This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a
+division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night
+was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's
+march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the
+Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without
+making any show of resistance,--abandoning everything to the
+assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to
+escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they
+were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place
+not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
+
+Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a
+Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had
+fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of
+superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though
+still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust
+represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling
+them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but
+upon a long war,--that from success, then, would follow a series of
+victories,--and that therein lay their only salvation from a death
+at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon
+victory after victory,--an expression that showed he had a clear
+comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that
+followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for
+his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus.
+His lictors, with the _fasces_, shared the same fate. Spartacus
+assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He
+has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince
+every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound
+appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which
+his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of
+authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the
+possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and
+about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power,
+but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it.
+Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of
+the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.
+
+The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy
+of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and
+at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to
+organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to
+prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which
+they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and
+gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from
+the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example
+in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.
+
+Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting
+another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,--
+repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were
+not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp,
+whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no
+fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had
+become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but
+wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that
+the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to
+retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a
+retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in
+pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight
+under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of
+Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.
+
+Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which
+Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less
+than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved
+himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent
+against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great
+battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly
+successful. Like Carnot, he had "organized victory." A large part of
+Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than
+those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would
+probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful
+state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than
+of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and
+knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of
+accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was
+fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get
+out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the
+extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from
+Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march
+north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers
+reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was
+determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the
+Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A
+division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under
+Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but
+the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very
+outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the
+Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that,
+separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus,
+they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did
+good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and
+inflated with a notion of invincibility,--on what founded, it would
+be hard to say,--would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to
+lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the
+number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main
+army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting
+a Roman army, commanded by the Praetor Arrius, on the borders of
+Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not
+less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But
+this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and,
+while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon
+by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his
+followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was
+the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.
+
+The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their
+enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was,
+they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious
+efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Gellius and Lentulus
+were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the
+Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria.
+Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was
+determined not to fight until Gellius--whose victory he knew of--
+should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight
+he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in
+blocking up the road by which Gellius was advancing, unknown to
+Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his
+colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman
+accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to
+meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus.
+Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman
+armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different
+battles. Hannibal's Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this
+exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies
+were united under the command of Varro.
+
+These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser
+Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the
+Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open
+country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon
+which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had
+he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his
+victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success
+had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the
+impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army,
+dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by
+their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that
+his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be
+destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was
+slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a
+modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it
+was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and
+Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of
+burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order,
+the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon
+as so many brutes.
+
+Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army
+led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory
+was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their
+army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to
+be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this
+signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand
+design of attacking Rome,--a design every way so worthy of his
+genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving
+permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way
+out of Italy by a northern march,--can never be known. It is
+supposed to have been in consequence of information that
+circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage
+into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an
+earlier period.
+
+At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the
+Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years
+later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus
+expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in
+abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred
+thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from
+Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus,
+though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for
+their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests
+were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the
+gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman
+oppression, and had become outlaws because the world's law was
+against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a
+thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on
+the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for
+the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with
+Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius
+and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was
+then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian.
+Verres was ruling over the island,--and how he ruled it Cicero has
+told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the
+free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans.
+A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in
+armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend
+to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is
+certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had
+been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed
+the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies
+of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields
+from those on which their fame and power were won.
+
+But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be
+done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to
+Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its
+course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of
+Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his
+supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less
+than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the
+sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus
+to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his
+followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them.
+The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few
+would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful
+gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to
+construct boats.
+
+After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called
+Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort
+to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused,
+but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against
+Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his
+lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with
+orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his
+orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw
+away their arms, and fled,--an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The
+victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their
+main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of
+Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced
+by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though
+he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over
+into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to
+meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his
+rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of
+generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the
+Roman army. [5]
+
+[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to
+Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal
+fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and
+so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune--
+a misfortune of his own creating--to lead the finest Roman army that
+had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on
+the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would
+have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive
+his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us
+as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration
+beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only
+exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but,
+when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from
+the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla.
+Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of
+"destroying the den of the wolves of Italy," and Sulla arrived to
+the city's rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately
+followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was
+completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was
+as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with
+Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and
+to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said
+to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want
+of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left
+him no friends in death.]
+
+Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army
+employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest
+slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of
+owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account.
+He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand
+how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the
+gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property,
+as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly
+a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic;
+as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to
+the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of
+any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that
+because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man
+of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the
+most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him,
+as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so
+completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not
+misplaced.
+
+The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having
+restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to
+meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter's position,
+he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal
+unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy.
+As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he
+commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have
+rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works
+were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and
+ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction.
+So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not
+until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus
+discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his
+genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks
+on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors,
+and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he
+purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible
+snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman
+works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march
+noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed
+to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to
+fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts
+were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the
+whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind,
+and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and
+trenching of the legions.
+
+It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had
+been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus.
+But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as
+a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier.
+He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both
+to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate,
+stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home
+from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down
+an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time
+sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for
+Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of
+mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority,
+and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on
+the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most
+severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the
+field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom
+only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks.
+Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by
+Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this
+last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to
+avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels,
+and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was
+what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from
+Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it
+to be prolonged.
+
+Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he
+was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general.
+The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and
+the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable
+war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble
+ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers,
+warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall
+alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical
+commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height,
+and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were
+visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be
+brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own
+hands. "I am determined," he said to his men, "to share all your
+dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I
+shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need
+a horse no more." [6]
+
+[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his
+horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton,
+(fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating
+the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen
+centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at
+the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated
+and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]
+
+The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of
+that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw
+the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its
+commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The
+insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus
+leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus
+acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans
+steadily resisted,--and the slaughter was great on both sides. At
+last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when
+Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a
+fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way
+to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of
+inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs.
+Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was
+overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer,
+and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty
+thousand of whom were killed;--Livy puts their killed at forty
+thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as
+many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands
+of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,--the
+crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way,
+between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched
+through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who
+sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his
+homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.
+
+Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great
+republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who
+boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from
+Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the
+force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own,
+and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus,
+who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably
+resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia,
+after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except
+Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his
+foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes,
+and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?
+
+
+I.
+
+"If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years
+old," said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and
+the setting sun,--for it was summer-time, "it would be that he can
+remember M. ---- in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty
+odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn't help making great allowances
+for _Don Giovanni_, after seeing her in _Zerlina_. She was beyond
+imagination _piquante_ and delicious."
+
+The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman
+Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing
+this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,--I forget which,--in
+President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the
+office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for
+the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or
+village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him
+"the _Counsel_" which, I believe,--for I am not very fresh from my
+school-books,--was etymologically correct enough, however
+orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life,
+however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had
+dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had
+seen many cities, and the manners of many men--and of some women,--
+singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul,
+correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by
+pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial
+intermediacy of the _coulisses_, still less to the lower depth of
+disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.
+
+"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,--Catalani,
+Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,--
+though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is
+none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so
+permanently as the Signorina G----, or that I can see and hear so
+distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. _Rosina,
+Desdemona, Cinderella_, and, as I said just now, _Zerlina_,--she is
+as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear, as if the Park
+Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been
+hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the
+Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,--a mood to which
+he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.
+
+Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul's
+wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious
+shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his
+tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which
+divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and
+had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the
+communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.
+
+"A glass of Champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end
+of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the
+palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn
+and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but
+Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man
+and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."
+
+I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine
+and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,--which
+for a heretic is something remarkable,--and had no scruple about
+uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or
+protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism
+by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to
+the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by
+industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine
+such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the
+last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to
+import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,--their
+bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events.
+Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it,
+from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.
+
+"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir," I suggested, "that
+made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned
+seventeen when she sung in this country."
+
+"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether,
+nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so
+glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of
+delight, as that Lake fellow says,"--it was thus profanely that the
+Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,--
+"and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"
+
+"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.
+
+"Once, only," he answered,--"eight or nine years afterwards, a year
+or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in _Norma_. She was
+different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an
+indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one
+oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart
+and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in
+_Camille_ or _Phedre_. It was true genius, and no imitation, that
+made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical
+beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force
+of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the
+scene before you."
+
+"But do you rank M. ---- with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied
+perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be
+altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive
+self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character
+she personated,--not always the same, but such as the woman she
+represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion
+that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty!
+What might not ten years more have made her!"
+
+"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected
+with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For
+it was unlucky enough, I believe,--was it not?"
+
+"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or
+qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending.
+It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G---- was the one
+who suffered the most by the operation."
+
+"I have always heard," said I, "that old G---- was cheated out of
+the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. ----
+got his wife on false pretences."
+
+"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all
+about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false
+pretences, to be sure, but it was not G---- that suffered by them.
+M. M. ----, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G----
+got it for all that."
+
+"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot
+exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs
+thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"
+
+"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no
+secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van
+Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year
+'Thirty-five."
+
+"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"
+
+"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing
+the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind
+you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the
+mountains as soon as the sun is down."
+
+I beg your pardon,--did you make a remark?--Oh, _what mountains_? You
+must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the
+identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient
+reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number,
+you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent,
+from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only
+you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river--also
+anonymous for the present distress--breaks its way, and which gives
+him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled
+to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with
+their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of
+the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and
+when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apophthegms,
+namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it
+teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another.
+Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just
+this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we
+drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following
+story. I will tell it in my own words,--not that they are so good as
+his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.
+
+
+II.
+
+New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has
+almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed,
+had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich
+Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the
+obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea,
+in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has
+been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know
+not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was
+in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species,
+Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing,
+Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his
+advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain
+of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys,
+such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been
+taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the
+votive stocking,--they come from the mother city, where she sits
+upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And
+linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them,
+come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our
+beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,--though
+the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. ----'s marriage
+may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that
+the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven
+out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine
+Hollands;--and this is the way in which it came to pass.
+
+Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must
+understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a
+city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His
+transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip
+over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of
+London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his
+adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one
+I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good
+to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly
+made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little
+dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those
+flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was
+present at the _debut_ of Maria G---- at the King's Theatre. He must
+have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful _Rosina_,
+had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended
+emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely
+excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not
+have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New
+York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair
+linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might
+enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to _Doctor Bartolo_
+in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a
+more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He
+thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.
+
+Well, the good ship _Steenbok_ had prosperous gales and fair weather
+across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days
+to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off
+and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own
+warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully
+understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been
+since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited
+for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or
+two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that
+he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam,
+when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently
+of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will
+call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he
+had advertised yet on hand."
+
+"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"And the terms?"
+
+"Cash, on delivery."
+
+"Very good," replied the obliging buyer, "if they be of the quality
+you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms.
+Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, tomorrow
+morning, and I will send you the money."
+
+"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"Is M. ----," responded the courteous purchaser.
+
+The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually
+well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good day.
+
+Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer;
+but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that.
+He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see
+the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and
+thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good
+appetite.
+
+It is to be supposed that M. M. ---- did the same. At any rate, he
+had the most reason,--at least, according to his probable notions of
+mercantile morality and success.
+
+
+III.
+
+The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens
+to M. M. ----'s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the
+same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room,
+according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point
+of fact, M. M. ---- was not in at the time; but there was no doubt
+that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came
+in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant
+presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two
+more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no
+delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave
+himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five
+and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the
+current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so
+large a scale as M. M. ----, and conducted them on the sound basis
+of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when
+a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of
+purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for
+himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he
+incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. ---- to
+receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed
+to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of
+being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some
+little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state
+of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them,
+Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,--
+
+"Is M. M. ---- in?"
+
+"No, Sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be just at
+present."
+
+"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing
+business of importance."
+
+"Not to-day, Sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively;
+"he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."
+
+"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that
+very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not
+seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where
+does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he
+has to say for himself, and that speedily."
+
+"Indeed, Sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think when you
+understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear
+disturbing M. M. ---- this day of all others in his life."
+
+"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said
+Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, "that he can't see his
+creditors and pay his debts on it?"
+
+"Why, Sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest
+and importance, "it is M. M. ----'s wedding-day. He marries this
+morning the Signorina G----, and I am sure you would not molest him
+with business on such an occasion as that."
+
+"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee, "and why
+have they not been paid?"
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir," replied
+the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles
+was a daily occurrence; "M. M. ---- will, of course, attend to that
+matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that,
+in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature,
+the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he
+returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and
+you will hear from him without delay."
+
+The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence
+would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his
+part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact
+the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young _Prima
+Donna_. There is something about the great events of life, which
+cannot happen a great many times to anybody,--
+
+  "A wedding or a funeral,
+  A mourning or a festival,--"
+
+that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes
+it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have
+demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_
+that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed
+three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his
+bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he
+was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer
+of the lovely G----. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of
+marriage with that divine creature should forget every other
+consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,--even
+if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to
+the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that
+the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his
+mind under the delay, that old G---- was by no means the kind of man
+to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet
+lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the
+fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give
+him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the
+notes of the Signorina G---- as so much collateral security for his
+debt.
+
+So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the
+discharge of M. M. ----'s indebtedness to his principal. He had
+advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment,
+and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days
+wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide
+was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision
+exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet
+influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted
+that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in
+peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of
+earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my
+readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their
+own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time,
+after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he
+took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118,
+Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. ---- joy of
+his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long
+withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.
+
+  "The gods gave ear and granted half his prayer;
+  The rest the winds dispersed in empty air."
+
+There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting
+his epithalamic congratulation,--but as to his receiving the
+numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was
+an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl-Street
+counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a
+less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked
+on his last visit. He was received by M. M. ---- with courtesy, a
+little over-strained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at
+their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging
+with epic energy into the midst of things, said, "I have called,
+M. M. ----, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will
+remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such
+a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented
+your attending to this business sooner, but it is now high time that
+it were settled."
+
+"I consent to it all, Monsieur," replied M. M. ----, with a
+deprecatory gesture; "you have reason, and I am desolated that it is
+the impossible that you ask of me to do."
+
+"How, Sir!" demanded the creditor; "what do you mean by the
+impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for
+the goods?"
+
+"My faith, no, Monsieur," shruggingly responded M. M. ----;
+"I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say
+it; but if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the
+money? What to do?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Sir," returned Mr. Schulemberg. "You have
+not the money? And you do not mean to pay me according to agreement?"
+
+"But, Monsieur, how can I when I have not money? Have you not heard
+that I have made--what you call it?--failure, yesterday? I am
+grieved of it, thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could
+not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the
+price."
+
+"Indeed, sir," replied Mr. Schulemberg, "I had not heard of your
+misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and
+yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is
+no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me and
+accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss
+of the interest."
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur, you are too good, and Madame will be recognizant
+to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God, it is
+impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, Monsieur,
+I have sold it all!"
+
+"Sold it?" reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of
+etiquette, "Sold it? And to whom, pray? And when?"
+
+"To M. G----, my father-in-the-law," answered the catechumen, blandly;
+"and it is a week that he has received it."
+
+"Then I must bid you a good morning, Sir," said Mr. Schulemberg,
+rising hastily and collecting his hat and gloves, "for I must lose
+no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have
+changed hands again."
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted the poor, but honest M. ----,
+"but it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. G---- embarked
+himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him!"
+
+Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at
+finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline
+reporting the conversation any farther, lest its strength of
+expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more
+queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say, that the _swindlee_, if I
+may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own
+mind and imprisoned the body of M. M. ----; for in those days
+imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few
+of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which
+it was no abuse to apply it.
+
+
+IV.
+
+I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in
+captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which
+beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my
+hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he
+obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being
+entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of
+him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though
+that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his
+young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice
+into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be
+told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another
+matrimonial venture in partnership with De B----. I have nothing to
+do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the
+object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and
+here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not
+quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising
+_impresario_, Signor G----, who had so deftly turned his daughter
+into a ship-load of fine linens.
+
+This excellent person sailed, as M. M. ---- told Mr. Schulemberg, for
+Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers,
+and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage
+was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion
+could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as
+he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a
+whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow
+of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties
+was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of
+linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest
+sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous
+height. So the good G---- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing
+the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the
+same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost
+price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and
+having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in
+those latitudes, Signor G---- set forth for the Aztec City. As the
+relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory
+footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry
+his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither
+was a triumphal procession. Not Cortes, not General Scott, himself,
+marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads
+from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song.
+Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and
+from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the
+vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
+
+Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most
+populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself
+master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine
+love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few
+opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G----
+was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished
+singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit,
+if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and,
+though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give
+them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the
+intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Senoras and
+Senoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their
+fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very
+pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds
+and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give
+pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and
+hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their
+private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself
+never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer
+hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the
+portly person of the happy G----. Saturated at length with the
+golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,--if, indeed, singer
+were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable
+forever like a sieve of the Danaides,--saturated, or satisfied that
+it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back
+again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going,
+and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his
+safe return.
+
+But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints
+were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not
+hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate,
+they did not take that care of the worthy G---- which their devotees
+had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the
+Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on
+his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit
+to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his
+linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the
+vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native
+Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared
+onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy
+of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to
+the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road
+turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a
+dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind
+intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the
+_impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature
+of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into
+the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men
+whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the
+intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in
+this case, as Signor G---- was a Spaniard by birth, and their
+expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for
+speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very
+little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
+
+Now Signor G---- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his
+operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were
+perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense.
+Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights,
+pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of
+explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now
+saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe,
+and, in the opinion of Signor G----, at least, very much inferior to
+it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped,
+these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and
+weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the
+two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between
+Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed
+induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's
+fancy-dress breakfast,--for this integument, I say, these minions of
+the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in
+preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic
+cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new
+Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away,
+these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their
+thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough
+sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the
+ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy
+travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so
+they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there
+they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in
+their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while
+their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
+
+There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it
+was entirely unequal to the emergency,--even if it were not, as was
+afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy
+had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was
+nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or
+to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily
+administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,--as the King
+of France, by virtue of his _Droit d'Aubaine_, would have
+confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in
+spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced
+to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G----
+had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly
+rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely
+chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new
+acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking
+open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved
+doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever
+felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers
+to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his
+pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the
+sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished
+from the shirt-frills,--for in those days studs were not,--and the
+rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining
+testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the
+celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road.
+Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on
+at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good
+Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and
+Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as
+he professed to feel.
+
+At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the
+spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they
+should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic
+seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their
+utmost, and poor G---- and his companions in misery stood in the
+centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their
+backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the
+victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their
+toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded
+Signor G---- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he
+had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself
+directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and
+spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea
+was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized
+results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were
+unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him
+some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued.
+Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground,
+a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G---- for a song.
+A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a
+stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for
+the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a
+tyring-room," as poor G---- had no clothes to change for those he
+stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their
+captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the
+task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would
+brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor
+sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would
+avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated,
+the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in
+expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
+
+So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold,"
+before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was
+one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening
+began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a
+glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he
+delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,--that the tenor himself
+could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held
+the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and
+applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of
+their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or
+dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving
+singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would
+be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his
+meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or
+Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would
+sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just
+lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It
+was lucky for the unfortunate G---- that their approbation took this
+solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all
+he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating
+audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many
+encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook
+themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their
+patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket
+as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two
+furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for
+Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
+
+And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering
+for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G---- received the
+price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing,
+and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his
+losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes;
+but then it is equally true that M. M. ---- actually obtained his
+wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this
+can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest
+I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle," in my mind.
+I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am
+quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so
+comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical
+or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the
+reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only
+undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,--
+and I have done it.
+
+
+V.
+
+"I consider that a good story," said the Consul, when he had
+finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing,--
+"and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one."
+
+I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if
+the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg
+him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it
+to me, it was an excellent good story.
+
+"Poor Mynheer Van Holland," he added, laughing, "never got over that
+adventure. Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich
+for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to
+a parcel of Mexican _ladrones_, after buying an opera-singer for a
+Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to
+the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or
+opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don't
+wonder at it!"
+
+Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO RIVERS.
+
+  Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
+  Repeats the music of the rain;
+  But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
+  Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
+
+  Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
+  The stream I love unbounded goes
+  Through flood and sea and firmament;
+  Through light, through life, it forward flows.
+
+  I see the inundation sweet,
+  I hear the spending of the stream
+  Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
+  Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
+
+  Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
+  Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
+  They lose their grief who hear his song,
+  And where he winds is the day of day.
+
+  So forth and brighter fares my stream,--
+  Who drink it shall not thirst again;
+  No darkness stains its equal gleam,
+  And ages drop in it like rain.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
+
+  [The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round
+  again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made since
+  the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to remember
+  this is _talk_; just as easy and just as formal as I choose to make
+  it.]
+
+--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did
+not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (_Felis Catus_,
+LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.
+
+But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an
+author he is _droll_. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does,
+be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you
+_cried_ over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and
+send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in
+private.
+
+--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--
+Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The
+clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but
+with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion
+never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a
+procession.
+
+If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to
+tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit--
+using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in a
+partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a
+single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any
+intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the
+province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the
+prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight. A
+pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much shallower trick
+in mental optics; throwing the _shadows_ of two objects so that one
+overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects,
+but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of
+truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
+
+[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape
+the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all
+must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that Proserpina's
+cutting the yellow hair had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,
+and that breakfast was over.]
+
+--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say
+disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
+you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and
+courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave
+your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are
+ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding _never_ forgets that
+_amour-propre_ is universal. When you read the story of the
+Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old
+man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool
+of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in
+turning him out of doors.
+
+--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find
+everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly
+mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I
+once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for
+its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken
+ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should have
+shown up the Professor, who had once belabored me in his feeble way,
+but one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough,
+and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I
+doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling
+unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny.
+
+Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some
+persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly
+stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is
+precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but
+perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat
+sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, that,
+just as music must have all these, so conversation must have its
+partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. It
+is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal
+element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too
+literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of _esprit_.--
+"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense?
+Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"--Certainly, if a man
+is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and empty,--if, instead
+of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords,
+often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of
+thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords,
+stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking is
+one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most important, and the most
+difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the
+intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is
+suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of
+each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and
+the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons
+talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts, there
+are so many of them.
+
+[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
+
+When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is
+natural enough that among the six there should be more or less
+confusion and misapprehension.
+
+[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw
+loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a
+boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a
+sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand
+to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded,
+with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of
+the mouth, and somewhat rasping _voce di petto_, to Falstaff's nine
+men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman
+opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate,
+he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]
+
+I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that
+there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as
+taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
+
+                   {1. The real John; known only
+                   {   to his Maker.
+                   {
+                   {2. John's ideal John; never the
+  Three Johns      {   real one, and often very unlike him.
+                   {
+                   {3. Thomas's ideal John; never
+                   {   the real John, nor John's
+                   {   John, but often very unlike
+                   {   either.
+
+                   {1. The real Thomas.
+  Three Thomases.  {2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.
+                   {3. John's ideal Thomas
+
+
+Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a
+platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the
+conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and
+ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the
+gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly
+conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks
+from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to
+be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as
+Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue,
+though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the
+three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows
+himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him,
+there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between
+two. Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the
+one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants
+often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening
+all at the same time.
+
+[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by
+a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at
+table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known
+to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered
+Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,
+remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him
+that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
+mean time he had eaten the peaches.]
+
+--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly
+of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh
+and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as
+likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of
+considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what
+florists style the _breaking_ of a seedling tulip into what we may
+call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one with
+the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in old
+Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the seckel pear,
+which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise,--
+there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that twice
+two make _five_. Nature is fond of what are called "gift-enterprises."
+This little book of life which she has given into the hands of its
+joint possessors is commonly one of the old story-books bound over
+again. Only once in a great while there is a stately poem in it, or
+its leaves are illuminated with the glories of art, or they enfold a
+draft for untold values signed by the millionfold millionnaire old
+mother herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find the
+"gift" that came with the little book.
+
+It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own
+flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still
+more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of
+any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his
+own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one
+remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for
+exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
+self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just
+stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found in
+the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what your
+cousins, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about
+the fine poem you have written, but send it (postage paid) to the
+editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the way, is
+not so called because it is a _notion_, as some dull wits wish they
+had said, but are too late.
+
+--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled
+with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,
+peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them
+are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps;
+they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet
+assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly
+the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what
+he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who
+deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a
+mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a
+hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision
+with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional,
+incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of
+things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal
+with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature;
+only in a less degree. Every probability--and most of our common,
+working beliefs are probabilities--is provided with _buffers_ at
+both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing
+against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy,
+no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the minds that
+handle these forms of truth.
+
+--Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most
+gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the
+ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But
+mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force
+enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen
+most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only
+in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a
+certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the
+sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an
+attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and
+appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash
+man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwithstanding.
+
+[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated
+in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of
+music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned
+before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked
+barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes
+add my vocal powers to her execution of:
+
+  "Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom,"--
+
+not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is
+present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a
+good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to,
+sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that
+felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted
+by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is
+very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris,
+which is awkward, as B.F. devoted himself to it with the peculiar
+advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well,
+between us, notwithstanding. The following is an _uncorrected_ French
+exercise, written by this young gentleman. His mother thinks it very
+creditable to his abilities; though, being unacquainted with the
+French language, her judgment cannot be considered final.
+
+  LE RAT DES SALONS A LECTURE.
+
+  Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de derriere
+  sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il fait
+  usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a le peau noir pour le
+  plupart, et porte un cercle blanchatre autour de son cou. On le
+  trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, digere, s'il y
+  a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et
+  ronfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblance de lire. On ne sait
+  pas s'il a une autre gite que cela. Il a l'air d'une bete tres
+  stupide, mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse extraordinaire
+  quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne sait pas
+  pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idees. Il
+  vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers.
+  Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel
+  il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres,
+  semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas cependant les
+  prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole pas, ordinairement;
+  il fait rarement meme des echanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau,
+  parceque son chapeau a toujours un caractere specifique. On ne sait
+  pas au juste ce dont il se nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d'avis que
+  c'etait de l'odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une
+  nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems.
+  Enfin il meure, en laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a
+  Lecture ou il avait existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient
+  toutes les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir,
+  dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir,
+  et ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des
+  caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le
+  spiritulisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professors de Cambridge
+  sont des imbeciles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.
+
+I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be
+touched in any way, is very creditable to B.F. You observe that he
+is acquiring a knowledge of zooelogy at the same time that he is
+learning French. Fathers of families who take this periodical will
+find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode of
+instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's exercise.
+The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire Naturelle des
+Betes Ruminans et Rougeurs, Bipedes et Autres," lately published in
+Paris. This was translated into English and published in London. It
+was republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and additions by the
+American editor. The notes consist of an interrogation-mark on page
+53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" by the
+same hand. The additions consist of the editor's name on the
+title-page and back, with a complete and authentic list of said
+editor's honorary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy
+translated the translation back into French. This may be compared
+with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division X, of the
+Public Library of this metropolis.]
+
+--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a
+story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering
+each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the
+wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by
+the piece and by the bale.
+
+That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for
+one novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a
+cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that
+many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that
+are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing
+in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that all
+records of human experience are as so many bound _herbaria_ to the
+innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, fragrance-laden,
+poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling leaves and flowers of
+the forest and the prairies. All we can do with books of human
+experience is to make them alive again with something borrowed from
+our own lives. We can make a book alive for us just in proportion to
+its resemblance in essence or in form to our own experience. Now an
+author's first novel is naturally drawn, to a great extent, from his
+personal experiences; that is, is a literal copy of nature under
+various slight disguises. But the moment the author gets out of his
+personality, he must have the creative power, as well as the
+narrative art and the sentiment, in order to tell a living story;
+and this is rare.
+
+Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall
+clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives, though
+their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, drop
+a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. Oftentimes a
+single _cradling_ gets them all, and after that the poor man's labor
+is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which proves that I,
+as an individual of the human family, could write one novel or story
+at any rate, if I would.
+
+--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it. In
+the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain that
+verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and rhyme
+and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the fire of
+imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness of a
+heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in the
+luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A beauty
+shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the glitter of her
+diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms and shoulders
+laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain calico, she would
+be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies.
+
+Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I
+should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am
+afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they
+have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I am
+pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories among us
+there is hardly one I can recall that has not drawn too faithfully
+some living portrait that might better have been spared.
+
+Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull
+to write such a story as I should wish to write.
+
+And finally, I think it very likely I _shall_ write a story one of
+these days. Don't be surprised at anytime, if you see me coming out
+with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite."
+
+[_Our_ schoolmistress and _our_ old gentleman that sits opposite
+had left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing
+the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write
+when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the
+reputation they might have made!
+
+----I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being
+too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you
+meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark that may hereafter
+prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has been led
+by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or herself
+possessed of talent arrives at the full and final conclusion that he
+or she is really dull, it is one of the most tranquillizing and
+blessed convictions that can enter a mortal's mind. All our failures,
+our short-comings, our strange disappointments in the effect of our
+efforts are lifted from our bruised shoulders, and fall, like
+Christian's pack, at the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit
+to deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, with which one
+look may overflow us in some wider sphere of being.
+
+----How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate
+books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not learned,
+of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better
+than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge of the
+world and society, but certainly not clever either in the arts or
+sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I did not
+recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so distinctly as
+I did simplicity of character and fearless acknowledgment of his
+inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think there are a great many
+gentlemen and others, who read with a mark to keep their place, that
+really "hate books," but never had the wit to find it out, or the
+manliness to own it.
+
+[_Entre nous_, I always read with a mark.]
+
+We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual man"
+was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or thereabouts,
+of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if he is actually
+so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a strong solution
+of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best worth reading, as
+hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If I were a prince, I
+would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, in which I would steep
+all the leaves of new books that promised well. The infusion would do
+for me without the vegetable fibre. You understand me; I would have
+a person whose sole business should be to read day and night, and
+talk to me whenever I wanted him to. I know the man I would have: a
+quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive fellow; knows history, or at any
+rate has a shelf full of books about it, which he can use handily,
+and the same of all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common
+plots of plays and novels, and the stock company of characters that
+are continually coming on in new costume; can give you a criticism
+of an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it;
+cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in what he says;
+delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the
+disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as
+tender and reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is;
+of a new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In
+short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to
+make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal
+compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn,
+in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of
+course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide.
+In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase,
+"put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered,
+warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on
+his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of shutting it off at will.
+
+A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with
+about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of
+the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A
+dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of
+civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the
+senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by well-studied
+artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into their natural
+attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a short jacket.
+
+The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take for
+granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out; nothing
+short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies their dull
+apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble game! White
+stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red says, Mate in six
+moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over. Just so in talking
+with first-rate men; especially when they are good-natured and
+expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That blessed clairvoyance
+which sees into things without opening them,--that glorious license,
+which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from its key-hole,
+calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to get off from her pedestal and
+drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant
+place on the _medius lectus_,--that carnival-shower of questions and
+replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like
+bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping
+its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of
+_bon-bons_ pelting everybody that shows himself,--the picture of a
+truly intellectual banquet is one that the old Divinities might well
+have attempted to reproduce in their----
+
+----"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--
+"that is from one of your lectures!"
+
+I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.
+
+  "The trail of the serpent is over them all!"
+
+All lecturers, all professors, all school-masters, have ruts and
+grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually
+sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still June
+evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum of air,
+and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere beyond?
+Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay,--where
+the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating the "Metropolitan"
+boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a narrow, local
+gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little underdone, through
+which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to bring you back
+to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just so, in talking
+with any of the characters above referred to, one not unfrequently
+finds a sudden change in the style of the conversation. The
+lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon-Street door-plate in August,
+all at once fills with light; the face flings itself wide open like
+the church-portals when the bride and bridegroom enter; the little
+man grows in stature before your eyes, like the small prisoner with
+hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of early childhood; you were
+talking with a dwarf and an imbecile,--you have a giant and a
+trumpet-tongued angel before you!----Nothing but a streak out of a
+fifty-dollar lecture.----As when, at some unlooked-for moment, the
+mighty fountain-column springs into the air before the astonished
+passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from
+the bosom of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet
+batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less amiable and less
+elevated order of _reptilia_ in other latitudes.
+
+----Who was that person that was so abused some time since for
+saying that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go
+with the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on
+in India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned,
+inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and
+American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful
+questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come out
+most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that the
+human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does the
+same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The India
+mail brings stories of women and children outraged and murdered; the
+royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. England takes
+down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with empire, and
+makes a correction thus:
+
+[Strike-out: DELHI]. _Dele_.
+
+The civilized world says, Amen.
+
+----Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly,
+that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them
+and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes
+and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did
+with their _melas oinos_,--that black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which
+they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream.
+
+[Could it have been _melasses_, as Webster and his provincials
+spell it,--or _Molossa's_, as dear old smattering, chattering,
+would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"?
+Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights
+of learning in "Notes and Queries"!--ye Historical Societies, in one
+of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while
+other hands tug at the oars!--ye Amines of parasitical literature,
+who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having
+gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe
+speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!]
+
+----Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses.
+You will understand by the title that they are written in an
+imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man
+well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on
+_a priori_ grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There
+is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a
+soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and
+nurtured it; that its mysterious _compages_ or frame-work has
+survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity;
+that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the
+traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial clothing;
+that he will, having all the world to choose from, select the very
+locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It
+builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that
+Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in
+every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.--Now hear the
+verses.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN DREAMS.
+
+  O for one hour of youthful joy!
+    Give back my twentieth spring!
+  I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
+    Than reign a gray-beard king!
+
+  Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
+    Away with learning's crown!
+  Tear out life's wisdom-written page,
+    And dash its trophies down!
+
+  One moment let my life-blood stream
+    From boyhood's fount of flame!
+  Give me one giddy, reeling dream
+    Of life all love and fame!
+
+  --My listening angel heard the prayer,
+    And calmly smiling, said,
+  "If I but touch thy silvered hair,
+    Thy hasty wish hath sped."
+
+  "But is there nothing in thy track
+    To bid thee fondly stay,
+  While the swift seasons hurry back
+    To find the wished-for day?"
+
+  --Ah, truest soul of womankind!
+    Without thee, what were life?
+  One bliss I cannot leave behind:
+    I'll take--my--precious--wife!
+
+  --The angel took a sapphire pen
+    And wrote in rainbow dew,
+  "The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a husband too!"
+
+  --"And is there nothing yet unsaid
+    Before the change appears?
+  Remember, all their gifts have fled
+    With those dissolving years!"
+
+  Why, yes; for memory would recall
+    My fond paternal joys;
+  I could not bear to leave them all:
+    I'll take--my--girl--and--boys!
+
+  The smiling angel dropped his pen,--
+    "Why this will never do;
+  The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a father too!"
+
+  And so I laughed,--my laughter woke
+    The household with its noise,--
+  And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
+    To please the gray-haired boys.
+
+
+
+
+AGASSIZ'S NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+  _Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of
+  America_. By LOUIS AGASSIZ. Vols. I. and II. Boston: Little,
+  Brown & Co. London: Truebner & Co. 1857.
+
+The Great Professor has given the first Monograph of his _Magnum Opus_
+to the Great Republic and the wider realm of Science. The learned
+world resolves itself into committees to consider every important
+work; claiming leave to sit for as long a time as they choose,--for
+years, or for a whole generation. Every alleged fact is to be
+verified or cancelled or qualified, every inference to be measured
+over and over again by its premises, every proposition to be tried
+by all the tests that can prove its strength or weakness, and the
+whole to be marshalled to the place it may claim in the alcoves of
+the universal library. No hasty opinion can anticipate this final
+and peremptory judgment. Its elements must of necessity be gathered
+slowly from many and scattered sources. The accumulated learning of
+the great centres of civilization, the patient investigation of
+plodding observers, the keen insight of subtile analysts, the
+jealous clairvoyance of dissentient theorists, the oblique glances
+of suspicious sister-sciences, the random flashes that skepticism
+throws from her faithless mirror to dazzle all eyes that seek for
+truth; through such a varied and protracted ordeal must every record
+that embodies long and profound observation, large and lofty thought,
+reach the golden _Imprimatur_ which is its warrant for immortality.
+
+The work of Mr. Agassiz, if we may judge it by the portion now
+before us, has a right to challenge such a matured opinion, and to
+wait for it. Not the less does a certain duty belong to us as
+literary journalists with reference to these stately volumes, which
+are in the hands of thousands, learned and unlearned, and of which
+there are scores of thousands waiting to hear. Our duty we consider
+to be four-fold: first, that of recognition in terms of fitting
+courtesy; secondly, of analysis for the general reader; thirdly, of
+accentuation, so to speak, of what seems most widely applicable or
+interesting; and lastly, of making such comments as so pregnant a
+text may suggest.
+
+And first, of recognition. Here are the fruits of ten years of
+patient labor, taken out of the heart of life, in the age of vigor,
+which is that of ambition,--to use the phrase of another great
+observer,--by a man of large endowments and of vast knowledge,
+assisted by skilful collaborators, by finished artists, by the
+counsels and liberality of the learned few, and the generous
+countenance of the intelligent many. Before analysis, before
+criticism, there should be uttered a welcome; not grudging, not
+envious of an overshadowing reputation, not over-curious in
+searching for qualifications to abate its warmth, not carefully
+taming down its enthusiasm to tepid formalisms; but full-souled and
+free-spoken, such as all noble works and deeds should claim.
+
+The learned men of past centuries have left us an example of this
+treatment of authors, in those gratulatory verses with which they
+were wont to hail every considerable literary or scientific
+performance. They knew human nature well. They knew that the author,
+when he quenches the lamp over which he has grown haggard and pale,
+and steps from his cell into daylight and the chill outside air,
+longs, longs unutterably, for kind words, and the cheering
+fellowship of kindred souls; and with instinctive grace they chose
+the poetical form of expression, simply because this alone gives
+full license to the lips of friendship.
+
+This old folio which stands by us is not precious only because it
+contains the quaint wisdom and manifold experience of Ambroise Pare,
+mingled with his credulous gossip, and again sweetened by his simple
+reverence; not precious alone because it contains the noblest words
+ever uttered by one of his profession,--_Ie le pensay et Dieu le
+guarit_; but also because PIERRE RONSARD, the "Poet of France," has
+left his deathless name thrice inscribed in its earlier pages at the
+foot of tributes to its author.
+
+And here in the next century comes Schenck of Grafenberg, staggering
+under his monstrous volume of "Casus Rariores,"--ready to fall
+fainting by the wayside, when lo! the shining ones meet him too, and
+lift him and lighten him with the utterance of these _fifty-one_
+distinct poems which we see hung up on so many votive tablets at the
+entrance of this miniature Babel of Science.
+
+Even so late as the last century the genial custom survived; for our
+worthy Stalpart van der Wiel, whose little pair of volumes was
+published in 1727, can boast of twenty-two pages of well-ordered
+commendatory verse, much of it in his native Dutch,--a little of
+which goes a good way with all except Batavian readers.
+
+But as the "Arundines Cami," musical as they are, have lent no
+prelude to these harmonies of science, we must say in a few plain
+words of prose our own first thought as to the work the commencement
+of which lies before us. We believe, that, if completed according to
+its promise, it is to be one of the monumental labors of our century.
+Comparisons are not to be lightly instituted, and especially under
+circumstances that do not allow a fair survey of the whole field
+from which the objects to be compared are to be taken. We suppose,
+however, it will be conceded that the sunset continent has never
+witnessed anything like the inception of this mighty task in the way
+of systematic natural science. And if, since Cuvier, the greatest of
+naturalists, as Mr. Agassiz considers him, slept with the fossils to
+which he had given life, there has been any other student of Nature
+who has attempted a task so immense, with the same union of observing,
+reflecting, analyzing, and cooerdinating power, we cannot name him.
+Our civilization has a right to be proud of such an accession to its
+thinking and laboring constituency; it is also bound to be grateful
+for it, and to express its gratitude.
+
+It is just one hundred years since another Swiss, the magnificent
+Albert von Haller, gave to the world the first volume of the
+"Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani." Nine years afterwards, in
+1766, the last of the eight volumes appeared; and the vast structure,
+which embodied his untiring study of Nature, his world-wide erudition,
+his deepest thought, his highest imaginings, his holiest aspirations,
+stood, like the Alps whose shadow fell upon its birthplace, the
+lovely Lausaune, pride of the Pays de Vaud. The clepsydrae that
+measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs--the
+glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a
+shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each
+revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the
+summer's sun--have registered a new centennial circle, and at the
+very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient
+renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of
+another of her honored children. May the auspicious omen lead to as
+happy a conclusion!
+
+Lovingly, then, we lay open the generous quarto and look upon its
+broad, bright title-page. It tells us that we have here the first of
+a series of "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States of America." We see that one of its three parts embraces the
+largest generalities of Natural Science, under the head of an
+"Essay on Classification." We see that the other two parts are
+devoted to the description and delineation of a single order of
+Reptilia,--the Testudinata, or "Turtles."
+
+If Mr. Agassiz had intentionally chosen the simplest way of proving
+that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have
+selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word
+_Turtle_ to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle
+is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights
+the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a
+provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and
+Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. For him a
+land-testudinate is a _tortoise_. When his poets and romancers speak
+of turtles, again, they commonly mean turtle-_doves_.
+
+  "Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies
+  That drives a turtle through the liquid skies."
+
+The only flight of a testudinate which we remember is that downward
+one of the unfortunate tortoise that cracked the bald crown of
+Aeschylus. But turtle, as embracing all chelonians, or, as liberal
+shepherds call it, "turkle," is unquestionably Cisatlantic. The
+distinguished naturalist has made himself an American citizen by
+adopting our own expression, and should have the freedom of all our
+cities presented to him in the shell of a box-TURTLE.
+
+It is singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the
+testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and
+sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury,
+as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise
+that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world.
+Under the _testudo_ the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities
+of the _orbis terrarum_. And in that wise old fable which childhood
+learns, and age too often remembers, sorrowing, it was the tortoise
+that won the race against the swiftest of the smaller tribes, his
+competitor.
+
+And here once more we have his shell strung with vibrating thoughts
+that repeat the harmonies of nature. Once more his broad back stoops
+to the weighty problems which the planet proposes to its children.
+Once more the great cities are stormed--by science--beneath his coat
+of mail. Once more he has run the race, not against the hare only,
+but the whole animal kingdom, and won it, and with it the new fame
+which awaits him, as he leads in the long array of his fellows that
+are to come up, one by one, in these enduring records. And so we
+turn the leaf, and come to the DEDICATION.
+
+The Dedication of a work like this, destined to preserve all the
+names it enrols in the sculpture-like immortality of science,
+naturally delays us for a moment. Of the foreign teacher and friend
+to whom the author owes some of his earliest lessons, and of that
+group of our own citizens, most of them still living, who lent their
+united efforts to the enterprise of publication after it was
+commenced, we need not speak individually. But we cannot pass over
+the name of FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY without a word of grateful
+remembrance for one who was the friend and adviser of the author
+in planning the publication of the work before us. We who remember
+his varied culture, his large and fluent discourse, with its
+formidable accuracy of knowledge and gracious suavity of utterance,
+his taste in literature and art, which made his home a suite of
+princely cabinets, his generous and elegant hospitality, which
+scholars and artists knew so well,--counting him as the peer, and in
+many points the more than peer of such as the wide world of letters
+is proud to claim,--are pleased to see that his cherished name will
+be read by the students of unborn generations on the first leaf of
+this noble record of the science of our own.
+
+The PREFACE which follows the Dedication is full of grateful
+acknowledgments to the many friends of science, in all parts of the
+country, who came forward to lend their aid in various forms,
+especially in collecting and transmitting specimens from the
+most widely remote sections of the continent. The pious zeal of
+Mr. Winthrop Sargent, who brought a cargo of living turtles more
+than a thousand miles to the head-quarters of testudinous learning
+at Cambridge, is only paralleled by the memorable act of the Pisans
+in transporting ship-loads of holy soil from Palestine to fill their
+Campo Santo. Genius is marked by nothing more distinctly than that
+it makes the world its tributary. He from whose lips it speaks has
+but to look calmly into the eyes of dull routine, of jaded toil, of
+fickle childhood, and utter the words, "Follow me." Custom-house
+officials close their books, tired fishermen leave their nets,
+riotous boys forsake their play, to do the master's bidding. Is he
+making collections for some great purpose of study? Piece by piece
+the fragmentary spoils flow in upon him, of all sizes, shapes, and
+hues; a chaos of confused riches, perhaps only a wealth of rubbish,
+as they lie at his feet. One by one they fall into harmonious
+relations, until the meaningless heap has become a vast mosaic,
+where nothing is too minute to fill some interstice, nothing too
+angular to fit some corner, nothing so dull or brilliant of tint
+that it will not furnish its fraction of light or shadow. Such has
+been the history of those years of labor the results of which these
+volumes present to us. Whatever may have been said of the devotion
+of our countrymen to material interests, the wise and winning lips
+had only to speak, and such a currency of _plastrons_ and _carapaces_
+was set in circulation, that the contemplative stranger who saw the
+mighty coinage of Chelonia flowing in upon Cambridge might well have
+thought that the national idea was not the Almighty Dollar, but the
+Almighty Turtle.
+
+Mr. Agassiz places a high estimate on the intelligence as well as
+the kind spirit of his adopted countrymen. "There is not a class of
+learned men here," he says, "distinct from the other cultivated
+members of the community. On the contrary, so general is the desire
+for knowledge, that I expect to see my book read by operatives, by
+fishermen, by farmers, quite as extensively as by the students of
+our colleges, or by the learned professions; and it is but proper
+that I should endeavor to make myself understood by all."
+
+The deficiencies of our scientific libraries, and the want of a
+class of elementary works upon Natural History, such as are widely
+circulated in Europe, are adverted to and alleged as a reason for
+entering into details which the professional naturalist might think
+misplaced.
+
+We quote one paragraph entire from the Preface, as not susceptible
+of being abridged, and as briefly stating those general facts with
+regard to the work which all our readers must desire to know.
+
+  "I have a few words more to say respecting the two first volumes,
+  now ready for publication. Considering the uncertainty of human life,
+  I have wished to bring out at once a work that would exemplify the
+  nature of the investigations I have been tracing during the last ten
+  years, and show what is likely to be the character of the whole
+  series. I have aimed, therefore, in preparing these two volumes, to
+  combine them in such a manner as that they should form a whole. The
+  First Part contains an exposition of the general views I have
+  arrived at thus far, in my studies of Natural History. The Second
+  Part shows how I have attempted to apply these results to the
+  special study of Zoology, taking the order of Testudinata as an
+  example. I believe, that, in America, where turtles are everywhere
+  common, and greatly diversified, a student could not make a better
+  beginning than by a careful perusal of this part, specimens in hand,
+  with constant reference to the second chapter of the First Part. The
+  Third Part exemplifies the bearing of Embryology upon these general
+  questions, while it contains the fullest illustration of the
+  embryonic growth of the Testudinata."
+
+The Preface closes with honorable mention of the gentlemen who have
+furnished direct assistance in the preparation of the work, and
+especially of Mr. Clark in microscopic observation and illustration,
+and of Mr. Sonrel in drawing the zoological figures.
+
+The LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS is not without its special meaning and
+interest. If, as has been said, the grade of civilization in any
+community can be estimated by the amount of sulphuric acid it
+consumes, the extent to which a work like this has been called for
+in different sections of the country may to some extent be
+considered an index of its intellectual aspirations, if not of its
+actual progress. This is especially true of those remoter regions
+where personal motives would exercise least influence. But without
+instituting any comparisons, we may well be proud of this ample list
+of twenty-five hundred subscribers, most of them citizens of the
+republic,--"a support such as was never before offered to any
+scientific man for purely scientific ends, without any reference to
+government objects or direct practical aims."
+
+Our analysis must confine itself mainly to the first of the three
+parts into which these two volumes are divided. This first part it
+is that contains those large results which every thinker must desire
+to learn from one whose life has been devoted to the searching and
+contemplative study of Nature. It is in the realm of thought here
+explored, that Natural Science, whose figure we are wont to look
+down upon, crouching to her task, like him of the muck-rake, as he
+painfully gathers together his sticks and straws, rises erect, and
+lifts her forehead into the upper atmosphere of philosophy, where
+the clouds are indeed thickest, but the stars are nearest. The
+second and third parts belong more exclusively to the professed
+students of Natural History in its different special departments.
+Our notice of these divisions of the work must therefore be
+comparatively brief.
+
+The first chapter of the first part has for its title, "The
+fundamental relations of animals to one another and to the world in
+which they live, as the basis of the natural system of animals."
+
+Certain general doctrines, the spirit of which runs through all the
+scientific works of Mr. Agassiz, are distinctly laid down in the
+first section of this chapter. It is headed with the statement,
+"The leading features of a natural zoological system are all founded
+in nature." The systems named from the great leaders of science are
+but translations of the Creator's thoughts into human language.
+"If it can be proved that man has not invented, but only traced this
+systematic arrangement in nature,--that these relations and
+proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world
+have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator,--
+that this plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest
+wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws,
+but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in
+his thought, before it was manifested in tangible, external forms,--
+if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation,
+we have done, once and forever, with the desolate theory which
+refers us to the laws of matter as accounting for all the wonders of
+the universe, and leaves us with no God but the monotonous, unvarying
+action of physical forces, binding all things to their inevitable
+destiny."
+
+One more extract must be given from this section, for it is the key
+to the general argument which follows.
+
+"I disclaim every intention of introducing in this work any evidence
+irrelevant to my subject, or of supporting any conclusions not
+immediately flowing from it; but I cannot overlook nor disregard
+here the close connection there is between the facts ascertained by
+scientific investigations, and the discussions now carried on
+respecting the origin of organized beings. And though I know those
+who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not
+something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential
+difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings, I shall
+not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from
+expressing my conviction, that, as long as it cannot be shown that
+matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
+manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking
+being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an
+intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature
+as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as
+man exhibits the power of thinking when he recognizes their natural
+relations."
+
+We must content ourselves with the most general statement of the
+nature and bearing of the series of propositions which follow. They
+are illustrated by a large survey of the material universe in its
+manifestations of life, and of the relations between the various
+forms of life to each other and to the inorganic world. These
+propositions, thirty-one in number, might be called an analysis of
+the qualities of the Infinite Mind exhibited in the realm of
+organized and especially of animal being. Nothing but want of space
+prevents our reproducing at full length the very careful
+recapitulation to be found at the close of the chapter, or the
+analysis to be found in the Table of Contents. With something more
+of labor than the task of copying would have been, we have attempted
+to compress the truths already crowded in these brief and pregnant
+sentences into the still narrower compass of a few lines in our
+straitened pages.
+
+The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable
+intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these
+are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity
+of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of
+known material agencies, of special form,--illustrated by repetition
+of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or
+partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying
+conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable
+forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the
+midst of formal differences known as _special homologies_; power of
+combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other
+and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the
+most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time
+and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages
+of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and
+omniscience, as shown in the _prophetic_ types of earlier geological
+ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal
+organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.
+
+The final _resume_ of Mr. Agassiz is as follows:--
+
+"We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in
+still fewer words.
+
+"All organized beings exhibit in themselves all those categories of
+structure and of existence upon which a natural system may be founded,
+in such a manner, that, in tracing it, the human mind is only
+translating into human language the Divine thoughts expressed in
+Nature in living realities.
+
+"All these beings do not exist in consequence of the continued
+agency of physical causes, but have made their successive appearance
+upon earth by the immediate intervention of the Creator. As proof, I
+may sum up my argument in the following manner:--
+
+"The products of what are commonly called physical agents are
+everywhere the same, (that is, upon the whole surface of the globe,)
+and have always been the same (that is, during all geological periods);
+while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed
+in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no
+causal or genetic connection.
+
+"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful
+conceptions exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation,
+power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In
+one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud
+the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History
+must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the
+Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable
+kingdoms."
+
+To this statement we must add two paragraphs from the pages just
+preceding, (pp. 130, 131.)
+
+  "If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the
+  various relations observed between animals and the physical world,
+  as well as between themselves, exhibit thought, it follows that the
+  whole has an Intelligent Author; and it may not be out of place to
+  attempt to point out, as far as possible, the difference there may
+  be between Divine thinking and human thought."
+
+  "Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me,
+  that, while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is
+  simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past,
+  the present, and the future, the most diversified relations among
+  hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present
+  complications, again, which to study and understand even imperfectly,
+  as, for instance, man himself, mankind has already spent thousands of
+  years. And yet, all this has been done by one Mind, must be the work
+  of one Mind only, of Him before whom man can only bow in grateful
+  acknowledgment of the prerogatives he is allowed to enjoy in this
+  world, not to speak of the promises of a future life."
+
+Chapter Second is entitled, "Leading Groups of the existing systems
+of animals."
+
+Its nine sections treat successively of the great types or branches
+of the animal kingdom, of classes, orders, families, genera, species,
+other natural divisions, successive development of characters, and
+close with some very significant conclusions on the importance of
+the study of classification.
+
+Mr. Agassiz has attempted to give definiteness to the terms above
+enumerated, which have been used with various significance, by
+limiting each one of them to covering a single category of natural
+relationship. Thus:--
+
+  _Branches_ or _types_ are characterized by their plan of structure.
+
+  _Classes_, by the manner in which that plan is executed, so far as
+  ways and means are concerned.
+
+  _Orders_, by the degrees of complication of that structure.
+
+  _Families_, by their form, so far as determined by structure.
+
+  _Genera_, by the details of the execution in special parts.
+
+  _Species_, by the relations of individuals to one another and to
+  the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their
+  parts, their ornamentation, etc.
+
+  "And yet there are other natural divisions which must be acknowledged
+  in a natural zooelogical system; but these are not to be traced so
+  uniformly in all classes as the former,--they are, in reality, only
+  limitations of the other kinds of divisions."
+
+This chapter must be studied in the original text, the arguments by
+which its conclusions are supported hardly admitting of brief analysis.
+The most superficial reader will be interested in Mr. Agassiz's
+account of the mode in which he sought for the natural boundaries
+of the various divisions, by observing the special point of view
+in which various eminent naturalists have considered their subject;
+as, for instance, Audubon, among the biographers of species,--
+Latreille, among the students of genera,--and Cuvier, at the head
+of those who have contemplated the higher groups, such as classes
+and types. The most indifferent reader will be arrested by the
+opinions boldly promulgated with reference to species.
+
+  "The evidence that all animals have originated in large numbers is
+  growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in the
+  beginning in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely
+  by naturalists." "If we are led to admit as the beginning of each
+  species the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if
+  the same species may originate at the same time in different
+  localities, these first representatives of each species, at least,
+  were not connected by sexual derivation; and as this applies equally
+  to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of specific identity
+  must at all events be given up, and with it goes also the pretended
+  real existence of the species, in contradistinction from the mode of
+  existence of genera, families, orders, classes and types; for what
+  really exists are individuals, not species." (pp. 166-167.)
+
+Chapter Third is headed, "Notice of the principal systems of Zoology."
+It is divided into the six following sections: General remarks upon
+modern systems; Early attempts to classify animals; Period of Linnaeus;
+Period of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems; Physiophilosophical systems;
+Embryological systems.
+
+This chapter is invaluable to the general student, as giving him in
+a single view not only a _conspectus_, of the most important
+attempts at classification in Zoology, but an examination of the
+principles involved in each, by the one among all living men most
+fitted to perform the task. No cultivated person who desires to know
+anything of Natural Science can pass over this portion of the work
+without careful study. Those who are not prepared to follow the
+author through the details of the Second Part will yet consider
+these volumes as indispensable companions for reference, as
+containing this brief but comprehensive encyclopedia and commentary,
+covering the whole philosophical machinery of zoological science.
+
+For the first section of this chapter Mr. Agassiz adopts the
+fundamental divisions (branches) of Cuvier, introducing such changes
+among the classes and orders as the progress of science demands. The
+second section gives a short account of the early attempts to
+classify animals, more particularly of the divisions established by
+Aristotle. The third section embraces the period of Linnaeus, and
+gives his classification. The fourth, that of Cuvier, and Anatomical
+systems, with the classifications of Cuvier, Lamark, De Blainville,
+Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Owen, Milne-Edwards, Von Siebold and Stannius,
+Leuckart. The fifth section includes the Physiophilosophical systems,
+with diagrams of Oken's and Fitzinger's classifications, and a
+special article for the circular groups of McLeay. The sixth and last
+section is devoted to Embryological systems, and presents diagrams
+of the classifications of Von Baer, Van Beneden, Koelliker, and Vogt.
+
+The second part of the Monograph introduces us to the consideration
+of a special subject of Natural History,--the North American
+Testudinata. Its three chapters treat successively of this order of
+Reptiles,--of its families,--of its North American genera and species.
+
+The THIRD PART, contained in the second volume, is entitled,
+"Embryology of the Turtle." It consists of two chapters: "Development
+of the Egg, from its first appearance to the formation of the embryo."
+"Development of the Embryo, from the time the egg leaves the ovary
+to that of the hatching of the young." Then follow the explanation
+of the plates and the plates themselves, thirty-four in number.
+
+We need not attempt to give any account of the parts devoted to the
+development of these particular subjects. This we must necessarily
+leave to the journals devoted to scientific matters, and the class
+of students most intimate with these departments of Natural Science.
+
+Yet the American who asks for a model to work by in his
+investigations will find a great deal more than the "North American
+Testudinata" in the part to which that title is prefixed. The
+principles of classification exemplified, the methods of description
+illustrated, the rules of nomenclature tested,--what matter is it
+whether the _gran maestro_ has chosen this or that string to play
+the air upon, when each has compass enough for all its melody?
+
+Still more forcibly does this comment apply to the elaborate and
+ample division of the work embracing the Embryology of the Turtle.
+He who has mastered the details of this section has at his feet the
+whole broad realm of which this province holds one of the
+key-fortresses. _Ex testudine naturam_.
+
+We are unwilling to speak of the illustrations comparatively
+without more extended means of judgment than we have at hand. But
+that they are of superlative excellence, brilliant, delicate,
+accurate, life-like, and nature-like, is what none will dispute.
+Look at these turtles, models of real-estate owners as they are,
+Observe No. 13, Plate IV.,--"Chelydra Serpentina,"--"snapper",
+or "snappin' turtle," in the vernacular. He is out collecting
+rents from the naked-skinned reptiles, his brethren; in default
+thereof, taking the bodies of the aforesaid. Or behold No. 5, Plate
+VI., bewailing the wretchedness of those who have no roofs to cover
+them. Or No. 2, of the same plate, bestowing an archiepiscopal
+benediction on the houseless multitudes, before he retires for the
+night to slumber between his tessellated floor and his frescoed
+ceiling.
+
+Of the smooth, white eggs, with their rounded reliefs and tenderly
+graduated light and shadow, all eyes are judges. But of the
+exquisite figures showing the various stages of development and the
+details of structural arrangement, the uninitiated must take the
+opinions of a microscopic expert: and if they will accept our
+testimony as that of one not unfamiliar with the instrument and the
+mysteries it reveals, we can assure them that these figures are of
+supreme excellence. The hazy semitransparency of the embryonic
+tissues, the halos, the granules, the globules, the cell-walls, the
+delicate membranous expansions, the vascular webs, are expressed
+with purity, softness, freedom, and a conscientiousness which
+reminds us of Donne's microscopic daguerreotypes, while in many
+points the views are literally truer to nature,--just as a
+sculptor's bust of a living person is often more really like him in
+character than a cast moulded on his features.
+
+We have attempted to give a slight idea of the contents of these two
+volumes, in the compass of a few pages. We have called the reader's
+attention to various points of special interest, as we were going
+along. It remains to make such comments as suggest themselves to us,
+either in our character of "the scholiast," or in our own right as a
+freed citizen of the intellectual as well as the political republic.
+
+WHENCE? WHY? WHITHER? These are the three great questions that arise
+in the soul of every race and of every thinking being. He who looks
+at either of them with the least new light, though he whisper what
+he sees ever so softly, has the world to listen to him. No matter
+how he got his knowledge nor what he calls it; it belongs to mankind.
+But "Science" has been mainly engaged with another question, in
+itself of very inferior interest, namely, _How?_
+
+We must be permitted to speak of "Science" in our freest capacity,
+and will endeavor not to abuse our liberty. The study of natural
+phenomena for the sake of the pleasing variety of aspects they
+present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the
+exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for
+the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is
+an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with
+a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even
+constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power
+wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but
+not affix the wrong label to it. Those who possess it acquire
+knowledge sometimes so extensive and uncommon that we regard them
+with a certain admiration. But knowledge is not wisdom. Unless these
+narrow trains of ideas are brought into relation with other and
+wider ranges of thought, or with the conduct of life, they cannot
+aspire to that loftier name.
+
+We must go farther than this. The study of the _How?_ in Nature, or
+the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to
+quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact
+that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or
+out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as
+prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The
+product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the
+body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not
+grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those
+who browse in the sleepy meadows of aimless observation,--loving to
+keep their heads down as they gaze at and gather their narcotic herbs,
+rather than lift them to the horizon beyond or the heaven above,--
+act in obedience to the law of their limited natures. Still, let us
+recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may
+be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be
+ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand,
+that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of
+science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his
+labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer
+may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a
+diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with
+hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some
+of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording
+microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch
+a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and
+give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest
+and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would
+probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that
+of the observer.
+
+Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men,
+unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey
+to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the
+honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type.
+But _Vos non vobis_ is the rule. "Science" is knowledge, it is true,
+but knowledge disarticulated and parcelled out among certain
+specialists, like Truth in Milton's glorious comparison. He who can
+restore each part to its true position, and orient the lesser whole
+in its relations to the universe, he it is to whom science belongs.
+He must range through all time and follow Nature to her farthest
+bounds. Then he can dissect beetles like Straus Derekheim, without
+becoming a myope. But even this is not enough. Let us see what
+qualities would go to make up the ideal model of the truly wise
+student of Nature.
+
+He must have, in the first place, as the substratum of his faculties,
+the power of observation, with the passion that keeps it active and
+the skilful hand to serve its needs. Secondly, a quick eye for
+resemblances and differences. Thirdly, a wide range of mental vision.
+Fourthly, the coordinating or systematizing faculty. Fifthly, a
+large scholarship. Lastly, and without which all these gifts fall
+short of their ultimate aim, an instinct for the highest forms of
+truth,--a centripetal tendency, always seeking the idea behind the
+form, the Deity in his manifestations, and thence working outward
+again to solve those infinite problems of life and its destinies
+which are, in reality, all that the thinking soul most lives for.
+
+It is as easy to find all these qualities separate as it is to turn
+beneath the finger one of the letters of a revolving padlock. But
+they must all be brought together in line before the grand portals
+of Nature's hypaethral temple will open to her chosen student. How
+incomplete the man of science is with only one or two of these
+endowments may be seen by a few examples.
+
+The power and instinct of observation combined with the most
+consummate skill do not necessarily make a great philosophical
+naturalist. Leeuwenhoek had all these. They bore admirable fruits,
+too. We cannot but read the old man's letters to the Royal Society,
+written, if we remember right, after the age of eighty, with delight
+and admiration. Those little lenses in their silver mountings, all
+ground and set and fashioned by his own hand, showed him the
+blood-globules, and the "pipes" of the teeth, which Purkinje and
+Retzius found with their achromatic microscopes a century later. We
+honor his skill and sagacity as they deserve; but a little trick of
+Mr. Dollond's, applied to the microscopic object-glass, has left all
+his achievements a mere matter of curious history.
+
+Few have been more remarkable for perceiving resemblances and
+differences than Oken. This is the poetical side of the scientific
+mind; and he shares with Goethe the honor of that startling and
+far-reaching discovery, the vertebral character of the bones of the
+cranium. At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones
+recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But
+notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great
+merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the
+Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a
+constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the
+solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane,
+if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.
+
+If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great
+learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon
+should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva
+Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was
+observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were
+scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many
+_Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least:
+Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a
+great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This
+in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!
+
+The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing,
+unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned.
+Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but
+where is now the "Zooenomia"?
+
+And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by
+appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It
+would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its
+insignificance. Our shelves bend and crack under the load of unwise
+and learned authorship. There are two stages in every student's life.
+In the first he is afraid of books; in the second books are afraid
+of him. For they are a great community of thieves, and one finds the
+same stolen patterns in all their pockets. Though often dressed in
+sheep's clothing, they have the maw of wolves. When the student has
+once found them out, he laughs at the pretensions of erudition, and
+strides gayly up and down great libraries, feeling that the most
+blustering folio of them all will turn as pale as if it were bound
+in law-calf, if he only lay his hand on its shoulder.
+
+Nor, lastly, can any elevation of aim, any thirst for the divine
+springs of knowledge, enable a man to dispense with the sober habits
+of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the
+stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings
+are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and
+his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may
+suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into
+such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist on laying
+down.
+
+That all these qualities which go to make up our ideal should exist
+in absolute perfection in any single man of mortal birth is not to
+be expected. But there are names in the history of Science which
+recall so imposing a combination of these several gifts, that,
+comparing the men who bore them with the civilization of their time,
+we can hardly conceive that uninspired intellect should come nearer
+the imaginary standard. Such a man was Aristotle. The slender and
+close-shaven fop, with the showy mantle on his ungraceful person and
+the costly rings on his fingers, who hung on the lips of Plato for
+twenty years, and trained the boy of Macedon to whatever wisdom he
+possessed,--whose life was set by destiny between the greatest of
+thinkers and the greatest of conquerors,--seems to have borrowed the
+intellect of the one and the universal aspirations of the other. But
+because he invaded every realm of knowledge, it must not be thought
+he dealt with Nature at second-hand. He was a collector and a
+dissector. He could display the anatomical structure of a fish as
+well as write a treatise on the universe or on rhetoric, or
+government or logic, or music or mathematics. Dethroned we call him;
+and yet Mr. Agassiz quotes his descriptions with respect, and
+confesses that the systematic classification of animals makes but
+one stride from Aristotle to Linnaeus.
+
+Cuvier was such a man. Alone, and unapproached in his own spheres of
+knowledge, his "Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences" is
+only an index to the wide range of his intellect. In one point,
+however, we must own that he seems slow of apprehension or limited
+by preconceived opinions,--in his reception of the homologies pointed
+out by Oken and the Physiophilosophical observers.
+
+In the same range of intellects we should reckon Linnaeus and
+Humboldt, and should have reckoned Goethe, had he given himself to
+science.
+
+We do not assume to say where in the category of fully equipped
+intelligences Mr. Agassiz belongs. But if the union of the most
+extraordinary observing powers with an almost poetic perception of
+analogies, with a wide compass of thought, the classifying instinct
+and habit, large knowledge of books, and personal intimacy with the
+leaders in various departments of knowledge, and with this the
+upward-looking aspect of mind and heart, which is the crowning gift
+of all,--if the union of these qualities can give to the man of
+science a claim to the nobler name of wisdom, it is not flattery,
+but justice, to award this distinction to Mr. Agassiz.
+
+To him, then, we listen, when, after having sounded every note in
+the wide gamut of Nature, after reading the story of life as it
+stands written in the long series of records reaching from Cambrian
+fossils to ovarian germs, after tracing the divine principle of
+order from the starlike flower at his feet to the flower-like circle
+of planets which spreads its fiery corolla, in obedience to the same
+simple law that disposes the leaves of the growing plant,--as our
+eminent mathematician tells us,--he relates in simple and
+reverential accents the highest truths he has learned in traversing
+God's mighty universe. For him, and such as him,--for us, too, if we
+read wisely,--the toiling slaves of science, often working with
+little consciousness of the full proportions of the edifice they are
+helping to construct, have spent their busy lives. All knowledge
+asserts its true dignity when once brought into relation with the
+grand end of knowledge,--a wider and deeper view of the significance
+of conscious and unconscious created being, and the character of its
+Creator.
+
+We shall close this article with some remarks upon the great
+doctrines that dominate all the manifold subordinate thoughts which
+fill these crowded pages. The plan of creation, Mr. Agassiz maintains,
+"has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was
+the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his
+thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms."
+Before Mr. Agassiz, before Linnaeus, before Aristotle, before Plato,
+Timaeus the Locrian spake; the original, together with the version
+we cite, is given with the Plato of Ficinus:--"Duas esse rerum
+omnium causas: mentem quidem, earum quae ratione quadam nascuntur, et
+necessitatem, earum quae existunt vi quadam, secundum corporum
+potentias et faculitates. Harrum rerum, id est, Natunae bonorum,
+optimum esse quoddam rerum optimarum principium, et Deum vocari....
+Esse praeterea in hac Naturae universitate quiddam quod maneat et
+intelligible sit, rerum genitarum, quae quidem in perpetuo quodam
+mutationum fluxu versantur, exemplar, Ideam dici et mente comprehendi....
+Permanet igitur mundus constanter talis qualis est creatus a Deo ...
+proponente sibi non exemplaria quaedam manuum opificio edita, sed
+illam Ideam intelligibilemque essentiam."--So taught the
+half-inspired pagan philosopher whom Plato took as his guide in his
+contemplations of Nature.
+
+We trace the thought again in Dante, amidst the various fragments of
+ancient wisdom which he has embodied in the "Divina Commedia":
+
+  Cio che non muore e cio che puo morire
+    Non e se non splendor cli quella idea
+  Che partorisco, amando, il nosfro Sire.
+           ----_Paradiso_, XIII. 52-54.
+
+Two thousand years after the old Greek had written, the Christian
+philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, repeats the same doctrine in a new
+phraseology:--"_Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ;
+yet it is true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not
+only before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the idea of God, and the
+decree of that Synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say,
+the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a
+beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be
+_England_, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me
+before she conceived of Cain."
+
+The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical
+whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or
+little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its
+hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the
+pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its
+mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came
+from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in
+various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the
+Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach,
+and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was
+it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the
+whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.
+
+We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained
+by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action
+of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the
+physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As
+opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to
+modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no
+qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force
+or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as
+Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to
+"waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so
+profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm
+foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the vestiges of creation.
+
+There is danger, however, that, in accepting this doctrine as a truth,
+we may be led into an inexact conception of the so-called physical
+laws, unless we closely examine the sense in which we use the
+expression. The forces which act according to these laws, and the
+various forms of the so-called _matter_, or concrete forces, are
+often spoken of as if they were blind agencies and existences, acting
+by an inherent fate-like power of their own. But if everything
+outside of our consciousness resolves itself, in the last analysis,
+into force, or something capable of producing change, and if force
+existing by the will of an omniscient and omnipresent Being, to whom
+time has no absolute significance, is simply God himself in action,
+then we shall find it impossible to limit the causal agency of the
+physical forces. All we can say is, that commonly they appear to
+move in certain rectilinear paths, in which they manifest a degree
+of uniformity and precision so amazing that we are lost in the
+infinite intelligence they display,--unless we become perfectly
+stupid to it, and think, as in the old fable, there is no music in
+it because we are made deaf by its continued harmony. No single leaf
+ever made a mistake in falling, though in so doing it solved more
+problems than were ever held in all the libraries that have changed
+or are changing into dust or ashes.
+
+We are willing to accept the belief of Mr. Agassiz, "that matter
+does not exist as such, but is everywhere and always a specific thing,
+as are all finite beings." But we must extend the same idea to the
+physical forces, and believe them to be specific agencies, and their
+acts specific acts,--in other words, each one of them a Divine
+manifestation. Theology is close upon us in these speculations.
+"Perhaps," says Mr. Robertson, in the volume of admirable sermons
+just republished, "even the Eternal himself is more closely bound to
+his works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps
+matter is only a mode of thought." Looking, then, at our recognized
+forms of matter and physical force as expressions of a self-limiting
+omnipotence, we concede that the uniform lines of action in which
+human observation has hitherto traced them do not, and, so far as we
+can see, cannot, shape the curves of the simplest organism.
+
+It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even
+hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals
+that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have
+taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of
+life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no
+more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day
+engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have
+broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the
+Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he
+fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn
+reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with
+us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection
+proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and
+Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the
+thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal
+and vegetable kingdoms."
+
+
+
+
+TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The weather leech of the topsail shivers,
+    The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
+  The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
+    And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  Open one point on the weather bow
+    Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head;
+  There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
+    And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  I stand at the wheel and with eager eye
+    To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
+  Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!"
+    Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  The ship bends lower before the breeze,
+    As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;
+  And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
+    As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  V.
+
+  It is silence all, as each in his place,
+    With the gathered coils in his hardened hands,
+  By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
+    Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  And the light on Fire Island head draws near,
+    As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
+  From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
+    With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  No time to spare! It is touch and go,
+    And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!"
+  As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
+    While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
+    As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;
+  And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
+    As I answer, "AYE, AYE, SIR! HA-A-R-D A-LEE!"
+
+
+  IX.
+
+  With the swerving leap of a startled steed
+    The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
+  The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
+    And the headland white we have left behind.
+
+
+  X.
+
+  The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
+    And belly and tug at the groaning cleats,
+  The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps,
+    And thunders the order, "TACKS AND SHEETS!"
+
+
+  XI.
+
+  'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
+    Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
+  The sails are aback from clew to clew,
+    And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"
+
+
+  XII.
+
+  And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
+    By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
+  She holds her way, and I look with joy
+    For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
+
+
+  XIII.
+
+  "LET GO AND HAUL!" 'Tis the last command,
+    And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
+  Astern and to leeward lies the land,
+    With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
+
+
+  XIV.
+
+  What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?
+    I steady the helm for the open sea;
+  The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!"
+    And the captain's breath once more comes free.
+
+
+  XV.
+
+  And so off shore let the good ship fly;
+    Little care I how the gusts may blow,
+  In my fo'castle-bunk in a jacket dry,--
+    Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
+
+
+
+
+MAMOUL.
+
+
+THROUGH THE COSSITOLLAH KALEIDOSCOPE.
+
+Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the
+motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;--
+one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace;
+the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;--
+and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the
+hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from
+the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_
+house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent
+eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior,
+and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul
+shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It
+is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in
+Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or
+down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a
+common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean
+rabble.
+
+Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to
+commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same
+Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and
+Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most
+picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most
+directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the
+imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn
+chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless
+and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of
+British enlightenment and accountability.
+
+From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of
+Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_,
+(as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its
+solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by
+whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from
+Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance,
+and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its
+stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the
+pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the
+carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises;
+from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department
+well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and
+Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and
+Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come
+of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most
+profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who
+approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O
+Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and
+with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)--
+from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.
+
+And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the
+characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending
+the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of
+the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preeminently the
+type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs,
+and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;--
+Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and
+_ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of
+pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses,
+_durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_
+or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of
+_banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts;
+together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers,
+horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors,
+British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter
+of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met,
+whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives
+the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the
+shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by
+all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.
+
+Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of
+a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to
+the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but
+nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.
+
+What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with
+elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a
+monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is
+impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!")
+at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.
+
+  "Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  This is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Very small Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Sixpenny Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Holes in his elbows!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Slipshod!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Son of a sea-cook!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will beat us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will kick us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Kick us and curse us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Not he, the greenhorn!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't understand us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't know the lingo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Let's shake the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rattle the pig's bones!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Set down the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Call him a great lord!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Ask him for buksheesh!
+    _Putterum_."
+
+And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the
+pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the
+sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening
+sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within,
+but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud
+of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck,
+with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--
+
+"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord!
+O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon
+whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother
+is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos
+of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy
+abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the
+golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay
+his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"
+
+"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you
+bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'?
+Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga,
+the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all
+your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"
+
+Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar,
+and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at
+first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly,
+and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.
+
+  "_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
+    _Putterum_.
+  Carry him softly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Swiftly and smoothly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rich little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Fierce little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  See how his eyes flash!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hear how his voice roars!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Tremble before him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Serve him and please him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Please him and serve him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will reward us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will protect us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will enrich us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Charity Lord Sa'b!
+    _Putterum._
+  Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Way for the great ...
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rajah of ten crores!
+    _Putter_....
+  .... Ten crores!..
+    _Putter_....
+  Rajah.... ....
+    _Put...._
+  .... Lard.... ..
+    _Putter...._
+  ....  ... Sa'b!
+    _.... rum_.
+
+And so they have turned down Flag Street.
+
+But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,--
+four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate
+coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers,
+supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like
+Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running
+at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made
+from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,--
+a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne,
+behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs,
+that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya
+Mullick, on the back seat.
+
+"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the
+umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes,
+this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is
+honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump,
+_sooa_. Jump!"
+
+And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the
+common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the
+fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our
+_godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman
+of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but
+_Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.
+
+As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the
+place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_
+first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and
+commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our
+Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and
+address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is
+threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard,
+and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the
+last; his life he holds of less account than either.
+
+As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with
+profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the
+very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead
+lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining
+his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality
+of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much
+for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the
+other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm
+applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.
+
+How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks
+all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five
+rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say,
+when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years
+old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling,
+on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the
+occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the
+Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature.
+Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.
+
+And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score
+of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of
+the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest
+corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head
+circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is
+only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen
+rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his
+salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands
+high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the
+Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two
+thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a
+hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts
+of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides
+two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold
+the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture,
+as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo
+condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!
+
+"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle
+bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and
+enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is
+disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,--
+feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot
+blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,--
+ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo
+not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket.
+Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty
+i-strong, plenty proud.
+
+"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar
+Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar
+foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban.
+'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar
+say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master
+und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"
+
+"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the
+Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with
+the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"
+
+"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young
+English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to
+make it their own for a day or two."
+
+"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin.
+They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better
+for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a
+strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for
+the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows
+next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."
+
+"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the
+Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or
+Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and
+we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah
+to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
+'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
+stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
+appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
+of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
+minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
+samples."
+
+Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
+with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
+pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
+its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
+perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
+match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
+astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
+a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
+it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
+who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
+without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
+will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
+while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
+Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
+Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
+the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
+the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
+
+Just now a _palkee-gharree_, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with
+but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a
+footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a
+respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at
+Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window,
+and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing
+barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,--dust that has been
+churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,--
+humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban,
+murmuring a pious _Namaskarum_; for the respectable accountant in the
+Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen
+Brahmin,--only a little more so. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his
+prophet!
+
+At the gate-lodge of the Baboo's garden-house on the Durumtollah
+Road, a gray and withered hag, all crippled and leprosied, sits
+_durhna_.
+
+What may that be?
+
+Be patient; you shall know.
+
+When the Baboo was as yet a youth, his uncle Rajinda, the pride of
+the Mullicks, died of cholera, and the administration of the estate
+devolved upon our free-thinking Kalidas. Of course there were
+mortgages to foreclose, and delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain
+small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern
+for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by
+Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and
+castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt
+_chit_, (that is, note, or _sheet_ of paper, as near as a Bengalee
+can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar
+come down forthwith with the rupees.
+
+But, behold you now, "he had paid," he said. "By the Holy Ganges and
+the Blessed Cow! by the turban of his father and the veil of his
+mother! restitution had been made long ago," the old man said;
+"and the soul of Uncle Rajinda, the pride of the Mullicks, had no
+reason to be disquieted for the rupees, though the seersuckers had
+been but vanity, and the castor-oil vexation of spirit."
+
+"Produce the documents," said the Baboo, with a business-like
+impassibility that in Wall Street would have made him a great bear;--
+"where are the receipts?"
+
+"My Lord, I know not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the
+lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my _gureeb purwar_, the
+destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the
+Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother,
+that I settled the little account long ago!"
+
+That unhappy speculator in seersuckers and castor-oil died in prison,
+and a _gooroo_ (that is, a spiritual teacher) feed by the Baboo,
+desolated his last hour with the assurance that he should
+transmigrate into the bodies of seven generations of _gharree_-horses,
+and drag _feringhee_ sailormen, in a state of beer, from the ghauts
+to the punch-houses, all his miserable lives.
+
+Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
+discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
+and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
+Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
+were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
+
+But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
+once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
+of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
+"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
+be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
+Haranu the Lost!"
+
+But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
+bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
+So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
+leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
+Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
+till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
+this?"
+
+And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
+crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
+have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
+no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
+matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
+hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
+
+The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
+the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
+insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
+Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
+away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
+solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
+louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
+But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
+he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
+lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
+the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
+and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
+durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
+Young Bengal.
+
+  _Mootrib i koosh nuwa bigo,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Badue dil koosha bidoh,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Koosh biu sheen bu kilwule
+  Chung nuwaz-a sa-ute,
+  Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Songster sweet, begin the lay,
+    Ever sweet and ever gay!
+  Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
+    Ever fresh and ever fine!
+  With a heart-alluring lass
+  Gayly let the moments pass,
+  Kisses stealing while you may,
+    Ever fresh and ever gay!"
+
+Now surely she who thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo
+type;--that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream;
+"her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute;
+she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's;
+her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait
+of a young elephant of pure blood." Let us see.
+
+Alas, no! She entertains a set of lazy bearers, smoking the
+hubble-bubble around a palanquin as they wait for a fare; and her
+buksheesh may be a cowry or two. By no means is she of the
+_nautch_-maidens of Lucknow, who were wont to lighten the hours of
+debauched majesty between the tiger-fights and the games of leap-frog;
+by no means is she ringed as to her fingers or belled as to her toes;
+and though she carries her music wherever she goes, she also carries
+a shiny brown baby, slung in a canvas tray between her shoulders.
+
+No excessively voluminous folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber
+her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora
+MacFlimsey would call _skimped_,) and pitifully mean as to quality.
+By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her
+professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price;
+but a narrow red strip of some poor cotton stuff crosses her bosom
+like a scarf, and leaves exposed too much of the ruins of once
+daintier beauties. A string of glass beads, black and red alternate,
+are all her jewels,--save one silver bodkin, all forlorn, in her hair,
+and a ring of thin gold wire piercing the right nostril, and, with
+an effect completely deforming, encircling the lips. Her teeth and
+nails are deeply stained, and the darkness of her eyes is enhanced
+by artificial shadows.
+
+And so, while that baby-Tantalus, catching glimpses, over the
+unveiled shoulder, of the Micawberian fount he cannot reach,
+stretches his little brown arms, bites, kicks, and squalls,--while a
+small female apprentice, by way of chorus, in costume and gesture
+absurdly caricaturing her _prima donna_, (a sort of Cossitollah
+marchioness, indeed, for some Dick Swiveller of the Sahibs,) shuffles
+rheumatically with her feet, or impotently dislocates her slender
+arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy
+cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "_Wah wah!_" and clap
+their sweaty hands,--our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums
+her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks
+corkscrewishly her _Chota, chota natchelee_:--
+
+  _Badi suba choo boog zuree,
+  Bar suri kove an puree,
+  Qassue Hufiz ush bigo
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Zephyrs, while you gently move
+  By the mansion of my love,
+  Softly Hafiz' strains repeat,
+      Ever new and ever sweet!"
+
+Heaven save the key!
+
+"_Ka munkta_, Bearer?--What is it, my gentle Karlee?"
+
+"_Chittee, Sahib!--chittee_ for Master."
+
+"Note, hey? from whom? let us see!"
+
+Pink paper,--scented with sandal-wood, pah!--embossed, too, with
+cornucopias in the corners,--seal motto, _Qui hi?_ ("Who waits?")--
+denoting that the bearer is to bring an answer. Now for the inside:
+
+  "DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR:--"
+
+  "Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an
+  eleemosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your
+  Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various
+  denominations. For our Heavenly Father's sake, if not inconvenient,--
+  which we have been beneficently bereaved of other paternal
+  description,--we humbly present our implorations to your munificent
+  Excellency, if any small change, to bestow the same, winch it will
+  be eternally acceptable to said eleemosynary widow of late Colonel
+  with distinguished medal in Honorable Service, deceased of cholera,
+  which it was suddenly attacks, and as pretty near destitute. Therefore,
+  hoping your munificent and respectable Excellency will not order,
+  being scornful, your pitiful Excellency's durwan to disperse us; but
+  five rupees, which nothing to Excellency's regards, and our tenacious
+  gratitude never forget; but kissing Excellency's hands on
+  indifferent occasions, and throwing at mercy feet with two imbecile,
+  offsprings of different denominations, I shall ever pray, &c."
+
+  "MRS. DIANA, THEODOSIA, COMFORT, GREEN."
+
+  "P.S. If not five rupees, two rupees five annas, in name of
+  Excellency's exalted mother, if quite convenient."
+
+There now! for an imposing structure in the florid style of
+half-caste begging-letters, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green
+flatters herself that is hard to beat.
+
+"'_Qui hi_?'--Karlee, who is at the gate?"
+
+"_Mem Sahib_! one chee-chee woman wanch look see Master, ispeakee
+Master buksheesh give; _paunch butcha_ have got."
+
+"_Paunch butcha!--five_ children! why, Karlee, there are but two here.
+But remembering, I suppose, that my Excellency has but two 'mercy
+feet,' and with an eye to symmetry in the arrangement of the grand
+tableau of which she proposes to make me the central figure, she has
+made it two 'imbecile offsprings' for the looks of the thing. Do you
+know her, Karlee?"
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that
+chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,--
+one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good that
+woman, Karlee think."
+
+"Very well, old man; send her away; tell the durwan to disperse
+Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green; but let him not insult her
+decrepit widowhood, nor alarm her imbecile offsprings of various
+denominations. For the 'Eurasian' is a great institution, without
+which polkas at Coolee Bazaar were not, nor pic-nics _dansantes_ at
+Chandernagore."
+
+But now to tiffin. I smell a smell of curried prawns, and the first
+mangoes of the season are fragrant. Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
+cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
+_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
+knows no caste or country.
+
+  _Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
+  Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
+  Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
+
+  "Gentle boy, whose silver feet
+  Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
+  Fill us quick the generous wine,
+      Ever fresh and ever fine!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found, and the
+best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly
+there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and
+do nothing for us. In Plato's "Gorgias," Socrates says, "The
+ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his
+passengers from Aegina or from Pontus, not thinking he has done
+anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are
+the same, and in no respect better than when he took them on board."
+So is it with books, for the most part; they work no redemption in us.
+The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no
+respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The
+volume is dear at a dollar, and, after reading to weariness the
+lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did,
+without surprise, of a surly bank-director, that in bank parlors
+they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
+
+But it is not less true that there are books which are of that
+importance in a man's private experience, as to verify for him the
+fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus
+of Thrace; books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers
+and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so
+revolutionary, so authoritative; books which are the work and the
+proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world
+which they paint, that, though one shuts them with meaner ones, he
+feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living.
+
+Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of
+the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil
+countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results
+of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and
+inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by
+etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom
+friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers
+of another age.
+
+We owe to books those general benefits which come from high
+intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the
+perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the
+moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then
+read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of
+positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing around us who
+will not let us sleep. Then, they address the imagination; only
+poetry inspires poetry. They become the organic culture of the time.
+College education is the reading of certain books which the common
+sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already
+accumulated. If you know that,--for instance, in geometry, if you
+have read Euclid and Laplace,--your opinion has some value; if you
+do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the
+subject. Whenever any skeptic or bigot claims to be heard on the
+questions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with the
+books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once for all been
+disposed of. If not, he has no right to our time. Let him go and
+find himself answered there.
+
+Meantime, the colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries,
+furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much
+wanted. In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
+friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and
+leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two,
+ten, or twenty centuries for us,--some of them,--and are eager to
+give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo
+that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has
+dressed them like battalions of infantry in coat and jacket of one
+cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the
+right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation
+and Combination,--not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half
+a million caskets, all alike. But it happens in our experience, that
+in this lottery there are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a
+prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a
+great deal of time among the false books, and alighting upon a few
+true ones which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in
+naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely
+over dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of sacred cities,
+into palaces and temples. This would be best done by those great
+masters of books who from time to time appear,--the Fabricii, the
+Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons,
+whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning. But private readers,
+reading purely for love of the book, would serve us by leaving each
+the shortest note of what he found.
+
+There are books, and it is practicable to read them, because they
+are so few. We look over with a sigh the monumental libraries of
+Paris, of the Vatican, and the British Museum. In the Imperial
+Library at Paris, it is commonly said, there are six hundred
+thousand volumes, and nearly as many manuscripts; and perhaps the
+number of extant printed books may be as many as these numbers united,
+or exceeding a million. It is easy to count the number of pages
+which a diligent man can read in a day, and the number of years
+which human life in favorable circumstances allows to reading; and
+to demonstrate, that, though he should read from dawn till dark, for
+sixty years, he must die in the first alcoves. But nothing can be
+more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none but a natural method
+is really pertinent. I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and
+I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best
+of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. The
+inspection of the catalogue brings me continually back to the few
+standard writers who are on every private shelf; and to these it can
+afford only the most slight and casual additions. The crowds and
+centuries of books are only commentary and elucidation, echoes and
+weakeners of these few great voices of Time.
+
+The best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a
+mechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a
+pursuit of his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let
+him read what is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd
+of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a
+single book,--as the Bible has been the literature as well as the
+religion of large portions of Europe,--as Hafiz was the eminent
+genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the
+Spaniards; so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer, if all the
+secondary writers were lost,--say, in England, all but Shakspeare,
+Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder study so drawn to those
+wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own genius, let the
+student read one, or let him read many, he will read advantageously.
+Dr. Johnson said, "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son
+shall read first, another boy has read both: read anything five
+hours a day, and you will soon be learned."
+
+Nature is much our friend in this matter. Nature is always
+clarifying her water and her wine. No filtration can be so perfect.
+She does the same thing by books as by her gases and plants. There
+is always a selection in writers, and then a selection from the
+selection. In the first place, all books that get fairly into the
+vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the
+affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel,
+though they cannot say. There has already been a scrutiny and choice
+from many hundreds of young pens, before the pamphlet or political
+chapter which you read in a fugitive journal comes to your eye. All
+these are young adventurers, who produce their performance to the
+wise ear of Time, who sits and weighs, and ten years hence out of a
+million of pages reprints one. Again it is judged, it is winnowed by
+all the winds of opinion, and what terrific selection has not passed
+on it, before it can be reprinted after twenty years, and reprinted
+after a century!--it is as if Minos and Rhadamanthus had indorsed
+the writing. 'Tis therefore an economy of time to read old and famed
+books. Nothing can be preserved which is not good; and I know
+beforehand that Pindar, Martial, Terence, Galen, Kepler, Galileo,
+Bacon, Erasmus, More, will be superior to the average intellect. In
+contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish betwixt notoriety
+and fame.
+
+Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on
+the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn without
+asking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, "he always
+went into stately shops"; and good travellers stop at the best hotels;
+for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is
+the good company and the best information. In like manner, the
+scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best
+thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish
+Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best
+information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day
+by day in the newspaper to the standard authors,--but who dare speak
+of such a thing?
+
+The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are,
+
+1. Never read any book that is not a year old.
+2. Never read any but famed books.
+3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase,
+
+  "No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en;
+  In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Montaigne says, "Books are a languid pleasure"; but I find certain
+books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was; he
+shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others
+than such. And I will venture, at the risk of inditing a list of old
+primers and grammars, to count the few books which a superficial
+reader must thankfully use.
+
+Of the old Greek books, I think there are five which we cannot spare:--
+1. Homer, who, in spite of Pope, and all the learned uproar of
+centuries, has really the true fire, and is good for simple minds,
+is the true and adequate germ of Greece, and occupies that place as
+history, which nothing can supply. It holds through all literature,
+that our best history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in
+Sanscrit, and in Greek. English history is best known through
+Shakspeare; how much through Merlin, Robin Hood, and the Scottish
+ballads! the German, through the Nibelungen Lied; the Spanish,
+through the Cid. Of Homer, George Chapman's is the heroic translation,
+though the most literal prose version is the best of all.--2.
+Herodotus, whose history contains inestimable anecdotes, which
+brought it with the learned into a sort of disesteem; but in these
+days, when it is found that what is most memorable of history is a
+few anecdotes, and that we need not be alarmed, though we should
+find it not dull, it is regaining credit.--3. Aeschylus, the
+grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us under a thin veil
+the first plantation of Europe. The "Prometheus" is a poem of the
+like dignity and scope as the book of Job, or the Norse "Edda."--4.
+Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find
+in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to
+thought,--the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier strains
+of musical wisdom than Homer reached, as if Homer were the youth,
+and Plato the finished man; yet with no less security of bold and
+perfect song, when he cares to use it, and with some harpstrings
+fetched from a higher heaven. He contains the future, as he came out
+of the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe in its causes and
+seed,--all that in thought, which the history of Europe embodies or
+has yet to embody. The well-informed man finds himself anticipated.
+Plato is up with him, too. Nothing has escaped him. Every new crop
+in the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern
+humanity is there. If the student wish to see both sides, and
+justice done to the man of the world, pitiless exposure of pedants,
+and the supremacy of truth and the religious sentiment, he shall be
+contented also. Why should not young men be educated on this book?
+It would suffice for the tuition of the race,--to test their
+understanding, and to express their reason. Here is that which is so
+attractive to all men,--the literature of aristocracy shall I call it?--
+the picture of the best persons, sentiments, and manners, by the
+first master, in the best times,--portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades,
+Crito, Prodicus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the
+lovely background of the Athenian and suburban landscape. Or who can
+overestimate the images with which he has enriched the minds of men,
+and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations? Read the
+"Phaedo," the "Protagoras," the "Phaedrus," the "Timaeus," the
+"Republic," and the "Apology of Socrates." 5. Plutarch cannot be
+spared from the smallest library: first, because he is so readable,
+which is much; then, that he is medicinal and invigorating. The
+Lives of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus
+and the rest, are what history has of best. But this book has taken
+care of itself, and the opinion of the world is expressed in the
+innumerable cheap editions, which make it as accessible as a
+newspaper. But Plutarch's "Morals" is less known, and seldom
+reprinted. Yet such a reader as I am writing to can as ill spare it
+as the "Lives." He will read in it the essays "On the Daemon of
+Socrates," "On Isis and Osiris," "On Progress in Virtue," "On
+Garrulity," "On Love," and thank anew the art of printing, and the
+cheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch charms by the facility
+of his associations; so that it signifies little where you open his
+book, you find yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is like
+the Isthmian Games, where all that was excellent in Greece was
+assembled, and you are stimulated and recruited by lyric verses, by
+philosophic sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, by the
+worship of the gods, and by the passing of fillets, parsley and
+laurel wreaths, chariots, armor, sacred cups, and utensils of
+sacrifice. An inestimable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the
+three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch.
+Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the
+meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of
+ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife,
+and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of
+Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of
+Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,--being a
+repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject of love,--a
+picture of a feast of wits, not less descriptive than Aristophanes,--
+and, lastly, containing that ironical eulogy of Socrates which is
+the source from which all the portraits of that head current in
+Europe have been drawn.
+
+Of course, a certain outline should be obtained of Greek history, in
+which the important moments and persons can be rightly set down; but
+the shortest is the best, and, if one lacks stomach for Mr. Grote's
+voluminous annals, the old slight and popular summary of Goldsmith
+or Gillies will serve. The valuable part is the age of Pericles, and
+the next generation. And here we must read the "Clouds" of
+Aristophanes, and what more of that master we gain appetite for, to
+learn our way in the streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of
+Aristophanes, requiring more genius and sometimes not less cruelty
+than belonged to the official commanders. Aristophanes is now very
+accessible, with much valuable commentary, through the labors of
+Mitchell and Cartwright. An excellent popular book is J. A. St.
+John's "Ancient Greece"; the "Life and Letters" of Niebuhr, even
+more than his Lectures, furnish leading views; and Winckelmann, a
+Greek born out of due time, has become essential to an intimate
+knowledge of the Attic genius. The secret of the recent histories in
+German and in English is the discovery, owed first to Wolff, and
+later to Boeckh, that the sincere Greek history of that period must
+be drawn from Demosthenes, specially from the business orations, and
+from the comic poets.
+
+If we come down a little by natural steps from the master to the
+disciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,--
+who also cannot be skipped,--Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,
+Jamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Julian said, "that he was
+posterior to Plato in time, not in genius." Of Plotinus, we have
+eulogies by Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Emperor
+Gallienus,--indicating the respect he inspired among his
+contemporaries. If any one who had read with interest the "Isis and
+Osiris" of Plutarch should then read a chapter called "Providence,"
+by Synesius, translated into English by Thomas Taylor, he will find
+it one of the majestic remains of literature, and, like one walking
+in the noblest of temples, will conceive new gratitude to his
+fellowmen, and a new estimate of their nobility. The imaginative
+scholar will find few stimulants to his brain like these writers. He
+has entered the Elysian Fields; and the grand and pleasing figures
+of gods and daemons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" and the
+"aquatic gods," daemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the
+Platonic rhetoric, exalted a little under the African sun, sail
+before his eyes. The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave at
+Delphi; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. These guides speak
+of the gods with such depth and with such pictorial details, as if
+they had been bodily present at the Olympian feasts. The reader of
+these books makes new acquaintance with his own mind; new regions of
+thought are opened. Jamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras" works more
+directly on the will than the others; since Pythagoras was eminently
+a practical person, the founder of a school of ascetics and
+socialists, a planter of colonies, and nowise a man of abstract
+studies alone.
+
+The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn's
+Library have done for literature what railroads have done for
+internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have
+named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in
+any book is translatable,--any real insight or broad human sentiment.
+Nay, I observe, that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral
+tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of
+the original into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling
+at translators, _i traditori traduttori_, but I thank them. I rarely
+read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book
+in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be
+beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which
+receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as
+soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to
+Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them
+rendered for me in my mother tongue.
+
+For history, there is great choice of ways to bring the student
+through early Rome. If he can read Livy, he has a good book; but one
+of the short English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should be
+used, that will place in the cycle the bright stars of Plutarch. The
+poet Horace is the eye of the Augustan age; Tacitus, the wisest of
+historians; and Martial will give him Roman manners, and some very
+bad ones, in the early days of the Empire: but Martial must be read,
+if read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring him to Gibbon,
+who will take him in charge, and convey him with abundant
+entertainment down--with notice of all remarkable objects on the way--
+through fourteen hundred years of time. He cannot spare Gibbon, with
+his vast reading, with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though
+never profound, his book is one of the conveniences of civilization,
+like the proposed railroad from New York to the Pacific,--and, I
+think, will be sure to send the reader to his "Memoirs of Himself,"
+and the "Extracts from my Journal," and "Abstracts of my Readings,"
+which will spur the laziest scholar to emulation of his prodigious
+performance.
+
+Now having our idler safe down as far as the fall of Constantinople
+in 1453, he is in very good courses; for here are trusty hands
+waiting for him. The cardinal facts of European history are soon
+learned. There is Dante's poem, to open the Italian Republics of the
+Middle Age; Dante's "Vita Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice; and
+Boccaccio's "Life of Dante,"--a great man to describe a greater. To
+help us, perhaps a volume or two of M. Sismondi's "Italian Republics"
+will be as good as the entire sixteen. When we come to Michel Angelo,
+his Sonnets and Letters must be read, with his Life by Vasari, or,
+in our day, by Mr. Duppa. For the Church, and the Feudal Institution,
+Mr. Hallam's "Middle Ages" will furnish, if superficial, yet
+readable and conceivable outlines.
+
+The "Life of the Emperor Charles V.," by the useful Robertson, is
+still the key of the following age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther,
+Erasmus, Melancthon, Francis I., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Henry IV.
+of France, are his contemporaries. It is a time of seeds and
+expansions, whereof our recent civilization is the fruit.
+
+If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to
+British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history
+takes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and
+mythology to the "Younger Edda" and the "Heimrskringla" of Snorro
+Sturleson, to Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," to Ellis's "Metrical
+Romances," to Asser's "Life of Alfred," and Venerable Bede, and to
+the researches of Sharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him
+for an intelligent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the
+richest period of the English mind, with the chief men of action and
+of thought which that nation has produced, and with a pregnant
+future before him. Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh,
+Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne,
+Herrick; and Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after.
+
+In reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He
+will not repent the time he gives to Bacon,--not if he read the
+"Advancement of Learning," the "Essays," the "Novum Organon," the
+"History of Henry VII.," and then all the "Letters," (especially
+those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business,) and
+all but his "Apophthegms."
+
+The task is aided by the strong mutual light which these men shed on
+each other. Thus, the Works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to bind
+all these fine persons together, and to the land to which they belong.
+He has written verses to or on all his notable contemporaries; and
+what with so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches in his
+"Discoveries," and the gossiping record of his opinions in his
+conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, has really illustrated
+the England of his time, if not to the same extent, yet much in the
+same way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the persons and places of
+Scotland. Walton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write also
+to the times.
+
+Among the best books are certain _Autobiographies_: as, St.
+Augustine's Confessions; Benvenuto Cellini's Life; Montaigne's Essays;
+Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs; Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz;
+Rousseau's Confessions; Linnaeus's Diary; Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's,
+Burns's, Alfieri's, Goethe's, and Haydon's Autobiographies.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to these, and of like interest,
+are those which may be called _Table-Talks_; of which the best are
+Saadi's Gulistan; Luther's Table-Talk; Aubrey's Lives; Spence's
+Anecdotes; Selden's Table-Talk; Boswell's Life of Johnson;
+Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe; Coleridge's Table-Talk; and
+Hazlitt's Life of Northcote.
+
+There is a class whose value I should designate as favorites; such
+as Froissart's Chronicles; Southey's Chronicle of the Cid; Cervantes;
+Sully's Memoirs; Rabelais; Montaigne; Izaak Walton; Evelyn; Sir
+Thomas Browne; Aubrey; Sterne; Horace Walpole; Lord Clarendon;
+Doctor Johnson; Burke, shedding floods of light on his times; Lamb;
+Landor; and De Quincey;--a list, of course, that may easily be
+swelled, as dependent on individual caprice. Many men are as tender
+and irritable as lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed,
+a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender
+readers have a great prudencey in showing their books to a stranger.
+
+The annals of bibliography afford many examples of the delirious
+extent to which book-fancying can go, when the legitimate delight in
+a book is transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. This
+mania reached its height about the beginning of the present century.
+For an autograph of Shakspeare one hundred and fifty-five guineas
+were given. In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was
+sold. The sale lasted forty-two days,--we abridge the story from
+Dibdin,--and among the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio
+published by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of
+this edition. Among the distinguished company which attended the
+sale were the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of
+Marlborough, then Marquis of Blandford. The bid stood at five hundred
+guineas. "A thousand guineas," said Earl Spencer: "And ten," added
+the Marquis. You might hear a pin drop. All eyes were bent on the
+bidders. Now they talked apart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet,
+but without the least thought of yielding one to the other.
+"Two thousand pounds," said the Marquis. The Earl Spencer bethought
+him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed and waste of powder,
+and had paused a quarter of a minute, when Lord Althorp with long
+steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to
+renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and Earl Spencer
+exclaimed, "Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!" An electric
+shock went through the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis.
+There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused;
+the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when
+the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest
+shores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries
+of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five
+hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal
+alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio.
+
+Another class I distinguish by the term _Vocabularies_. Burton's
+"Anatomy of Melancholy" is a book of great learning. To read it is
+like reading in a dictionary. 'Tis an inventory to remind us how
+many classes and species of facts exist, and, in observing into what
+strange and multiplex by-ways learning has strayed, to infer our
+opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no
+cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion,--
+the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing is wanting
+but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of a
+hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "On the Vanity of Arts and
+Sciences" is a specimen of that scribatious-ness which grew to be
+the habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern
+Germans, they read a literature, whilst other mortals read a few
+books. They read voraciously, and must disburden themselves; so they
+take any general topic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or
+Praise of Folly, and write and quote without method or end. Now and
+then out of that affluence of their learning comes a fine sentence
+from Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boethius, but no high method, no
+inspiring efflux. But one cannot afford to read for a few sentences;
+they are good only as strings of suggestive words.
+
+There is another class more needful to the present age, because the
+currents of custom run now in another direction, and leave us dry on
+this side;--I mean the _Imaginative_. A right metaphysics should do
+justice to the cooerdinate powers of Imagination, Insight,
+Understanding, and Will. Poetry, with its aids of Mythology and
+Romance, must be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men are
+ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not
+ciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is
+hustled out of sight. Our orators and writers are of the same poverty,
+and, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagination, the great awakening
+power, nor the Morals, creative of genius and of men, are addressed.
+But though orator and poet are of this hunger party, the capacities
+remain. We must have symbols. The child asks you for a story, and is
+thankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with
+meaning. The man asks for a novel,--that is, asks leave, for a few
+hours, to be a poet, and to paint things as they ought to be. The
+youth asks for a poem. The very dunces wish to go to the theatre.
+What private heavens can we not open, by yielding to all the
+suggestion of rich music! We must have idolatries, mythologies, some
+swing and verge for the creative power lying coiled and cramped here,
+driving ardent natures to insanity and crime, if it do not find vent.
+Without the great and beautiful arts which speak to the sense of
+beauty, a man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. These
+are his becoming draperies, which warm and adorn him. Whilst the
+prudential and economical tone of society starves the imagination,
+affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The novel is that
+allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything else pins it
+down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas, Sand,
+Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their education is neglected;
+but the circulating library and the theatre, as well as the
+trout-fishing, the Notch Mountains, the Adirondac country, the tour
+to Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts, make such amends
+as they can.
+
+The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It
+has a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like
+planets, and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the
+music, they never quite subside to their old stony state. But what
+is the Imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy;
+only the precursor of the Reason. And books that treat the old
+pedantries of the world, our times, places, professions, customs,
+opinions, histories, with a certain freedom, and distribute things,
+not after the usages of America and Europe, but after the laws of
+right reason, and with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put
+us on our feet again, enable us to form an original judgment of our
+duties, and suggest new thoughts for to-morrow.
+
+"Lucrezia Floriani," "Le Peche de M. Antoine," "Jeanne," of George
+Sand, are great steps from the novel of one termination, which we
+all read twenty years ago. Yet how far off from life and manners and
+motives the novel still is! Life lies about us dumb; the day, as we
+know it, has not yet found a tongue. These stories are to the plots
+of real life what the figures in "La Belle Assemblee," which
+represent the fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the novel
+will find the way to our interiors one day, and will not always be
+the novel of costume merely. I do not think them inoperative now. So
+much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched;
+and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young
+study noble behavior; and as the player in "Consuelo" insists that
+he and his colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine
+etiquette and strokes of grace and dignity which they practise with
+so much effect in their villas and among their dependents, so I
+often see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in the courtesy
+and brilliancy of young midshipmen, collegians, and clerks. Indeed,
+when one observes how ill and ugly people make their loves and
+quarrels, 'tis pity they should not read novels a little more, to
+import the fine generosities, and the clear, firm conduct, which are
+as becoming in the unions and separations which love effects under
+shingle roofs as in palaces and among illustrious personages.
+
+In novels the most serious questions are really beginning to be
+discussed. What made the popularity of "Jane Eyre," but that a
+central question was answered in some sort? The question there
+answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated
+according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding
+individualism will answer it as Rochester does,--as Cleopatra, as
+Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the exception into a rule,
+dwarfing the world into an exception. A person of less courage, that
+is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does,--giving
+way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of
+men and women.
+
+For the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We
+admire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,
+and parliaments. They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to
+wealth and social position.
+
+I remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the
+oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were
+tied to the twigs by thread. I fear 'tis so with the novelist's
+prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his
+fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist
+plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly
+to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying
+success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole,
+'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which
+only oddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element,
+no power, no furtherance. 'Tis only confectionery, not the raising
+of new corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was
+beautiful, and he fell in love_. Money, and killing, and the
+Wandering Jew, and persuading the lover that his mistress is
+betrothed to another,--these are the mainsprings; new names, but no
+new qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain endeavor to keep
+any bit of this fairy gold, which has rolled like a brook through
+our hands. A thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows seemed to span
+the sky; a morning among the mountains;--but we close the book, and
+not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for
+romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real
+elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and
+night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and
+circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like
+impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.
+
+If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of
+rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.
+Every good fable, every mythology, every biography out of a
+religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
+when they proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not
+detached and critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables,
+the Persian history, (Firdousi,) the "Younger Edda" of the
+Scandinavians, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the poem of Dante, the
+Sonnets of Michel Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont
+and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in
+our time, the ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of
+Goethe, have this richness, and leave room for hope and for generous
+attempts.
+
+There is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as
+to leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles
+of the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
+each the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and
+Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,
+these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;
+the Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the
+Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the
+"Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius
+and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical
+authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope
+of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be
+Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus;
+the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the
+"Imitation of Christ," of Thomas a Kempis; and the "Thoughts" of
+Pascal.
+
+All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal
+conscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year's
+almanac or this day's newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to
+be read on the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given
+or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the
+glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should
+give and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and
+enact them. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but
+are living characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.
+I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;
+they fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter
+and blushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures
+which the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean,
+to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which
+is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--
+was there already long before him. The missionary must be carried by
+it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
+these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
+perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
+and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
+ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
+few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
+Bible.
+
+These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
+yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
+the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
+be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
+sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
+British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
+each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
+so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
+on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
+or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
+the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
+the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
+time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
+study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
+give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
+keeping nothing back. Another member, meantime, shall as honestly
+search, sift, and as truly report on British mythology, the Round
+Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry; a third, on
+the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmesbury;
+a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, "Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and
+Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold,
+after the washing; and every other shall then decide whether this is
+a book indispensable to him also.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND LENS.
+
+
+I.
+
+THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.
+
+From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my
+inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was
+not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,
+hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope
+for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a
+drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very
+primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it
+is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently
+wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of
+excitement.
+
+Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
+to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope,
+related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished
+through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly
+constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the
+days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
+and his departure.
+
+Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
+remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
+vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
+construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
+containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
+"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
+lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
+crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
+endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
+to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
+a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
+properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
+totally failed.
+
+At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
+Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
+dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
+could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
+on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
+comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
+Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
+across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
+land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might
+feel towards the ordinary masters of men. I held conversations with
+Xanure in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily
+communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in
+their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of
+things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a
+drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe
+of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life,
+and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and
+protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my
+mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from
+her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
+enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
+foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
+boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering
+with green and silver and gold.
+
+It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
+the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
+disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
+microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night
+poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
+having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its
+primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never
+betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was
+bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.
+
+Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
+ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
+the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantages of instruments a
+thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
+Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and
+Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
+ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
+specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I
+believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
+ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that
+shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel
+animalcule (_Rotifera vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its
+flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as
+I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study,
+I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the
+investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were
+devoting their lives and intellects.
+
+As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
+practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops
+of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious
+that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should
+enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous
+merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I
+decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a
+failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.
+
+But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
+staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor;
+and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha,
+I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to
+place me above want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for
+this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
+in rendering myself independent.
+
+After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
+selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New
+York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
+from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased,
+without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I
+might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
+the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no
+danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place
+for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest
+publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,--in
+short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my
+life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires
+that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my
+object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my
+becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was
+with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and
+established myself in New York.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
+
+My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
+obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
+pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
+and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
+furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
+all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I
+visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
+splendid collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Higham's,
+Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular, (that founded on the principles of
+the stereoscope,) and at length fixed upon that form known as
+Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
+improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with
+this I purchased every possible accessory,--drawtubes, micrometers,
+a _camera-lucida_, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud
+illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus,
+forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles,
+all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced
+microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the
+slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
+how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
+suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently
+was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or
+a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
+mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is
+greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.
+
+Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
+students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to
+the delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the
+most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest
+hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile
+manipulation.
+
+For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of
+my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every
+possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was
+that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
+never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
+understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
+could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
+fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
+that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
+became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
+
+During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
+every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
+lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
+was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
+Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
+proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
+of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
+their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
+generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
+higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
+resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
+plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
+Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
+optical illusion.
+
+But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
+made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
+found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like
+all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed,
+it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the
+defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I
+imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of
+my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night
+constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which
+I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its
+original atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity
+through ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the
+secret of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be limited
+only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time
+should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short
+from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds
+himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
+microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power,
+was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound
+microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the
+wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
+to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if
+conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.
+
+It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
+After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on
+every imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals,
+artificial crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--
+in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus
+had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing
+gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost
+dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of
+progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended one lecture
+since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses of my mad pursuit
+had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.
+
+I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
+on a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power,
+having always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a
+young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the
+habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.
+
+I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
+character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There
+was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell,
+and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should
+perhaps have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined
+to the disposal of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a
+rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress
+of a Mexican _caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he
+paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
+which he assured me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for
+that,--and some other knick-knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
+should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He apparently
+had plenty of money, and had the _entree_ of the best houses in the
+city,--taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within
+the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
+conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater
+object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to
+be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
+affair.
+
+On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
+considerable excitement.
+
+"_Ah! mon ami_!" he cried, before I could even offer him the
+ordinary salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the
+most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the
+house of Madame -----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name
+himself in the Latin?"
+
+"Vulpes," I answered.
+
+"Ah! yes, Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."
+
+"The spirit medium?"
+
+"Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman! I write on a
+slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--
+affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most
+profound; and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman
+makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me
+of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
+I am fixed to the earth!"
+
+"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
+questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
+known only to yourself?"
+
+"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
+some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
+pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
+these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
+saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
+It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
+can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
+Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
+it to you."
+
+I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
+and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
+dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
+Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
+should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
+subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
+goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
+enable me to attain?
+
+While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
+mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK.
+
+Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
+promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
+residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with a keen and
+rather cruel dark eye, and an exceedingly sensual expression about
+her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an
+apartment on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre
+of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common
+round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her
+chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my
+appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with any awe.
+Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with
+the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
+Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.
+
+"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
+business-like tone of voice.
+
+"By appointment,--yes."
+
+"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"
+
+"Yes,--I wish for a written one."
+
+"From any particular spirit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"
+
+"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
+him some information which he ought to be able to give better than
+any other."
+
+"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
+"and place your hands upon it?"
+
+I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite me, with her hands also
+on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
+violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
+on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window panes.
+Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.
+
+"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate."
+She then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"
+
+Vigorous affirmative.
+
+"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"
+
+A very confused rapping followed this question.
+
+"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
+"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
+you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
+invisible guests.
+
+That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
+While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
+scribbled a name under the table.
+
+"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
+the medium once more.
+
+After a moment's pause her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
+tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
+spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
+of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
+loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper
+with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few
+moments had elapsed she handed me the paper, on which I found written,
+in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
+been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which
+Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at
+regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
+hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and
+she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper,
+which she handed to me. They were as follows:
+
+"I am here. Question me.
+
+"LEEUWENHOEK."
+
+I was, astounded. The name was identical with that I had written
+beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at
+all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know
+even the name of the great father of microscopies. It may have been
+Biology; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on
+my slip--still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of
+questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the
+responses in the order in which they occurred.
+
+I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
+
+SPIRIT.--Yes.
+
+I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
+
+SPIRIT.--You are.
+
+I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
+which you bear to science, help me!
+
+SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
+electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
+rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
+form the universal lens.
+
+I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
+
+SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.
+
+I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
+image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
+surmounted?
+
+SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
+obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
+itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!
+
+I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
+communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
+biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
+medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
+gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
+But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
+would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
+defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some
+such theory may have passed through my head, it is true, but if so,
+I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no
+course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the
+most painful nervous exultation that I left the medium's house that
+evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
+The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the
+balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily
+expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night
+air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me,--how to
+obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means
+multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its
+purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I
+could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EYE OF MORNING.
+
+There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
+impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his
+sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
+over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some
+object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly,
+thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
+crimson with confusion.
+
+"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
+don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
+
+Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
+protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
+
+"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
+
+This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
+if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some
+incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually
+kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too
+preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
+
+"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
+continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather
+was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only
+get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
+
+Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
+lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
+savagely, and rushing to the mantel-piece, where some foreign weapons
+hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it
+furiously before him.
+
+"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited.
+"No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted
+with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I
+am brave! You cannot make me fear!"
+
+All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement,
+astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon
+the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to
+reassure him.
+
+"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
+mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
+problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
+size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
+the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What
+can be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
+valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
+The diamond which I require you could not possess; or if you did
+possess it, you would not be living here."
+
+Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
+expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
+combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my
+movements. He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he
+was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which
+betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
+off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making
+this explanation, and endeavored, with some success, to assume a
+more cheerful air.
+
+All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much
+accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I
+determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.
+
+"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
+Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vongeot_ down-stairs,
+fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or.
+Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
+
+"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
+
+I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
+famous vintage, that of 1818, a year when war and wine throve
+together, and its pure, but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
+vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
+bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
+while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to
+send a flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became
+more and more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a
+not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the
+conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eyes on
+him with a quiet smile, said:
+
+"Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You
+may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather, one of her
+spirits, told me all."
+
+He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to
+fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a
+short time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
+
+"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
+shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
+
+"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell
+me all about it."
+
+The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin
+earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated;
+then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
+mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy
+look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he
+drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the
+mild lamp-light was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it
+fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no
+judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare
+size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and--must I confess
+it?--with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply
+to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements
+(of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had
+been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
+Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead
+of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he
+saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up, and fled with it,
+but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly,--
+so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention
+to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to discover
+any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed
+away safely. He added, that, in accordance with Oriental practice,
+he had named his diamond by the fanciful title of "The Eye of Morning."
+
+While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
+attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the
+glories of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in
+its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was
+exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence.
+The hand of Destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
+spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the
+microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start
+up within my easy reach! I determined, with the most perfect
+deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.
+
+I sat opposite him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
+revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
+foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
+or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
+interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
+taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a hide
+peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human
+beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be
+experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own
+confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer.
+He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws;
+why should I not, like government, contrive that his punishment
+should contribute to the progress of human knowledge?
+
+The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
+There stood upon the mantel-piece a bottle half full of French
+laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
+restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his
+glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
+
+I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket
+in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I
+laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
+myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while
+with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation
+the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the
+aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I
+calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon,
+if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with
+one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which
+I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs.
+I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
+bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches
+the surface of the water; he turned half round on his side, and as if
+to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
+more spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the creese, which it
+remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this
+there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralyzed
+the usual nervous action. He must have died instantaneously.
+
+There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
+suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
+house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be
+found in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and
+afterwards escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical
+impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also
+should he found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended
+softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for
+holding small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass,
+etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice,
+with a very powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last
+was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was
+simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its
+stem in this vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock
+the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of
+papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before
+they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into
+Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all traces of wine,--
+cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles away with me.
+If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the
+question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides,
+the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The
+laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in
+case of _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be
+that he first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a
+little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed
+his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
+arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
+door with my vice, and went to bed.
+
+Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
+The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light
+streaming on the dark landing from under the door, peeped through
+the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door
+was burst open, and the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.
+
+Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
+inquest; but no clue to his death, beyond that of suicide, could be
+obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
+friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
+One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that
+"he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed, that Simon, when
+paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he would not pay
+him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded, the door
+locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I
+anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon,
+so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a
+prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
+neighborhood once more settled down into its accustomed quiet.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+ANIMULA
+
+The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and
+day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast, galvanic battery,
+composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I
+dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this
+enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
+electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
+me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I
+commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense
+toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the
+care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the
+lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had
+yet undergone.
+
+At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
+trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
+Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
+to be placed upon its platform, my hand fairly shook as I enveloped
+a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
+to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the
+rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip
+of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid
+of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my
+eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an
+instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a
+vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and
+seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently,
+and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'
+breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens
+approached the object, a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded
+to my view.
+
+I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
+beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
+the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
+animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that
+dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous
+power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
+aqueous matter, beyond the realms of Infusoria and Protozoa, down to
+the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was
+gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
+radiance.
+
+It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
+side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and
+colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
+appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific
+definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they
+undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with
+splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is
+as dross compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance
+stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
+and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The
+pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista
+seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping
+silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied
+with a thousand hues lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the
+crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no
+forms animate or inanimate were to be seen, save those vast auroral
+copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves
+and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealizable by
+mere imagination.
+
+How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
+solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
+life,--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
+present acquainted,--but still, some living organism. I find my
+newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic
+desert.
+
+While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
+economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
+our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
+through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more at
+tentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict
+the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this
+mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in
+suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an
+animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting
+behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly
+revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed
+nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and the form
+floated out into the broad light.
+
+It was a female human shape. When I say "human," I mean it possessed
+the outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable
+beauty lifted it inimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
+Adam.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
+revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
+serene, evade my words. Her long lustrous hair following her
+glorious head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a
+falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its
+splendors. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would
+still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that
+enclosed her form.
+
+She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
+into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
+of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
+clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She
+floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending
+through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of
+her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening
+to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the
+harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply
+purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal
+of this wonder through another's blood? I would have given my own to
+enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.
+
+Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
+instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
+microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that
+lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from
+prism sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny
+bead of dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet
+Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more
+to apply my eye to the microscope.
+
+Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
+bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
+the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
+of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
+with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on
+its summit, and sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula.
+The sylph took it in her delicate hand, and began to eat. My
+attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply
+myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or
+was not instinct with volition.
+
+I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
+attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
+through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
+eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
+have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
+luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple
+and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement,
+she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then
+cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash
+of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
+
+Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
+seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
+still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
+sudden disappearance? Had she a lover, or a husband? Yes, that was
+the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
+through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
+
+The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion,
+startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced
+upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was
+so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
+
+It is true, that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope,
+she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the
+revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle
+and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop,
+she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what
+account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the
+instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I
+must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.
+
+Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the
+mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper
+all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest
+of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be
+something to have established even the faintest personal link to
+bind us together--to know that at times, when roaming through those
+enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had
+broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle
+memory in her heart!
+
+But it could not be. No invention, of which human intellect was
+capable, could break down the barriers that Nature had erected. I
+might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always
+remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her,
+and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of
+anguish I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed
+myself to sleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+THE SPILLING OF THE CUP.
+
+I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
+microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
+that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
+surrounded by its moderator's, burning, when I went to bed the night
+before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
+pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
+surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
+shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the
+transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and
+gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might
+have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus.
+I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection
+were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably. By the dim
+light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
+her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
+flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
+and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some
+substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips
+moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
+reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of
+happiness would then have entranced my ears! What jubilant hymns to
+Adonais would have thrilled the illumined air!
+
+I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
+mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
+lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
+purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
+practically realized.
+
+How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
+know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
+the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
+saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
+for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
+that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
+divine form strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always
+overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could
+gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!
+
+At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and
+continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions,
+that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it.
+"Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has
+bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess.
+Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of
+mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and
+this false enchantment will vanish."
+
+I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
+advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at
+Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the
+most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I
+instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
+
+The curtain drew up. The usual semi-circle of fairies in white
+muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled
+flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was
+sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees
+open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters.
+It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause,
+and lighting on one foot remained poised in air. Heavens! was this
+the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels?
+Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes,
+that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted checks! Where were the
+vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
+Animula?
+
+The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of
+her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
+athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I
+could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew
+every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the
+Signorina's _pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.
+
+I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
+sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
+impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Aninula was there,--but
+what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
+place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
+lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and
+haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her
+golden hair had faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her!
+I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to
+my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size
+of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had
+forever divided me.
+
+I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
+afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
+contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony.
+The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty.
+Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I
+watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed
+absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered
+that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I
+hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between
+Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the
+microscope. The slide was still there,--but, great heavens! the
+water-drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had
+evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the
+naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
+Animula,--and she was dying!
+
+I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas!
+the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all
+melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
+a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so
+round and lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes
+that shone like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
+golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld
+that final struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
+
+When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
+the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as
+it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
+
+They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
+have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
+and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke
+invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me,
+and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is
+the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture.
+Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly
+memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the
+radiant form of my lost Animula!
+
+
+
+
+THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.
+
+  Amid the aisle, apart, there stood
+  A mourner like the rest;
+  And while the solemn rites were said,
+  He fashioned into verse his mood,
+  That would not be repressed.
+
+  Why did they bring him home,
+  Bright jewel set in lead?
+  Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
+  And lay him with the mighty dead,--
+  With Adonais, and the rest
+  Of all the young and good and fair,
+  That drew the milk of English breast,
+  And their last sigh in Latian air!
+
+  Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
+  Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;
+  For many a lustre, many an aeon,
+  He might sleep well in the Pantheon,
+  Deep in the sacred city's womb,
+  The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
+
+  Lay him 'neath Diocletian's dome,
+  Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
+  Near to that house in which he dwelt,--
+  House that to many seemed a home,
+  So much with him they loved and felt.
+  We were his guests a hundred times;
+  We loved him for his genial ways;
+  He gave me credit for my rhymes,
+  And made me blush with praise.
+
+  Ah! there be many histories
+  That no historian writes,
+  And friendship hath its mysteries
+  And consecrated nights;
+  Amid the busy days of pain,
+  Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
+  Weary midnight, weary morn,
+  Years of struggle paid with scorn;--
+  Yet oft amid all this despair,
+  Long rambles in the Autumn days
+  O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
+  Bright moments snatched from care,
+
+    When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
+      We roved and dined on crust and curds,
+      Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
+    And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
+      And then returning late,
+      After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
+      Suppers and nights of gods; and then
+      Mornings that made us new-born men;
+      Rare nights at the Minerva tavern,
+      With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
+      Free nights, but fearless and without reproof,--
+      For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
+
+    O Rome! what memories awake,
+      When Crawford's name is said,
+    Of days and friends for whose dear sake
+    That path of Hades unto me
+      Will have no more of dread
+    Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice!
+      O Crawford! husband, father, brother
+    Are in that name, that little word!
+      Let me no more my sorrow smother;
+    Grief stirs me, and I must be stirred.
+
+    O Death, thou teacher true and rough!
+      Full oft I fear that we have erred,
+    And have not loved enough;
+    But oh, ye friends, this side of Acheron,
+      Who cling to me to-day,
+    I shall not know my love till ye are gone
+      And I am gray!
+      Fair women with your loving eyes,
+    Old men that once my footsteps led,
+      Sweet children,--much as all I prize,
+    Until the sacred dust of death be shed
+      Upon each dear and venerable head,
+    I cannot love you as I love the dead!
+
+    But now, the natural man being sown,
+    We can more lucidly behold
+      The spiritual one;
+      For we, till time shall end,
+      Full visibly shall see our friend
+    In all his hand did mould,--
+    That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!
+
+    When on some blessed studious day
+    To my loved Library I wend my way,
+    Amid the forms that give the Gallery grace
+    His thought in that pale poet I shall trace,--
+      Keen Orpheus with his eyes
+        Fixed deep in ruddy hell,
+
+  Seeking amid those lurid skies
+  The wife he loved so well,--
+  And feel that still therein I see
+  All that was in my Master's thought,
+  And, in that constant hand wherewith he wrought,
+  The eternal type of constancy.
+  Thou marble husband! might there be
+  More of flesh and blood like thee!
+
+  Or if, in Music's festive hall,
+  I come to cheat me of my care,
+  Amid the swell, the dying fall,
+  His genius greets me there.
+  O man of bronze! thy solemn air--
+  Best soother of a troubled brain--
+  Floods me with memories, and again
+  As thou stand'st visibly to men,
+  Beloved musician! so once more
+  Crawford comes back that did thy form restore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Well,--_requiescat_! let him pass!
+
+  Good mourners, go your several ways!
+  He needs no further rite, nor mass,
+  Nor eulogy, who best could praise
+  Himself in marble and in brass;
+  Yet his best monument did raise,
+  Not in those perishable things
+  That men eternal deem,--
+  The pride of palaces and kings,--
+  But in such works as must avail him there,
+  With Him who, from the extreme
+  Love that was in his breast,
+  Said, "Come, all ye that heavy burdens bear,
+  And I will give you rest!"
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
+
+As a mere literary production, the Message of Mr. Buchanan is so
+superior to any of the Messages of his immediate predecessor, that
+the reader naturally expects to find in it a corresponding
+superiority of sentiment and aim. When we meet a man who is
+well-dressed, and whose external demeanor is that of a gentleman, we
+are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and
+honorable feelings. But we are very often mistaken in this inference;
+the nice garment proves to be little better than a nice disguise;
+and the robe of respectability may cover the heart of a very scurvy
+fellow.
+
+Mr. Buchanan's sentences run smoothly enough; they are for the most
+part grammatical; the tone throughout is sedate, if not dignified;
+and the general spirit unambitious and moderate. But the doctrine,
+in our estimation, is, on the most essential point, atrocious, and
+the objects which are sought to be compassed are unworthy of the man,
+the office, the country, and the age. We refer, of course, to what
+is said of the one vital question with us now, the question of
+Slavery in Kansas; but before proceeding to a discussion of that,
+let us say a word or two of other parts of this important document.
+
+The President introduces, as the first of his topics, the prevailing
+money pressure, which he treats at considerable length, with some
+degree of truth, but without originality or comprehensiveness of view.
+He profiles to inquire into the causes of the unfortunate disasters
+of trade, and into the remedies which may be devised against their
+recurrence; but on neither head is he remarkably profound or
+instructive. It is merely reiterating the commonplaces of the
+newspapers, to talk about "the excessive loans and issues of the
+banks," and to ring changes of phraseology on the vices of
+speculation, over-trading, and stock-jobbing. All the world is as
+familiar with all that as the President can be, and scarcely needed
+a reminder on either score; what we wanted of the head of the nation,--
+what a real statesman, who understood his subject, would have given
+us,--that is, if he had pretended to go at all beyond the simple
+statement of the fact of commercial revulsion, into a discussion of
+it,--was a comprehensive and philosophic analysis of all the causes
+of the phenomenon, a calm and careful review of all its circumstances,
+and a rigid deduction of broad general principles from an adequate
+study of the entire case. But this the President has not furnished.
+In connecting our commercial derangements with the disorders of the
+banking system he has unquestionably struck upon a great and
+fundamental truth; but it is merely a single truth, and he strikes
+it in rather a vague and random way. In considering these reverses,
+there are many things to be taken into account besides the
+constitution and customs, whether good or bad, of our American banks,--
+many things which do not even confine themselves to this continent,
+but are spread over the greater part of the civilized world.
+
+Mr. Buchanan is still lamer in his suggestion of remedies than he is
+in his inquiry after causes. The Federal Government, he thinks, can
+do little or nothing in the premises,--a fatal admission at the
+outset,--and we are coolly turned over to the most unsubstantial and
+impracticable of all reliances, "the wisdom and patriotism of the
+State legislatures"! Why cannot the Federal Government do anything
+in the premises? The President tells us that the Constitution has
+conferred upon Congress the exclusive right "to coin money _and
+regulate the value thereof_," and that it has prohibited the States
+from "issuing bills of credit,"--which phrase, if it mean anything,
+means making paper-money; and the inference would seem to be
+inevitable that Congress has a sovereign authority and power over
+the whole matter. It may, moreover, touch the circulation of bills,
+by means of its indisputable right to lay a stamp-tax upon paper;
+and Mr. Gallatin long ago recommended the exercise of this power, as
+an effectual method of restraining the emission of small notes. Upon
+what principle, then, can the President assert so dictatorially as
+he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If
+the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents,
+and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not
+interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the
+proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of
+which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not
+ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main
+force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we
+think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency;
+but from the stand-point of the President, and with his views of the
+efficiency of legislative restrictions upon banks, we do not see how
+he could consistently avoid recommending the instant action of
+Congress. On the heel of his grandiloquent description of the evils
+of redundant paper money,--evils which are felt all over the country,--
+it is a lamentably impotent conclusion to say, "After all, we can't
+do much to help it! Yes, let us confide piously in 'the wisdom and
+patriotism of the State legislatures,'"--which are almost the last
+places in the world, as things go, where we should look for either
+quality.
+
+Not being able to do anything himself, however, what does he urge
+upon the wise and patriotic State legislatures? Why, a series of
+flimsy restrictions, which would have about as much effect in
+preventing the tremendous abuses of banking which he himself depicts,
+as a bit of filigree iron-work would have in restraining the
+expansion of steam. Restrictions! restrictions! _toujours_
+restrictions!--as if that method of correcting the evil had not been
+utterly exploded by nearly two centuries of experience! Mr. Buchanan
+calls himself a Democrat; he is loud in his protestations of respect
+for the sagacity, the good-sense, and the virtue of the people; his
+political school takes for its motto the well-known adage, "That
+government is best which governs least"; his party, if he does not,
+purports to be a great advocate of the emancipation of trade from
+all the old-fashioned restraints which take the names of protections,
+tariffs, bounties, etc. etc.; and we wonder how it is, that, in his
+presumed excursions over the entire domain of free-trade, he should
+have got no inkling of a thought as to the benefits of free-trade in
+banking. We wonder that so great a subject could be dismissed with
+the suggestion of a few petty restraints.
+
+"If the State legislatures," remarks the President, summing up his
+entire thought, "afford us a real specie basis for our circulation,
+by increasing the denomination of bank-notes, first to twenty, and
+afterwards to fifty dollars; if they will require that the banks
+shall at all times keep on hand at least one dollar of gold and
+silver for every three dollars of their circulation and deposits;
+and if they will provide, by a self-executing enactment, which
+nothing can arrest, that the moment they suspend they shall go into
+liquidation; I believe that such provisions, with a weekly
+publication by each bank of a statement of its condition, would go
+far to secure us against future suspensions of specie payments."
+
+Singular blindness! Mr. Buchanan lived for several years, as
+American ambassador, in England. It is to be presumed that while
+there he used his eyes, and possibly his brains. He must have
+noticed occasionally, at least, in his walks through "the city," the
+immense marble structure in Threadneedle Street, known as the Bank
+of England. It is certain that he has read the history of that bank,
+inasmuch as it is twice or thrice alluded to in his Message; he
+cannot be ignorant, therefore, that the "circulation" of England has
+essentially "a specie basis"; that no bank-notes are issued there for
+less than the amount of twenty-five dollars; that the banks at all
+times keep on hand "one dollar of gold for every three dollars of
+their circulation and deposits"; and that the laws of bankruptcy are
+alike rigid in regard to institutions and individuals. These are
+precisely the provisions which he commends to the adoption of wise
+and patriotic State legislatures as an admirable corrective for
+suspensions; yet he forgets to explain to us how it happens that the
+Bank of England, to which they are all applied, has virtually
+suspended payment six times in the course of its existence, having
+been saved from open dishonor only by the timely assistance of the
+government,--while the trade of England, in spite of the staid and
+conservative habits of the people, is quite as liable to those
+terrific tarantula-dances, called revulsions, as our own. Before
+urging his "restraints," the President ought to have inquired a
+little into the history of such restraints; and he would then have
+saved himself from the absurdity of patronizing remedies which an
+actual trial had proved ludicrously inapt and inefficacious.
+
+With regard to the second topic of the Message,--our foreign
+relations,--it may be said that the positions assumed are frank,
+manly, and explicit; unless we have reason to suspect, in the
+slightly belligerent attitude towards Spain, a return, on the part
+of the President, to one of his old and unlawful loves,--the
+acquisition of Cuba. In that case, we should deplore his language,
+and be inclined to doubt also the sincerity of his just
+denunciations of Walker's infamous schemes of piracy and brigandage.
+Until events, however, have developed the signs of a sinister policy
+of this sort, we must bestow an earnest plaudit upon his decided
+rebuke of the filibusters, coupling that praise with a wish that the
+"vigilance" of his subordinates may hereafter prove of a more
+wide-awake and energetic kind than has yet been manifested.
+
+But for the terms in which the President has disposed of his third
+topic,--the Kansas difficulty,--we can scarcely characterize their
+disingenuousness and meanings. We have already spoken of the object
+of this part of the document as atrocious,--and we repeat the word,
+as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing
+less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked
+the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their
+initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts.
+Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached
+when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the
+antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of
+the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes that the
+late Lecompton Convention was a legitimate Convention, and that the
+Constitution framed by it (or said to have been framed by it,--for
+there is no official report of the instrument as yet) was framed in
+pursuance of proper authority or law. He does not tell us that the
+Territorial legislature which called this Convention was a usurping
+legislature, brought together, as the Congressional records show, by
+an invading horde from a neighboring State; he does not tell us, that,
+even if it had been a properly constituted body in itself, it had no
+right to call a Convention for the purpose of superseding the
+Territorial organization; he does not tell us that the Convention,
+as assembled, represented but one-tenth of the legal voters of the
+Territory; nor does he seem to regard the fact, that the other
+nine-tenths of the people were virtually disfranchised by that
+Convention, so far as their right to determine the provisions of
+their organic law is concerned, as at all a vital and important fact.
+By a miserable juggle, worthy of the frequenters of the
+gambling-house or the race-course, the people of Kansas have been
+nominally allowed to decide the question of Slavery, and that
+permission, according to Mr. Buchanan, fulfils and completes all that
+he ever meant, or his associates ever meant, by the promise of
+popular sovereignty!
+
+Now this may be all that the President and his party ever meant by
+that phrase, but it is not all that their words expressed or the
+country expected. In the course of the last three or four years, and
+by a series of high-handed measures, the established principles of
+the Federal Government, in regard to its management of the
+Territories,--principles sanctioned by every administration from
+Washington's down to Fillmore's,--have been overruled for the sake
+of a new doctrine, which goes by the name of Popular Sovereignty.
+The most sacred and binding compacts of former years were annulled
+to make way for it; and the judicial department of the government
+was violently hauled from its sacred retreat, into the political
+arena, to give a gratuitous _coup-de-grace_ to the old opinions and
+the apparent sanction of law to the new dogma, so that Popular
+Sovereignty might reign triumphant in the Territories. At the
+convention of the party which nominated Mr. Buchanan as a candidate
+for his present office,--"a celebrated occasion," as he calls it,--
+the members affirmed in the most emphatic manner the right of the
+people of all the Territories, including Kansas, to form their own
+Constitutions as they pleased, under the single condition that it
+should be republican. Mr. Buchanan reiterated that assertion in his
+Inaugural address, and in subsequent communications. When he
+appointed Mr. Robert J. Walker Governor of the Territory, he
+instructed him to assure the people that they should be guarantied
+against all "fraud or violence" when they should be called upon
+"to vote for or against the Constitution which would be submitted to
+them," so that there might be "a fair expression of the popular will."
+Nothing, in short, could have been clearer, more direct, more
+frequently repeated, than the asseverations of the "Democratic Party,"
+made through its official representatives, its newspapers, and its
+orators,--to the effect, that its only object, in its Kansas policy,
+was to secure "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty." On the
+strength of these assurances alone, it was enabled to achieve its
+hard-won victory in the last Presidential campaign. Mr. Buchanan
+owes his position to them, as is repeatedly admitted by Mr. Douglas
+in his speech of December 9th last,--and the whole nation, having
+discussed and battled and voted on the principle, acquiesced, as it
+is accustomed to do after an election, in the ascendency of the
+victors. It prepared itself to see the application of the principle
+which had been announced and defended as so important and wise.
+
+Under these pledges and promises, what has been the performance? A
+Convention, for which, inasmuch as it was illegally called by an
+illegal body, a large proportion of the citizens of Kansas refused
+to vote, frames a Constitution, in the interest and according to the
+convictions of the slenderest minority of the people; it
+incorporates in that Constitution a recognition of old Territorial
+laws to the last degree offensive to the majority of the people; it
+incorporates in it a clause establishing slavery in perpetuity; it
+connects with it a Schedule perpetuating the existing slavery,
+whatever it may be, against all future remedy which has not the
+sanction of the slave-master; and then, by a miserable chicane, it
+submits the Constitution to a vote of the people, but it submits it
+under such terms, that the people, if they vote at all, must vote
+_for_ it, whether they like it or not, while the only part in
+which they can exercise any choice is the _clause_ which relates to
+future slavery. The other parts, especially the Schedule, which
+recognizes the existing slavery, and that almost irremediably, the
+people are not allowed to pronounce upon. They are not allowed to
+pronounce upon the thousand-and-one details of the State organization;
+they are fobbed off with a transparent cheat of "heads I win,--tails
+you lose";--and the whole game is denominated, Popular Sovereignty.
+
+What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this
+would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise
+of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is
+amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle,"
+as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the
+approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only
+mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically
+ascertained is by a direct vote"; he admits that the "friends and
+supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when struggling to sustain
+its provisions before the great tribunal of the American people,"
+"everywhere, throughout the Union, publicly pledged their faith and
+honor" to submit the question of their domestic institutions
+"to the decision of the _bona-fide_ people of Kansas, without any
+qualification or restriction whatever"; but then,--and here is the
+subterfuge,--"domestic institutions" means only the single
+institution of slavery; and the Convention, in consenting to yield
+_that_ (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the
+people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of
+Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the
+questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative,
+and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their
+distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of
+taxation, etc., etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and
+provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the
+existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept.
+Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes
+already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced;
+for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is
+already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must
+not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that
+would be "an act of gross injustice." In other words, Popular
+Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to
+vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body,
+under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which
+officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,--
+while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. It is just the
+sort of sovereignty for which Louis Napoleon provided when he wished
+to procure a popular sanction for the numberless atrocities of the
+_coup-d'etat_ of the 2d December.
+
+An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks";
+and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in
+kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed
+himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of
+his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to
+how he shall hide his tracks. He knows, as all the world knows, that
+this jugglery in Kansas has been performed for no other purpose than
+to secure a foothold for Slavery there, against the demonstrated
+opinion of nine-tenths of the people; he knows, as all the world
+knows, that if the Convention had had the least desire to arrive at
+a fair expression of the popular will, on the question of Slavery or
+any other question, it was easy to make a candid and honorable
+submission of it to an election to be held honestly under the
+recognized officers of the Territory; but he knows, also, that under
+such circumstances the case would have been carried overwhelmingly
+against the "domestic institution," and thus have rebuked, with all
+the emphasis that an outraged community could give to the expression
+of its will, the nefarious conduct which "the party" has pursued
+from the beginning,--and this was a consummation not to be wished.
+He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent
+inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely
+about "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty."
+
+The President thinks that it is time that these troubles in Kansas
+were at an end, and we cordially agree with him in the sentiment;
+but he needs scarcely to be reminded that they never will be at an
+end, until the wicked schemes, which have been so long persisted in,
+to override the convictions and hopes and interests of a large
+majority of the Kansas settlers, are utterly abandoned by those who
+are in power.
+
+Of the remaining and mostly routine topics of the Message we have no
+occasion to speak; and we only regret that the deficiencies of the
+most important parts are so glaring as to oblige us to treat them
+with undisguised severity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WEDDING VEIL.
+
+  Dear Anna, when I brought her veil,
+  Her white veil, on her wedding-night,
+  Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds,
+  And, laughing, turned me to the light.
+
+  "See, Bessie, see! you wear for once
+  The bridal veil, forsworn for years!"
+  She saw my face,--her laugh was hushed,
+  Her happy eyes were filled with tears.
+
+  With kindly haste and trembling hand
+  She drew away the gauzy mist;
+  "Forgive, dear heart!"--her sweet voice said;
+  Her loving lips my forehead kissed.
+
+  We passed from out the searching light;
+  The summer night was calm and fair:
+  I did not see her pitying eyes,
+  I felt her soft hand smooth my hair.
+
+  Her tender love unlocked my heart;
+  'Mid falling tears, at last I said,
+  "Forsworn indeed to me that veil,
+  Because I only love the dead!"
+
+  She stood one moment statue-still,
+  And, musing, spake in under-tone,
+  "The living love may colder grow;
+  The dead is safe with God alone!"
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+  _The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History
+  of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
+  I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
+
+This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
+account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
+beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
+as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
+planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
+has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
+
+Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
+historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
+wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
+sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
+vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
+excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
+religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
+his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
+long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
+strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
+reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
+the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
+book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
+priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
+they were engaged.
+
+Mr. Helps has investigated his subject with zeal, industry, and
+patience. He has sought out the original authorities, has brought to
+light many important facts, has redeemed some great memories from
+unjust oblivion, and has presented a new view of several of the
+chief features of the history. In a graceful advertisement to the
+third volume he says, "The reader will observe that there is
+scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern
+writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for
+the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the
+conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object
+in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs;
+and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these
+eminent persons might have exercised upon it."
+
+A considerable space in these volumes is devoted to an investigation
+of the character and condition of the native races of the continent
+at the period of the Spanish Conquest. This subject is treated with
+peculiar skill and learning, and with unusual power of sympathetic
+analysis and appreciation of remote and obscure developments of
+society. Another portion of the history, which his plan has led
+Mr. Helps to treat at length and with exhaustive thoroughness, is
+the early relations between the conquerors and the conquered,
+embracing the method of settlement of the different countries, the
+whole disastrous system of _ripartimientos_ and _encomiendas_, which,
+in its full development, led to the destruction of the native
+population of Hispaniola, and to the introduction of negroes into
+this and the other West India islands to supply the demand for
+laborers.
+
+Another most interesting portion of his subject, and one which has
+never till now been fairly exhibited, relates to the labors of the
+Dominican and Franciscan monks, and their admirable and unwearied
+efforts to counteract and to remedy some of the bitterest evils of
+the conquest. Theirs were the first protests that were raised
+against slavery in America, and their ranks afforded the first
+martyrs in the cause of the Indian and the Negro. Las Casas has
+found an eloquent and just biographer, and Mr. Helps has the
+satisfaction of having securely placed his name among the few that
+deserve the lasting honor and remembrance of the world. The
+narrative of Las Casas's life is one of strong dramatic interest.
+His life was a varied and remarkable one, even for those times of
+striking contrasts and varieties in the fortunes of men; and in
+Mr. Helps's pages one sees the man himself, with his simplicity and
+elevation of purpose, his honesty of motive, his energy, his
+impetuosity, his courage, and his faith.
+
+The three volumes already published embrace the progress of Spanish
+conquest from the first discoveries of Columbus to Pizarro's
+incursion into Peru. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Helps may
+continue his work, at least to the period when the Spanish conquest
+and colonization were met and limited by the conquest and the
+colonization of the other European nations. Its importance, as a wise,
+thoughtful, unpolemic investigation of the origin and the results of
+Slavery, is hardly to be overestimated. The space allowed to a
+critical notice does not permit us to render it full justice. We can
+do little more than recommend it warmly to the readers of history
+and to the students of the most difficult and the darkest social
+problem of the age.
+
+
+
+  _Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American
+  Engineers. Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae for
+  the Location, Construction, Equipment, and Management of Railroads,
+  as built in the United States_. With 158 Illustrations. By GEORGE L.
+  VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1857. 12 mo. pp. 480.
+
+All who trust their persons to railroad cars, or their estates to
+railroad stocks, will welcome every effort to enlighten that
+irresponsible body of railroad builders and managers in whose wits
+we put our faith.
+
+The work which we here notice is intended for uneducated American
+engineers, of whom there are unfortunately too many. The rapidity
+with which our railroads have been built, and the experimental
+character of this new branch of engineering, have obliged us to
+resort to such native ability and mother wit as our people could
+afford. The great body of our railroad engineers have had no training
+but the experience they have blundered through; and even our
+railroad financiers are men more distinguished for courage and
+energy than for experimental skill. Mr. Vose's book will doubtless
+be of great service in remedying these evils, by bringing within the
+reach of every intelligent man a valuable and very carefully
+prepared summary of such rules, formulas, and statistics as our
+railroad experiences have furnished and proved.
+
+Railroad engineering and management have united almost every branch
+of mechanical and financial science, and have developed several new
+and peculiar arts; so that the successful construction, equipment,
+and management of a railroad require a rare combination of
+accomplishments. Managers hitherto have been too little acquainted
+with their business to settle many questions of economy, but they
+are now beginning to look upon their enterprises with cooler
+judgments.
+
+The "Handbook" discusses several questions of economy, but seeks,
+especially in its rules and formulas, to avoid those risks by which
+economy has often been turned into the most ruinous extravagance. On
+the question of fuel, our author advocates the use of coke as the
+most economical and convenient, and every way preferable where it
+can be readily obtained. He also urges, on economical grounds, a
+more moderate rate of speed in railroad travel; thus showing that we
+may save our forests, our lives, and a considerable expense all at
+the same time.
+
+The style is clear, and, for a work not professing to be a complete
+treatise, but only a manual of useful facts, the arrangement is
+admirable. The book is thoroughly practical, and touches upon such
+matters, and for the most part upon such matters only, as are likely
+to be of service to the practical man; yet it is quite elementary in
+its character, and free from unnecessary technicalities.
+
+The book has, however, one great fault. It is full of errata. No
+carefully prepared table of corrections can make amends for such a
+fault in a book in which typographical correctness is of the
+greatest importance. To insert in their places with a pen more than
+two hundred published corrections is a labor which no reader would
+willingly undertake. We hope, therefore, that a new and correct
+edition will soon be published.
+
+
+
+  _The Life of Handel_. By VICTOR SCHOELCHER. Reprinted from the
+    London Edition. New York: Mason, Brothers.
+
+It is a remarkable fact, and one not very creditable to the musical
+public of England, that the works of Mainwaring, Hawkins, Barney,
+and Coxe should remain for almost an entire century after the death
+of Handel our main sources of information concerning his career, and
+that the first attempt to write a complete biography of that great
+composer, correcting the errors, reconciling the contradictions, and
+supplying the deficiencies of those authors, should be from the pen
+of a French exile. And yet during all this time materials have been
+accumulating, the fame of the composer has been extending, the demand
+for such a work increasing, and the number of intelligent and
+elegant English writers upon music growing greater.
+
+M. Schoelcher's work, though perhaps the most valuable contribution
+to musical historical literature which has for many years appeared
+from the English press, leaves much to be desired. Excepting a
+correction of the chronology of Handel's visit to Italy, very little,
+if anything, of importance is added to what we already possessed in
+regard to the early history of the composer. We look in vain for the
+means of tracing the development of his genius. The impression left
+upon the mind of the reader is, that his powers showed themselves
+suddenly in full splendor, and that at a single bound he placed
+himself at the head of the dramatic composers of his age. This was
+not true of Hasse, Mozart, Gluck, Cherubini, Weber, in dramatic
+composition; nor of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, in other branches of the
+musical art. However great a man's genius may be, he must live and
+learn. To attain the highest excellence, long continued study is
+necessary; and Handel, as we believe, was no exception to the
+general law.
+
+The list of works consulted by M. Schoelcher, prefixed to the
+biography, shows that he has by no means exhausted the German
+authorities which may be profitably used in writing upon the early
+history of Handel: indeed, the author, though of German descent, is
+unacquainted with the German language. We can learn from them the
+state of dramatic music at that time in Berlin, Leipsic, Brunswick,
+Hanover, Koethen; we can form from them some correct idea of the
+powers of Keiser, Steffani, Graupner, Schieferdecker, Telemann,
+Gruenwald, and others, then in possession of the lyric stage; we can
+thus estimate the influences which led Handel from the path that
+Bach so successfully followed, into that which he pursued with equal
+success; and though the amount of matter relating to him personally
+be small, much that throws light upon his early life still remains
+inaccessible to the English reader.
+
+The biography of a great creative artist must in great measure
+consist of a history of his works; and the great value of the
+book before us arises from the searching examination to which
+M. Schoelcher has subjected the several collections of Handel's
+manuscripts which are preserved in England, one of which, in some
+respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This
+examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful
+and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the
+various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to
+correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by
+step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio,
+which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general
+reader, perhaps, M. Schoelcher has been drawn too far into detail,
+and some passages of his work might have been better reserved for
+his "Catalogue of Handel's Works"; but these details are of the
+highest value to the student of musical literature, and, indeed,
+form for him the principal charm of the work. The importance of the
+author's labors can be duly appreciated only by those who have had
+occasion to study somewhat extensively the musical history of the
+last century. For them the results of those labors as here presented
+are invaluable.
+
+
+
+  _Sermons of the_ REV. C. H. SPURGEON, of London. Third Series.
+    New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
+
+There can be no doubt of the merit of these sermons, considered as
+examples of method and embodiments of character. Whatever elements
+of Christianity may be left unexpressed in them, it is certain that
+Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in expressing himself. His discourses at
+least give us Christianity as he understands, feels, and lives it.
+They should be studied by all clergymen who desire to master the
+secret of influencing masses of men. They will afford valuable hints
+in respect to method, even when their spirit, tone, and teaching
+present no proper model for imitation. Mr. Spurgeon, we suppose,
+would be classed among Calvinists, but he is not merely that.
+Without any force, depth, amplitude, or originality of thought, he
+has considerable force and originality of nature. He detaches from
+their relations certain doctrines of Calvinism which especially
+interest him, and so emphasizes and intensifies them, so blends them
+with his personal being and experience, that the impression he
+stamps upon the mind is rather of Spurgeonism than Calvinism. He
+gives vivid reality to his doctrines, because they are incorporated
+with his nature,--and not merely with his spiritual, but with his
+animal nature. He is thoroughly in earnest from the fact that he
+preaches himself. His converts, therefore, are likely to mistake
+being Spurgeonized for being Christianized; for the Christianity he
+preaches is not so much vital Christianity as it is Christianity
+passed through the vitalities of his own nature, and essentially
+modified and lowered in the process. To understand, then, the kind
+of influence he exerts, we have simply to inquire, What kind of man
+is Mr. Spurgeon?
+
+The answer to this question is given on every page of his sermons.
+He has no reserves, but lets his character transpire in every
+sentence. He is a bold, eager, earnest, devout, passionate,
+well-intentioned man, with considerable experience in the sphere of
+the religious emotions, full of sympathy with rough natures, full of
+mother wit and practical sagacity, but, as a theologian, coarse,
+ignorant, narrow-minded, and strikingly deficient in fine spiritual
+perceptions. These qualities inhere in a nature of singular vigor,
+intensity, and directness, that sends out words like bullets. Warmth
+of feeling combined with narrowness of mind makes him a bigot; but
+his bigotry is not the sour assertion of an opinion, but the racy
+utterance of a nature. He believes in Spurgeonism so thoroughly and
+so simply that toleration is out of the question, and doctrines
+opposed to his own he refers, with instantaneous and ingenuous
+dogmatism, to folly or wickedness. "I think," he says, in one of his
+sermons, "I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites.
+I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one
+person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe
+the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so
+nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts
+that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were
+taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe
+it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort,
+that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to some of
+the dogmas of their assailant. Indeed, the incapacity of our
+preacher to discern, or mentally to reproduce, a religious character
+differing in creed from his own, makes him the most amusingly
+intolerant of Popes, not because he is malignant, but because he is
+Spurgeon. If he had learning or largeness of mind, he would probably
+lose the greater portion of his power. He gets his hearers into a
+corner, limits the range of their vision to the doctrine he is
+expounding, refuses to listen to any excuses or palliations, and
+then screams out to them, "Believe or be damned!" In his own mind he
+is sure they will be damned, if they do not believe. So far as
+regards his influence over those minds whose religious emotions are
+strong, but whose religious principles are weak, every limitation of
+his mind is an increase of his force.
+
+This theological narrowness is unaccompanied with theological rancor.
+A rough but genuine benevolence is at the heart of Mr. Spurgeon's
+system. He wishes his opponents to be converted, not condemned. He
+very properly feels, that, with his ideas of the Divine Government,
+he would be the basest of criminals, if he spared himself, or spared
+either entreaty or denunciation, in the great work of saving souls.
+He throws himself with such passionate earnestness into his business,
+that his sermons boil over with the excitement of his feelings.
+Indeed, it is difficult to say whether our impressions of him,
+derived from the written page, come to us more from the eye than the
+ear. His very style foams, rages, prays, entreats, adjures, weeps,
+screams, warns, and execrates. His words are words that everybody
+understands,--bold, blunt, homely, quaint, level to his nature, all
+alive with passion, and directed with the single purpose of carrying
+the fortresses of sin by assault. The reader who contrives to
+preserve his calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed
+that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions
+so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so
+materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest
+living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian
+spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and
+purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all,
+little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican,
+easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of
+his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may
+thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify
+him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does
+he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure,
+as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny
+nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to
+insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, if alive,
+would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the
+doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his
+hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted
+religion in order that the public "might be more generally
+accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's
+celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine"
+from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's
+nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination,
+and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously
+impressed, he animalizes his creed in attempting to give it
+sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this
+process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by
+more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened
+to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind
+than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on
+"Regeneration." But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon's preaching is
+liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but
+because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original,
+exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It
+is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of
+every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people.
+But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded
+nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for
+the poor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Roumania: the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk.
+  Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia_.
+  By JAMES O. NOYES, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd &
+  Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
+
+Dr. James Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all
+over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny
+atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough
+not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness,
+energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a
+book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him
+a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of
+labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,--or unless some African prince
+cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their
+Thanksgiving-time.
+
+Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
+so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake,
+so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so
+perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers,
+and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who
+missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he
+had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval,
+but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
+
+In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change
+Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and
+lively descriptions,--perhaps a little too overlarded and
+oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,--but as lively as a
+golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most
+readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new
+costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make
+its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the
+work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the
+card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will
+very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be
+the better for the acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Dante's Hell_. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation.
+    By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
+
+A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real
+learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the
+present day a _new_ translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might
+claim exemption from this _dictum_, on the ground that his
+translation is not a _new_ one; but he himself does not put in this
+plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or
+declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his
+Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent,
+"The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and
+must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of
+disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who
+have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as
+their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more
+literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all."
+Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous
+translations of Dante could descend to _such_ labor and plodding as
+his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of
+the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has
+afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first
+progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or
+refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of
+the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not
+divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "Art thou, then, that Virgil and that fountain
+  which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? I answered him with bashful front.
+  O glory and light of other poets! May the
+  long zeal avail me and the great love which
+  made me search thy volume. Thou art my
+  master and my author."
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "Art thou that Virgil and that fountain,
+  then, which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? With bashful forehead him I gave
+  reply. O light and glory of the other bards!
+  May the long zeal and the great love avail me
+  that hath caused me thy volume to explore.
+  Thou art my master, thou my author art."
+
+Opening again at random, we take the two translations at the
+beginning of the Eighth Canto.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before we
+  reached the foot of the high tower our eyes
+  went upward to the summit, because of two
+  flamelets that we saw put there; and another
+  from far gave signal back,--so far that the
+  eye could scarcely catch it. And I, turning
+  to the Sea of all knowledge, said: What says
+  this? and what replies yon other light? And
+  who are they that made it?"
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before unto
+  the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
+  unto its summit upward went, cause of two
+  flamelets that we saw there placed; while
+  signal back another gave from far; so far the
+  eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
+  the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
+  sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
+  And who are they that made it?"
+
+We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
+between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
+perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
+the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
+text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
+striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
+Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
+unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
+acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
+little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
+_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
+In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
+greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
+appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
+all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
+Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
+translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
+narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
+of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
+read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
+quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchia" would have set him
+right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
+has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
+to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
+with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
+give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
+the following lines:--
+
+  Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
+  Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
+
+Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
+displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
+familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
+
+  Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
+
+Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
+Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
+which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
+and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
+
+Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
+learning; witness such lines as these:--
+
+  "My parents natives of Lombardy were."
+  "They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
+  "Like as at Palo near the Quarnaro."
+  "I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
+
+We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author
+declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He
+says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a
+specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one,
+the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear
+until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for
+which we may yet have to wait some time.
+
+We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of
+Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character
+of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name
+to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious
+participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will
+soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent
+translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long
+since, bearing their imprint.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and
+    other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+
+On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became
+light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric
+in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which
+we cannot find some novel image, _some Shakspearian felicity_ of
+expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the
+"Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another
+exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
+compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
+you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
+however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
+"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
+extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
+that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
+the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
+creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
+fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
+splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
+as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
+total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
+of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
+satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
+idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
+one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
+small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
+itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
+for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
+imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
+which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the
+luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
+pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
+his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
+has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
+demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
+not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
+should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
+are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
+and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
+each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
+exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
+subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
+are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
+the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
+striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
+many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
+close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
+award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOREIGN.
+
+
+  _Der Reichspostreiter in Ludwigsburg, Novelle auf geschichtlichem
+  Hintergrunde_. Von Robert Heller. 1858.
+
+A very interesting novel indeed, sketching life at the little court
+of the Duke of Wurtemberg at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
+and the overthrow of the government of a famous mistress of the Duke,
+the Countess Wuerben. The main points of interest in the story are
+historical, and the tissue of fiction interwoven with these is
+remarkably well arranged. Herr Heller belongs to the school of
+German novelists who, like Hermann Kurz, and others of minor mark,
+make a copious and comprehensive use of historical facts in Art.
+Their object and aim seem to be rather to illustrate and embody the
+historical facts in the flesh and blood of tangible reality, than
+merely to amuse by transforming history into a material for poetical
+entertainment. With all that, the abovenamed little volume is amply
+worth reading.
+
+
+
+  _Une Ete dans le Sahara_, par Eugene Fromentin. Paris. 1857.
+
+A painter describes here a summer journey through the Desert of
+Sahara, as far south from Algiers as El Aghouat, in the year 1853.
+There is not much that is new in this book, considering the many
+later and far more comprehensive and extensive illustrations of life
+in the Great Desert, since published by Bayard Taylor, Barth, and
+others; but it is a very interesting picture of this life, as seen
+and drawn by a painter. His descriptions contain many landscape and
+_genre_ pictures, by means of which a vivid idea of the scenery
+and life are conveyed to the imagination of the reader.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JANUARY 1858 ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+#3 in our series by Various
+
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+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858
+       A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8947]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 28, 2003]
+[Date last updated: May 4, 2005]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. ***
+
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+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Robert Prince and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS
+
+VOL. I--JANUARY, 1858.--NO. III.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
+
+If building many houses could teach us to build them well, surely we
+ought to excel in this matter. Never was there such a house-building
+people. In other countries the laws interfere,--or customs,
+traditions, and circumstances as strong as laws; either capital is
+wanting, or the possession of land, or there are already houses
+enough. If a man inherit a house, he is not likely to build another,--
+nor if he inherit nothing but a place in an inevitable line of
+lifelong hand-to-mouth toil. In such countries houses are built
+wholesale by capitalists, and only by a small minority for themselves.
+
+And where the man inherits no house, he at least inherits the
+traditional pattern of one, or the nature of the soil decides the
+main points; as you cannot build of brick where there is no clay,
+nor of wood where there are no forests. But here every man builds a
+house for himself, and every one freely according to his whims. Many
+materials are nearly equally cheap, and all styles and ways of
+building equally open to us; at least the general appearance of most
+should be known to us, for we have tried nearly all. Our public
+opinion is singularly impartial and cosmopolitan, or perhaps we
+should rather say knowing and unscrupulous. All that is demanded of
+a house is, that it should be of an "improved style," or at least
+"something different." Nothing will excuse it, if old-fashioned,--
+and hardly anything condemn it, if it have novelty enough.
+
+And this latitude is not confined to the owner's scheme of his house,
+but extends also to the executive department. In other countries,
+however extravagant your fancy, you are brought within some bounds
+when you come to carry it out; for the architect and the builder have
+been trained to certain rules and forms, and these will enter into
+all they do. But here every man is an architect who can handle a
+T-square, and every man a builder who can use a plane or a trowel;
+and the chances are that the owner thinks he can do all as well as
+either of them. For if every man in England thinks he can write a
+leading article, much more every Yankee thinks he can build a house.
+Never was such freedom from the rule of tradition. A fair field and
+no favor; whatever that can accomplish we shall have.
+
+The result, it must be confessed, is not gratifying. For if you
+sometimes find a man who is satisfied with his own house, yet his
+neighbors sneer at it, and he at his neighbors' houses. And even with
+himself it does not usually wear well. The common case is that even
+he accepts it as a confessed failure, or at best a compromise. And
+if he does not confess the failure, (for association, pride,
+use-and-wont reconcile one to much), the house confesses it. For
+what else but self-confessed failures are these thin wooden or cheap
+brick walls, temporarily disguised as massive stone,--this roof,
+leaking from the snow-bank retained by the Gothic parapet, or the
+insufficient slope which the "Italian style" demands?
+
+There is no lack of endeavor to make the house look well. People
+will sacrifice almost anything to that. They will strive their
+chambers into the roof,--they will have windows where they do not
+want them, or leave them out where they do,--in our tropical summers
+they will endure the glare and heat of the sun, rather than that
+blinds should interfere with the moulded window-caps, or with the
+style generally,--they will break up the outline with useless and
+expensive irregularity,--they will have brackets that support nothing,
+and balconies and look-outs upon which no one ever steps after the
+carpenter leaves them,--all for the sake of pleasing the eye. And
+all this without any real and lasting success,--with a success,
+indeed, that seems often in an inverse ratio to the effort. If a man
+have a pig-stye to build, or a log-house in the woods, he may hit
+upon an agreeable outline; but let him set out freely and with all
+deliberation to build something that shall be beautiful, and he fails.
+
+Not that the failure is peculiar at all to us. In Europe there may,
+perhaps, be less bad taste,--though I am not sure of that; but there,
+and everywhere, I think, the memorable houses, among those of recent
+date, are not those carefully elaborated for effect,--the
+premeditated irregularity of the English Gothic, the trig regularity
+of the French Pseudo-Classic, or the studied rusticity of Germany,--
+but such as seem to have grown of themselves out of the place where
+they stand,--Swiss _chalets_, Mexican or Manila plantation-houses,
+Italian farm-houses, built, nobody knows when or by whom, and built
+without any thought of attracting attention. And here I think we get
+a hint as to the reason of their success. For a house is not a
+monument, that it should seek to draw attention to itself,--but the
+dwelling-place of men upon the earth; and it must show itself to be
+wholly secondary to its purpose.
+
+We have had a good deal of exhortation lately, now getting rather
+wearisome, about avoiding pretence in architecture, and that we
+should let things show for what they are. The avoidance of pretence
+should begin farther back. If the house is _all_ pretence, we shall
+not help it by "frankness of treatment" in details.
+
+The house is the sign of man's entering into possession of the earth.
+A houseless savage, living on wild game and accidental fruits, is an
+alien in nature, or a minor not yet come to his estate. As soon as
+he begins to cultivate the soil he builds him a house,--no longer a
+hut or a cave but the work of his own hands, and as permanent as his
+tenure of the cultivated field. If that is to descend to his children,
+the house must be so built as to endure accordingly. It is the
+material expression of the _status_ of the family,--such people in
+such a place. Hence the two-fold requirement of fitness for its use
+and of harmony with its surroundings. A log-house is the appropriate
+dwelling of the lumberer in the woods; but transplant it to a
+suburban lawn and it becomes an absurdity, and a double absurdity.
+It is not in harmony with the place, nor fit for the use of the
+citizen. Nothing more satisfactory in their place than the old
+English parish-churches; but transfer one of them from its natural
+atmosphere and surroundings to the midst of one of our raw villages
+or bustling cities, exposed to the sudden and violent changes of our
+climate,--the open timber roof admitting the heat and the cold, and
+the stone walls bedewed with condensed moisture,--and after the first
+pleasant impression of the moment is over, there is left only a
+painful feeling of mimicry, not to be removed by any precision of
+copying, nor by the feeble attempts at ivy in the corners.
+
+This is all evident enough, and in principle generally admitted; but
+we dodge the application of the principle, because we are not ready
+to admit to ourselves, what history, apart from any reasoning, would
+show us, that those importations are failures, and that not
+accidentally in these particular cases, leaving the hope of better
+success for the next trial, but necessarily, and because they are
+importations.
+
+All good architecture must be the gradual growth of its country and
+its age,--the accumulation of men's experience, adding and leaving
+out from generation to generation. The air of permanence and stability
+that we admire in it must be gained by a slow and solid growth.
+It is the product, not of any one man's skill, but of a nation's;
+and its type, accordingly, must be gradually formed.
+
+But in this, as in everything else, there must be an aim, and one
+persisted in, else no experience is gained. A mere succession of
+generations will do nothing, if for each of them the whole problem
+is changed. The man of to-day cannot profit by his father's
+experience in the building of his house, if his culture, his habits,
+his associates, are different from his father's,--much less if they
+have changed since his own youth, and are changing from year to year.
+He will not imitate, he will not forbear to alter. On such shifting
+sands no enduring structure is possible, but only a tent for the
+night.
+
+We talk of the laws of architecture; but the fundamental law of all,
+and one that is sure to be obeyed, is, that the dwelling shall
+typify man's appropriation of the earth and its products,--what we
+call property. A man's house is naturally just as fixed a quantity
+as the kind and the amount of his possessions, and no more so. The
+style of it, depending on the inherited ideas of the class to
+which he belongs, will be as formed and as fixed as that class.
+Then where there is no fixed class, and where the property of
+every man is constantly varying, our quantity will be just so
+variable, and the true type of our architecture will be the
+tent,--of the frame-and-clapboard variety suited to the climate.
+
+For good architecture, then, we need castes in society, and fixed
+ways of living. We see the effect in the old parsonages in England,
+where from year to year have dwelt men of the same class, education,
+income, tastes, and circumstances generally, and so bringing from
+generation to generation nearly the same requirements, with the
+unessential changes brought in from time to time by new wants or
+individual fancies, here and there putting out a bay-window or
+adding a wing, but always in the spirit of the original building,
+and the whole getting each year more weather-stained and ivy-grown,
+and so toned into more complete harmony with the landscape, yet
+still living and expansive.
+
+It may be said that the result is here a partly accidental one, and
+not a matter of art. But domestic architecture is only half-way a
+fine art. It does not aim at a beauty of the monumental kind, as a
+statue, a triumphal arch, or even a temple does. Its primary aim is
+shelter, to house man in nature,--and it forms, as it were, the
+connecting link between him and the outward world. Its results,
+therefore, are partly the free artistic production, and partly
+retain unmodified their material character. In the image carved by
+the sculptor, the stone or wood used derive little of their effect
+from the original material; the important character is that imparted
+to them by his skill. Still more the canvas and pigments of the
+painter. But in architecture the wood and stone still fulfil the
+offices of covering, connecting, and supporting, as they did in the
+tree and the quarry, and their physical properties play an essential
+part in the work. The house, therefore, is a work of art only half
+emancipated from nature, and must depend on nature for much of its
+beauty also. It must not be isolated, as something merely to be
+looked at, apart from its position and its material use.
+
+The common mistake in our houses is, that they are designed, as
+inexperienced persons choose their paper-hangings, to be something
+of themselves, and not as mere background, as they should be. Thus
+it is that people seek to beautify their houses by ornamenting them,
+as a vulgar person sticks himself over with jewelry. A man's house
+is only a wider kind of dress; and as we do not call a man
+well-dressed when we are forced to see his dress before we see him,
+so a house cannot be satisfactory when it isolates itself from its
+inmates and from the landscape. In such houses, the more _effort_
+the worse they are; they may cheat us for the moment, but the oftener
+we see them the less we like them. Does not the uncomfortable
+sensation with which fine houses so often oppress us arise from the
+vague feeling that the owner has built himself out of his house, and
+his house out of the landscape?
+
+Hence it is mostly the novices that build the fine houses. A man of
+sense, I think, will generally build his second house plainer than
+his first. Not that he desires, perhaps, any the less what he
+desired before, but he is more alive to the difficulties and to the
+cost, and takes refuge in the safety of a lower scale. His
+experience has taught him that where he succeeded best he was really
+farthest from the end he sought. The fine house requires that its
+accessories should be in kind. All things within and without, the
+approach, the grounds, the furniture, must be brought up to the same
+pitch, and kept there. And when all is done, it is not done, but
+forever demands retouching. What is got in this kind cannot be paid
+for with money, nor finished once for all, but is a never-sated
+absorbent of time, thought, life. And it attacks the owner, too; he
+must conform, in his dress, his equipage, and his habits generally;
+he must be as fine as his house. The nicer his taste the more any
+incongruity will offend him, and the greater the danger of his
+becoming more or less an appendage to his house.
+
+Much of that chronic ailment of our society, the "trials of
+housekeeping," is traceable to this source. This is a complicated
+trouble, and probably other causes have their share in it. But we
+cannot fail to recognize in these seemingly accidental obstructions
+a stern, but beneficent adjustment of our circumstances to enforce a
+simplicity which we should else neglect. One cannot greatly
+deprecate the terrors of high rents and long bills, and the
+sufferings from clumsy and careless domestics, if they help to keep
+down senseless profusion and display.
+
+Our problem is, in truth, one of greater difficulty than at first
+appears. For we are each of us striving to do, by the skill and
+forethought of one man, what naturally accomplishes itself in a
+succession of generations and with the aid of circumstances. It is
+from our freedom that the trouble arises. Were our society composed
+of few classes, widely and permanently distinct, a fitting style for
+each would naturally arise and become established and perfected.
+There would be fewer occasions for new houses, and the new house
+would be less novel in style, and so two difficulties would be
+overcome. For novelty of style is a drawback to effect, as tending
+to isolate the house; and a new house is always at a disadvantage.
+Nature, in any case, is slow to adopt our handiwork into the
+landscape; sometimes the assimilation is so difficult that it must
+be ruined for its original purpose before it will be accepted.
+Sooner or later, indeed, it will be accepted. For though most of our
+buildings seem even in decay to resist the harmonizing hand of Nature,
+and to grow only ghastly and not venerable in dilapidation, yet
+leave them long enough and what of beauty was possible to them will
+appear, though it be only a crumbling heap of bricks where the
+chimney stood, or the grassy slope where the cellar-wall has fallen
+in.
+
+It is for this reason that persons of taste have taken pains to face
+their houses with weather-stained and lichen-crusted stone, or
+invent proper names for them, in imitation of the English
+manor-houses. But Nature is jealous of this helping, and neither the
+lichens nor the names will stick, for the reason that they never
+grew there. They cannot be naturalized without naturalizing their
+conditions. The gray ancestral houses of England are the beautiful
+symbols of the permanence of family and of caste. They are the
+embodiments of traditional institutions and culture. When we speak
+of the House of Stanley or of Howard, the expression is not wholly
+figurative. We do not mean simply the men and women of these families,
+but the whole complex of this manifold environment which has
+descended to them and in the midst of which they have grown up,--no
+more to be separated from it than the polyp from the coral stem.
+All this is centralized and has its expression in the House.
+
+Now as these conditions are not our conditions, the attempt to build
+fine houses is an attempt to import an effect where the cause has
+not existed. Our position is that of a perpetually shifting
+population,--the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place,
+circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and,
+whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally
+build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance
+rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the
+feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in
+outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so
+niched into the rock, that a change of fortune, or even a change in
+the direction of a town-road, shall leave us high and dry, like the
+fossils of the Norwegian cliffs, but rather, like the shell-fish of
+our beaches, free to travel up and down with the tide.
+
+The imitating of foreign examples comes from no real, heart-felt
+demand, but only from a fancied or simulated demand,--from tradition,
+association; at second-hand in one shape or another. It is at bottom
+something of the same flunkeyism that in a more exaggerated form
+assumes heraldic bearings and puts its servants into livery.
+
+It may well reconcile us to our deprivation to remember at what cost
+these things we admire are established and kept up. The imagination
+is pleased with this stability; but it is bought too dear, if
+progress is to be sacrificed to it, if the freedom and the true
+lives of the members are to be merged in the family, and if they are
+to be the stones of which the house is built. It is not desirable to
+be _adscriptus glebes_, whether the bonds be physical or only moral
+ones. We may well be content to have our limits free, even though
+our architecture suffer for it. It is better that houses should
+belong to men, and not men to houses.
+
+But whether we are content or not, it is evident that all hope of
+improvement lies in the tendency, somewhat noticeable of late, to
+the abnegation of exotic styles and graces. We have survived the
+Parthenon pattern, and there seems to be a prospect that we shall
+outlive the Gothic cottage. Even the Anglo-Italian bracketed villa
+has seen its palmiest days apparently, and exhausted most of its
+variations. We are in an extremely chaotic state just now; but there
+seems to be an inclination towards more rational ways, at least in
+the plans and general arrangement of houses.
+
+Of course mere negation cannot carry us far. We sometimes hear it
+said that it is as easy for a house to look well as to look ill, and
+those who say this seem to think that the failure is due solely to
+want of due consideration of the problem on the part of our builders,
+and that we have but to leave out their blunders to get at a
+satisfactory result. But if we look at the facts of the case, we
+find the builders have some reason on their side.
+
+Nothing can be more unsightly than the stalky, staring houses of our
+villages, with their plain gable-roofs, of a pitch neither high
+enough nor low enough for beauty, and disfigured, moreover, by mere
+excrescences of attic windows, and over the whole structure the
+awkward angularity, and the look of barren, mindless conformity and
+uniformity in the general outlines, and the meagre, frittered effect
+inherent in the material. But when we come to build, we find that
+the blockheads who invented this style, or no-style, have got at the
+cheapest way of supplying the first imperative demands of the people
+for whom they build,--namely, to be walled in and roofed
+weather-tight, and with a decent neatness, but without much care
+that the house should be solid and enduring,--for it cannot well be
+so flimsy as not to outlast the owner's needs. He does not look to
+it as the habitation of his children,--hardly as his own for his
+lifetime,--but as a present shelter, easily and quickly got ready,
+and as easily plucked up and carried off again. The common-law of
+England looks upon a house as real estate, as part of the soil; but
+with us it is hardly a fixture.
+
+Surely nothing can be more simple and common-sense than an ordinary
+New England house, but at the same time nothing can be uglier. The
+outline, the material, the color and texture of the surface are at
+all points opposed to breadth of effect or harmony with the
+surroundings. There is neither mass nor elegance; there are no lines
+of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of
+shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be
+impressive, and too large to be overlooked,--and finally, the paint,
+of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky
+blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of
+assimilation,--all combine to form something that shall forever
+remain a blot in the landscape.
+
+Evidently it is not merely a more common-sense treatment that we want;
+for here is sufficient simplicity, but a simplicity barren of all
+satisfaction. And singularly enough, it seems, with all its
+meagreness, to pass easily into an ostentatious display. In these
+houses there is no thought of "architecture"; that is considered as
+something quite apart, and not essential to the well-building of the
+house. But for this very reason matters are not much changed when
+the owner determines to spend something for looks. The house remains
+at bottom the same rude mass, with the "architecture" tacked on. It
+is not that the owner has any deeper or different sentiment towards
+his dwelling, but merely that he has a desire to make a flourish
+before the eyes of beholders. There is no heartfelt interest in all
+this on his part; it gives him no pleasure; how, then, should it
+please the spectator?
+
+The case is the same, whether it be the coarse ornamentation of the
+cheap cottage, or the work of the fashionable architect; we feel
+that the decoration is superficial and may be dispensed with, and
+then, however skillful, it becomes superfluous. The more elaborate
+the worse, for attention is the more drawn to the failure.
+
+What is wanted for any real progress is not so much a greater skill
+in our house-builders, as more thoughtful consideration on the part
+of the house-owners of what truly interests them in the house. We do
+not stop to examine what really weighs with us, but on some fancied
+necessity hasten to do superfluous things. What is it that we really
+care for in the building of our houses? Is it not, that, like dress,
+or manners, they should facilitate, and not impede the business
+of life? We do not wish to be compelled to think of them by
+themselves either as good or bad, but to get rid of any obstruction
+from them. They are to be lived in, not looked at; and their beauty
+must grow as naturally from their use as the flower from its stem,
+so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and
+the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be
+the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come.
+But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying
+to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has
+been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances.
+Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt
+to conceal it by our affectation of foreign airs and graces.
+
+
+
+
+MAYA, THE PRINCESS.
+
+The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its
+inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue
+sky was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver
+moon-fringes, or spangled with careless stars; the air was full of
+south-winds that had fluttered the hearts of a thousand roses and a
+million violets with long, deep kisses, and then flung the delicate
+odors abroad to tell their exploits, and set the butterflies mad
+with jealousy, and the bees crazy with avarice. And all this bloom
+was upon the country of Larrierepensee, when Queen Lura's little
+daughter came to life in the Topaz Palace that stood on Sunrise Hills,
+and was King Joconde's summer pavilion.
+
+Now there was no searching far and wide for godfathers, godmothers,
+and a name, as there is when the princesses of this world are born:
+for, in the first place, Larrierepensee was a country of pious
+heathen, and full of fairies; the people worshipped an Idea, and
+invited the fairy folk to all their parties, as we who are proper
+here invite the clergy; only the fairy folk did not get behind the
+door, or leave the room, when dancing commenced.
+
+And the reason why this princess was born to a name, as well as to a
+kingdom, was, that, long ago, the people who kept records in
+Larrierepensee were much troubled by the ladies of that land never
+growing old: they staid at thirty for ten years; at forty, for twenty;
+and all died before fifty, which made much confusion in dates,--
+especially when some women were called upon to tell traditions, the
+only sort of history endured in that kingdom; because it was against
+the law to write either lies or romances, though you might hear and
+tell them, if you would, and some people would; although to call a
+man a historian there was the same thing as to say, "You lie!" here.
+
+But as I was saying, this evergreen way into which the women fell
+caused much trouble, and the Twelve Sages made a law that for six
+hundred years every female child born in any month of the
+seventy-two hundred following should be named by the name ordained
+for that month; and then they made a long list, containing
+seventy-two hundred names of women, and locked it up in the box of
+Great Designs, which stood always under the king's throne; and
+thenceforward, at the beginning of every month, the Twelve Sages
+unlocked the box, consulted the paper, and sent a herald through the
+town to proclaim the girl-name for that month. So this saved a world
+of trouble; for if some wrinkled old maid should say, "And that
+happened long ago, some time before I was born," all her gossips
+laughed, and cried out, "Ho! ho! there's a historian! do we not all
+know you were a born Allia, ten years before that date?"--and then
+the old maid was put to shame.
+
+Now it happened well for Queen Lura's lovely daughter, that on her
+birth-month was written the gracious name of Maya, for it seemed
+well to fit her grace and delicacy, while but few in that country
+knew its sad Oriental depth, or that it had any meaning at all.
+
+It was all one flush of dawn upon Sunrise Hills, when the
+maids-of-honor, in curls and white frocks, began to strew the great
+Hall of Amethyst with geranium leaves, and arrange light tripods of
+gold for the fairies, who were that day gathered from all
+Larrierepensee to see and gift the new princess. The Queen had
+written notes to them on spicy magnolia-petals, and now the
+head-nurse and the grand-equerry wheeled her couch of state into the
+Hall of Amethyst, that she might receive the tender wishes of the
+good fairies, while yet the sweet languor of her motherhood kept her
+from the fresh wind and bright dew out of doors.
+
+The couch of state was fashioned like a great rose of crimson velvet;
+only where there should have been the gold anthers of the flower lay
+the lovely Queen, wrapped in a mantle of canary-birds' down, and
+nested on one arm slept the Child of the Kingdom, Maya. Presently a
+cloud of honey-bees swept through the wide windows, and settling
+upon the ceiling began a murmurous song, when, one by one, the
+flower-fairies entered, and flitting to their tripods, each garlanded
+with her own blossom, awaited the coming of their Head,--the Fairy
+Cordis.
+
+As the Queen perceived their delay, a sudden pang crossed her pale
+and tranquil brow.
+
+"Ah!" said she, to the nurse-in-chief, Mrs. Lita, "my poor baby, Maya!
+What have I done? I have neglected to ask the Fairy Anima, and now
+she will come in anger, and give my child an evil gift, unless
+Cordis hastens!"
+
+"Do not fear, Madam!" said Mrs. Lita, "your nerves are weak,--take a
+little cordial."
+
+So she gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she
+called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then
+Queen Lura drank it down nicely;--so much depends on names, even in
+Larrierepensee!
+
+But as Mrs. Lita set away the glass, the bees upon the ceiling began
+to buzz in a most angry manner, and rally about the queen-bee; the
+south-wind cried round the palace corner; and a strange light, like
+the sun shining when it rains, threw a lurid glow over the graceful
+fairy forms. Then the door of the hall flung open, and a beautiful,
+wrathful shape crossed the threshold;--it was the Fairy Anima. Where
+she gathered the gauzes that made her rainbow vest, or the
+water-diamonds that gemmed her night-black hair, or the sun-fringed
+cloud of purple that was her robe, no fay or mortal knew; but they
+knew well the power of her presence, and grew pale at her anger.
+
+With swift feet she neared the couch of state, but her steps
+lingered as she saw within those crimson leaves the delicate,
+fear-pale face of the Queen, and her sleeping child.
+
+"Always rose-folded!" she murmured, "and I tread the winds abroad! A
+fair bud, and I am but a stately stem! You were foolish and frail,
+Queen Lura, that you sent me no word of your harvest-time; now I
+come angry. Show me the child!"
+
+Mrs. Lita, with awed steps, drew near, and lifted the baby in her
+arms, and the child's soft hazel eyes looked with grave innocence at
+Anima. Truly, the Princess was a lovely piece of nature: her hair,
+like fine silk, fell in dark, yet gilded tresses from her snow-white
+brow; her eyes were thoughtless, tender, serene; her lips red as the
+heart of a peach; her skin so fair that it seemed stained with
+violets where the blue veins crept lovingly beneath; and her dimpled
+cheeks were flushed with sleep like the sunset sky.
+
+Anima looked at the baby.--"Ah! too much, too much!" said she.
+"Queen Lura, a butterfly can eat honey only; let us have a higher
+life for the Princess of Larrierepensee. Maya, I give thee for a
+birth-gift another crown. Receive the Spark!"
+
+Queen Lura shrieked; but Anima stretching out her wand, a snake of
+black diamonds, with a blood-red head, touched the child's eyes, and
+from the serpent's rapid tongue a spark of fire darted into either
+eye, and sunk deeper and deeper,--for two tears flowed above, and
+hung on Maya's silky lashes, as she looked with a preternatural
+expression of reproach at the Fairy.
+
+Now all was confusion. Queen Lura tried to faint,--she knew it was
+proper,--and the grand-equerry rang all the palace bells in a row.
+Anima gave no glance at the little Princess, who still sat upright
+in Mrs. Lita's petrified arms, but went proudly from the hall alone.
+
+The flower-fairies dropped their wands with one sonorous clang upon
+the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one
+after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted
+gifts and powers.
+
+"Why should I give her beauty?" cried the Fairy Rose; "all eyes will
+be dazzled with the Spark; who will know on what form it shines?"
+
+So the red rose dropped and died.
+
+"Why should I bring her innocence?" said the Fairy Lily; "the Spark
+will burn all evil from her, thought and deed!"
+
+Then the white lily dropped and died.
+
+"Is there any use to her in grace?" wept the Fairy Eglantine;
+"the Spark will melt away all mortal grossness, till she is light
+and graceful as the clouds above."
+
+And the eglantine wreaths dropped and died.
+
+"She will never want humility," said the Fairy Violet; "for she will
+find too soon that the Spark is a curse as well as a crown!"
+
+So the violet dropped and died.
+
+Then the Sun-dew denied her pity; the blue Forget-me not, constancy;
+the Iris, pride; the Butter-cup, gold; the Passion-flower, love; the
+Amaranth, hope: all because the Spark should gift her with every one
+of these, and burn the gift in deeply. So they all dropped and died;
+and she could never know the flowers of life,--only its fires.
+
+But in the end of all this flight came a ray of consolation, like
+the star that heralds dawn, springing upward on the skirt of night's
+blackest hour. The raging bees that had swarmed upon the golden
+chandelier returned to the ceiling and their song; the scattered
+flowers revived and scented the air: for the Fairy Cordis came,--too
+late, but welcome; her face bright with flushes of vivid, but
+uncertain rose,--her deep gray eyes brimming with motherhood, a
+sister's fondness, and the ardor of a child. The tenderest
+garden-spider-webs made her a robe, full of little common blue-eyed
+flowers, and in her gold-brown hair rested a light circle of such
+blooms as beguile the winter days of the poor and the desolate, and
+put forth their sweetest buds by the garret window, or the bedside
+of a sick man.
+
+Mrs. Lita nearly dropped the baby, in her great relief of mind; but
+Cordis caught it, and looked at its brilliant face with tears.
+
+"Ah, Head of the Fairies, help me!" murmured Queen Lura, extending
+her arms toward Cordis; for she had kept one eye open wide enough to
+see what would happen while she fainted away.
+
+"All I can, I will," said the kindly fairy, speaking in the same key
+that a lark sings in. So she sat down upon a white velvet mushroom
+and fell to thinking, while Maya, the Princess, looked at her from
+the rose where she lay, and the Queen, having pushed her down robe
+safely out of the way, leaned her head on her hand, and very
+properly cried as much as six tears.
+
+Soon, like a sunbeam, Cordis looked up. "I can give the Princess a
+counter-charm, Queen Lura," said she,--"but it is not sure. Look you!
+she will have a lonely life,--for the Spark burns, as well as shines,
+and the only way to mend that matter is to give the fire better fuel
+than herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in
+peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no
+more be hidden,--since to be a woman is to have power and pain,--
+then let her veil herself, and with a staff and scrip go abroad into
+the world, for her time is come. Now in this kingdom of
+Larrierepensee there stand many houses, all empty, but swept and
+garnished, and a fire laid ready on the hearth for the hand of the
+Coming to kindle. But sometimes, nay, often, this fire is a cheat:
+for there be men who carve the semblance of it in stone, and are so
+content to have the chill for the blaze all their lives; and on some
+hearths the logs are green wood, set up before their time; and on
+some they are but ashes, for the fire has burned and died, and left
+the ghostly shape of boughs behind; and sometimes, again, they are
+but icicles clothed in bark, to save the shame of the possessor. But
+there are some hearths laid with dry and goodly timber; and if the
+Princess Maya does not fail, but chooses a real and honest heap of
+wood, and kindles it from the Spark within her, then will she have a
+most perfect life; for the fire that consumes her shall leave its
+evil work, and make the light and warmth of a household, and rescue
+her forever from the accursed crown of the Spark. But I grieve to
+tell you, yet one of my name cannot lie--if the Princess mistake the
+false for the true, if she flashes her fire upon stone, or ice, or
+embers, either the Spark will recoil and burn her to ashes, or it
+will die where she placed it and turn her to stone, or--worst fate
+of all, yet likeliest to befall the tenderest and best--it will
+reenter her at her lips, and turn her whole nature to the bitterness
+of gall, so that neither food shall refresh her, sleep rest her,
+water quench her thirst, nor fire warm her body. Is it worth the
+trial? or shall she live and burn slowly to her death, with the
+unquenchable fire of the Spark?"
+
+"Ah! let her, at the least, try for that perfect life," said Queen
+Lura.
+
+Then the Fairy Cordis drew from her delicate finger a ring of
+twisted gold, in which was set an opal wrought into the shape of a
+heart, and in it palpitated, like throbbing blood, one scarlet flash
+of flame.
+
+"Let her keep this always on her hand," said Cordis. "It will serve
+to test the truth of the fire she strives to kindle; for if it be
+not true wood, this heart will grow cold, the throb cease, the glow
+become dim. The talisman may, will, save her, unless in the madness
+of joy she forget to ask its aid, or the Spark flashing upon its
+surface seems to create anew the fire within, and thus deceives her."
+
+So the Fairy put the ring upon Queen Lura's hand, and kissed Maya's
+fair brow, already shaded with sleep. The bees upon the ceiling
+followed her, dropping honey as they went; the maids-of-honor
+wheeled away the couch of state; the castle-maids swept up the fading
+leaves and blossoms, drew the tulip-tree curtains down, fastened the
+great door with a sandal-wood bar, sprinkled the corridors with
+rosewater; and by moonrise, when the nightingales sung loud from the
+laurel thickets, all the country slept,--even Maya; but the Spark
+burned bright, and she dreamed.
+
+So the night came on, and many another night, and many a new day,--
+till Maya, grown a girl, looked onward to the life before her with
+strange foreboding, for still the Spark burned.
+
+Hitherto it had been but a glad light on all things, except men and
+women; for into their souls the Spark looked too far, and Maya's
+open brow was shadowed deeply and often with sorrows not her own,
+and her heart ached many a day for pains she could not or dared not
+relieve; but if she were left alone, the illumination of the Spark
+filled everything about her with glory. The sky's rapturous blue,
+the vivid tints of grass and leaves, the dismaying splendor of
+blood-red roses, the milky strawberry-flower, the brilliant
+whiteness of the lily, the turquoise eyes of water-plants,--all
+these gave her a pleasure intense as pain; and the songs of the winds,
+the love-whispers of June midnights, the gathering roar of autumn
+tempests, the rattle of thunder, the breathless and lurid pause
+before a tropic storm,--all these the Spark enhanced and vivified;
+till, seeing how blest in herself and the company of Nature the
+Child of the Kingdom grew, Queen Lura deliberated silently and long
+whether she should return the gift of the Fairy Cordis, and let Maya
+live so tranquil and ignorant forever, or whether she should awaken
+her from her dreams, and set her on her way through the world.
+
+But now the Princess Maya began to grow pale and listless. Her eyes
+shone brighter than ever, but she was consumed with a feverish
+longing to see new and strange things. On her knees, and weeping,
+she implored her mother to release her from the court routine, and
+let her wander in the woods and watch the village children play.
+
+So Queen Lura, having now another little daughter, named Maddala,
+who was just like all other children, and a great comfort to her
+mother, was the more inclined to grant Maya's prayer. She therefore
+told Maya all that was before her, and having put upon her tiny
+finger the fairy-ring, bade the tiring-woman take off her velvet robe,
+and the gold circlet in her hair, and clothe her in a russet suit of
+serge, with a gray kirtle and hood. King Joconde was gone to the wars.
+Queen Lura cried a little, the Princess Maddala laughed, and Maya
+went out alone,--not lonely, for the Spark burned high and clear,
+and showed all the legends written on the world everywhere, and Maya
+read them as she went.
+
+Out on the wide plain she passed many little houses; but through all
+their low casements the red gleam of a fire shone, and on the
+door-steps clustered happy children, or a peasant bride with warm
+blushes on her cheek sat spinning, or a young mother with pensive
+eyes lulled her baby to its twilight sleep and sheltered it with
+still prayers.
+
+One of these kindly cottages harbored Maya for the night; and then
+her way at dawn lay through a vast forest, where the dim tree-trunks
+stretched far away till they grew undefined as a gray cloud, and
+only here and there the sunshine strewed its elf-gold on ferns and
+mosses, feathery and soft as strange plumage and costly velvet.
+Sometimes a little brook with bubbling laughter crept across her
+path and slid over the black rocks, gurgling and dimpling in the
+shadow or sparkling in the sun, while fish, red and gold-speckled,
+swam noiseless as dreams, and darting water-spiders, poised a moment
+on the surface, cast a glittering diamond reflection on the yellow
+sand beneath.
+
+The way grew long, and Maya weary. The new leaves of opalescent tint
+shed odors of faint and passionate sweetness; the birds sang
+love-songs that smote the sense like a caress; a warm wind yearned
+and complained in the pine boughs far above her; yet her heart grew
+heavy, and her eyes dim; she was sick for home;--not for the palace
+and the court; not for her mother and Maddala; but for home;--she
+knew her exile, and wept to return.
+
+That night, and for many nights, she slept in the forest; and when
+at length she came out upon the plain beyond, she was pale and wan,
+her dark eyes drooped, her slender figure was bowed and languid, and
+only the mark upon her brow, where the coronet had fretted its
+whiteness, betrayed that Maya was a princess born.
+
+And now dwellings began to dot the country: brown cottages, with
+clinging vines; villas, aerial and cloud-tinted, with pointed roofs
+and capricious windows; huts, in which some poor wretch from his bed
+of straw looked out upon the wasteful luxury of his neighbor, and,
+loathing his bitter crust and turbid water, saw feasts spread in the
+open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish
+thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and
+turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm,
+while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal
+music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes of a
+warrior's return.
+
+All these Maya passed by, for no door was open, and no fireless
+hearth revealed; but before night dropped her starry veil, she had
+travelled to a mansion whose door was set wide, and, within, a cold
+hearth was piled with boughs of oak and beech. The opal upon Maya's
+finger grew dim, but she moved toward the unlit wood, and at her
+approach the false pretence betrayed itself; the ice glared before
+her, and chilled her to the soul, as its shroud of bark fell off.
+She fled over the threshold, and the house-spirit laughed with
+bitter mirth; but the Spark was safe.
+
+Now came thronging streets, and many an open portal wooed Maya, but
+wooed in vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque
+cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure,
+and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look
+tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and
+likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with
+the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever
+changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness,
+and beauty-love, she would have drawn near the hearth, a sigh like
+the passing of a soul shivered by her, and before its breath the
+shapely embers fell to dust, the hearth beneath was heaped with ashes,
+and with tearful lids Maya turned away, and the house-spirit, weeping,
+closed the door behind her.
+
+Long days and nights passed ere she essayed again; and then, weary
+and faint with home-woe, she lingered on the steps of a lofty house
+whose carved door was swung open, whose jasper hearthstone was
+heaped with goodly logs, and beside it, on the soft flower-strewn
+skin of a panther, slept a youth beautiful as Adonis, and in his
+sleep ever murmuring, "Mother!" Maya's heart yearned with a kindred
+pang. She, too, was orphaned in her soul, and she would gladly have
+lit the fire upon this lonely hearth, and companioned the solitude
+of the sleeper; but, alas! the boughs still wore their summer garland,
+and from each severed end slow tears of dryad-life distilled
+honeyedly upon the stone beneath. Of such withes and saplings comes
+no living fire! Maya, smiling, set a kiss upon the boy-sleeper's brow,
+but the Spark lay quiet, and the house-spirit flung a blooming
+cherry-bough after its departing guest.
+
+The year was now wellnigh run. The Princess Maya despaired of home.
+The earth seemed a harsh stepmother, and its children rather stones
+than clay. A vague sense of some fearful barrier between herself and
+her kind haunted the woman's soul within her, and the unquenchable
+flames of the Spark seemed to girdle her with a defence that drove
+away even friendly ingress. Night and day she wept, oppressed with
+loneliness. She knew not how to speak the tongues of men, though
+well she understood their significance. Only little children mated
+rightly with her divine infancy; only the mute glories of nature
+satisfied for a moment her brooding soul. The celestial impulses
+within her beat their wings in futile longing for freedom, and with
+inexpressible anguish she uttered her griefs aloud, or sung them to
+such plaintive strains that all who heard wept in sympathy. Yet she
+had no home.
+
+After many days she came upon a broad, champaign, fertile land, where,
+on a gentle knoll, among budding orchards, and fields green with
+winter grains, stood a low, wide-eaved house, with gay parterres and
+clipped hedges around it, all ordered with artistic harmony, while
+over chimney and cornice crept wreaths of glossy ivy, every deep
+green leaf veined with streaks of light, and its graceful sprays
+clasping and clinging wherever they touched the chiselled stone
+beneath. Upon the lawn opened a broad, low door, and the southern sun
+streamed inward, showing the carved panels of the fireplace and its
+red hearth, where heavy boughs of wood and splinters from the heart
+of the pine lay ready for the hand of the Coming to kindle. Upon the
+threshold, plucking out the dead leaves of the ivy, stood one from
+whose face strength, and beauty, and guile that the guileless knew
+not, shone sunlike upon Maya; and as she faltered and paused, he
+spoke a welcome to her in her own language, and held toward her the
+clasping hand of help. A thrill of mad joy cleft the heart of the
+Princess, a glow of incarnate summer dyed with rose her cheek and lip,
+the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished.
+"Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of
+the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and
+staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and,
+heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes
+the Spark,--the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning
+speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre;
+so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and--is gone!
+The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay
+unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long
+respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like
+a hot iron, and entered into her heart,--the blighting canker of her
+fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.
+
+Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought
+stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as
+she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath
+her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the
+threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones
+together strike fire, Maya!"--while from the casement above looked
+forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and
+disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that
+ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.
+
+With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her
+laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the
+stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a
+scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its
+wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,--
+but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood
+had dropped away, and the jewel was broken across.
+
+So the wide world heard of Maya, the Child of the Kingdom, and from
+land to land men carried the stinging arrows of her wit, or
+signalled the beacon-fires of her scorn, while seas and shores
+unknown echoed her mad and rapt music, or answered the veiled agony
+that derided itself with choruses of laughter, from every mystic
+whisper of the wave, or roar of falling headlands.
+
+And then she fled away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the
+Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with
+wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,--or if it dared,
+standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was
+neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the
+thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine or crystal water,
+translucent grapes or the crimson fruits that summer kisses into
+sweetness with her heats; forever longing, and forever unsated, it
+parched her lips and burnt her gasping mouth, but there was no
+draught to allay it. And even so food failed of its office. Kindly
+hands brought to her, whose queenliness asserted itself to their
+souls with an innocent loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all
+delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and
+stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest
+bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat.
+The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet,
+sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those
+lips of fire burned all things in their touch to tasteless ashes.
+
+So she fled away; for the forest was cool and lonely, and even as
+she learned the lies and treacheries of men, so she longed to leave
+them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude.
+But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of
+despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled
+hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no
+rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and
+dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the
+ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation she flung
+herself by the clear fountain that had already fallen upon her lips
+and cooled them with bitter water, and hiding her head under the
+broad, fresh leaves of a calla that bent its marble cups above her
+knitted brow and loosened hair, she lay in deathlike trance, till the
+Fairy Anima swept her feet with fringed garments, and cast the
+serpent wand writhing and glittering upon her breast.
+
+"Wake, Maya!" said the organ-tones of the Spark-Bringer; and Maya
+awoke.
+
+"So! the Spark galls thee?" resumed those deep, bitter-sweet tones;
+and for answer the Princess Maya held toward her, with accusing eyes,
+the broken, bloodless opal.
+
+"Cordis's folly!" retorted Anima. "Thou hadst done best without it,
+Maya; the Spark abides no other fate but shining. Yet there is a
+little hope for thee. Wilt thou die of the bitter fire, or wilt thou
+turn beggar-maid? The sleep that charity lends to its couch shall
+rest thee; the draught a child brings shall slake thy thirst; the
+food pity offers shall strengthen and renew. But these are not the
+gifts a Princess receives; she who gathers them must veil the Crown,
+shroud the Spark, conceal the Curse, and in torn robes, with bare
+and bleeding feet, beg the crumbs of life from door to door. Wilt
+thou take up this trade?"
+
+Maya rose up from the leaves of the cool lily, and put aside the
+veiling masses of her hair.
+
+"I will go!" she whispered, flutelike, for hope beat a living pulse
+in her brain.
+
+So with scrip and hood she went out of the forest and begged of the
+world's bounty such life as a beggar-maid may endure.
+
+Long ago the King and Queen died in Larrierepensee, and there the
+Princess Maddala reigns with a goodly Prince beside her, nor cares
+for her lost sister; but songless, discrowned, desolate, Maya walks
+the earth.
+
+All ye whose fires burn bright on the hearth, whose dwellings ring
+with child-laughter, or are hushed with love-whispers and the peace
+of home, pity the Princess Maya! Give her food and shelter; charm
+away the bitter flames that consume her life and soul; drop tears
+and alms together into the little wasted hand that pleads with dumb
+eloquence for its possessor; and even while ye pity and protect,
+revere that fretted mark of the Crown that still consecrates to the
+awful solitude of sorrow Maya, the Child of the Kingdom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CATAWBA WINE.
+
+      This song of mine
+        Is a Song of the Vine,
+  To be sung by the glowing embers
+        Of wayside inns,
+        When the rain begins
+  To darken the drear Novembers.
+
+      It is not a song
+        Of the Scuppernong,
+  From warm Carolinian valleys,--
+        Nor the Isabel
+        And the Muscatel
+  That bask in our garden alleys,--
+
+      Nor the red Mustang,
+      Whose clusters hang
+  O'er the waves of the Colorado,
+      And the fiery flood
+      Of whose purple blood
+  Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
+
+      For richest and best
+      Is the wine of the West,
+  That grows by the Beautiful River;
+      Whose sweet perfume
+      Fills all the room
+  With a benison on the giver.
+
+      And as hollow trees
+      Are the haunts of bees
+  Forever going and coming,
+      So this crystal hive
+      Is all alive
+  With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
+
+      Very good in their way
+      Are the Verzenay,
+  And the Sillery soft and creamy;
+      But Catawba wine
+      Has a taste more divine,
+  More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
+
+      There grows no vine
+      By the haunted Rhine,
+  By Danube or Guadalquivir,
+      Nor on island or cape,
+      That bears such a grape
+  As grows by the Beautiful River.
+
+      Drugged is their juice
+      For foreign use,
+  When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
+      To rack our brains
+      With the fever pains
+  That have driven the Old World frantic.
+
+      To the sewers and sinks
+      With all such drinks,
+  And after them tumble the mixer!
+      For a poison malign
+      Is such Borgia wine,
+  Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
+
+      While pure as a spring
+      Is the wine I sing,
+  And to praise it, one needs but name it;
+      For Catawba wine
+      Has need of no sign,
+  No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
+
+      And this Song of the Vine,
+      This greeting of mine,
+  The winds and the birds shall deliver
+      To the Queen of the West,
+      In her garlands dressed,
+  On the banks of the Beautiful River.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDS AND THE WEATHER.
+
+
+  _The Physical Geography of the Sea_. By M. F. MAURY. New York:
+    Harper & Brothers. 1857.
+
+  _Climatology of the United States and of the Temperate Latitudes
+    of the North American Continent_. By LORIN BLODGET. Philadelphia: J.
+    B. Lippincott & Co. 1857.
+
+  _Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of
+    Science_. 1857.
+
+An eloquent philosopher, depicting the deplorable results that would
+follow, if some future materialist were "to succeed in displaying to
+us a mechanical system of the human mind, as comprehensive,
+intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian mechanism of the
+heavens," exclaims, "Fallen from their elevation, Art and Science
+and Virtue would no longer be to man the objects of a genuine and
+reflective adoration." We are led, in reflecting upon the far more
+probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon
+the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced
+when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes
+of the atmosphere to rules and predictions,--when the rain shall
+fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth,"
+and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature. But we
+console ourselves by contemplating the difficulties of the problem,
+and the improbability, that, in our generation at least, we shall be
+deprived of these subjects of general news and universal interest.
+
+During the last half-century, the progress of experimental
+philosophy in the direction of the weather, though its results are
+for the most part of a negative character, has yet been sufficient
+to excite the apprehensions of the philanthropist. We have unlearned
+many fables and false theories, and have made great advancement in
+that knowledge of our ignorance, which is the only true foundation
+of positive science.
+
+The moon has been deposed from the executive chair, though she still
+has her supporters and advocates; and an innumerable host of minor
+causes are found to constitute, upon strictly republican principles,
+the ruling power of the winds and the rain. That regularity, however
+complicated, which reason still demands, and expects even from the
+weather, is not found to be so simple as our rules and signs of the
+weather indicate; for the operation of these innumerable causes is
+so complicated, that the repetition of similar phenomena or similar
+combinations of causes, to any great extent, is the most improbable
+of events. Perhaps the meteorologist will ultimately find that
+Nature has succeeded, in what seems, indeed, to be her aim, in
+completely retracing her steps, and reducing the operation of that
+simple and regular system of causes, which she brought out of chaos,
+back to a confusion of detail, from which all law and regularity are
+obliterated.
+
+Meteorological observations have, however, determined many regular
+and constant causes and a few regular phenomena. The method pursued
+in these investigations is, for the most part, the elimination, by
+general averages, of limited and temporary changes in the elements
+of the weather, and the determination of those changes which depend
+upon the constant influences of locality, of season, and of constant
+or slowly varying causes. These constant influences constitute the
+climate; and the study of climates is thus the first step towards
+the solution of the problem of the weather. Climates, in their
+changes and distribution, are very important elements in the
+determination of the movements of the weather, and are to the
+meteorologist what the elements of the planetary orbits are to the
+astronomer; but, unlike planetary perturbations, the weather makes
+the most reckless excursions from its averages, and obscures them by
+a most inconsequent and incalculable fickleness.
+
+Whether mechanical science will hereafter succeed in calculating
+these perturbations of climate, as we may style the weather, or will
+find the problem beyond its capacity, it will yet, doubtless, account
+for much that is now obscure, as observation brings the facts more
+distinctly to view. We propose to give a brief general survey of the
+mechanics of the atmosphere in its present state, and to indicate
+the nature and limits of our knowledge on this subject.
+
+Among the first noticed and most remarkable features of regularity
+in atmospheric changes are constant, periodic, and prevailing winds.
+The most remarkable instances of these are the trade-winds of the
+torrid zone, the monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and the prevailing
+southwest wind of our northern temperate latitudes. Of these, the
+trade-winds are the most important to science, as furnishing the key
+to that general explanation of the winds which was first advanced by
+the distinguished Halley.
+
+In Halley's celebrated theory, the trade-winds are explained as the
+effects of the unequal distribution of the sun's heat in different
+latitudes. The air of the equator, heated more than the northern or
+southern air, expands more, and overflows, moving in the upper
+regions of the atmosphere toward the poles; while the lower, colder
+air on both sides moves toward the equator to preserve equilibrium.
+Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface
+of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns
+as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises and moves
+toward the poles.
+
+Now the air of the equator, moving with the earth's rotary motion,
+has a greater velocity than the earth itself at high northern or
+southern latitudes, and consequently appears to gain an eastward
+motion in its progress toward the poles. Without friction, this
+relative eastward motion would increase as the air moves toward the
+poles, and diminish at the same rate as the air returns, till at the
+equator the velocity of the earth and of the air would again be equal;
+but friction reduces the motion of the returning air to that of the
+earth, at or near the calms of the tropics; so that the air, passing
+the tropics, gains a relative westward motion in its further
+progress through the torrid zone. The southwestward motion thus
+produced between the tropic of Cancer and the equator is the
+well-known trade-wind.
+
+Now, according to this theory, the prevailing winds of our temperate
+latitudes ought to have a southeastward motion as far as the calms
+of Cancer or "the horse latitudes." Moreover, instead of these calms,
+there should still be a southward motion. But observation has shown,
+that though the prevailing lower winds of our latitude move eastward,
+still their motion is toward the north rather than the south; so
+that they appear to contradict the theory by which the trade-winds
+are explained.
+
+To account for these anomalies, Lieut. Maury has invented a very
+ingenious hypothesis, which is published in his "Physical Geography
+of the Sea." He supposes that the air, which passes from the equator
+toward the poles in the upper regions of the atmosphere, is brought
+down to the surface of the earth beyond the calms of the tropics,
+and that it thence proceeds with an increasing eastward motion,
+appearing in our northern hemisphere as the prevailing northeastward
+winds. Approaching the poles with a spiral motion, the air there
+rises, according to this hypothesis, in a vortex, and returns toward
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually acquiring a westward
+motion; till, returning to the tropics, it is again brought down to
+the earth, and thence proceeds, with a still increasing westward
+motion, as the trade-winds. At the equator the air rises again, and,
+according to Lieut. Maury, crosses to the other side, and proceeds
+through a similar course in the other hemisphere.
+
+The rising of the air at the equator is supposed to cause the
+equatorial rains; and the drought of the tropics is also explained
+by that descent of the air, in these latitudes, which this
+hypothesis supposes.
+
+Now although this hypothesis explains the phenomena, it has still
+met with great opposition. The motions which Lieut. Maury supposes
+can hardly be accounted for without resorting, as is usual in such
+cases, to electricity or magnetism,--to some occult cause, or some
+occult operation of a known cause. Moreover, it has been difficult
+for the mechanical philosopher to understand how the winds manage to
+cross each other, as Lieut. Maury supposes them to do, at the
+equator and the tropics, without getting into "entangling alliances."
+If this hypothesis were advanced, not as a physical explanation of
+the phenomena, but, like the epicycles and eccentrics of Ptolemy,
+"to save the appearances," its ingenuity would be greatly to its
+author's credit; but, like the epicycles and eccentrics, though it
+represents the phenomena well enough, it contradicts laws of motion,
+now well known, which ought to be familiar to every physical
+philosopher. But these speculations of Lieut. Maury will now be
+superseded by a new theory of atmospheric movements, an account of
+which was presented by its author, Mr. J. Thompson, at the recent
+meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A fuller discussion of this theory the author
+reserved for the Royal Society. The _London Athenaeum_ gives a brief
+abstract of his paper, in its report of the proceedings of the
+Association.]
+
+Mr. Thompson's theory takes account of forces, hitherto unnoticed,
+which are generated by the eastward circulation of the atmosphere in
+high latitudes. He shows that these forces cause the prevailing
+northeastward under-current of our latitudes, while above this, yet
+below the highest northeastward current, the air ought still to move
+southward according to Halley's theory.
+
+This under-current is not the immediate effect of differences of
+temperature, but a secondary effect induced by the friction of the
+earth's surface and the continual deflection of the air's eastward
+motion from a great circle, (in which the air tends to move,) into
+the small circle of the latitude, in which the air actually does move.
+The force of this deflection, measured by the centrifugal force of
+the air as it circulates around the pole, retards the movement from
+the equator, and finally wholly suspends it; so that the upper air
+circulates around in the higher latitudes as water may be made to
+circulate in a pail; and the air is drawn away from the polar
+regions as this circulatory motion is communicated to it, and tends
+to accumulate in the middle latitudes, as the circulating water is
+heaped up around the sides of the pail. Hence, in the middle
+latitudes there is a greater weight of air than at the poles, and
+this tends to press the lower air to higher latitudes. Centrifugal
+force, however, balances this pressure, so long as the lower air
+moves with the velocity of the upper strata; but as the friction of
+the earth retards its motion and diminishes its centrifugal force,
+it gradually yields to the pressure of the air above it, and moves
+toward the poles. Near the polar circles it is again retarded by its
+increasing centrifugal force, and it returns through the middle
+regions of the atmosphere.
+
+Thus there are two systems of atmospheric circulation in each
+hemisphere. The principal one extends from the equator to high
+middle latitudes and partly overlies the other, which extends from
+the tropical calms to the polar circles. These two circulations move
+in opposite directions; like two wheels, when one communicates its
+motion to the other by the contact of their circumferences.
+
+In the middle latitudes the lower current of the principal
+circulation lies upon the upper current of the secondary circulation,
+and both move together toward the equator. This principal lower
+current first touches the earth's surface beyond the tropical calms,
+and having lost its relative eastward motion and now tending westward,
+it appears as the trade-wind, very regular and constant; while the
+upper secondary current returns, without reaching the tropics, as an
+undercurrent, and in our latitude appears as the prevailing
+northeastward wind,--a very feeble motion, usually lost in the
+weather winds and other disturbances, and only appearing distinctly
+in the general average.
+
+Mr. Thompson illustrates the effect of the friction of the earth's
+surface on the eastward circulation of the air by a very simple
+experiment with a pail of water. If we put into the pail grains of
+any material a little heavier than water, and then give the water a
+rotatory motion by stirring it, the grains ought, by the centrifugal
+force imparted to them, to collect around the sides of the pail; but,
+sinking to the bottom, they do in fact tend to collect at the centre,
+carried inward by those currents which the friction of the sides and
+bottom indirectly produces.
+
+Thus Mr. Thompson's beautiful and philosophical theory completes
+that of Halley, and explains all those apparent anomalies which have
+hitherto seemed irreconcilable with the only rational account of the
+trade-winds. The rainless calms of the tropics are explained by this
+theory without that crossing and interference of winds which Lieut.
+Maury supposes; for the secondary circulation returns as an
+under-current toward the poles without reaching the tropics, and the
+dry lower current of the principal circulation passes over the
+tropical latitudes, in its gradual descent, before it reaches the
+earth as the trade-winds.
+
+These trade-winds, absorbing moisture from the sea, precipitate it
+as they rise again, and produce the constant equatorial rains; and
+these rains, doubtless, tend much more powerfully than the mere
+unequal distribution of heat to direct the wind toward the equator;
+for the fall of rain rapidly diminishes the pressure of the air and
+disturbs its equilibrium, so that violent winds are frequently
+observed to blow toward rainy districts. Thus, primarily, the unequal
+distribution of heat, and, more immediately, the equatorial rains
+cause the principal circulation of our atmosphere; and this
+indirectly produces the secondary circulation of Mr. Thompson's
+theory. Both these regular movements are, however, greatly disturbed,
+and especially the latter, by winds which are occasioned by local
+and irregular rains.
+
+In these movements and their causes we have the general outline of
+our subject, within which we must now sketch the weather. The causes
+of atmospheric movement, which we have thus far considered, are the
+unequal distribution of the sun's heat, the absorption and
+precipitation of moisture, the direct and the inductive action of
+the earth's rotation and friction. If to these we should add the
+tidal action of the sun's and moon's attractions, we should perhaps
+complete the list of _vera causae_ which are certainly known to
+exert a more or less general influence upon the atmosphere. But this
+short list is long enough, as we shall soon see.
+
+If the earth were wholly covered with water of a uniform depth, its
+climates would be distributed with greater regularity, and the
+perturbations of climate would be comparatively small and regular;
+though even under such circumstances there would still exist a
+tendency to discontinuity and complexity of movements from that
+influence of rain, the peculiar character of which we shall soon
+consider.
+
+The irregular distribution of land and water, and the peculiar
+action of each in imparting the heat of the sun to the incumbent air,--
+the irregular distribution of plains and mountains, and their various
+effects in different positions and at different altitudes,--the
+distribution of heat effected by ocean currents,--all these tend to
+produce permanent derangements of climate and great irregularities
+in the weather. To these we must add what the astronomer calls
+disturbing actions of the second order,--effects of the disturbances
+themselves upon the action of the disturbing agencies,--effects of
+the irregular winds upon the distribution of heat and rain, and upon
+the action of lands and seas, mountains and plains. Though such
+disturbances are comparatively insignificant in the motions of the
+planets, yet in the weather they are often more important than the
+primary causes.
+
+The aggregate and permanent effect of all these disturbing causes,
+primary and secondary, is seen in that irregular distribution of
+climates, which the tortuous isothermal lines and the mottled
+raincharts illustrate. The isothermal lines may be regarded as the
+topographical delineations of that bed of temperatures down which
+the upper atmosphere flows from the equator toward the poles, till
+its downward tendency is balanced by the centrifugal force of its
+eastward motion. This irregular bed shifts from month to month, from
+day to day, and even from hour to hour; and the lines that are drawn
+on the maps are only averages for the year or the season.
+
+In the midst of these irregular, but continuous agencies, the rain
+introduces a peculiar discontinuity, and turns irregularity into
+discord. We have shown that the rain is an immediate cause of wind;
+but how is the rain itself produced? For so marked an effect we
+naturally seek a special cause; but no adequate single cause has
+ever been discovered. The combination of many conditions, probably,
+is necessary, such as a peculiar distribution of heat and moisture
+and atmospheric movements; though the immediate cause of the fall of
+rain is doubtless the rising, and consequent expansion and cooling,
+of the saturated air.
+
+The winds that blow hither and thither, vainly striving to restore
+equilibrium to the atmosphere, burden themselves with the moisture
+they absorb from the seas; and this moisture absorbs their heat,
+retards their motion, and slowly modifies the forces which impel them.
+Now when the saturated air, extending far above the surface of the
+earth, and carried in its movements still higher, is relieved of an
+incumbent weight of air, it becomes rarefied, and its temperature
+and capacity for moisture are simultaneously diminished; its moisture,
+suddenly precipitated, appears as a cloud, the particles of which
+collect into rain-drops and fall to the earth. Thus the air suddenly
+loses much of its weight, and instead of restoring equilibrium to
+the troubled atmosphere, it introduces a new source of disturbance.
+Though the weight of the air is diminished by the fall of rain, yet
+the bulk is increased by the expansive force of the latent heat
+which the condensed vapors set free. Thus the rainy air expands
+upwards and flows outwards, and no longer able to balance the
+pressure of the surrounding air, it is carried still higher by
+inblowing winds, which rise in turn and continue the process, often
+extending the storm over vast areas. The force of these movements is
+measured partly by the force of latent heat set free, and partly by
+the mechanical power of the rain-fall, a very small fraction of
+which constitutes the water-power of all our rivers. Such a fruitful
+source of disturbance, generated by so slight an accident as the
+upward movement of the saturated air, expanded by its own agency to
+so great an extent, so sudden and discontinuous in its action, so
+obscure in its origin, and so distinct in its effects,--such a
+phenomenon defies the powers of mathematical prediction, and rouses
+all the winds to sedition.
+
+A storm not only disturbs the lower winds, but its influences reach
+even to the upper movements. The sudden expansion and rising of the
+rainy air delay these movements, which afterwards react as violent
+winds.
+
+The forces stored away by the gradual rise of vapor and its
+absorption of heat, and then suddenly exhibited in a mechanical form
+by the effects of rain, afford an illustration of that principle of
+conservation and economy of power, of which there are so many
+examples in modern science. No power is ever destroyed. Whether
+exhibited as heat or mechanical force, in the products and forces of
+chemical or of vital action, in movement or in altered conditions of
+motion,--whether changed by the growth of plants into fuel or into
+food, and converted again to heat by combustion or by vital processes,
+and brought out as mechanical power in the steam-engine or in the
+horse,--it is still the same power, and is measured in each of its
+forms by an invariable standard. It first appears as the heat of the
+sun, and a portion escapes at once back into space, while the rest
+passes first through a series of transformations. A part is changed
+into moving winds or into suspended vapor, and a part into fuel or
+food. From conditions of motion it is changed into motion; from
+motion it is changed by friction or resistance into heat, electric
+force, molecular vibrations, or into new conditions of motion, and
+passing through its course of changes, it remains embroiled in its
+permanent effects or escapes into space as heat.
+
+Though mechanical science will probably never be able to predict the
+beginning or duration of storms, it will yet, doubtless, be able to
+account for all their general features, and for such distinct local
+peculiarities as observation may determine. Great advancement has
+already been made in the determination of prevailing winds and in
+the study of storms. Two theories have been brought forward upon the
+general movements of storms; both have been proved, to the entire
+satisfaction of their advocates, by the storms themselves; and
+probably both are, with some limitations, true. The first of these
+theories we have already described. According to it, the winds move
+inward toward the centre of the storm; according to the other theory,
+they blow in a circumference around the centre.
+
+Observations upon storms of small extent, such as thunder-storms or
+tornadoes, show very clearly that the winds blow toward the stormy
+district. But when observations are made upon the winds within the
+district of such extensive storms as sometimes visit the United
+States, the directions of the wind are found to be so various, that
+the advocates of either theory, making due allowance for local
+disturbances, can triumphantly refute their adversaries. In such
+storms there are doubtless many centres or maxima of rain, and
+whether the wind move around or toward these centres, it would
+inevitably get confused.
+
+The opinion, that the winds move around the central point or line of
+the storm, was strenuously maintained by the late Mr. Redfield,
+whose activity in his favorite pursuit has connected his name
+inseparably with meteorology. Others have maintained the same opinion,
+and the rotatory motion of the tropical hurricanes is offered as a
+principal proof. It is obvious from the causes of motion already
+considered, that, if the air is carried far, by its tendency toward a
+rainy district, it will acquire a secondary relative motion from its
+change of latitude; and this, in our hemisphere, if the air move
+toward the south, will be westward,--if toward the north, eastward.
+Hence the motion of the air from both directions toward a stormy
+district is deflected to the right side of the storm; and this gives
+rise to that motion from right to left which is observed in the
+hurricanes of the northern hemisphere.
+
+To suppose, as many do, that regular winds, arising from constant
+and extensive causes, can come into bodily conflict and preserve
+their identity and original impetus for days, without immediate and
+strongly impelling forces to sustain their motion, implies a
+profound ignorance of mechanical science, and is little better than
+those ancient superstitions which gave a personal identity to the
+winds. The momentum of ordinary winds is a feeble force in
+comparison with those forces of pressure and friction which
+continually modify it. Hence sudden changes in the direction and
+intensity of winds must primarily arise from similar changes in
+these forces. But there are no known forces which change so suddenly,
+except the pressure and latent heat of suspended vapor; and therefore
+the fall of rain is the only adequate known cause of those
+storm-winds which, interpolated among the gentler winds, keep the
+atmosphere in perpetual commotion.
+
+Storms have, however, certain habits and peculiarities, more or less
+regular and distinct, which depend upon locality and season. And
+this is what ought to be expected; for, though the storms themselves
+are essentially anomalous, yet many of the causes which cooperate to
+induce them are constant or periodic, while others are subject to
+but slight perturbations. It is obvious that no more moisture can be
+precipitated than has been evaporated, and that the winds only gain
+suddenly by the fall of rain the forces which they have lost at their
+leisure in the absorption of moisture. Thus the rage of the storm is
+kept within bounds, and though the exact period at which the winds
+are set free cannot be determined, yet their force and frequency
+must be subject to certain limitations. The study of the habits and
+peculiarities of storms is of the greatest importance to navigation
+and agriculture, and these arts have already been benefited by the
+labors of the meteorologist.
+
+The lawlessness of the weather, within certain limitations, though
+discouraging to the physical philosopher, has yet its bright side
+for the student of final causes. The uses of the weather and its
+adaptation to organic life are subjects of untiring interest. The
+progression of the seasons, varied by differences of latitude, is
+also diversified and adapted to a fuller development of organic
+variety by irregularities of climate.
+
+The regular alternations of day and night, summer and winter, dry
+seasons and wet, are adapted to those alternations of organic
+functions which belong to the economy of life. The vital forces of
+plants and of the lower orders of animals have not that
+self-determining capacity of change which is necessary to the
+complete development of life; but they persist in their present mode
+of action, and, when they are not modified by outward changes,
+reduce life to its simplest phases. Changes of growth are effected
+by those apparent hardships to which life is subject; and progression
+in new directions is effected by retrogression in previous modes of
+growth. The old leaves and branches must fall, the wood must be
+frost-bitten or dried, the substance of seeds must wither and then
+decay, the action of leaves must every night be reversed, vines and
+branches must be shaken by the winds, that the energies and the
+materials of new forms of life may be rendered active and available.
+
+Some of the outward changes of nature are regular and periodic, while
+others, without law or method, are apparently adapted by their
+diversity to draw out the unlimited capacities and varieties of life;
+so that as inorganic nature approaches a regulated confusion, the
+more it tends to bring forth that perfect order, of which fragments
+appear in the incomplete system of actual organic life.
+
+The classification of organic forms presents to the naturalist, not
+the structure of a regular though incomplete development, but the
+broken and fragmentary form of a ruin. We may suppose, then, with a
+recent physiological writer, that the creation of those organic
+forms which constitute this fragmentary system was effected in the
+midst of an elemental storm, a regulated confusion, uniting all the
+external conditions which the highest capacities and the greatest
+varieties of organized life require for their fullest development;
+and that as the storm subsided into a simpler, but less genial
+diversity,--into the weather,--whole orders and genera and species
+sank with it from the ranks of possible organic forms. The weather,
+fallen from its high estate, no longer able to develope, much less to
+create new forms, can only sustain those that are left to its care.
+
+Man finds himself everywhere mirrored in nature. Wayward, inconstant,
+always seeking rest, always impelled by new evils, the greatest of
+which he himself creates,--protecting and cherishing or blighting and
+destroying the fragmentary life of a fallen nature,--incapable
+himself of creating new capacities, but nourishing in prosperity and
+quickening in adversity those that are left,--he sees the workings of
+his own life in the strife of the elements. His powers and activities
+are related to his spiritual capacities, as inorganic movements are
+related to an organizing life. The resurrection of his higher nature
+is like a new creation, secret, sudden, inconsequent. "The wind
+bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
+canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every
+one that is born of the Spirit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AKIN BY MARRIAGE [Continued]
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The designs of Mr. Elam Hunt upon the hand of Laura Stebbins have
+already been mentioned, in a former chapter of this history, as well
+as the fact that his hopes were encouraged by Mrs. Jaynes who
+(to make no secret of the matter) had pledged her word to the
+enamored Elam, that when he should be settled in a parish of his own,
+Laura should be added to complete the sum of his felicity.
+
+To this agreement Laura herself was not a party; nay, her consent
+had never been so much as asked; for though Elam knew that marriage
+by proxy was impossible, and, indeed, would doubtless have preferred
+to be the bridegroom at his own wedding, he had no objection
+whatever to a vicarious courtship; for he was not a forward suitor,
+delighting to prattle of his pains to his fair tormentor, as the way
+of many is. But touching all the terms and conditions of this
+contract Laura was informed by Mrs. Jaynes, who, when the other
+protested with tears and sobs against this disposition of her person
+without even asking her leave thereto, replied, with a quiet voice
+and manner, that she had the right to make the promise in Laura's
+name, and had done so upon due consideration.
+
+This ominous reserve frightened Laura far more than an angry reply
+would have done; for when her sister spoke with such brief decision,
+it was a sign that her mind was made up; and Laura knew full well
+the resolute purpose with which Mrs. Jaynes was wont to pursue any
+design that she had once formed. She distrusted her own ability to
+withstand her sister's inflexible will, and felt a secret misgiving,
+that, in spite of herself, she would by some means be forced or
+persuaded to yield at last. This very lack of faith in her own power
+of resistance caused her more distress and terror than all her other
+fears. Sometimes she almost fancied a spell of enchantment had been
+put upon her, which would render all her efforts to escape her fate
+as unavailing as the struggles of a gnat in a spider's web.
+
+A friend in time of trouble is like a staff to one that is lame or
+weary. But when Laura, in these straits, leaned upon her dearest
+friend, Cornelia, for aid and comfort, she found but a broken reed;
+for, instead of words of consolation and encouragement, Cornelia
+uttered only dismal prophecies that Laura was surely doomed to be
+the young parson's bride.
+
+"If you only had another lover to run away with, now," said she,
+"why, then it would be delightful to have your sister act as she does;
+but, as it is, I'm sure I don't see any way to avoid it."
+
+"Nor I," cried Laura, sinking still deeper in despair. "Oh, dear!
+what shall I do?"
+
+"In novels, you know," pursued Cornelia, "where there's a cruel,
+tyrannical father, like your sister, there's always a hero in love
+with the heroine----"
+
+"I'm sure I wish there was a hero in love with me," said Laura,
+thinking of her own hero in regimentals. "I'd run away with him,"
+she added, with animation, "if--if both his legs were shot off,"--not
+considering duly, I dare say, how greatly such a dreadful mutilation,
+however glorious in itself, would conflict with the rapid locomotion
+essential to her plan of elopement.
+
+But when Tira Blake came to be told of Laura's trouble, and the
+reasons of it, that sage and prudent friend gave counsel that
+cheered her like a cordial, telling her it would be sinful to marry
+a man whom she disliked so heartily, and that in such a matter no
+one had the right to demand or enforce obedience.
+
+"It's bad enough to be married when you're willin'," said she;
+"but when you a'n't willin', there's no law nor no gospel to make you."
+
+"But if Maria should compel me, what should I do?" cried Laura, to
+whom her sister's will seemed more mighty than both law and gospel.
+
+"She can't," replied Statira, sententiously; "she can't. Her 'yes,'
+in such a case, is only good for herself; it can't make you any
+man's wife.--What shall you do? Why, nothin',--nothin' in the world.
+If they should bring bridegroom and parson, and stand you up side of
+him by main force, (which of course is foolish to think of their
+doing so, only I suppose it just to show you what I mean,) even in
+such a case you needn't do anything. Keep your mouth shut and your
+head from bobbin', and there a'n't lawyers, nor squires, nor parsons,
+nor parsons' wives either for that matter, enough in all Connecticut
+to marry you to a mouse, let alone a man. Humph!" added Miss Blake,
+with scornful accent, "I should like to see 'em set out to marry me
+to anybody I didn't want to have!"
+
+There was nothing in all that Tira said which Laura did not know
+before; but it was uttered in such a way that it sounded in her ears
+like a new revelation, filling her heart with peace and comfort, and
+inspiring her with hope and courage. The magic spell that had
+enthralled her spirit was broken by the power of a few cheery,
+confident, assuring words. A heavy weight seemed lifted from her
+heart, and, relieved from the pressure, her spirits rose, joyous and
+elastic. The shadow was dispelled which had darkened her future, and
+the sun seemed to shine brighter and the birds to sing more sweetly.
+She herself was changed,--or at least it was hard to believe she was
+the same Laura Stebbins who, the night before, had cried herself to
+sleep, and whose doleful visage, that very morning, had looked out
+at her from the mirror. She flew at Tira in a transport, and,
+without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a
+minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have
+tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she
+danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step,
+singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near
+the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball,
+bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture
+of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed
+teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow,
+that, never, _never_, the longest day she lived, would she marry
+Elam Hunt, to please anybody,--as her sister Maria (said she, with a
+saucy toss of the head) would find, if she tried to make her!
+
+I doubt greatly, whether, if Laura had known what I am now going to
+tell my reader, she would have indulged in such vivacious pranks,
+and bold, defiant words: namely, that Mrs. Jaynes was hearing
+everything she said, and, in fact, had listened to and taken special
+heed of nearly the whole conversation, a part of which has been set
+forth above. Coming through the wicket in the garden fence, on an
+errand to the Bugbee kitchen, the sound of her own name, in Laura's
+excited tones, struck Mrs. Jaynes's ear and excited her curiosity.
+Walking nearer to the house, and concealing herself behind a little
+thicket of lilac bushes, near the open window of Statira's bedroom,
+she was enabled to hear with distinctness almost every word uttered
+by the unconscious conspirators, who were plotting against the
+fulfilment of her cherished project.
+
+There is good reason for believing that what Mrs. Jaynes overheard,
+while lying in ambush, as has been related, excited in her heart
+emotions of indignation and resentment. Be that as it may, no trace
+of displeasure was visible upon her face or in her voice or manner,
+when, a few minutes afterwards, she stood by the side of the
+unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her
+hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from
+the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the
+curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then
+could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the
+shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces.
+Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their
+first glad rebound from recent despondency, being wild with gayety,
+enjoying the sport no less than the merry child, her playmate.
+Laura's glowing face was fairly radiant with beauty, and her figure
+was unconsciously displayed in such a variety of bewitching
+attitudes and dainty postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens,
+that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down
+the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still,
+crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if
+taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard
+Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say
+for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though
+her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter
+she held in her hand would not have melted in her pursed-up mouth.
+
+Mrs. Jaynes, for reasons of her own, thought proper to keep
+her temper in control, abstaining from any manifestation of
+displeasure for a much longer time than while she remained
+standing in the back veranda of Doctor Bugbee's house. She did not
+think it prudent to apprise Laura that her rebellious conference
+with Statira had been discovered, nor to forbid her from holding
+further communication with her evil counsellors; but contented
+herself, for the present, with keeping a stricter watch over her
+sister's conduct, by practising with increased rigor and vigilance
+that efficient system of tactics hereinbefore commemorated, by which
+the ardor of Laura's chance admirers was repressed and their
+advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's
+prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or,
+at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had
+engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and
+was only waiting to be asked to name the wedding-day.
+
+It was many months after Elam left the shady height of East Windsor
+Hill before he received a call to settle; for though he preached in
+different parts on trial, before many congregations that were
+destitute of pastors, none of these fastidious flocks would listen
+to his voice a second time, or agree to choose him for its shepherd.
+At last, however, the people of Walbury, a town in Windham County,
+lying nearly twenty miles from Belfield, made choice of Mr. Hunt to
+be their spiritual guide, and accordingly extended to him an
+invitation to be ordained and installed as the settled minister over
+their ancient parish. Upon receiving this proposal, Elam at once
+despatched a letter to his friend and ally, Mrs. Jaynes, informing
+her of his good fortune, and suggesting that Laura should at once
+bestir herself in preparations for their wedding, in order that this
+blissful event might precede his ordination. Then, after waiting for
+the lapse of that period of decorous delay which immemorial usage
+has prescribed in such cases, he indited an epistle to the church in
+Walbury, stating, in proper and accustomed form, that his native
+humility inclined him to refuse their request; but that, after a
+wrestle with his inclinations, he had got the better of them, and
+had resolved to sacrifice his own wishes and feelings, and to enter
+the field of labor to which the Israel in Walbury had invited him.
+
+A year and more had elapsed since Laura, encouraged by Tira Blake's
+assuring words, had begun to hope that a better fate was in store
+for her than to become the wife of a man she detested. Meanwhile,
+Elam had often come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for
+Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without
+having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At
+his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond
+about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to
+entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she
+would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero
+in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever,
+continually waiting for Elam, if she could have been assured the
+time would never come for him to claim her.
+
+But, one morning, after breakfast, having made her bed and arranged
+her chamber, singing blithely all the while, she was just going to
+sit down by the window with her sewing, when Mrs. Jaynes came in
+with a letter in her hand. Laura guessed at once that the letter was
+from Elam, and that it contained the news of which the reader has
+been apprised already. Though she did not need to read the letter in
+order to inform herself of its contents, she took it in her hand,
+when her sister bade her read it, and made a pretence of obedience,
+shuddering, meanwhile, with disgust and terror. At last she came to
+the conclusion of the epistle, where Elam had mentioned his desire
+to be married before being ordained, and had subscribed himself as
+united in gospel bonds to the worthy lady to whom the letter was
+addressed. Then, folding up the paper with trembling hands, she held
+it towards her sister, without daring to look up, or to say a word.
+
+"Now, Laura," asked Mrs. Jaynes, in a quiet tone, "when can you be
+ready to be married?"
+
+Laura tried to speak, and looked up, with a pale, frightened face,
+into her sister's impassive countenance. Her white lips failed to
+form the words she strove to utter.
+
+"When shall the wedding be?" said Mrs. Jaynes, with a smile of
+affected sportiveness. "Name the happy day, my love."
+
+"Happy day!" repeated poor Laura. "Oh, Maria!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter, child?" said Mrs. Jaynes; "what are you
+crying for?"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear sister!" sobbed Laura, falling on her knees at
+Mrs. Jaynes's feet, "do hear me! You are my mother, for you fill her
+place."
+
+"I have endeavored to do so," said Mrs. Jaynes.
+
+"Then, for God's sake, don't make me marry this horrid man!" pursued
+Laura. "Don't tell me that I must! Don't force me to such a fate!"
+And with many passionate words like these, Laura implored her
+sister not to lay any command upon her to marry Elam Hunt.
+
+"Hush, Laura! hush, my dear child!" said Mrs. Jaynes, who had
+anticipated this scene, and was well prepared with her replies.
+"Be calm; you behave absurdly. I have no power to force you to marry
+any man. I don't expect to compel you to accept Mr. Hunt for a
+husband. For at least two years past I had supposed, however, that
+it was your intention to do so. If you have changed your mind, and
+if you wish to break an engagement that has subsisted so long,
+whether for or without cause, I cannot prevent it. You have read so
+many foolish romances, that your head is turned, and you fancy
+yourself a heroine in distress. But let me tell you, my dear, that
+in real life, here, in New England, a woman cannot be forced to marry.
+So calm your transports, wipe your eyes, and get up from your knees.
+I'm not to be kneeled to, pray remember."
+
+Laura did as she was told,--so much abashed that she dared not look
+up. To increase her confusion, her sister began to laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, dear," said she, "but, ha, ha, ha! it was so
+funny!--like a scene in a play, I should think."
+
+"I know I've been silly, Maria," said Laura, weeping again,--with
+shame, this time.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said her sister, in a kind tone, "we're all
+silly sometimes. You'll never be guilty of the folly again, at any
+rate, of supposing that girls can be married, in spite of themselves,
+by cruel sisters; eh, Laura?"
+
+"Oh, Maria, do forgive me!" cried Laura, blushing crimson. "I was so
+very silly!"
+
+"Well, let it all go," said Mrs. Jaynes, kissing her. "Now we'll
+talk about this letter. Tell me why you don't wish to marry Mr. Hunt.
+If you have any good reason against it, I'm sure I don't desire it;
+though, I confess, having supposed so long it was a settled thing, I
+had set my heart upon it. Perhaps this disappointment has been sent
+to me for some wise purpose," added Mrs. Jaynes, with a pious sigh.
+
+Thus encouraged, Laura opened her heart and began to talk, saying
+that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, that she didn't love him, that she
+disliked him, and hated him, and that he was hateful, and horrid, and
+awful, and dreadful, and so homely, and pale, and pimpled, and, ugh!
+she should never like him, nor love him, but always dislike him, and
+hate him. And on she went in this manner, till her fervor was cooled,
+and she had exhausted, by frequent repetition, every form of speech
+capable of expressing her great repugnance to a union with Elam Hunt.
+In conclusion, she said she was willing never to marry, but would
+remain with her sister and work for her and the children all her life.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Jaynes. "We'll talk of your kind offer
+presently; and you will see, I think, that I have no desire that you
+should live and die an old maid, even in case you do not marry
+Mr. Hunt."
+
+"I'm sure I'd rather than not," said Laura, with a twinge of
+conscience at the thought of her hero.
+
+"Have you said all that you've got to say?" asked Mrs. Jaynes, very
+quietly.
+
+Laura looked up into her sister's grave, sober face, and felt a
+chill of vague apprehension begin to take the place of the hopeful
+glow in her heart.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Jaynes, inquiringly.
+
+"Y--yes," faltered Laura, "only this,--I don't like him, and he's
+such a horrid, disgusting man,--and--and--that's all, I believe,
+except that I don't like him, and think he's so disagreeable,--and--
+oh, yes! there's another thing,--he wears blue spectacles,--ugh!
+_blue_ spectacles!"
+
+"Is there anything more?" said Mrs. Jaynes, still speaking with the
+same even, quiet voice.
+
+"N--no," said Laura, "only I--" and here she paused.
+
+"Don't like him," added Mrs. Jaynes, supplying the words.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Laura. "I know I'm foolish, but--"
+
+"It's much to confess it," said Mrs. Jaynes. "Now that I've
+patiently heard all that you have to say, I wish to be heard a few
+words in favor of a dear and worthy friend of mine, against whom you
+appear to entertain a groundless antipathy."
+
+"No, not groundless," interposed Laura.
+
+"Well, I'll agree that a pale, studious face and blue spectacles are
+good reasons for hating a man. Now let me say a word or two in his
+favor, notwithstanding, and also in favor of a plan which I had
+supposed was agreed upon, and which I dislike extremely to see
+abandoned. You have reasons against it, which you have stated. I
+have reasons for it, which I will state. But first answer me two or
+three simple questions, 'yes' or 'no,'--will you, dear?"
+
+And Laura assenting, she went on to ask if Mr. Hunt was not good,
+and pious, and of blameless life and reputation; extorting from
+Laura an affirmative reply to each separate inquiry.
+
+"He's all these good qualities, then, to offset the complexion of
+his face and spectacles," resumed Mrs. Jaynes. "Now let us look at
+the matter in a worldly point of view. He is able to give you not
+only a place, but the very highest position in society; he can offer
+you, not wealth, but competence, which is better than either poverty
+or riches. Why, my dear, there are a hundred girls in this town,
+many of whom excel you in everything which men think desirable in a
+wife, except, perhaps, the poor, perishable quality of beauty,--
+girls of good family, rich, or likely to be so, intelligent, well
+educated, some of them, to say the least, almost as pretty as you,
+any one of whom would think herself honored by this offer which you
+despise; for most people are aware that to be a minister's wife, in
+New England, is, my dear, to occupy, as I have just said, the very
+summit of the social structure."
+
+Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words.
+After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain
+with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened
+with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet,
+Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had
+been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no
+claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.
+
+"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes,
+"to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would
+bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But
+young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It
+is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event
+was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's
+warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this
+good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you
+prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to
+marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue
+spectacles and pale complexion?"
+
+Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor
+paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.
+
+"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms
+together, in sore distress.
+
+"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and
+speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It
+used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are
+getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more,
+and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez
+has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If--well, never
+mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of
+Mr. Hunt,--such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances,
+from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose
+preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands,
+would be glad to win,--who is going to be settled in a good old
+parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large,
+I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,--I _do_ say, Laura, that you ought to
+give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a
+two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his
+spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a
+home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but
+Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we
+have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection.
+To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will
+be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind,
+imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish
+whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and
+opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had
+better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner.
+If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear,
+I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice
+against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."
+
+With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought
+she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and
+went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting
+with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.
+
+At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely
+have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the
+door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a
+sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro
+across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and
+sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the
+while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some
+reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person,
+nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that
+her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who
+provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those
+who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to
+her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained
+for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first
+time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and
+felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.
+
+At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of
+frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on
+purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new
+exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a
+whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing
+but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she
+must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to
+think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what
+good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister
+that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told
+her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had
+been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that
+she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was
+all true and reasonable,--but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she
+conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,--his lank, slim figure,
+arrayed in sombre black,--his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with
+pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,--his spectral
+glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She
+imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers,
+and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the
+certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an
+invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she
+screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting
+herself, she sank down moaning.--Oh, heavens! she thought, there was
+no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all
+alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor
+father, nor mother, nor brother,--with only a sister who had a
+husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than
+she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,--
+nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her
+heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What
+could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was
+worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer.
+If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her
+and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only
+knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so
+pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put
+upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared.
+For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to
+write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the
+dictionary, to see how they were spelt;--and parsing! and doing sums!--
+oh, gracious! she never could teach school,--that was out of the
+question!
+
+At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit
+her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam
+of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit
+upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always
+been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange
+laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and
+trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it
+would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing
+and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than
+marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she
+began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied
+herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps,
+among a group of other girls,--sometimes rising to attend upon a
+customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in
+the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be
+ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to
+see her in Hartford.
+
+What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl
+that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking
+how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was
+a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping
+of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her
+new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford,
+and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get
+a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the
+city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there,
+and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it
+was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of
+Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the
+great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small,
+for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen
+scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee
+could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay,
+even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask
+him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her,
+unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would
+not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see
+Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and
+forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon
+his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so
+much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children
+complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed
+the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she
+troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause
+to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless
+gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened
+to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of
+sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his
+aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense
+benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to
+refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to
+help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn
+her away. At all events, she could try.
+
+Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and
+strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face,
+arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then
+sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for
+Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed
+visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very
+day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was
+represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable
+temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at
+the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated
+and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by
+his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by
+a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by
+robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even
+teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a
+jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and
+himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.
+
+Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose
+unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of
+even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page
+near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit
+of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces
+her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then
+Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten
+at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught
+sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of
+coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted
+the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the
+message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information
+that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.
+
+Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and
+console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite
+of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this
+lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward
+accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she
+never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this
+interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor
+would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference
+to appear at the end of a chapter.
+
+[To be continued in the next Number.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPARTACUS.
+
+The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the
+virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity.
+They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The
+quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,
+
+  "Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"
+
+Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who
+resisted them, and enslaved the rest."
+
+But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited
+their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that
+are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high
+as well as the low,--of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks
+and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.
+
+The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their
+bondmen,--by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,--affecting as they
+did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made
+slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians
+and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their
+necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses,
+and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of
+their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the
+head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae.
+One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the
+greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since
+that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his
+javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.
+
+The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that
+which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are
+many facts which show that the relations between master and slave
+were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were
+exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be
+where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and
+the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where
+cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the
+slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were
+the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love
+of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men
+were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and
+abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So
+ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway,
+and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the
+private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves.
+Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their
+maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but
+little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded
+as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the
+ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters
+manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by
+Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates
+this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade
+slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size
+was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its
+size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed
+that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave,
+not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to
+present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the
+animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor
+ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of
+thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through
+many generations.
+
+The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the
+efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to
+the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in
+Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should
+become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the
+Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians,
+about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property
+ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says
+Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large
+tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates
+which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had
+been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners.
+The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became
+rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had
+cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was
+suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded
+with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors,
+whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that
+they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer
+Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were
+well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of
+others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus,
+although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and
+though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with
+evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the
+horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318,
+London edition.]
+
+The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the
+destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of
+the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline
+may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two
+or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred
+thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He
+was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and
+conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his
+elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts,
+he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be
+recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The
+victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the
+credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he
+must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his
+position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said
+to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only
+that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner,
+but died before he could be brought to punishment,--no doubt, to the
+vast regret of his savage captors.
+
+In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and
+was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting.
+The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a
+Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their
+leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to
+his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was
+not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves
+were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one
+arising to make their place good.
+
+The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer,
+than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it
+was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military
+genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps,
+of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies,
+and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the
+Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war
+took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with
+Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the
+exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,--the great
+Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in
+contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with
+Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to
+Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their
+walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their
+assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man
+of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means
+at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing
+powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and
+in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were,
+of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a
+long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus.
+The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his
+father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian,
+without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his
+enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most
+heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The
+palm must be aligned to the latter.
+
+To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a
+Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave
+people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual
+superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large
+views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch
+pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he
+deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was,
+says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength,
+but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition,
+and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation."
+It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace
+was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion
+of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found
+in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to
+Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were
+Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians
+themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior
+physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from
+attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for
+soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the
+preference as gladiators,--a dubious honor, to say the best of it.
+
+How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is
+a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it
+was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie
+for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was
+first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter
+and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from
+choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he
+writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that
+Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly
+gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a
+contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by
+the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals.
+Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been
+a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,--
+a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek,
+who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a
+word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but
+introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us,
+"that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was
+seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the
+same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and
+possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this
+was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him
+to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress,
+being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when
+he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War
+of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain
+know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was
+loved by such a man.
+
+The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known.
+Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and
+had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who
+wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators,
+the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were
+maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account,
+Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and
+afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators,
+who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome.
+But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a
+destiny as the being "butchered to make a Roman holiday." Most of
+his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who
+bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their
+escape,--the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who
+were subsequently made his lieutenants,--Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus,
+a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a
+portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says
+that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number
+to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed
+themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook's shop,
+they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell
+in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators' weapons, which
+they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition.
+Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom
+they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial,
+deeming these no longer worthy of them.
+
+They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers,
+with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from
+time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive.
+Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus
+and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that
+they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and
+such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans
+little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible
+of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent
+against the "robbers," as they were considered to be. He found them
+so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to
+them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to
+blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight
+at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of
+genius, against whom even Rome's military system could not then
+succeed. He despised his enemy,--a sort of gratification which to
+those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused
+ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his
+followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point
+which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered
+inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently
+affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In
+the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the
+Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep,
+the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed
+into the hands of the despised enemy.
+
+Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to
+assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them.
+Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of
+the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which,
+while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who
+groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how
+strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining
+that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful
+submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land
+belonged of right to the bravest,--a sentiment as natural and proper
+when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding
+from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his
+own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is
+contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for
+a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust,
+but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as
+Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to
+disregard keeping in what he wrote.
+
+Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been
+men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made
+captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost
+entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had
+pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that
+the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry
+to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his
+murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate,
+the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery
+to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural
+population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been
+conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to
+baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of
+Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the
+Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were
+indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An
+anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the
+character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty
+years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius
+Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the
+brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed,
+"Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you
+in chains to Rome!"
+
+The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves,
+Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was
+particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of
+Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the
+Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness
+that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the
+cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having
+asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no
+travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell,
+"was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti,
+and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
+adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder
+the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged
+to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the
+year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for
+brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land
+of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were
+shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they
+talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The
+century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus
+had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them
+ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number,
+men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible
+material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to
+the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and
+active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority
+of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular
+manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the
+men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some
+discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the
+men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the
+hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had
+to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to
+the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military
+force then to be found in the world.
+
+[Footnote 3: Liddell, _History of Rome_, Vol. II, p. 144]
+
+With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led,
+Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name.
+Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were
+perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species
+of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation
+which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and
+which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and
+destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the
+conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the
+fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without
+supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw
+that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it
+unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
+
+[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on
+the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later
+Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of
+Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young
+slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War,
+"If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus."
+The manner in which he, the son of a _libertinus_, speaks of
+Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but
+is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working
+out more important results than could have followed from all the
+acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense
+connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
+
+Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it
+was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The
+government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at
+the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was
+not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later,
+Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy;
+and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate
+of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong
+enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently
+skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But
+they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of
+invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time
+apparently justified their confidence.
+
+The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly
+armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to
+use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"--never yet having been
+matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were
+chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made
+by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon
+retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his
+lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated
+themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly
+routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and
+even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted.
+Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military
+principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a
+Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly
+after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting
+him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground
+hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters,
+and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of
+those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when,
+one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a
+state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had
+happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond
+their reach.
+
+This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a
+division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night
+was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's
+march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the
+Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without
+making any show of resistance,--abandoning everything to the
+assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to
+escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they
+were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place
+not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
+
+Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a
+Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had
+fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of
+superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though
+still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust
+represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling
+them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but
+upon a long war,--that from success, then, would follow a series of
+victories,--and that therein lay their only salvation from a death
+at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon
+victory after victory,--an expression that showed he had a clear
+comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that
+followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for
+his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus.
+His lictors, with the _fasces_, shared the same fate. Spartacus
+assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He
+has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince
+every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound
+appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which
+his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of
+authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the
+possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and
+about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power,
+but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it.
+Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of
+the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.
+
+The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy
+of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and
+at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to
+organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to
+prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which
+they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and
+gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from
+the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example
+in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.
+
+Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting
+another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,--
+repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were
+not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp,
+whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no
+fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had
+become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but
+wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that
+the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to
+retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a
+retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in
+pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight
+under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of
+Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.
+
+Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which
+Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less
+than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved
+himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent
+against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great
+battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly
+successful. Like Carnot, he had "organized victory." A large part of
+Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than
+those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would
+probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful
+state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than
+of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and
+knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of
+accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was
+fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get
+out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the
+extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from
+Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march
+north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers
+reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was
+determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the
+Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A
+division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under
+Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but
+the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very
+outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the
+Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that,
+separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus,
+they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did
+good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and
+inflated with a notion of invincibility,--on what founded, it would
+be hard to say,--would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to
+lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the
+number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main
+army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting
+a Roman army, commanded by the Praetor Arrius, on the borders of
+Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not
+less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But
+this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and,
+while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon
+by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his
+followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was
+the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.
+
+The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their
+enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was,
+they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious
+efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Gellius and Lentulus
+were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the
+Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria.
+Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was
+determined not to fight until Gellius--whose victory he knew of--
+should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight
+he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in
+blocking up the road by which Gellius was advancing, unknown to
+Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his
+colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman
+accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to
+meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus.
+Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman
+armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different
+battles. Hannibal's Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this
+exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies
+were united under the command of Varro.
+
+These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser
+Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the
+Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open
+country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon
+which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had
+he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his
+victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success
+had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the
+impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army,
+dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by
+their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that
+his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be
+destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was
+slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a
+modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it
+was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and
+Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of
+burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order,
+the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon
+as so many brutes.
+
+Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army
+led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory
+was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their
+army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to
+be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this
+signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand
+design of attacking Rome,--a design every way so worthy of his
+genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving
+permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way
+out of Italy by a northern march,--can never be known. It is
+supposed to have been in consequence of information that
+circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage
+into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an
+earlier period.
+
+At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the
+Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years
+later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus
+expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in
+abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred
+thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from
+Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus,
+though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for
+their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests
+were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the
+gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman
+oppression, and had become outlaws because the world's law was
+against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a
+thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on
+the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for
+the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with
+Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius
+and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was
+then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian.
+Verres was ruling over the island,--and how he ruled it Cicero has
+told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the
+free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans.
+A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in
+armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend
+to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is
+certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had
+been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed
+the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies
+of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields
+from those on which their fame and power were won.
+
+But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be
+done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to
+Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its
+course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of
+Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his
+supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less
+than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the
+sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus
+to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his
+followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them.
+The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few
+would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful
+gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to
+construct boats.
+
+After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called
+Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort
+to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused,
+but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against
+Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his
+lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with
+orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his
+orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw
+away their arms, and fled,--an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The
+victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their
+main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of
+Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced
+by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though
+he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over
+into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to
+meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his
+rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of
+generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the
+Roman army. [5]
+
+[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to
+Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal
+fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and
+so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune--
+a misfortune of his own creating--to lead the finest Roman army that
+had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on
+the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would
+have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive
+his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us
+as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration
+beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only
+exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but,
+when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from
+the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla.
+Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of
+"destroying the den of the wolves of Italy," and Sulla arrived to
+the city's rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately
+followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was
+completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was
+as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with
+Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and
+to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said
+to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want
+of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left
+him no friends in death.]
+
+Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army
+employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest
+slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of
+owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account.
+He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand
+how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the
+gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property,
+as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly
+a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic;
+as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to
+the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of
+any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that
+because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man
+of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the
+most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him,
+as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so
+completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not
+misplaced.
+
+The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having
+restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to
+meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter's position,
+he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal
+unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy.
+As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he
+commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have
+rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works
+were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and
+ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction.
+So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not
+until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus
+discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his
+genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks
+on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors,
+and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he
+purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible
+snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman
+works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march
+noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed
+to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to
+fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts
+were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the
+whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind,
+and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and
+trenching of the legions.
+
+It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had
+been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus.
+But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as
+a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier.
+He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both
+to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate,
+stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home
+from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down
+an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time
+sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for
+Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of
+mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority,
+and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on
+the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most
+severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the
+field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom
+only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks.
+Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by
+Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this
+last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to
+avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels,
+and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was
+what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from
+Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it
+to be prolonged.
+
+Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he
+was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general.
+The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and
+the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable
+war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble
+ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers,
+warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall
+alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical
+commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height,
+and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were
+visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be
+brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own
+hands. "I am determined," he said to his men, "to share all your
+dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I
+shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need
+a horse no more." [6]
+
+[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his
+horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton,
+(fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating
+the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen
+centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at
+the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated
+and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]
+
+The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of
+that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw
+the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its
+commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The
+insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus
+leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus
+acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans
+steadily resisted,--and the slaughter was great on both sides. At
+last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when
+Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a
+fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way
+to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of
+inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs.
+Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was
+overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer,
+and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty
+thousand of whom were killed;--Livy puts their killed at forty
+thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as
+many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands
+of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,--the
+crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way,
+between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched
+through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who
+sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his
+homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.
+
+Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great
+republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who
+boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from
+Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the
+force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own,
+and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus,
+who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably
+resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia,
+after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except
+Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his
+foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes,
+and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?
+
+
+I.
+
+"If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years
+old," said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and
+the setting sun,--for it was summer-time, "it would be that he can
+remember M. ---- in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty
+odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn't help making great allowances
+for _Don Giovanni_, after seeing her in _Zerlina_. She was beyond
+imagination _piquante_ and delicious."
+
+The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman
+Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing
+this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,--I forget which,--in
+President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the
+office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for
+the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or
+village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him
+"the _Counsel_" which, I believe,--for I am not very fresh from my
+school-books,--was etymologically correct enough, however
+orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life,
+however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had
+dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had
+seen many cities, and the manners of many men--and of some women,--
+singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul,
+correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by
+pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial
+intermediacy of the _coulisses_, still less to the lower depth of
+disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.
+
+"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,--Catalani,
+Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,--
+though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is
+none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so
+permanently as the Signorina G----, or that I can see and hear so
+distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. _Rosina,
+Desdemona, Cinderella_, and, as I said just now, _Zerlina_,--she is
+as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear, as if the Park
+Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been
+hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the
+Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,--a mood to which
+he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.
+
+Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul's
+wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious
+shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his
+tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which
+divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and
+had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the
+communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.
+
+"A glass of Champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end
+of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the
+palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn
+and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but
+Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man
+and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."
+
+I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine
+and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,--which
+for a heretic is something remarkable,--and had no scruple about
+uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or
+protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism
+by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to
+the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by
+industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine
+such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the
+last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to
+import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,--their
+bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events.
+Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it,
+from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.
+
+"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir," I suggested, "that
+made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned
+seventeen when she sung in this country."
+
+"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether,
+nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so
+glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of
+delight, as that Lake fellow says,"--it was thus profanely that the
+Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,--
+"and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"
+
+"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.
+
+"Once, only," he answered,--"eight or nine years afterwards, a year
+or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in _Norma_. She was
+different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an
+indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one
+oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart
+and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in
+_Camille_ or _Phedre_. It was true genius, and no imitation, that
+made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical
+beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force
+of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the
+scene before you."
+
+"But do you rank M. ---- with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied
+perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be
+altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive
+self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character
+she personated,--not always the same, but such as the woman she
+represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion
+that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty!
+What might not ten years more have made her!"
+
+"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected
+with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For
+it was unlucky enough, I believe,--was it not?"
+
+"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or
+qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending.
+It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G---- was the one
+who suffered the most by the operation."
+
+"I have always heard," said I, "that old G---- was cheated out of
+the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. ----
+got his wife on false pretences."
+
+"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all
+about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false
+pretences, to be sure, but it was not G---- that suffered by them.
+M. M. ----, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G----
+got it for all that."
+
+"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot
+exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs
+thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"
+
+"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no
+secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van
+Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year
+'Thirty-five."
+
+"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"
+
+"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing
+the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind
+you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the
+mountains as soon as the sun is down."
+
+I beg your pardon,--did you make a remark?--Oh, _what mountains_? You
+must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the
+identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient
+reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number,
+you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent,
+from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only
+you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river--also
+anonymous for the present distress--breaks its way, and which gives
+him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled
+to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with
+their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of
+the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and
+when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apophthegms,
+namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it
+teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another.
+Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just
+this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we
+drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following
+story. I will tell it in my own words,--not that they are so good as
+his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.
+
+
+II.
+
+New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has
+almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed,
+had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich
+Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the
+obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea,
+in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has
+been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know
+not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was
+in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species,
+Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing,
+Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his
+advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain
+of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys,
+such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been
+taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the
+votive stocking,--they come from the mother city, where she sits
+upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And
+linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them,
+come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our
+beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,--though
+the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. ----'s marriage
+may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that
+the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven
+out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine
+Hollands;--and this is the way in which it came to pass.
+
+Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must
+understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a
+city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His
+transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip
+over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of
+London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his
+adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one
+I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good
+to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly
+made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little
+dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those
+flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was
+present at the _debut_ of Maria G---- at the King's Theatre. He must
+have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful _Rosina_,
+had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended
+emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely
+excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not
+have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New
+York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair
+linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might
+enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to _Doctor Bartolo_
+in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a
+more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He
+thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.
+
+Well, the good ship _Steenbok_ had prosperous gales and fair weather
+across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days
+to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off
+and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own
+warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully
+understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been
+since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited
+for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or
+two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that
+he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam,
+when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently
+of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will
+call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he
+had advertised yet on hand."
+
+"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"And the terms?"
+
+"Cash, on delivery."
+
+"Very good," replied the obliging buyer, "if they be of the quality
+you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms.
+Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, tomorrow
+morning, and I will send you the money."
+
+"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"Is M. ----," responded the courteous purchaser.
+
+The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually
+well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good day.
+
+Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer;
+but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that.
+He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see
+the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and
+thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good
+appetite.
+
+It is to be supposed that M. M. ---- did the same. At any rate, he
+had the most reason,--at least, according to his probable notions of
+mercantile morality and success.
+
+
+III.
+
+The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens
+to M. M. ----'s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the
+same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room,
+according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point
+of fact, M. M. ---- was not in at the time; but there was no doubt
+that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came
+in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant
+presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two
+more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no
+delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave
+himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five
+and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the
+current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so
+large a scale as M. M. ----, and conducted them on the sound basis
+of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when
+a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of
+purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for
+himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he
+incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. ---- to
+receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed
+to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of
+being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some
+little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state
+of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them,
+Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,--
+
+"Is M. M. ---- in?"
+
+"No, Sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be just at
+present."
+
+"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing
+business of importance."
+
+"Not to-day, Sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively;
+"he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."
+
+"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that
+very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not
+seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where
+does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he
+has to say for himself, and that speedily."
+
+"Indeed, Sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think when you
+understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear
+disturbing M. M. ---- this day of all others in his life."
+
+"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said
+Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, "that he can't see his
+creditors and pay his debts on it?"
+
+"Why, Sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest
+and importance, "it is M. M. ----'s wedding-day. He marries this
+morning the Signorina G----, and I am sure you would not molest him
+with business on such an occasion as that."
+
+"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee, "and why
+have they not been paid?"
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir," replied
+the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles
+was a daily occurrence; "M. M. ---- will, of course, attend to that
+matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that,
+in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature,
+the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he
+returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and
+you will hear from him without delay."
+
+The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence
+would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his
+part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact
+the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young _Prima
+Donna_. There is something about the great events of life, which
+cannot happen a great many times to anybody,--
+
+  "A wedding or a funeral,
+  A mourning or a festival,--"
+
+that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes
+it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have
+demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_
+that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed
+three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his
+bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he
+was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer
+of the lovely G----. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of
+marriage with that divine creature should forget every other
+consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,--even
+if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to
+the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that
+the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his
+mind under the delay, that old G---- was by no means the kind of man
+to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet
+lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the
+fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give
+him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the
+notes of the Signorina G---- as so much collateral security for his
+debt.
+
+So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the
+discharge of M. M. ----'s indebtedness to his principal. He had
+advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment,
+and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days
+wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide
+was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision
+exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet
+influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted
+that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in
+peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of
+earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my
+readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their
+own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time,
+after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he
+took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118,
+Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. ---- joy of
+his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long
+withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.
+
+  "The gods gave ear and granted half his prayer;
+  The rest the winds dispersed in empty air."
+
+There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting
+his epithalamic congratulation,--but as to his receiving the
+numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was
+an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl-Street
+counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a
+less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked
+on his last visit. He was received by M. M. ---- with courtesy, a
+little over-strained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at
+their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging
+with epic energy into the midst of things, said, "I have called,
+M. M. ----, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will
+remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such
+a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented
+your attending to this business sooner, but it is now high time that
+it were settled."
+
+"I consent to it all, Monsieur," replied M. M. ----, with a
+deprecatory gesture; "you have reason, and I am desolated that it is
+the impossible that you ask of me to do."
+
+"How, Sir!" demanded the creditor; "what do you mean by the
+impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for
+the goods?"
+
+"My faith, no, Monsieur," shruggingly responded M. M. ----;
+"I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say
+it; but if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the
+money? What to do?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Sir," returned Mr. Schulemberg. "You have
+not the money? And you do not mean to pay me according to agreement?"
+
+"But, Monsieur, how can I when I have not money? Have you not heard
+that I have made--what you call it?--failure, yesterday? I am
+grieved of it, thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could
+not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the
+price."
+
+"Indeed, sir," replied Mr. Schulemberg, "I had not heard of your
+misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and
+yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is
+no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me and
+accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss
+of the interest."
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur, you are too good, and Madame will be recognizant
+to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God, it is
+impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, Monsieur,
+I have sold it all!"
+
+"Sold it?" reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of
+etiquette, "Sold it? And to whom, pray? And when?"
+
+"To M. G----, my father-in-the-law," answered the catechumen, blandly;
+"and it is a week that he has received it."
+
+"Then I must bid you a good morning, Sir," said Mr. Schulemberg,
+rising hastily and collecting his hat and gloves, "for I must lose
+no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have
+changed hands again."
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted the poor, but honest M. ----,
+"but it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. G---- embarked
+himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him!"
+
+Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at
+finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline
+reporting the conversation any farther, lest its strength of
+expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more
+queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say, that the _swindlee_, if I
+may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own
+mind and imprisoned the body of M. M. ----; for in those days
+imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few
+of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which
+it was no abuse to apply it.
+
+
+IV.
+
+I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in
+captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which
+beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my
+hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he
+obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being
+entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of
+him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though
+that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his
+young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice
+into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be
+told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another
+matrimonial venture in partnership with De B----. I have nothing to
+do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the
+object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and
+here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not
+quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising
+_impresario_, Signor G----, who had so deftly turned his daughter
+into a ship-load of fine linens.
+
+This excellent person sailed, as M. M. ---- told Mr. Schulemberg, for
+Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers,
+and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage
+was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion
+could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as
+he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a
+whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow
+of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties
+was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of
+linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest
+sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous
+height. So the good G---- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing
+the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the
+same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost
+price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and
+having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in
+those latitudes, Signor G---- set forth for the Aztec City. As the
+relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory
+footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry
+his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither
+was a triumphal procession. Not Cortes, not General Scott, himself,
+marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads
+from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song.
+Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and
+from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the
+vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
+
+Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most
+populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself
+master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine
+love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few
+opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G----
+was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished
+singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit,
+if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and,
+though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give
+them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the
+intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Senoras and
+Senoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their
+fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very
+pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds
+and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give
+pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and
+hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their
+private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself
+never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer
+hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the
+portly person of the happy G----. Saturated at length with the
+golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,--if, indeed, singer
+were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable
+forever like a sieve of the Danaides,--saturated, or satisfied that
+it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back
+again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going,
+and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his
+safe return.
+
+But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints
+were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not
+hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate,
+they did not take that care of the worthy G---- which their devotees
+had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the
+Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on
+his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit
+to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his
+linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the
+vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native
+Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared
+onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy
+of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to
+the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road
+turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a
+dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind
+intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the
+_impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature
+of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into
+the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men
+whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the
+intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in
+this case, as Signor G---- was a Spaniard by birth, and their
+expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for
+speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very
+little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
+
+Now Signor G---- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his
+operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were
+perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense.
+Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights,
+pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of
+explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now
+saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe,
+and, in the opinion of Signor G----, at least, very much inferior to
+it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped,
+these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and
+weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the
+two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between
+Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed
+induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's
+fancy-dress breakfast,--for this integument, I say, these minions of
+the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in
+preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic
+cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new
+Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away,
+these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their
+thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough
+sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the
+ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy
+travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so
+they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there
+they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in
+their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while
+their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
+
+There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it
+was entirely unequal to the emergency,--even if it were not, as was
+afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy
+had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was
+nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or
+to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily
+administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,--as the King
+of France, by virtue of his _Droit d'Aubaine_, would have
+confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in
+spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced
+to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G----
+had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly
+rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely
+chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new
+acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking
+open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved
+doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever
+felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers
+to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his
+pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the
+sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished
+from the shirt-frills,--for in those days studs were not,--and the
+rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining
+testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the
+celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road.
+Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on
+at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good
+Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and
+Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as
+he professed to feel.
+
+At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the
+spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they
+should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic
+seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their
+utmost, and poor G---- and his companions in misery stood in the
+centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their
+backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the
+victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their
+toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded
+Signor G---- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he
+had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself
+directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and
+spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea
+was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized
+results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were
+unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him
+some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued.
+Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground,
+a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G---- for a song.
+A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a
+stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for
+the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a
+tyring-room," as poor G---- had no clothes to change for those he
+stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their
+captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the
+task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would
+brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor
+sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would
+avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated,
+the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in
+expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
+
+So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold,"
+before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was
+one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening
+began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a
+glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he
+delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,--that the tenor himself
+could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held
+the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and
+applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of
+their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or
+dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving
+singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would
+be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his
+meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or
+Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would
+sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just
+lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It
+was lucky for the unfortunate G---- that their approbation took this
+solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all
+he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating
+audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many
+encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook
+themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their
+patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket
+as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two
+furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for
+Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
+
+And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering
+for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G---- received the
+price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing,
+and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his
+losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes;
+but then it is equally true that M. M. ---- actually obtained his
+wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this
+can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest
+I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle," in my mind.
+I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am
+quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so
+comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical
+or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the
+reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only
+undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,--
+and I have done it.
+
+
+V.
+
+"I consider that a good story," said the Consul, when he had
+finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing,--
+"and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one."
+
+I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if
+the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg
+him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it
+to me, it was an excellent good story.
+
+"Poor Mynheer Van Holland," he added, laughing, "never got over that
+adventure. Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich
+for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to
+a parcel of Mexican _ladrones_, after buying an opera-singer for a
+Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to
+the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or
+opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don't
+wonder at it!"
+
+Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO RIVERS.
+
+  Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
+  Repeats the music of the rain;
+  But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
+  Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
+
+  Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
+  The stream I love unbounded goes
+  Through flood and sea and firmament;
+  Through light, through life, it forward flows.
+
+  I see the inundation sweet,
+  I hear the spending of the stream
+  Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
+  Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
+
+  Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
+  Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
+  They lose their grief who hear his song,
+  And where he winds is the day of day.
+
+  So forth and brighter fares my stream,--
+  Who drink it shall not thirst again;
+  No darkness stains its equal gleam,
+  And ages drop in it like rain.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
+
+  [The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round
+  again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made since
+  the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to remember
+  this is _talk_; just as easy and just as formal as I choose to make
+  it.]
+
+--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did
+not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (_Felis Catus_,
+LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.
+
+But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an
+author he is _droll_. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does,
+be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you
+_cried_ over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and
+send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in
+private.
+
+--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--
+Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The
+clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but
+with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion
+never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a
+procession.
+
+If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to
+tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit--
+using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in a
+partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a
+single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any
+intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the
+province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the
+prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight. A
+pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much shallower trick
+in mental optics; throwing the _shadows_ of two objects so that one
+overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects,
+but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of
+truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
+
+[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape
+the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all
+must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that Proserpina's
+cutting the yellow hair had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,
+and that breakfast was over.]
+
+--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say
+disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
+you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and
+courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave
+your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are
+ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding _never_ forgets that
+_amour-propre_ is universal. When you read the story of the
+Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old
+man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool
+of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in
+turning him out of doors.
+
+--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find
+everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly
+mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I
+once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for
+its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken
+ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should have
+shown up the Professor, who had once belabored me in his feeble way,
+but one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough,
+and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I
+doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling
+unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny.
+
+Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some
+persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly
+stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is
+precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but
+perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat
+sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, that,
+just as music must have all these, so conversation must have its
+partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. It
+is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal
+element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too
+literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of _esprit_.--
+"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense?
+Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"--Certainly, if a man
+is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and empty,--if, instead
+of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords,
+often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of
+thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords,
+stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking is
+one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most important, and the most
+difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the
+intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is
+suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of
+each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and
+the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons
+talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts, there
+are so many of them.
+
+[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
+
+When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is
+natural enough that among the six there should be more or less
+confusion and misapprehension.
+
+[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw
+loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a
+boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a
+sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand
+to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded,
+with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of
+the mouth, and somewhat rasping _voce di petto_, to Falstaff's nine
+men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman
+opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate,
+he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]
+
+I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that
+there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as
+taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
+
+                   {1. The real John; known only
+                   {   to his Maker.
+                   {
+                   {2. John's ideal John; never the
+  Three Johns      {   real one, and often very unlike him.
+                   {
+                   {3. Thomas's ideal John; never
+                   {   the real John, nor John's
+                   {   John, but often very unlike
+                   {   either.
+
+                   {1. The real Thomas.
+  Three Thomases.  {2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.
+                   {3. John's ideal Thomas
+
+
+Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a
+platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the
+conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and
+ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the
+gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly
+conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks
+from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to
+be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as
+Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue,
+though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the
+three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows
+himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him,
+there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between
+two. Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the
+one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants
+often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening
+all at the same time.
+
+[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by
+a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at
+table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known
+to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered
+Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,
+remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him
+that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
+mean time he had eaten the peaches.]
+
+--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly
+of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh
+and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as
+likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of
+considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what
+florists style the _breaking_ of a seedling tulip into what we may
+call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one with
+the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in old
+Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the seckel pear,
+which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise,--
+there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that twice
+two make _five_. Nature is fond of what are called "gift-enterprises."
+This little book of life which she has given into the hands of its
+joint possessors is commonly one of the old story-books bound over
+again. Only once in a great while there is a stately poem in it, or
+its leaves are illuminated with the glories of art, or they enfold a
+draft for untold values signed by the millionfold millionnaire old
+mother herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find the
+"gift" that came with the little book.
+
+It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own
+flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still
+more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of
+any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his
+own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one
+remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for
+exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
+self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just
+stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found in
+the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what your
+cousins, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about
+the fine poem you have written, but send it (postage paid) to the
+editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the way, is
+not so called because it is a _notion_, as some dull wits wish they
+had said, but are too late.
+
+--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled
+with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,
+peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them
+are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps;
+they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet
+assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly
+the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what
+he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who
+deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a
+mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a
+hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision
+with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional,
+incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of
+things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal
+with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature;
+only in a less degree. Every probability--and most of our common,
+working beliefs are probabilities--is provided with _buffers_ at
+both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing
+against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy,
+no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the minds that
+handle these forms of truth.
+
+--Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most
+gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the
+ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But
+mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force
+enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen
+most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only
+in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a
+certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the
+sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an
+attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and
+appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash
+man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwithstanding.
+
+[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated
+in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of
+music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned
+before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked
+barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes
+add my vocal powers to her execution of:
+
+  "Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom,"--
+
+not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is
+present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a
+good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to,
+sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that
+felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted
+by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is
+very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris,
+which is awkward, as B.F. devoted himself to it with the peculiar
+advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well,
+between us, notwithstanding. The following is an _uncorrected_ French
+exercise, written by this young gentleman. His mother thinks it very
+creditable to his abilities; though, being unacquainted with the
+French language, her judgment cannot be considered final.
+
+  LE RAT DES SALONS A LECTURE.
+
+  Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de derriere
+  sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il fait
+  usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a le peau noir pour le
+  plupart, et porte un cercle blanchatre autour de son cou. On le
+  trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, digere, s'il y
+  a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et
+  ronfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblance de lire. On ne sait
+  pas s'il a une autre gite que cela. Il a l'air d'une bete tres
+  stupide, mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse extraordinaire
+  quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne sait pas
+  pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idees. Il
+  vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers.
+  Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel
+  il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres,
+  semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas cependant les
+  prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole pas, ordinairement;
+  il fait rarement meme des echanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau,
+  parceque son chapeau a toujours un caractere specifique. On ne sait
+  pas au juste ce dont il se nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d'avis que
+  c'etait de l'odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une
+  nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems.
+  Enfin il meure, en laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a
+  Lecture ou il avait existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient
+  toutes les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir,
+  dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir,
+  et ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des
+  caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le
+  spiritulisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professors de Cambridge
+  sont des imbeciles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.
+
+I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be
+touched in any way, is very creditable to B.F. You observe that he
+is acquiring a knowledge of zooelogy at the same time that he is
+learning French. Fathers of families who take this periodical will
+find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode of
+instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's exercise.
+The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire Naturelle des
+Betes Ruminans et Rougeurs, Bipedes et Autres," lately published in
+Paris. This was translated into English and published in London. It
+was republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and additions by the
+American editor. The notes consist of an interrogation-mark on page
+53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" by the
+same hand. The additions consist of the editor's name on the
+title-page and back, with a complete and authentic list of said
+editor's honorary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy
+translated the translation back into French. This may be compared
+with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division X, of the
+Public Library of this metropolis.]
+
+--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a
+story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering
+each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the
+wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by
+the piece and by the bale.
+
+That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for
+one novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a
+cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that
+many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that
+are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing
+in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that all
+records of human experience are as so many bound _herbaria_ to the
+innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, fragrance-laden,
+poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling leaves and flowers of
+the forest and the prairies. All we can do with books of human
+experience is to make them alive again with something borrowed from
+our own lives. We can make a book alive for us just in proportion to
+its resemblance in essence or in form to our own experience. Now an
+author's first novel is naturally drawn, to a great extent, from his
+personal experiences; that is, is a literal copy of nature under
+various slight disguises. But the moment the author gets out of his
+personality, he must have the creative power, as well as the
+narrative art and the sentiment, in order to tell a living story;
+and this is rare.
+
+Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall
+clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives, though
+their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, drop
+a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. Oftentimes a
+single _cradling_ gets them all, and after that the poor man's labor
+is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which proves that I,
+as an individual of the human family, could write one novel or story
+at any rate, if I would.
+
+--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it. In
+the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain that
+verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and rhyme
+and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the fire of
+imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness of a
+heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in the
+luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A beauty
+shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the glitter of her
+diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms and shoulders
+laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain calico, she would
+be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies.
+
+Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I
+should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am
+afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they
+have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I am
+pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories among us
+there is hardly one I can recall that has not drawn too faithfully
+some living portrait that might better have been spared.
+
+Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull
+to write such a story as I should wish to write.
+
+And finally, I think it very likely I _shall_ write a story one of
+these days. Don't be surprised at anytime, if you see me coming out
+with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite."
+
+[_Our_ schoolmistress and _our_ old gentleman that sits opposite
+had left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing
+the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write
+when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the
+reputation they might have made!
+
+----I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being
+too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you
+meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark that may hereafter
+prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has been led
+by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or herself
+possessed of talent arrives at the full and final conclusion that he
+or she is really dull, it is one of the most tranquillizing and
+blessed convictions that can enter a mortal's mind. All our failures,
+our short-comings, our strange disappointments in the effect of our
+efforts are lifted from our bruised shoulders, and fall, like
+Christian's pack, at the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit
+to deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, with which one
+look may overflow us in some wider sphere of being.
+
+----How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate
+books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not learned,
+of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better
+than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge of the
+world and society, but certainly not clever either in the arts or
+sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I did not
+recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so distinctly as
+I did simplicity of character and fearless acknowledgment of his
+inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think there are a great many
+gentlemen and others, who read with a mark to keep their place, that
+really "hate books," but never had the wit to find it out, or the
+manliness to own it.
+
+[_Entre nous_, I always read with a mark.]
+
+We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual man"
+was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or thereabouts,
+of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if he is actually
+so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a strong solution
+of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best worth reading, as
+hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If I were a prince, I
+would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, in which I would steep
+all the leaves of new books that promised well. The infusion would do
+for me without the vegetable fibre. You understand me; I would have
+a person whose sole business should be to read day and night, and
+talk to me whenever I wanted him to. I know the man I would have: a
+quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive fellow; knows history, or at any
+rate has a shelf full of books about it, which he can use handily,
+and the same of all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common
+plots of plays and novels, and the stock company of characters that
+are continually coming on in new costume; can give you a criticism
+of an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it;
+cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in what he says;
+delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the
+disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as
+tender and reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is;
+of a new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In
+short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to
+make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal
+compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn,
+in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of
+course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide.
+In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase,
+"put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered,
+warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on
+his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of shutting it off at will.
+
+A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with
+about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of
+the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A
+dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of
+civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the
+senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by well-studied
+artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into their natural
+attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a short jacket.
+
+The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take for
+granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out; nothing
+short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies their dull
+apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble game! White
+stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red says, Mate in six
+moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over. Just so in talking
+with first-rate men; especially when they are good-natured and
+expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That blessed clairvoyance
+which sees into things without opening them,--that glorious license,
+which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from its key-hole,
+calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to get off from her pedestal and
+drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant
+place on the _medius lectus_,--that carnival-shower of questions and
+replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like
+bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping
+its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of
+_bon-bons_ pelting everybody that shows himself,--the picture of a
+truly intellectual banquet is one that the old Divinities might well
+have attempted to reproduce in their----
+
+----"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--
+"that is from one of your lectures!"
+
+I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.
+
+  "The trail of the serpent is over them all!"
+
+All lecturers, all professors, all school-masters, have ruts and
+grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually
+sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still June
+evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum of air,
+and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere beyond?
+Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay,--where
+the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating the "Metropolitan"
+boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a narrow, local
+gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little underdone, through
+which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to bring you back
+to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just so, in talking
+with any of the characters above referred to, one not unfrequently
+finds a sudden change in the style of the conversation. The
+lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon-Street door-plate in August,
+all at once fills with light; the face flings itself wide open like
+the church-portals when the bride and bridegroom enter; the little
+man grows in stature before your eyes, like the small prisoner with
+hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of early childhood; you were
+talking with a dwarf and an imbecile,--you have a giant and a
+trumpet-tongued angel before you!----Nothing but a streak out of a
+fifty-dollar lecture.----As when, at some unlooked-for moment, the
+mighty fountain-column springs into the air before the astonished
+passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from
+the bosom of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet
+batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less amiable and less
+elevated order of _reptilia_ in other latitudes.
+
+----Who was that person that was so abused some time since for
+saying that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go
+with the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on
+in India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned,
+inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and
+American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful
+questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come out
+most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that the
+human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does the
+same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The India
+mail brings stories of women and children outraged and murdered; the
+royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. England takes
+down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with empire, and
+makes a correction thus:
+
+[Strike-out: DELHI]. _Dele_.
+
+The civilized world says, Amen.
+
+----Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly,
+that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them
+and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes
+and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did
+with their _melas oinos_,--that black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which
+they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream.
+
+[Could it have been _melasses_, as Webster and his provincials
+spell it,--or _Molossa's_, as dear old smattering, chattering,
+would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"?
+Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights
+of learning in "Notes and Queries"!--ye Historical Societies, in one
+of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while
+other hands tug at the oars!--ye Amines of parasitical literature,
+who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having
+gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe
+speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!]
+
+----Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses.
+You will understand by the title that they are written in an
+imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man
+well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on
+_a priori_ grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There
+is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a
+soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and
+nurtured it; that its mysterious _compages_ or frame-work has
+survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity;
+that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the
+traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial clothing;
+that he will, having all the world to choose from, select the very
+locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It
+builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that
+Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in
+every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.--Now hear the
+verses.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN DREAMS.
+
+  O for one hour of youthful joy!
+    Give back my twentieth spring!
+  I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
+    Than reign a gray-beard king!
+
+  Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
+    Away with learning's crown!
+  Tear out life's wisdom-written page,
+    And dash its trophies down!
+
+  One moment let my life-blood stream
+    From boyhood's fount of flame!
+  Give me one giddy, reeling dream
+    Of life all love and fame!
+
+  --My listening angel heard the prayer,
+    And calmly smiling, said,
+  "If I but touch thy silvered hair,
+    Thy hasty wish hath sped."
+
+  "But is there nothing in thy track
+    To bid thee fondly stay,
+  While the swift seasons hurry back
+    To find the wished-for day?"
+
+  --Ah, truest soul of womankind!
+    Without thee, what were life?
+  One bliss I cannot leave behind:
+    I'll take--my--precious--wife!
+
+  --The angel took a sapphire pen
+    And wrote in rainbow dew,
+  "The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a husband too!"
+
+  --"And is there nothing yet unsaid
+    Before the change appears?
+  Remember, all their gifts have fled
+    With those dissolving years!"
+
+  Why, yes; for memory would recall
+    My fond paternal joys;
+  I could not bear to leave them all:
+    I'll take--my--girl--and--boys!
+
+  The smiling angel dropped his pen,--
+    "Why this will never do;
+  The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a father too!"
+
+  And so I laughed,--my laughter woke
+    The household with its noise,--
+  And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
+    To please the gray-haired boys.
+
+
+
+
+AGASSIZ'S NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+  _Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of
+  America_. By LOUIS AGASSIZ. Vols. I. and II. Boston: Little,
+  Brown & Co. London: Truebner & Co. 1857.
+
+The Great Professor has given the first Monograph of his _Magnum Opus_
+to the Great Republic and the wider realm of Science. The learned
+world resolves itself into committees to consider every important
+work; claiming leave to sit for as long a time as they choose,--for
+years, or for a whole generation. Every alleged fact is to be
+verified or cancelled or qualified, every inference to be measured
+over and over again by its premises, every proposition to be tried
+by all the tests that can prove its strength or weakness, and the
+whole to be marshalled to the place it may claim in the alcoves of
+the universal library. No hasty opinion can anticipate this final
+and peremptory judgment. Its elements must of necessity be gathered
+slowly from many and scattered sources. The accumulated learning of
+the great centres of civilization, the patient investigation of
+plodding observers, the keen insight of subtile analysts, the
+jealous clairvoyance of dissentient theorists, the oblique glances
+of suspicious sister-sciences, the random flashes that skepticism
+throws from her faithless mirror to dazzle all eyes that seek for
+truth; through such a varied and protracted ordeal must every record
+that embodies long and profound observation, large and lofty thought,
+reach the golden _Imprimatur_ which is its warrant for immortality.
+
+The work of Mr. Agassiz, if we may judge it by the portion now
+before us, has a right to challenge such a matured opinion, and to
+wait for it. Not the less does a certain duty belong to us as
+literary journalists with reference to these stately volumes, which
+are in the hands of thousands, learned and unlearned, and of which
+there are scores of thousands waiting to hear. Our duty we consider
+to be four-fold: first, that of recognition in terms of fitting
+courtesy; secondly, of analysis for the general reader; thirdly, of
+accentuation, so to speak, of what seems most widely applicable or
+interesting; and lastly, of making such comments as so pregnant a
+text may suggest.
+
+And first, of recognition. Here are the fruits of ten years of
+patient labor, taken out of the heart of life, in the age of vigor,
+which is that of ambition,--to use the phrase of another great
+observer,--by a man of large endowments and of vast knowledge,
+assisted by skilful collaborators, by finished artists, by the
+counsels and liberality of the learned few, and the generous
+countenance of the intelligent many. Before analysis, before
+criticism, there should be uttered a welcome; not grudging, not
+envious of an overshadowing reputation, not over-curious in
+searching for qualifications to abate its warmth, not carefully
+taming down its enthusiasm to tepid formalisms; but full-souled and
+free-spoken, such as all noble works and deeds should claim.
+
+The learned men of past centuries have left us an example of this
+treatment of authors, in those gratulatory verses with which they
+were wont to hail every considerable literary or scientific
+performance. They knew human nature well. They knew that the author,
+when he quenches the lamp over which he has grown haggard and pale,
+and steps from his cell into daylight and the chill outside air,
+longs, longs unutterably, for kind words, and the cheering
+fellowship of kindred souls; and with instinctive grace they chose
+the poetical form of expression, simply because this alone gives
+full license to the lips of friendship.
+
+This old folio which stands by us is not precious only because it
+contains the quaint wisdom and manifold experience of Ambroise Pare,
+mingled with his credulous gossip, and again sweetened by his simple
+reverence; not precious alone because it contains the noblest words
+ever uttered by one of his profession,--_Ie le pensay et Dieu le
+guarit_; but also because PIERRE RONSARD, the "Poet of France," has
+left his deathless name thrice inscribed in its earlier pages at the
+foot of tributes to its author.
+
+And here in the next century comes Schenck of Grafenberg, staggering
+under his monstrous volume of "Casus Rariores,"--ready to fall
+fainting by the wayside, when lo! the shining ones meet him too, and
+lift him and lighten him with the utterance of these _fifty-one_
+distinct poems which we see hung up on so many votive tablets at the
+entrance of this miniature Babel of Science.
+
+Even so late as the last century the genial custom survived; for our
+worthy Stalpart van der Wiel, whose little pair of volumes was
+published in 1727, can boast of twenty-two pages of well-ordered
+commendatory verse, much of it in his native Dutch,--a little of
+which goes a good way with all except Batavian readers.
+
+But as the "Arundines Cami," musical as they are, have lent no
+prelude to these harmonies of science, we must say in a few plain
+words of prose our own first thought as to the work the commencement
+of which lies before us. We believe, that, if completed according to
+its promise, it is to be one of the monumental labors of our century.
+Comparisons are not to be lightly instituted, and especially under
+circumstances that do not allow a fair survey of the whole field
+from which the objects to be compared are to be taken. We suppose,
+however, it will be conceded that the sunset continent has never
+witnessed anything like the inception of this mighty task in the way
+of systematic natural science. And if, since Cuvier, the greatest of
+naturalists, as Mr. Agassiz considers him, slept with the fossils to
+which he had given life, there has been any other student of Nature
+who has attempted a task so immense, with the same union of observing,
+reflecting, analyzing, and cooerdinating power, we cannot name him.
+Our civilization has a right to be proud of such an accession to its
+thinking and laboring constituency; it is also bound to be grateful
+for it, and to express its gratitude.
+
+It is just one hundred years since another Swiss, the magnificent
+Albert von Haller, gave to the world the first volume of the
+"Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani." Nine years afterwards, in
+1766, the last of the eight volumes appeared; and the vast structure,
+which embodied his untiring study of Nature, his world-wide erudition,
+his deepest thought, his highest imaginings, his holiest aspirations,
+stood, like the Alps whose shadow fell upon its birthplace, the
+lovely Lausaune, pride of the Pays de Vaud. The clepsydrae that
+measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs--the
+glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a
+shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each
+revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the
+summer's sun--have registered a new centennial circle, and at the
+very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient
+renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of
+another of her honored children. May the auspicious omen lead to as
+happy a conclusion!
+
+Lovingly, then, we lay open the generous quarto and look upon its
+broad, bright title-page. It tells us that we have here the first of
+a series of "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States of America." We see that one of its three parts embraces the
+largest generalities of Natural Science, under the head of an
+"Essay on Classification." We see that the other two parts are
+devoted to the description and delineation of a single order of
+Reptilia,--the Testudinata, or "Turtles."
+
+If Mr. Agassiz had intentionally chosen the simplest way of proving
+that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have
+selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word
+_Turtle_ to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle
+is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights
+the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a
+provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and
+Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. For him a
+land-testudinate is a _tortoise_. When his poets and romancers speak
+of turtles, again, they commonly mean turtle-_doves_.
+
+  "Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies
+  That drives a turtle through the liquid skies."
+
+The only flight of a testudinate which we remember is that downward
+one of the unfortunate tortoise that cracked the bald crown of
+Aeschylus. But turtle, as embracing all chelonians, or, as liberal
+shepherds call it, "turkle," is unquestionably Cisatlantic. The
+distinguished naturalist has made himself an American citizen by
+adopting our own expression, and should have the freedom of all our
+cities presented to him in the shell of a box-TURTLE.
+
+It is singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the
+testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and
+sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury,
+as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise
+that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world.
+Under the _testudo_ the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities
+of the _orbis terrarum_. And in that wise old fable which childhood
+learns, and age too often remembers, sorrowing, it was the tortoise
+that won the race against the swiftest of the smaller tribes, his
+competitor.
+
+And here once more we have his shell strung with vibrating thoughts
+that repeat the harmonies of nature. Once more his broad back stoops
+to the weighty problems which the planet proposes to its children.
+Once more the great cities are stormed--by science--beneath his coat
+of mail. Once more he has run the race, not against the hare only,
+but the whole animal kingdom, and won it, and with it the new fame
+which awaits him, as he leads in the long array of his fellows that
+are to come up, one by one, in these enduring records. And so we
+turn the leaf, and come to the DEDICATION.
+
+The Dedication of a work like this, destined to preserve all the
+names it enrols in the sculpture-like immortality of science,
+naturally delays us for a moment. Of the foreign teacher and friend
+to whom the author owes some of his earliest lessons, and of that
+group of our own citizens, most of them still living, who lent their
+united efforts to the enterprise of publication after it was
+commenced, we need not speak individually. But we cannot pass over
+the name of FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY without a word of grateful
+remembrance for one who was the friend and adviser of the author
+in planning the publication of the work before us. We who remember
+his varied culture, his large and fluent discourse, with its
+formidable accuracy of knowledge and gracious suavity of utterance,
+his taste in literature and art, which made his home a suite of
+princely cabinets, his generous and elegant hospitality, which
+scholars and artists knew so well,--counting him as the peer, and in
+many points the more than peer of such as the wide world of letters
+is proud to claim,--are pleased to see that his cherished name will
+be read by the students of unborn generations on the first leaf of
+this noble record of the science of our own.
+
+The PREFACE which follows the Dedication is full of grateful
+acknowledgments to the many friends of science, in all parts of the
+country, who came forward to lend their aid in various forms,
+especially in collecting and transmitting specimens from the
+most widely remote sections of the continent. The pious zeal of
+Mr. Winthrop Sargent, who brought a cargo of living turtles more
+than a thousand miles to the head-quarters of testudinous learning
+at Cambridge, is only paralleled by the memorable act of the Pisans
+in transporting ship-loads of holy soil from Palestine to fill their
+Campo Santo. Genius is marked by nothing more distinctly than that
+it makes the world its tributary. He from whose lips it speaks has
+but to look calmly into the eyes of dull routine, of jaded toil, of
+fickle childhood, and utter the words, "Follow me." Custom-house
+officials close their books, tired fishermen leave their nets,
+riotous boys forsake their play, to do the master's bidding. Is he
+making collections for some great purpose of study? Piece by piece
+the fragmentary spoils flow in upon him, of all sizes, shapes, and
+hues; a chaos of confused riches, perhaps only a wealth of rubbish,
+as they lie at his feet. One by one they fall into harmonious
+relations, until the meaningless heap has become a vast mosaic,
+where nothing is too minute to fill some interstice, nothing too
+angular to fit some corner, nothing so dull or brilliant of tint
+that it will not furnish its fraction of light or shadow. Such has
+been the history of those years of labor the results of which these
+volumes present to us. Whatever may have been said of the devotion
+of our countrymen to material interests, the wise and winning lips
+had only to speak, and such a currency of _plastrons_ and _carapaces_
+was set in circulation, that the contemplative stranger who saw the
+mighty coinage of Chelonia flowing in upon Cambridge might well have
+thought that the national idea was not the Almighty Dollar, but the
+Almighty Turtle.
+
+Mr. Agassiz places a high estimate on the intelligence as well as
+the kind spirit of his adopted countrymen. "There is not a class of
+learned men here," he says, "distinct from the other cultivated
+members of the community. On the contrary, so general is the desire
+for knowledge, that I expect to see my book read by operatives, by
+fishermen, by farmers, quite as extensively as by the students of
+our colleges, or by the learned professions; and it is but proper
+that I should endeavor to make myself understood by all."
+
+The deficiencies of our scientific libraries, and the want of a
+class of elementary works upon Natural History, such as are widely
+circulated in Europe, are adverted to and alleged as a reason for
+entering into details which the professional naturalist might think
+misplaced.
+
+We quote one paragraph entire from the Preface, as not susceptible
+of being abridged, and as briefly stating those general facts with
+regard to the work which all our readers must desire to know.
+
+  "I have a few words more to say respecting the two first volumes,
+  now ready for publication. Considering the uncertainty of human life,
+  I have wished to bring out at once a work that would exemplify the
+  nature of the investigations I have been tracing during the last ten
+  years, and show what is likely to be the character of the whole
+  series. I have aimed, therefore, in preparing these two volumes, to
+  combine them in such a manner as that they should form a whole. The
+  First Part contains an exposition of the general views I have
+  arrived at thus far, in my studies of Natural History. The Second
+  Part shows how I have attempted to apply these results to the
+  special study of Zoology, taking the order of Testudinata as an
+  example. I believe, that, in America, where turtles are everywhere
+  common, and greatly diversified, a student could not make a better
+  beginning than by a careful perusal of this part, specimens in hand,
+  with constant reference to the second chapter of the First Part. The
+  Third Part exemplifies the bearing of Embryology upon these general
+  questions, while it contains the fullest illustration of the
+  embryonic growth of the Testudinata."
+
+The Preface closes with honorable mention of the gentlemen who have
+furnished direct assistance in the preparation of the work, and
+especially of Mr. Clark in microscopic observation and illustration,
+and of Mr. Sonrel in drawing the zoological figures.
+
+The LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS is not without its special meaning and
+interest. If, as has been said, the grade of civilization in any
+community can be estimated by the amount of sulphuric acid it
+consumes, the extent to which a work like this has been called for
+in different sections of the country may to some extent be
+considered an index of its intellectual aspirations, if not of its
+actual progress. This is especially true of those remoter regions
+where personal motives would exercise least influence. But without
+instituting any comparisons, we may well be proud of this ample list
+of twenty-five hundred subscribers, most of them citizens of the
+republic,--"a support such as was never before offered to any
+scientific man for purely scientific ends, without any reference to
+government objects or direct practical aims."
+
+Our analysis must confine itself mainly to the first of the three
+parts into which these two volumes are divided. This first part it
+is that contains those large results which every thinker must desire
+to learn from one whose life has been devoted to the searching and
+contemplative study of Nature. It is in the realm of thought here
+explored, that Natural Science, whose figure we are wont to look
+down upon, crouching to her task, like him of the muck-rake, as he
+painfully gathers together his sticks and straws, rises erect, and
+lifts her forehead into the upper atmosphere of philosophy, where
+the clouds are indeed thickest, but the stars are nearest. The
+second and third parts belong more exclusively to the professed
+students of Natural History in its different special departments.
+Our notice of these divisions of the work must therefore be
+comparatively brief.
+
+The first chapter of the first part has for its title, "The
+fundamental relations of animals to one another and to the world in
+which they live, as the basis of the natural system of animals."
+
+Certain general doctrines, the spirit of which runs through all the
+scientific works of Mr. Agassiz, are distinctly laid down in the
+first section of this chapter. It is headed with the statement,
+"The leading features of a natural zoological system are all founded
+in nature." The systems named from the great leaders of science are
+but translations of the Creator's thoughts into human language.
+"If it can be proved that man has not invented, but only traced this
+systematic arrangement in nature,--that these relations and
+proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world
+have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator,--
+that this plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest
+wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws,
+but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in
+his thought, before it was manifested in tangible, external forms,--
+if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation,
+we have done, once and forever, with the desolate theory which
+refers us to the laws of matter as accounting for all the wonders of
+the universe, and leaves us with no God but the monotonous, unvarying
+action of physical forces, binding all things to their inevitable
+destiny."
+
+One more extract must be given from this section, for it is the key
+to the general argument which follows.
+
+"I disclaim every intention of introducing in this work any evidence
+irrelevant to my subject, or of supporting any conclusions not
+immediately flowing from it; but I cannot overlook nor disregard
+here the close connection there is between the facts ascertained by
+scientific investigations, and the discussions now carried on
+respecting the origin of organized beings. And though I know those
+who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not
+something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential
+difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings, I shall
+not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from
+expressing my conviction, that, as long as it cannot be shown that
+matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
+manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking
+being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an
+intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature
+as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as
+man exhibits the power of thinking when he recognizes their natural
+relations."
+
+We must content ourselves with the most general statement of the
+nature and bearing of the series of propositions which follow. They
+are illustrated by a large survey of the material universe in its
+manifestations of life, and of the relations between the various
+forms of life to each other and to the inorganic world. These
+propositions, thirty-one in number, might be called an analysis of
+the qualities of the Infinite Mind exhibited in the realm of
+organized and especially of animal being. Nothing but want of space
+prevents our reproducing at full length the very careful
+recapitulation to be found at the close of the chapter, or the
+analysis to be found in the Table of Contents. With something more
+of labor than the task of copying would have been, we have attempted
+to compress the truths already crowded in these brief and pregnant
+sentences into the still narrower compass of a few lines in our
+straitened pages.
+
+The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable
+intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these
+are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity
+of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of
+known material agencies, of special form,--illustrated by repetition
+of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or
+partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying
+conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable
+forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the
+midst of formal differences known as _special homologies_; power of
+combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other
+and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the
+most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time
+and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages
+of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and
+omniscience, as shown in the _prophetic_ types of earlier geological
+ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal
+organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.
+
+The final _resume_ of Mr. Agassiz is as follows:--
+
+"We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in
+still fewer words.
+
+"All organized beings exhibit in themselves all those categories of
+structure and of existence upon which a natural system may be founded,
+in such a manner, that, in tracing it, the human mind is only
+translating into human language the Divine thoughts expressed in
+Nature in living realities.
+
+"All these beings do not exist in consequence of the continued
+agency of physical causes, but have made their successive appearance
+upon earth by the immediate intervention of the Creator. As proof, I
+may sum up my argument in the following manner:--
+
+"The products of what are commonly called physical agents are
+everywhere the same, (that is, upon the whole surface of the globe,)
+and have always been the same (that is, during all geological periods);
+while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed
+in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no
+causal or genetic connection.
+
+"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful
+conceptions exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation,
+power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In
+one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud
+the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History
+must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the
+Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable
+kingdoms."
+
+To this statement we must add two paragraphs from the pages just
+preceding, (pp. 130, 131.)
+
+  "If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the
+  various relations observed between animals and the physical world,
+  as well as between themselves, exhibit thought, it follows that the
+  whole has an Intelligent Author; and it may not be out of place to
+  attempt to point out, as far as possible, the difference there may
+  be between Divine thinking and human thought."
+
+  "Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me,
+  that, while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is
+  simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past,
+  the present, and the future, the most diversified relations among
+  hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present
+  complications, again, which to study and understand even imperfectly,
+  as, for instance, man himself, mankind has already spent thousands of
+  years. And yet, all this has been done by one Mind, must be the work
+  of one Mind only, of Him before whom man can only bow in grateful
+  acknowledgment of the prerogatives he is allowed to enjoy in this
+  world, not to speak of the promises of a future life."
+
+Chapter Second is entitled, "Leading Groups of the existing systems
+of animals."
+
+Its nine sections treat successively of the great types or branches
+of the animal kingdom, of classes, orders, families, genera, species,
+other natural divisions, successive development of characters, and
+close with some very significant conclusions on the importance of
+the study of classification.
+
+Mr. Agassiz has attempted to give definiteness to the terms above
+enumerated, which have been used with various significance, by
+limiting each one of them to covering a single category of natural
+relationship. Thus:--
+
+  _Branches_ or _types_ are characterized by their plan of structure.
+
+  _Classes_, by the manner in which that plan is executed, so far as
+  ways and means are concerned.
+
+  _Orders_, by the degrees of complication of that structure.
+
+  _Families_, by their form, so far as determined by structure.
+
+  _Genera_, by the details of the execution in special parts.
+
+  _Species_, by the relations of individuals to one another and to
+  the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their
+  parts, their ornamentation, etc.
+
+  "And yet there are other natural divisions which must be acknowledged
+  in a natural zooelogical system; but these are not to be traced so
+  uniformly in all classes as the former,--they are, in reality, only
+  limitations of the other kinds of divisions."
+
+This chapter must be studied in the original text, the arguments by
+which its conclusions are supported hardly admitting of brief analysis.
+The most superficial reader will be interested in Mr. Agassiz's
+account of the mode in which he sought for the natural boundaries
+of the various divisions, by observing the special point of view
+in which various eminent naturalists have considered their subject;
+as, for instance, Audubon, among the biographers of species,--
+Latreille, among the students of genera,--and Cuvier, at the head
+of those who have contemplated the higher groups, such as classes
+and types. The most indifferent reader will be arrested by the
+opinions boldly promulgated with reference to species.
+
+  "The evidence that all animals have originated in large numbers is
+  growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in the
+  beginning in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely
+  by naturalists." "If we are led to admit as the beginning of each
+  species the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if
+  the same species may originate at the same time in different
+  localities, these first representatives of each species, at least,
+  were not connected by sexual derivation; and as this applies equally
+  to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of specific identity
+  must at all events be given up, and with it goes also the pretended
+  real existence of the species, in contradistinction from the mode of
+  existence of genera, families, orders, classes, and types; for what
+  really exists are individuals, not species." (pp. 166-167.)
+
+Chapter Third is headed, "Notice of the principal systems of Zoology."
+It is divided into the six following sections: General remarks upon
+modern systems; Early attempts to classify animals; Period of Linnaeus;
+Period of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems; Physiophilosophical systems;
+Embryological systems.
+
+This chapter is invaluable to the general student, as giving him in
+a single view not only a _conspectus_, of the most important
+attempts at classification in Zoology, but an examination of the
+principles involved in each, by the one among all living men most
+fitted to perform the task. No cultivated person who desires to know
+anything of Natural Science can pass over this portion of the work
+without careful study. Those who are not prepared to follow the
+author through the details of the Second Part will yet consider
+these volumes as indispensable companions for reference, as
+containing this brief but comprehensive encyclopedia and commentary,
+covering the whole philosophical machinery of zoological science.
+
+For the first section of this chapter Mr. Agassiz adopts the
+fundamental divisions (branches) of Cuvier, introducing such changes
+among the classes and orders as the progress of science demands. The
+second section gives a short account of the early attempts to
+classify animals, more particularly of the divisions established by
+Aristotle. The third section embraces the period of Linnaeus, and
+gives his classification. The fourth, that of Cuvier, and Anatomical
+systems, with the classifications of Cuvier, Lamark, De Blainville,
+Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Owen, Milne-Edwards, Von Siebold and Stannius,
+Leuckart. The fifth section includes the Physiophilosophical systems,
+with diagrams of Oken's and Fitzinger's classifications, and a
+special article for the circular groups of McLeay. The sixth and last
+section is devoted to Embryological systems, and presents diagrams
+of the classifications of Von Baer, Van Beneden, Koelliker, and Vogt.
+
+The second part of the Monograph introduces us to the consideration
+of a special subject of Natural History,--the North American
+Testudinata. Its three chapters treat successively of this order of
+Reptiles,--of its families,--of its North American genera and species.
+
+The THIRD PART, contained in the second volume, is entitled,
+"Embryology of the Turtle." It consists of two chapters: "Development
+of the Egg, from its first appearance to the formation of the embryo."
+"Development of the Embryo, from the time the egg leaves the ovary
+to that of the hatching of the young." Then follow the explanation
+of the plates and the plates themselves, thirty-four in number.
+
+We need not attempt to give any account of the parts devoted to the
+development of these particular subjects. This we must necessarily
+leave to the journals devoted to scientific matters, and the class
+of students most intimate with these departments of Natural Science.
+
+Yet the American who asks for a model to work by in his
+investigations will find a great deal more than the "North American
+Testudinata" in the part to which that title is prefixed. The
+principles of classification exemplified, the methods of description
+illustrated, the rules of nomenclature tested,--what matter is it
+whether the _gran maestro_ has chosen this or that string to play
+the air upon, when each has compass enough for all its melody?
+
+Still more forcibly does this comment apply to the elaborate and
+ample division of the work embracing the Embryology of the Turtle.
+He who has mastered the details of this section has at his feet the
+whole broad realm of which this province holds one of the
+key-fortresses. _Ex testudine naturam_.
+
+We are unwilling to speak of the illustrations comparatively
+without more extended means of judgment than we have at hand. But
+that they are of superlative excellence, brilliant, delicate,
+accurate, life-like, and nature-like, is what none will dispute.
+Look at these turtles, models of real-estate owners as they are,
+Observe No. 13, Plate IV.,--"Chelydra Serpentina,"--"snapper",
+or "snappin' turtle," in the vernacular. He is out collecting
+rents from the naked-skinned reptiles, his brethren; in default
+thereof, taking the bodies of the aforesaid. Or behold No. 5, Plate
+VI., bewailing the wretchedness of those who have no roofs to cover
+them. Or No. 2, of the same plate, bestowing an archiepiscopal
+benediction on the houseless multitudes, before he retires for the
+night to slumber between his tessellated floor and his frescoed
+ceiling.
+
+Of the smooth, white eggs, with their rounded reliefs and tenderly
+graduated light and shadow, all eyes are judges. But of the
+exquisite figures showing the various stages of development and the
+details of structural arrangement, the uninitiated must take the
+opinions of a microscopic expert: and if they will accept our
+testimony as that of one not unfamiliar with the instrument and the
+mysteries it reveals, we can assure them that these figures are of
+supreme excellence. The hazy semitransparency of the embryonic
+tissues, the halos, the granules, the globules, the cell-walls, the
+delicate membranous expansions, the vascular webs, are expressed
+with purity, softness, freedom, and a conscientiousness which
+reminds us of Donne's microscopic daguerreotypes, while in many
+points the views are literally truer to nature,--just as a
+sculptor's bust of a living person is often more really like him in
+character than a cast moulded on his features.
+
+We have attempted to give a slight idea of the contents of these two
+volumes, in the compass of a few pages. We have called the reader's
+attention to various points of special interest, as we were going
+along. It remains to make such comments as suggest themselves to us,
+either in our character of "the scholiast," or in our own right as a
+freed citizen of the intellectual as well as the political republic.
+
+WHENCE? WHY? WHITHER? These are the three great questions that arise
+in the soul of every race and of every thinking being. He who looks
+at either of them with the least new light, though he whisper what
+he sees ever so softly, has the world to listen to him. No matter
+how he got his knowledge nor what he calls it; it belongs to mankind.
+But "Science" has been mainly engaged with another question, in
+itself of very inferior interest, namely, _How?_
+
+We must be permitted to speak of "Science" in our freest capacity,
+and will endeavor not to abuse our liberty. The study of natural
+phenomena for the sake of the pleasing variety of aspects they
+present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the
+exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for
+the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is
+an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with
+a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even
+constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power
+wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but
+not affix the wrong label to it. Those who possess it acquire
+knowledge sometimes so extensive and uncommon that we regard them
+with a certain admiration. But knowledge is not wisdom. Unless these
+narrow trains of ideas are brought into relation with other and
+wider ranges of thought, or with the conduct of life, they cannot
+aspire to that loftier name.
+
+We must go farther than this. The study of the _How?_ in Nature, or
+the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to
+quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact
+that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or
+out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as
+prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The
+product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the
+body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not
+grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those
+who browse in the sleepy meadows of aimless observation,--loving to
+keep their heads down as they gaze at and gather their narcotic herbs,
+rather than lift them to the horizon beyond or the heaven above,--
+act in obedience to the law of their limited natures. Still, let us
+recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may
+be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be
+ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand,
+that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of
+science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his
+labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer
+may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a
+diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with
+hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some
+of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording
+microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch
+a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and
+give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest
+and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would
+probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that
+of the observer.
+
+Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men,
+unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey
+to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the
+honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type.
+But _Vos non vobis_ is the rule. "Science" is knowledge, it is true,
+but knowledge disarticulated and parcelled out among certain
+specialists, like Truth in Milton's glorious comparison. He who can
+restore each part to its true position, and orient the lesser whole
+in its relations to the universe, he it is to whom science belongs.
+He must range through all time and follow Nature to her farthest
+bounds. Then he can dissect beetles like Straus Derekheim, without
+becoming a myope. But even this is not enough. Let us see what
+qualities would go to make up the ideal model of the truly wise
+student of Nature.
+
+He must have, in the first place, as the substratum of his faculties,
+the power of observation, with the passion that keeps it active and
+the skilful hand to serve its needs. Secondly, a quick eye for
+resemblances and differences. Thirdly, a wide range of mental vision.
+Fourthly, the coordinating or systematizing faculty. Fifthly, a
+large scholarship. Lastly, and without which all these gifts fall
+short of their ultimate aim, an instinct for the highest forms of
+truth,--a centripetal tendency, always seeking the idea behind the
+form, the Deity in his manifestations, and thence working outward
+again to solve those infinite problems of life and its destinies
+which are, in reality, all that the thinking soul most lives for.
+
+It is as easy to find all these qualities separate as it is to turn
+beneath the finger one of the letters of a revolving padlock. But
+they must all be brought together in line before the grand portals
+of Nature's hypaethral temple will open to her chosen student. How
+incomplete the man of science is with only one or two of these
+endowments may be seen by a few examples.
+
+The power and instinct of observation combined with the most
+consummate skill do not necessarily make a great philosophical
+naturalist. Leeuwenhoek had all these. They bore admirable fruits,
+too. We cannot but read the old man's letters to the Royal Society,
+written, if we remember right, after the age of eighty, with delight
+and admiration. Those little lenses in their silver mountings, all
+ground and set and fashioned by his own hand, showed him the
+blood-globules, and the "pipes" of the teeth, which Purkinje and
+Retzius found with their achromatic microscopes a century later. We
+honor his skill and sagacity as they deserve; but a little trick of
+Mr. Dollond's, applied to the microscopic object-glass, has left all
+his achievements a mere matter of curious history.
+
+Few have been more remarkable for perceiving resemblances and
+differences than Oken. This is the poetical side of the scientific
+mind; and he shares with Goethe the honor of that startling and
+far-reaching discovery, the vertebral character of the bones of the
+cranium. At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones
+recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But
+notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great
+merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the
+Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a
+constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the
+solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane,
+if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.
+
+If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great
+learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon
+should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva
+Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was
+observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were
+scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many
+_Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least:
+Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a
+great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This
+in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!
+
+The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing,
+unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned.
+Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but
+where is now the "Zooenomia"?
+
+And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by
+appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It
+would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its
+insignificance. Our shelves bend and crack under the load of unwise
+and learned authorship. There are two stages in every student's life.
+In the first he is afraid of books; in the second books are afraid
+of him. For they are a great community of thieves, and one finds the
+same stolen patterns in all their pockets. Though often dressed in
+sheep's clothing, they have the maw of wolves. When the student has
+once found them out, he laughs at the pretensions of erudition, and
+strides gayly up and down great libraries, feeling that the most
+blustering folio of them all will turn as pale as if it were bound
+in law-calf, if he only lay his hand on its shoulder.
+
+Nor, lastly, can any elevation of aim, any thirst for the divine
+springs of knowledge, enable a man to dispense with the sober habits
+of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the
+stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings
+are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and
+his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may
+suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into
+such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist on laying
+down.
+
+That all these qualities which go to make up our ideal should exist
+in absolute perfection in any single man of mortal birth is not to
+be expected. But there are names in the history of Science which
+recall so imposing a combination of these several gifts, that,
+comparing the men who bore them with the civilization of their time,
+we can hardly conceive that uninspired intellect should come nearer
+the imaginary standard. Such a man was Aristotle. The slender and
+close-shaven fop, with the showy mantle on his ungraceful person and
+the costly rings on his fingers, who hung on the lips of Plato for
+twenty years, and trained the boy of Macedon to whatever wisdom he
+possessed,--whose life was set by destiny between the greatest of
+thinkers and the greatest of conquerors,--seems to have borrowed the
+intellect of the one and the universal aspirations of the other. But
+because he invaded every realm of knowledge, it must not be thought
+he dealt with Nature at second-hand. He was a collector and a
+dissector. He could display the anatomical structure of a fish as
+well as write a treatise on the universe or on rhetoric, or
+government or logic, or music or mathematics. Dethroned we call him;
+and yet Mr. Agassiz quotes his descriptions with respect, and
+confesses that the systematic classification of animals makes but
+one stride from Aristotle to Linnaeus.
+
+Cuvier was such a man. Alone, and unapproached in his own spheres of
+knowledge, his "Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences" is
+only an index to the wide range of his intellect. In one point,
+however, we must own that he seems slow of apprehension or limited
+by preconceived opinions,--in his reception of the homologies pointed
+out by Oken and the Physiophilosophical observers.
+
+In the same range of intellects we should reckon Linnaeus and
+Humboldt, and should have reckoned Goethe, had he given himself to
+science.
+
+We do not assume to say where in the category of fully equipped
+intelligences Mr. Agassiz belongs. But if the union of the most
+extraordinary observing powers with an almost poetic perception of
+analogies, with a wide compass of thought, the classifying instinct
+and habit, large knowledge of books, and personal intimacy with the
+leaders in various departments of knowledge, and with this the
+upward-looking aspect of mind and heart, which is the crowning gift
+of all,--if the union of these qualities can give to the man of
+science a claim to the nobler name of wisdom, it is not flattery,
+but justice, to award this distinction to Mr. Agassiz.
+
+To him, then, we listen, when, after having sounded every note in
+the wide gamut of Nature, after reading the story of life as it
+stands written in the long series of records reaching from Cambrian
+fossils to ovarian germs, after tracing the divine principle of
+order from the starlike flower at his feet to the flower-like circle
+of planets which spreads its fiery corolla, in obedience to the same
+simple law that disposes the leaves of the growing plant,--as our
+eminent mathematician tells us,--he relates in simple and
+reverential accents the highest truths he has learned in traversing
+God's mighty universe. For him, and such as him,--for us, too, if we
+read wisely,--the toiling slaves of science, often working with
+little consciousness of the full proportions of the edifice they are
+helping to construct, have spent their busy lives. All knowledge
+asserts its true dignity when once brought into relation with the
+grand end of knowledge,--a wider and deeper view of the significance
+of conscious and unconscious created being, and the character of its
+Creator.
+
+We shall close this article with some remarks upon the great
+doctrines that dominate all the manifold subordinate thoughts which
+fill these crowded pages. The plan of creation, Mr. Agassiz maintains,
+"has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was
+the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his
+thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms."
+Before Mr. Agassiz, before Linnaeus, before Aristotle, before Plato,
+Timaeus the Locrian spake; the original, together with the version
+we cite, is given with the Plato of Ficinus:--"Duas esse rerum
+omnium causas: mentem quidem, earum quae ratione quadam nascuntur, et
+necessitatem, earum quae existunt vi quadam, secundum corporum
+potentias et faculitates. Harrum rerum, id est, Natunae bonorum,
+optimum esse quoddam rerum optimarum principium, et Deum vocari....
+Esse praeterea in hac Naturae universitate quiddam quod maneat et
+intelligible sit, rerum genitarum, quae quidem in perpetuo quodam
+mutationum fluxu versantur, exemplar, Ideam dici et mente comprehendi....
+Permanet igitur mundus constanter talis qualis est creatus a Deo ...
+proponente sibi non exemplaria quaedam manuum opificio edita, sed
+illam Ideam intelligibilemque essentiam."--So taught the
+half-inspired pagan philosopher whom Plato took as his guide in his
+contemplations of Nature.
+
+We trace the thought again in Dante, amidst the various fragments of
+ancient wisdom which he has embodied in the "Divina Commedia":
+
+  Cio che non muore e cio che puo morire
+    Non e se non splendor cli quella idea
+  Che partorisco, amando, il nosfro Sire.
+           ----_Paradiso_, XIII. 52-54.
+
+Two thousand years after the old Greek had written, the Christian
+philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, repeats the same doctrine in a new
+phraseology:--"_Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ;
+yet it is true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not
+only before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the idea of God, and the
+decree of that Synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say,
+the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a
+beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be
+_England_, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me
+before she conceived of Cain."
+
+The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical
+whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or
+little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its
+hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the
+pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its
+mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came
+from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in
+various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the
+Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach,
+and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was
+it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the
+whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.
+
+We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained
+by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action
+of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the
+physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As
+opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to
+modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no
+qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force
+or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as
+Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to
+"waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so
+profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm
+foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the vestiges of creation.
+
+There is danger, however, that, in accepting this doctrine as a truth,
+we may be led into an inexact conception of the so-called physical
+laws, unless we closely examine the sense in which we use the
+expression. The forces which act according to these laws, and the
+various forms of the so-called _matter_, or concrete forces, are
+often spoken of as if they were blind agencies and existences, acting
+by an inherent fate-like power of their own. But if everything
+outside of our consciousness resolves itself, in the last analysis,
+into force, or something capable of producing change, and if force
+existing by the will of an omniscient and omnipresent Being, to whom
+time has no absolute significance, is simply God himself in action,
+then we shall find it impossible to limit the causal agency of the
+physical forces. All we can say is, that commonly they appear to
+move in certain rectilinear paths, in which they manifest a degree
+of uniformity and precision so amazing that we are lost in the
+infinite intelligence they display,--unless we become perfectly
+stupid to it, and think, as in the old fable, there is no music in
+it because we are made deaf by its continued harmony. No single leaf
+ever made a mistake in falling, though in so doing it solved more
+problems than were ever held in all the libraries that have changed
+or are changing into dust or ashes.
+
+We are willing to accept the belief of Mr. Agassiz, "that matter
+does not exist as such, but is everywhere and always a specific thing,
+as are all finite beings." But we must extend the same idea to the
+physical forces, and believe them to be specific agencies, and their
+acts specific acts,--in other words, each one of them a Divine
+manifestation. Theology is close upon us in these speculations.
+"Perhaps," says Mr. Robertson, in the volume of admirable sermons
+just republished, "even the Eternal himself is more closely bound to
+his works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps
+matter is only a mode of thought." Looking, then, at our recognized
+forms of matter and physical force as expressions of a self-limiting
+omnipotence, we concede that the uniform lines of action in which
+human observation has hitherto traced them do not, and, so far as we
+can see, cannot, shape the curves of the simplest organism.
+
+It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even
+hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals
+that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have
+taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of
+life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no
+more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day
+engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have
+broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the
+Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he
+fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn
+reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with
+us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection
+proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and
+Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the
+thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal
+and vegetable kingdoms."
+
+
+
+
+TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The weather leech of the topsail shivers,
+    The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
+  The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
+    And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  Open one point on the weather bow
+    Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head;
+  There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
+    And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  I stand at the wheel and with eager eye
+    To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
+  Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!"
+    Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  The ship bends lower before the breeze,
+    As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;
+  And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
+    As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  V.
+
+  It is silence all, as each in his place,
+    With the gathered coils in his hardened hands,
+  By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
+    Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  And the light on Fire Island head draws near,
+    As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
+  From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
+    With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  No time to spare! It is touch and go,
+    And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!"
+  As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
+    While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
+    As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;
+  And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
+    As I answer, "AYE, AYE, SIR! HA-A-R-D A-LEE!"
+
+
+  IX.
+
+  With the swerving leap of a startled steed
+    The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
+  The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
+    And the headland white we have left behind.
+
+
+  X.
+
+  The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
+    And belly and tug at the groaning cleats,
+  The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps,
+    And thunders the order, "TACKS AND SHEETS!"
+
+
+  XI.
+
+  'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
+    Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
+  The sails are aback from clew to clew,
+    And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"
+
+
+  XII.
+
+  And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
+    By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
+  She holds her way, and I look with joy
+    For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
+
+
+  XIII.
+
+  "LET GO AND HAUL!" 'Tis the last command,
+    And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
+  Astern and to leeward lies the land,
+    With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
+
+
+  XIV.
+
+  What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?
+    I steady the helm for the open sea;
+  The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!"
+    And the captain's breath once more comes free.
+
+
+  XV.
+
+  And so off shore let the good ship fly;
+    Little care I how the gusts may blow,
+  In my fo'castle-bunk in a jacket dry,--
+    Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
+
+
+
+
+MAMOUL.
+
+
+THROUGH THE COSSITOLLAH KALEIDOSCOPE.
+
+Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the
+motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;--
+one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace;
+the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;--
+and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the
+hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from
+the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_
+house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent
+eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior,
+and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul
+shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It
+is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in
+Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or
+down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a
+common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean
+rabble.
+
+Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to
+commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same
+Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and
+Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most
+picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most
+directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the
+imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn
+chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless
+and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of
+British enlightenment and accountability.
+
+From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of
+Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_,
+(as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its
+solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by
+whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from
+Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance,
+and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its
+stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the
+pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the
+carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises;
+from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department
+well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and
+Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and
+Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come
+of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most
+profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who
+approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O
+Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and
+with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)--
+from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.
+
+And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the
+characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending
+the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of
+the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preeminently the
+type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs,
+and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;--
+Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and
+_ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of
+pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses,
+_durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_
+or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of
+_banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts;
+together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers,
+horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors,
+British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter
+of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met,
+whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives
+the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the
+shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by
+all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.
+
+Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of
+a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to
+the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but
+nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.
+
+What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with
+elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a
+monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is
+impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!")
+at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.
+
+  "Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  This is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Very small Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Sixpenny Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Holes in his elbows!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Slipshod!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Son of a sea-cook!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will beat us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will kick us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Kick us and curse us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Not he, the greenhorn!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't understand us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't know the lingo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Let's shake the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rattle the pig's bones!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Set down the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Call him a great lord!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Ask him for buksheesh!
+    _Putterum_."
+
+And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the
+pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the
+sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening
+sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within,
+but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud
+of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck,
+with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--
+
+"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord!
+O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon
+whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother
+is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos
+of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy
+abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the
+golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay
+his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"
+
+"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you
+bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'?
+Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga,
+the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all
+your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"
+
+Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar,
+and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at
+first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly,
+and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.
+
+  "_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
+    _Putterum_.
+  Carry him softly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Swiftly and smoothly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rich little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Fierce little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  See how his eyes flash!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hear how his voice roars!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Tremble before him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Serve him and please him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Please him and serve him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will reward us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will protect us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will enrich us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Charity Lord Sa'b!
+    _Putterum._
+  Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Way for the great ...
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rajah of ten crores!
+    _Putter_....
+  .... Ten crores!..
+    _Putter_....
+  Rajah.... ....
+    _Put...._
+  .... Lard.... ..
+    _Putter...._
+  ....  ... Sa'b!
+    _.... rum_.
+
+And so they have turned down Flag Street.
+
+But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,--
+four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate
+coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers,
+supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like
+Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running
+at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made
+from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,--
+a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne,
+behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs,
+that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya
+Mullick, on the back seat.
+
+"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the
+umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes,
+this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is
+honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump,
+_sooa_. Jump!"
+
+And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the
+common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the
+fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our
+_godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman
+of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but
+_Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.
+
+As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the
+place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_
+first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and
+commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our
+Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and
+address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is
+threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard,
+and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the
+last; his life he holds of less account than either.
+
+As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with
+profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the
+very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead
+lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining
+his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality
+of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much
+for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the
+other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm
+applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.
+
+How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks
+all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five
+rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say,
+when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years
+old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling,
+on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the
+occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the
+Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature.
+Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.
+
+And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score
+of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of
+the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest
+corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head
+circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is
+only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen
+rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his
+salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands
+high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the
+Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two
+thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a
+hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts
+of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides
+two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold
+the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture,
+as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo
+condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!
+
+"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle
+bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and
+enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is
+disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,--
+feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot
+blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,--
+ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo
+not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket.
+Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty
+i-strong, plenty proud.
+
+"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar
+Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar
+foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban.
+'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar
+say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master
+und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"
+
+"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the
+Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with
+the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"
+
+"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young
+English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to
+make it their own for a day or two."
+
+"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin.
+They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better
+for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a
+strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for
+the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows
+next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."
+
+"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the
+Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or
+Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and
+we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah
+to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
+'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
+stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
+appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
+of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
+minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
+samples."
+
+Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
+with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
+pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
+its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
+perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
+match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
+astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
+a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
+it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
+who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
+without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
+will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
+while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
+Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
+Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
+the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
+the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
+
+Just now a _palkee-gharree_, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with
+but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a
+footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a
+respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at
+Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window,
+and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing
+barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,--dust that has been
+churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,--
+humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban,
+murmuring a pious _Namaskarum_; for the respectable accountant in the
+Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen
+Brahmin,--only a little more so. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his
+prophet!
+
+At the gate-lodge of the Baboo's garden-house on the Durumtollah
+Road, a gray and withered hag, all crippled and leprosied, sits
+_durhna_.
+
+What may that be?
+
+Be patient; you shall know.
+
+When the Baboo was as yet a youth, his uncle Rajinda, the pride of
+the Mullicks, died of cholera, and the administration of the estate
+devolved upon our free-thinking Kalidas. Of course there were
+mortgages to foreclose, and delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain
+small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern
+for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by
+Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and
+castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt
+_chit_, (that is, note, or _sheet_ of paper, as near as a Bengalee
+can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar
+come down forthwith with the rupees.
+
+But, behold you now, "he had paid," he said. "By the Holy Ganges and
+the Blessed Cow! by the turban of his father and the veil of his
+mother! restitution had been made long ago," the old man said;
+"and the soul of Uncle Rajinda, the pride of the Mullicks, had no
+reason to be disquieted for the rupees, though the seersuckers had
+been but vanity, and the castor-oil vexation of spirit."
+
+"Produce the documents," said the Baboo, with a business-like
+impassibility that in Wall Street would have made him a great bear;--
+"where are the receipts?"
+
+"My Lord, I know not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the
+lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my _gureeb purwar_, the
+destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the
+Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother,
+that I settled the little account long ago!"
+
+That unhappy speculator in seersuckers and castor-oil died in prison,
+and a _gooroo_ (that is, a spiritual teacher) feed by the Baboo,
+desolated his last hour with the assurance that he should
+transmigrate into the bodies of seven generations of _gharree_-horses,
+and drag _feringhee_ sailormen, in a state of beer, from the ghauts
+to the punch-houses, all his miserable lives.
+
+Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
+discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
+and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
+Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
+were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
+
+But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
+once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
+of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
+"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
+be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
+Haranu the Lost!"
+
+But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
+bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
+So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
+leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
+Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
+till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
+this?"
+
+And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
+crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
+have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
+no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
+matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
+hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
+
+The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
+the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
+insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
+Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
+away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
+solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
+louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
+But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
+he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
+lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
+the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
+and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
+durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
+Young Bengal.
+
+  _Mootrib i koosh nuwa bigo,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Badue dil koosha bidoh,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Koosh biu sheen bu kilwule
+  Chung nuwaz-a sa-ute,
+  Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Songster sweet, begin the lay,
+    Ever sweet and ever gay!
+  Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
+    Ever fresh and ever fine!
+  With a heart-alluring lass
+  Gayly let the moments pass,
+  Kisses stealing while you may,
+    Ever fresh and ever gay!"
+
+Now surely she who thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo
+type;--that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream;
+"her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute;
+she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's;
+her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait
+of a young elephant of pure blood." Let us see.
+
+Alas, no! She entertains a set of lazy bearers, smoking the
+hubble-bubble around a palanquin as they wait for a fare; and her
+buksheesh may be a cowry or two. By no means is she of the
+_nautch_-maidens of Lucknow, who were wont to lighten the hours of
+debauched majesty between the tiger-fights and the games of leap-frog;
+by no means is she ringed as to her fingers or belled as to her toes;
+and though she carries her music wherever she goes, she also carries
+a shiny brown baby, slung in a canvas tray between her shoulders.
+
+No excessively voluminous folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber
+her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora
+MacFlimsey would call _skimped_,) and pitifully mean as to quality.
+By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her
+professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price;
+but a narrow red strip of some poor cotton stuff crosses her bosom
+like a scarf, and leaves exposed too much of the ruins of once
+daintier beauties. A string of glass beads, black and red alternate,
+are all her jewels,--save one silver bodkin, all forlorn, in her hair,
+and a ring of thin gold wire piercing the right nostril, and, with
+an effect completely deforming, encircling the lips. Her teeth and
+nails are deeply stained, and the darkness of her eyes is enhanced
+by artificial shadows.
+
+And so, while that baby-Tantalus, catching glimpses, over the
+unveiled shoulder, of the Micawberian fount he cannot reach,
+stretches his little brown arms, bites, kicks, and squalls,--while a
+small female apprentice, by way of chorus, in costume and gesture
+absurdly caricaturing her _prima donna_, (a sort of Cossitollah
+marchioness, indeed, for some Dick Swiveller of the Sahibs,) shuffles
+rheumatically with her feet, or impotently dislocates her slender
+arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy
+cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "_Wah wah!_" and clap
+their sweaty hands,--our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums
+her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks
+corkscrewishly her _Chota, chota natchelee_:--
+
+  _Badi suba choo boog zuree,
+  Bar suri kove an puree,
+  Qassue Hufiz ush bigo
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Zephyrs, while you gently move
+  By the mansion of my love,
+  Softly Hafiz' strains repeat,
+      Ever new and ever sweet!"
+
+Heaven save the key!
+
+"_Ka munkta_, Bearer?--What is it, my gentle Karlee?"
+
+"_Chittee, Sahib!--chittee_ for Master."
+
+"Note, hey? from whom? let us see!"
+
+Pink paper,--scented with sandal-wood, pah!--embossed, too, with
+cornucopias in the corners,--seal motto, _Qui hi?_ ("Who waits?")--
+denoting that the bearer is to bring an answer. Now for the inside:
+
+  "DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR:--"
+
+  "Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an
+  eleemosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your
+  Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various
+  denominations. For our Heavenly Father's sake, if not inconvenient,--
+  which we have been beneficently bereaved of other paternal
+  description,--we humbly present our implorations to your munificent
+  Excellency, if any small change, to bestow the same, winch it will
+  be eternally acceptable to said eleemosynary widow of late Colonel
+  with distinguished medal in Honorable Service, deceased of cholera,
+  which it was suddenly attacks, and as pretty near destitute. Therefore,
+  hoping your munificent and respectable Excellency will not order,
+  being scornful, your pitiful Excellency's durwan to disperse us; but
+  five rupees, which nothing to Excellency's regards, and our tenacious
+  gratitude never forget; but kissing Excellency's hands on
+  indifferent occasions, and throwing at mercy feet with two imbecile,
+  offsprings of different denominations, I shall ever pray, &c."
+
+  "MRS. DIANA, THEODOSIA, COMFORT, GREEN."
+
+  "P.S. If not five rupees, two rupees five annas, in name of
+  Excellency's exalted mother, if quite convenient."
+
+There now! for an imposing structure in the florid style of
+half-caste begging-letters, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green
+flatters herself that is hard to beat.
+
+"'_Qui hi_?'--Karlee, who is at the gate?"
+
+"_Mem Sahib_! one chee-chee woman wanch look see Master, ispeakee
+Master buksheesh give; _paunch butcha_ have got."
+
+"_Paunch butcha!--five_ children! why, Karlee, there are but two here.
+But remembering, I suppose, that my Excellency has but two 'mercy
+feet,' and with an eye to symmetry in the arrangement of the grand
+tableau of which she proposes to make me the central figure, she has
+made it two 'imbecile offsprings' for the looks of the thing. Do you
+know her, Karlee?"
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that
+chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,--
+one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good that
+woman, Karlee think."
+
+"Very well, old man; send her away; tell the durwan to disperse
+Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green; but let him not insult her
+decrepit widowhood, nor alarm her imbecile offsprings of various
+denominations. For the 'Eurasian' is a great institution, without
+which polkas at Coolee Bazaar were not, nor pic-nics _dansantes_ at
+Chandernagore."
+
+But now to tiffin. I smell a smell of curried prawns, and the first
+mangoes of the season are fragrant. Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
+cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
+_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
+knows no caste or country.
+
+  _Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
+  Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
+  Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
+
+  "Gentle boy, whose silver feet
+  Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
+  Fill us quick the generous wine,
+      Ever fresh and ever fine!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found, and the
+best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly
+there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and
+do nothing for us. In Plato's "Gorgias," Socrates says, "The
+ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his
+passengers from Aegina or from Pontus, not thinking he has done
+anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are
+the same, and in no respect better than when he took them on board."
+So is it with books, for the most part; they work no redemption in us.
+The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no
+respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The
+volume is dear at a dollar, and, after reading to weariness the
+lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did,
+without surprise, of a surly bank-director, that in bank parlors
+they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
+
+But it is not less true that there are books which are of that
+importance in a man's private experience, as to verify for him the
+fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus
+of Thrace; books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers
+and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so
+revolutionary, so authoritative; books which are the work and the
+proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world
+which they paint, that, though one shuts them with meaner ones, he
+feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living.
+
+Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of
+the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil
+countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results
+of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and
+inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by
+etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom
+friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers
+of another age.
+
+We owe to books those general benefits which come from high
+intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the
+perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the
+moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then
+read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of
+positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing around us who
+will not let us sleep. Then, they address the imagination; only
+poetry inspires poetry. They become the organic culture of the time.
+College education is the reading of certain books which the common
+sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already
+accumulated. If you know that,--for instance, in geometry, if you
+have read Euclid and Laplace,--your opinion has some value; if you
+do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the
+subject. Whenever any skeptic or bigot claims to be heard on the
+questions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with the
+books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once for all been
+disposed of. If not, he has no right to our time. Let him go and
+find himself answered there.
+
+Meantime, the colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries,
+furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much
+wanted. In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
+friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and
+leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two,
+ten, or twenty centuries for us,--some of them,--and are eager to
+give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo
+that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has
+dressed them like battalions of infantry in coat and jacket of one
+cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the
+right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation
+and Combination,--not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half
+a million caskets, all alike. But it happens in our experience, that
+in this lottery there are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a
+prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a
+great deal of time among the false books, and alighting upon a few
+true ones which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in
+naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely
+over dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of sacred cities,
+into palaces and temples. This would be best done by those great
+masters of books who from time to time appear,--the Fabricii, the
+Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons,
+whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning. But private readers,
+reading purely for love of the book, would serve us by leaving each
+the shortest note of what he found.
+
+There are books, and it is practicable to read them, because they
+are so few. We look over with a sigh the monumental libraries of
+Paris, of the Vatican, and the British Museum. In the Imperial
+Library at Paris, it is commonly said, there are six hundred
+thousand volumes, and nearly as many manuscripts; and perhaps the
+number of extant printed books may be as many as these numbers united,
+or exceeding a million. It is easy to count the number of pages
+which a diligent man can read in a day, and the number of years
+which human life in favorable circumstances allows to reading; and
+to demonstrate, that, though he should read from dawn till dark, for
+sixty years, he must die in the first alcoves. But nothing can be
+more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none but a natural method
+is really pertinent. I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and
+I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best
+of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. The
+inspection of the catalogue brings me continually back to the few
+standard writers who are on every private shelf; and to these it can
+afford only the most slight and casual additions. The crowds and
+centuries of books are only commentary and elucidation, echoes and
+weakeners of these few great voices of Time.
+
+The best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a
+mechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a
+pursuit of his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let
+him read what is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd
+of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a
+single book,--as the Bible has been the literature as well as the
+religion of large portions of Europe,--as Hafiz was the eminent
+genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the
+Spaniards; so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer, if all the
+secondary writers were lost,--say, in England, all but Shakspeare,
+Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder study so drawn to those
+wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own genius, let the
+student read one, or let him read many, he will read advantageously.
+Dr. Johnson said, "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son
+shall read first, another boy has read both: read anything five
+hours a day, and you will soon be learned."
+
+Nature is much our friend in this matter. Nature is always
+clarifying her water and her wine. No filtration can be so perfect.
+She does the same thing by books as by her gases and plants. There
+is always a selection in writers, and then a selection from the
+selection. In the first place, all books that get fairly into the
+vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the
+affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel,
+though they cannot say. There has already been a scrutiny and choice
+from many hundreds of young pens, before the pamphlet or political
+chapter which you read in a fugitive journal comes to your eye. All
+these are young adventurers, who produce their performance to the
+wise ear of Time, who sits and weighs, and ten years hence out of a
+million of pages reprints one. Again it is judged, it is winnowed by
+all the winds of opinion, and what terrific selection has not passed
+on it, before it can be reprinted after twenty years, and reprinted
+after a century!--it is as if Minos and Rhadamanthus had indorsed
+the writing. 'Tis therefore an economy of time to read old and famed
+books. Nothing can be preserved which is not good; and I know
+beforehand that Pindar, Martial, Terence, Galen, Kepler, Galileo,
+Bacon, Erasmus, More, will be superior to the average intellect. In
+contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish betwixt notoriety
+and fame.
+
+Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on
+the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn without
+asking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, "he always
+went into stately shops"; and good travellers stop at the best hotels;
+for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is
+the good company and the best information. In like manner, the
+scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best
+thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish
+Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best
+information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day
+by day in the newspaper to the standard authors,--but who dare speak
+of such a thing?
+
+The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are,
+
+1. Never read any book that is not a year old.
+2. Never read any but famed books.
+3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase,
+
+  "No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en;
+  In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Montaigne says, "Books are a languid pleasure"; but I find certain
+books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was; he
+shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others
+than such. And I will venture, at the risk of inditing a list of old
+primers and grammars, to count the few books which a superficial
+reader must thankfully use.
+
+Of the old Greek books, I think there are five which we cannot spare:--
+1. Homer, who, in spite of Pope, and all the learned uproar of
+centuries, has really the true fire, and is good for simple minds,
+is the true and adequate germ of Greece, and occupies that place as
+history, which nothing can supply. It holds through all literature,
+that our best history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in
+Sanscrit, and in Greek. English history is best known through
+Shakspeare; how much through Merlin, Robin Hood, and the Scottish
+ballads! the German, through the Nibelungen Lied; the Spanish,
+through the Cid. Of Homer, George Chapman's is the heroic translation,
+though the most literal prose version is the best of all.--2.
+Herodotus, whose history contains inestimable anecdotes, which
+brought it with the learned into a sort of disesteem; but in these
+days, when it is found that what is most memorable of history is a
+few anecdotes, and that we need not be alarmed, though we should
+find it not dull, it is regaining credit.--3. Aeschylus, the
+grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us under a thin veil
+the first plantation of Europe. The "Prometheus" is a poem of the
+like dignity and scope as the book of Job, or the Norse "Edda."--4.
+Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find
+in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to
+thought,--the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier strains
+of musical wisdom than Homer reached, as if Homer were the youth,
+and Plato the finished man; yet with no less security of bold and
+perfect song, when he cares to use it, and with some harpstrings
+fetched from a higher heaven. He contains the future, as he came out
+of the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe in its causes and
+seed,--all that in thought, which the history of Europe embodies or
+has yet to embody. The well-informed man finds himself anticipated.
+Plato is up with him, too. Nothing has escaped him. Every new crop
+in the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern
+humanity is there. If the student wish to see both sides, and
+justice done to the man of the world, pitiless exposure of pedants,
+and the supremacy of truth and the religious sentiment, he shall be
+contented also. Why should not young men be educated on this book?
+It would suffice for the tuition of the race,--to test their
+understanding, and to express their reason. Here is that which is so
+attractive to all men,--the literature of aristocracy shall I call it?--
+the picture of the best persons, sentiments, and manners, by the
+first master, in the best times,--portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades,
+Crito, Prodicus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the
+lovely background of the Athenian and suburban landscape. Or who can
+overestimate the images with which he has enriched the minds of men,
+and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations? Read the
+"Phaedo," the "Protagoras," the "Phaedrus," the "Timaeus," the
+"Republic," and the "Apology of Socrates." 5. Plutarch cannot be
+spared from the smallest library: first, because he is so readable,
+which is much; then, that he is medicinal and invigorating. The
+Lives of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus
+and the rest, are what history has of best. But this book has taken
+care of itself, and the opinion of the world is expressed in the
+innumerable cheap editions, which make it as accessible as a
+newspaper. But Plutarch's "Morals" is less known, and seldom
+reprinted. Yet such a reader as I am writing to can as ill spare it
+as the "Lives." He will read in it the essays "On the Daemon of
+Socrates," "On Isis and Osiris," "On Progress in Virtue," "On
+Garrulity," "On Love," and thank anew the art of printing, and the
+cheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch charms by the facility
+of his associations; so that it signifies little where you open his
+book, you find yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is like
+the Isthmian Games, where all that was excellent in Greece was
+assembled, and you are stimulated and recruited by lyric verses, by
+philosophic sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, by the
+worship of the gods, and by the passing of fillets, parsley and
+laurel wreaths, chariots, armor, sacred cups, and utensils of
+sacrifice. An inestimable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the
+three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch.
+Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the
+meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of
+ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife,
+and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of
+Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of
+Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,--being a
+repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject of love,--a
+picture of a feast of wits, not less descriptive than Aristophanes,--
+and, lastly, containing that ironical eulogy of Socrates which is
+the source from which all the portraits of that head current in
+Europe have been drawn.
+
+Of course, a certain outline should be obtained of Greek history, in
+which the important moments and persons can be rightly set down; but
+the shortest is the best, and, if one lacks stomach for Mr. Grote's
+voluminous annals, the old slight and popular summary of Goldsmith
+or Gillies will serve. The valuable part is the age of Pericles, and
+the next generation. And here we must read the "Clouds" of
+Aristophanes, and what more of that master we gain appetite for, to
+learn our way in the streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of
+Aristophanes, requiring more genius and sometimes not less cruelty
+than belonged to the official commanders. Aristophanes is now very
+accessible, with much valuable commentary, through the labors of
+Mitchell and Cartwright. An excellent popular book is J. A. St.
+John's "Ancient Greece"; the "Life and Letters" of Niebuhr, even
+more than his Lectures, furnish leading views; and Winckelmann, a
+Greek born out of due time, has become essential to an intimate
+knowledge of the Attic genius. The secret of the recent histories in
+German and in English is the discovery, owed first to Wolff, and
+later to Boeckh, that the sincere Greek history of that period must
+be drawn from Demosthenes, specially from the business orations, and
+from the comic poets.
+
+If we come down a little by natural steps from the master to the
+disciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,--
+who also cannot be skipped,--Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,
+Jamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Julian said, "that he was
+posterior to Plato in time, not in genius." Of Plotinus, we have
+eulogies by Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Emperor
+Gallienus,--indicating the respect he inspired among his
+contemporaries. If any one who had read with interest the "Isis and
+Osiris" of Plutarch should then read a chapter called "Providence,"
+by Synesius, translated into English by Thomas Taylor, he will find
+it one of the majestic remains of literature, and, like one walking
+in the noblest of temples, will conceive new gratitude to his
+fellowmen, and a new estimate of their nobility. The imaginative
+scholar will find few stimulants to his brain like these writers. He
+has entered the Elysian Fields; and the grand and pleasing figures
+of gods and daemons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" and the
+"aquatic gods," daemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the
+Platonic rhetoric, exalted a little under the African sun, sail
+before his eyes. The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave at
+Delphi; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. These guides speak
+of the gods with such depth and with such pictorial details, as if
+they had been bodily present at the Olympian feasts. The reader of
+these books makes new acquaintance with his own mind; new regions of
+thought are opened. Jamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras" works more
+directly on the will than the others; since Pythagoras was eminently
+a practical person, the founder of a school of ascetics and
+socialists, a planter of colonies, and nowise a man of abstract
+studies alone.
+
+The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn's
+Library have done for literature what railroads have done for
+internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have
+named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in
+any book is translatable,--any real insight or broad human sentiment.
+Nay, I observe, that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral
+tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of
+the original into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling
+at translators, _i traditori traduttori_, but I thank them. I rarely
+read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book
+in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be
+beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which
+receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as
+soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to
+Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them
+rendered for me in my mother tongue.
+
+For history, there is great choice of ways to bring the student
+through early Rome. If he can read Livy, he has a good book; but one
+of the short English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should be
+used, that will place in the cycle the bright stars of Plutarch. The
+poet Horace is the eye of the Augustan age; Tacitus, the wisest of
+historians; and Martial will give him Roman manners, and some very
+bad ones, in the early days of the Empire: but Martial must be read,
+if read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring him to Gibbon,
+who will take him in charge, and convey him with abundant
+entertainment down--with notice of all remarkable objects on the way--
+through fourteen hundred years of time. He cannot spare Gibbon, with
+his vast reading, with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though
+never profound, his book is one of the conveniences of civilization,
+like the proposed railroad from New York to the Pacific,--and, I
+think, will be sure to send the reader to his "Memoirs of Himself,"
+and the "Extracts from my Journal," and "Abstracts of my Readings,"
+which will spur the laziest scholar to emulation of his prodigious
+performance.
+
+Now having our idler safe down as far as the fall of Constantinople
+in 1453, he is in very good courses; for here are trusty hands
+waiting for him. The cardinal facts of European history are soon
+learned. There is Dante's poem, to open the Italian Republics of the
+Middle Age; Dante's "Vita Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice; and
+Boccaccio's "Life of Dante,"--a great man to describe a greater. To
+help us, perhaps a volume or two of M. Sismondi's "Italian Republics"
+will be as good as the entire sixteen. When we come to Michel Angelo,
+his Sonnets and Letters must be read, with his Life by Vasari, or,
+in our day, by Mr. Duppa. For the Church, and the Feudal Institution,
+Mr. Hallam's "Middle Ages" will furnish, if superficial, yet
+readable and conceivable outlines.
+
+The "Life of the Emperor Charles V.," by the useful Robertson, is
+still the key of the following age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther,
+Erasmus, Melancthon, Francis I., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Henry IV.
+of France, are his contemporaries. It is a time of seeds and
+expansions, whereof our recent civilization is the fruit.
+
+If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to
+British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history
+takes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and
+mythology to the "Younger Edda" and the "Heimrskringla" of Snorro
+Sturleson, to Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," to Ellis's "Metrical
+Romances," to Asser's "Life of Alfred," and Venerable Bede, and to
+the researches of Sharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him
+for an intelligent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the
+richest period of the English mind, with the chief men of action and
+of thought which that nation has produced, and with a pregnant
+future before him. Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh,
+Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne,
+Herrick; and Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after.
+
+In reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He
+will not repent the time he gives to Bacon,--not if he read the
+"Advancement of Learning," the "Essays," the "Novum Organon," the
+"History of Henry VII.," and then all the "Letters," (especially
+those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business,) and
+all but his "Apophthegms."
+
+The task is aided by the strong mutual light which these men shed on
+each other. Thus, the Works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to bind
+all these fine persons together, and to the land to which they belong.
+He has written verses to or on all his notable contemporaries; and
+what with so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches in his
+"Discoveries," and the gossiping record of his opinions in his
+conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, has really illustrated
+the England of his time, if not to the same extent, yet much in the
+same way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the persons and places of
+Scotland. Walton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write also
+to the times.
+
+Among the best books are certain _Autobiographies_: as, St.
+Augustine's Confessions; Benvenuto Cellini's Life; Montaigne's Essays;
+Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs; Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz;
+Rousseau's Confessions; Linnaeus's Diary; Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's,
+Burns's, Alfieri's, Goethe's, and Haydon's Autobiographies.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to these, and of like interest,
+are those which may be called _Table-Talks_; of which the best are
+Saadi's Gulistan; Luther's Table-Talk; Aubrey's Lives; Spence's
+Anecdotes; Selden's Table-Talk; Boswell's Life of Johnson;
+Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe; Coleridge's Table-Talk; and
+Hazlitt's Life of Northcote.
+
+There is a class whose value I should designate as favorites; such
+as Froissart's Chronicles; Southey's Chronicle of the Cid; Cervantes;
+Sully's Memoirs; Rabelais; Montaigne; Izaak Walton; Evelyn; Sir
+Thomas Browne; Aubrey; Sterne; Horace Walpole; Lord Clarendon;
+Doctor Johnson; Burke, shedding floods of light on his times; Lamb;
+Landor; and De Quincey;--a list, of course, that may easily be
+swelled, as dependent on individual caprice. Many men are as tender
+and irritable as lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed,
+a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender
+readers have a great prudencey in showing their books to a stranger.
+
+The annals of bibliography afford many examples of the delirious
+extent to which book-fancying can go, when the legitimate delight in
+a book is transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. This
+mania reached its height about the beginning of the present century.
+For an autograph of Shakspeare one hundred and fifty-five guineas
+were given. In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was
+sold. The sale lasted forty-two days,--we abridge the story from
+Dibdin,--and among the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio
+published by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of
+this edition. Among the distinguished company which attended the
+sale were the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of
+Marlborough, then Marquis of Blandford. The bid stood at five hundred
+guineas. "A thousand guineas," said Earl Spencer: "And ten," added
+the Marquis. You might hear a pin drop. All eyes were bent on the
+bidders. Now they talked apart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet,
+but without the least thought of yielding one to the other.
+"Two thousand pounds," said the Marquis. The Earl Spencer bethought
+him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed and waste of powder,
+and had paused a quarter of a minute, when Lord Althorp with long
+steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to
+renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and Earl Spencer
+exclaimed, "Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!" An electric
+shock went through the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis.
+There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused;
+the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when
+the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest
+shores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries
+of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five
+hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal
+alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio.
+
+Another class I distinguish by the term _Vocabularies_. Burton's
+"Anatomy of Melancholy" is a book of great learning. To read it is
+like reading in a dictionary. 'Tis an inventory to remind us how
+many classes and species of facts exist, and, in observing into what
+strange and multiplex by-ways learning has strayed, to infer our
+opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no
+cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion,--
+the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing is wanting
+but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of a
+hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "On the Vanity of Arts and
+Sciences" is a specimen of that scribatious-ness which grew to be
+the habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern
+Germans, they read a literature, whilst other mortals read a few
+books. They read voraciously, and must disburden themselves; so they
+take any general topic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or
+Praise of Folly, and write and quote without method or end. Now and
+then out of that affluence of their learning comes a fine sentence
+from Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boethius, but no high method, no
+inspiring efflux. But one cannot afford to read for a few sentences;
+they are good only as strings of suggestive words.
+
+There is another class more needful to the present age, because the
+currents of custom run now in another direction, and leave us dry on
+this side;--I mean the _Imaginative_. A right metaphysics should do
+justice to the cooerdinate powers of Imagination, Insight,
+Understanding, and Will. Poetry, with its aids of Mythology and
+Romance, must be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men are
+ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not
+ciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is
+hustled out of sight. Our orators and writers are of the same poverty,
+and, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagination, the great awakening
+power, nor the Morals, creative of genius and of men, are addressed.
+But though orator and poet are of this hunger party, the capacities
+remain. We must have symbols. The child asks you for a story, and is
+thankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with
+meaning. The man asks for a novel,--that is, asks leave, for a few
+hours, to be a poet, and to paint things as they ought to be. The
+youth asks for a poem. The very dunces wish to go to the theatre.
+What private heavens can we not open, by yielding to all the
+suggestion of rich music! We must have idolatries, mythologies, some
+swing and verge for the creative power lying coiled and cramped here,
+driving ardent natures to insanity and crime, if it do not find vent.
+Without the great and beautiful arts which speak to the sense of
+beauty, a man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. These
+are his becoming draperies, which warm and adorn him. Whilst the
+prudential and economical tone of society starves the imagination,
+affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The novel is that
+allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything else pins it
+down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas, Sand,
+Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their education is neglected;
+but the circulating library and the theatre, as well as the
+trout-fishing, the Notch Mountains, the Adirondac country, the tour
+to Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts, make such amends
+as they can.
+
+The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It
+has a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like
+planets, and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the
+music, they never quite subside to their old stony state. But what
+is the Imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy;
+only the precursor of the Reason. And books that treat the old
+pedantries of the world, our times, places, professions, customs,
+opinions, histories, with a certain freedom, and distribute things,
+not after the usages of America and Europe, but after the laws of
+right reason, and with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put
+us on our feet again, enable us to form an original judgment of our
+duties, and suggest new thoughts for to-morrow.
+
+"Lucrezia Floriani," "Le Peche de M. Antoine," "Jeanne," of George
+Sand, are great steps from the novel of one termination, which we
+all read twenty years ago. Yet how far off from life and manners and
+motives the novel still is! Life lies about us dumb; the day, as we
+know it, has not yet found a tongue. These stories are to the plots
+of real life what the figures in "La Belle Assemblee," which
+represent the fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the novel
+will find the way to our interiors one day, and will not always be
+the novel of costume merely. I do not think them inoperative now. So
+much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched;
+and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young
+study noble behavior; and as the player in "Consuelo" insists that
+he and his colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine
+etiquette and strokes of grace and dignity which they practise with
+so much effect in their villas and among their dependents, so I
+often see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in the courtesy
+and brilliancy of young midshipmen, collegians, and clerks. Indeed,
+when one observes how ill and ugly people make their loves and
+quarrels, 'tis pity they should not read novels a little more, to
+import the fine generosities, and the clear, firm conduct, which are
+as becoming in the unions and separations which love effects under
+shingle roofs as in palaces and among illustrious personages.
+
+In novels the most serious questions are really beginning to be
+discussed. What made the popularity of "Jane Eyre," but that a
+central question was answered in some sort? The question there
+answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated
+according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding
+individualism will answer it as Rochester does,--as Cleopatra, as
+Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the exception into a rule,
+dwarfing the world into an exception. A person of less courage, that
+is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does,--giving
+way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of
+men and women.
+
+For the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We
+admire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,
+and parliaments. They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to
+wealth and social position.
+
+I remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the
+oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were
+tied to the twigs by thread. I fear 'tis so with the novelist's
+prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his
+fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist
+plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly
+to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying
+success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole,
+'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which
+only oddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element,
+no power, no furtherance. 'Tis only confectionery, not the raising
+of new corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was
+beautiful, and he fell in love_. Money, and killing, and the
+Wandering Jew, and persuading the lover that his mistress is
+betrothed to another,--these are the mainsprings; new names, but no
+new qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain endeavor to keep
+any bit of this fairy gold, which has rolled like a brook through
+our hands. A thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows seemed to span
+the sky; a morning among the mountains;--but we close the book, and
+not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for
+romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real
+elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and
+night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and
+circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like
+impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.
+
+If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of
+rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.
+Every good fable, every mythology, every biography out of a
+religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
+when they proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not
+detached and critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables,
+the Persian history, (Firdousi,) the "Younger Edda" of the
+Scandinavians, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the poem of Dante, the
+Sonnets of Michel Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont
+and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in
+our time, the ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of
+Goethe, have this richness, and leave room for hope and for generous
+attempts.
+
+There is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as
+to leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles
+of the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
+each the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and
+Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,
+these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;
+the Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the
+Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the
+"Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius
+and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical
+authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope
+of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be
+Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus;
+the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the
+"Imitation of Christ," of Thomas a Kempis; and the "Thoughts" of
+Pascal.
+
+All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal
+conscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year's
+almanac or this day's newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to
+be read on the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given
+or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the
+glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should
+give and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and
+enact them. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but
+are living characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.
+I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;
+they fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter
+and blushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures
+which the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean,
+to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which
+is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--
+was there already long before him. The missionary must be carried by
+it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
+these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
+perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
+and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
+ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
+few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
+Bible.
+
+These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
+yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
+the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
+be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
+sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
+British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
+each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
+so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
+on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
+or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
+the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
+the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
+time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
+study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
+give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
+keeping nothing back. Another member, meantime, shall as honestly
+search, sift, and as truly report on British mythology, the Round
+Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry; a third, on
+the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmesbury;
+a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, "Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and
+Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold,
+after the washing; and every other shall then decide whether this is
+a book indispensable to him also.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND LENS.
+
+
+I.
+
+THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.
+
+From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my
+inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was
+not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,
+hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope
+for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a
+drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very
+primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it
+is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently
+wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of
+excitement.
+
+Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
+to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope,
+related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished
+through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly
+constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the
+days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
+and his departure.
+
+Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
+remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
+vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
+construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
+containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
+"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
+lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
+crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
+endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
+to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
+a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
+properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
+totally failed.
+
+At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
+Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
+dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
+could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
+on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
+comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
+Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
+across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
+land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might
+feel towards the ordinary masters of men. I held conversations with
+Xanure in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily
+communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in
+their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of
+things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a
+drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe
+of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life,
+and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and
+protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my
+mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from
+her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
+enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
+foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
+boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering
+with green and silver and gold.
+
+It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
+the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
+disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
+microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night
+poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
+having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its
+primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never
+betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was
+bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.
+
+Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
+ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
+the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantages of instruments a
+thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
+Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and
+Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
+ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
+specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I
+believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
+ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that
+shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel
+animalcule (_Rotifera vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its
+flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as
+I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study,
+I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the
+investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were
+devoting their lives and intellects.
+
+As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
+practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops
+of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious
+that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should
+enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous
+merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I
+decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a
+failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.
+
+But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
+staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor;
+and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha,
+I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to
+place me above want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for
+this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
+in rendering myself independent.
+
+After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
+selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New
+York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
+from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased,
+without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I
+might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
+the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no
+danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place
+for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest
+publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,--in
+short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my
+life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires
+that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my
+object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my
+becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was
+with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and
+established myself in New York.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
+
+My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
+obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
+pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
+and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
+furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
+all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I
+visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
+splendid collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Higham's,
+Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular, (that founded on the principles of
+the stereoscope,) and at length fixed upon that form known as
+Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
+improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with
+this I purchased every possible accessory,--drawtubes, micrometers,
+a _camera-lucida_, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud
+illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus,
+forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles,
+all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced
+microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the
+slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
+how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
+suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently
+was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or
+a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
+mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is
+greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.
+
+Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
+students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to
+the delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the
+most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest
+hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile
+manipulation.
+
+For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of
+my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every
+possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was
+that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
+never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
+understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
+could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
+fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
+that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
+became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
+
+During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
+every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
+lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
+was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
+Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
+proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
+of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
+their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
+generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
+higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
+resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
+plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
+Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
+optical illusion.
+
+But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
+made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
+found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like
+all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed,
+it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the
+defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I
+imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of
+my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night
+constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which
+I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its
+original atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity
+through ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the
+secret of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be limited
+only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time
+should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short
+from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds
+himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
+microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power,
+was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound
+microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the
+wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
+to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if
+conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.
+
+It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
+After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on
+every imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals,
+artificial crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--
+in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus
+had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing
+gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost
+dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of
+progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended one lecture
+since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses of my mad pursuit
+had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.
+
+I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
+on a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power,
+having always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a
+young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the
+habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.
+
+I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
+character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There
+was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell,
+and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should
+perhaps have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined
+to the disposal of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a
+rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress
+of a Mexican _caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he
+paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
+which he assured me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for
+that,--and some other knick-knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
+should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He apparently
+had plenty of money, and had the _entree_ of the best houses in the
+city,--taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within
+the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
+conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater
+object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to
+be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
+affair.
+
+On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
+considerable excitement.
+
+"_Ah! mon ami_!" he cried, before I could even offer him the
+ordinary salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the
+most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the
+house of Madame -----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name
+himself in the Latin?"
+
+"Vulpes," I answered.
+
+"Ah! yes, Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."
+
+"The spirit medium?"
+
+"Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman! I write on a
+slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--
+affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most
+profound; and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman
+makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me
+of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
+I am fixed to the earth!"
+
+"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
+questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
+known only to yourself?"
+
+"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
+some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
+pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
+these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
+saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
+It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
+can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
+Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
+it to you."
+
+I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
+and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
+dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
+Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
+should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
+subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
+goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
+enable me to attain?
+
+While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
+mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK.
+
+Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
+promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
+residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with a keen and
+rather cruel dark eye, and an exceedingly sensual expression about
+her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an
+apartment on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre
+of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common
+round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her
+chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my
+appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with any awe.
+Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with
+the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
+Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.
+
+"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
+business-like tone of voice.
+
+"By appointment,--yes."
+
+"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"
+
+"Yes,--I wish for a written one."
+
+"From any particular spirit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"
+
+"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
+him some information which he ought to be able to give better than
+any other."
+
+"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
+"and place your hands upon it?"
+
+I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite me, with her hands also
+on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
+violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
+on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window panes.
+Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.
+
+"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate."
+She then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"
+
+Vigorous affirmative.
+
+"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"
+
+A very confused rapping followed this question.
+
+"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
+"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
+you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
+invisible guests.
+
+That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
+While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
+scribbled a name under the table.
+
+"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
+the medium once more.
+
+After a moment's pause her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
+tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
+spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
+of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
+loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper
+with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few
+moments had elapsed she handed me the paper, on which I found written,
+in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
+been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which
+Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at
+regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
+hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and
+she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper,
+which she handed to me. They were as follows:
+
+"I am here. Question me.
+
+"LEEUWENHOEK."
+
+I was, astounded. The name was identical with that I had written
+beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at
+all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know
+even the name of the great father of microscopies. It may have been
+Biology; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on
+my slip--still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of
+questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the
+responses in the order in which they occurred.
+
+I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
+
+SPIRIT.--Yes.
+
+I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
+
+SPIRIT.--You are.
+
+I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
+which you bear to science, help me!
+
+SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
+electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
+rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
+form the universal lens.
+
+I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
+
+SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.
+
+I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
+image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
+surmounted?
+
+SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
+obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
+itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!
+
+I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
+communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
+biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
+medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
+gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
+But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
+would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
+defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some
+such theory may have passed through my head, it is true, but if so,
+I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no
+course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the
+most painful nervous exultation that I left the medium's house that
+evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
+The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the
+balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily
+expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night
+air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me,--how to
+obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means
+multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its
+purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I
+could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EYE OF MORNING.
+
+There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
+impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his
+sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
+over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some
+object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly,
+thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
+crimson with confusion.
+
+"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
+don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
+
+Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
+protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
+
+"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
+
+This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
+if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some
+incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually
+kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too
+preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
+
+"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
+continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather
+was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only
+get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
+
+Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
+lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
+savagely, and rushing to the mantel-piece, where some foreign weapons
+hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it
+furiously before him.
+
+"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited.
+"No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted
+with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I
+am brave! You cannot make me fear!"
+
+All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement,
+astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon
+the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to
+reassure him.
+
+"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
+mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
+problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
+size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
+the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What
+can be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
+valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
+The diamond which I require you could not possess; or if you did
+possess it, you would not be living here."
+
+Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
+expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
+combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my
+movements. He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he
+was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which
+betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
+off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making
+this explanation, and endeavored, with some success, to assume a
+more cheerful air.
+
+All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much
+accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I
+determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.
+
+"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
+Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vongeot_ down-stairs,
+fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or.
+Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
+
+"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
+
+I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
+famous vintage, that of 1818, a year when war and wine throve
+together, and its pure, but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
+vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
+bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
+while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to
+send a flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became
+more and more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a
+not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the
+conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eyes on
+him with a quiet smile, said:
+
+"Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You
+may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather, one of her
+spirits, told me all."
+
+He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to
+fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a
+short time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
+
+"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
+shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
+
+"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell
+me all about it."
+
+The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin
+earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated;
+then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
+mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy
+look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he
+drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the
+mild lamp-light was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it
+fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no
+judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare
+size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and--must I confess
+it?--with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply
+to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements
+(of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had
+been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
+Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead
+of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he
+saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up, and fled with it,
+but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly,--
+so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention
+to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to discover
+any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed
+away safely. He added, that, in accordance with Oriental practice,
+he had named his diamond by the fanciful title of "The Eye of Morning."
+
+While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
+attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the
+glories of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in
+its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was
+exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence.
+The hand of Destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
+spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the
+microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start
+up within my easy reach! I determined, with the most perfect
+deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.
+
+I sat opposite him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
+revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
+foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
+or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
+interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
+taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a hide
+peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human
+beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be
+experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own
+confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer.
+He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws;
+why should I not, like government, contrive that his punishment
+should contribute to the progress of human knowledge?
+
+The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
+There stood upon the mantel-piece a bottle half full of French
+laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
+restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his
+glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
+
+I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket
+in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I
+laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
+myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while
+with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation
+the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the
+aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I
+calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon,
+if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with
+one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which
+I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs.
+I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
+bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches
+the surface of the water; he turned half round on his side, and as if
+to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
+more spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the creese, which it
+remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this
+there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralyzed
+the usual nervous action. He must have died instantaneously.
+
+There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
+suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
+house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be
+found in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and
+afterwards escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical
+impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also
+should he found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended
+softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for
+holding small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass,
+etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice,
+with a very powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last
+was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was
+simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its
+stem in this vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock
+the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of
+papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before
+they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into
+Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all traces of wine,--
+cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles away with me.
+If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the
+question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides,
+the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The
+laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in
+case of _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be
+that he first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a
+little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed
+his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
+arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
+door with my vice, and went to bed.
+
+Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
+The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light
+streaming on the dark landing from under the door, peeped through
+the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door
+was burst open, and the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.
+
+Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
+inquest; but no clue to his death, beyond that of suicide, could be
+obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
+friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
+One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that
+"he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed, that Simon, when
+paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he would not pay
+him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded, the door
+locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I
+anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon,
+so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a
+prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
+neighborhood once more settled down into its accustomed quiet.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+ANIMULA
+
+The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and
+day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast, galvanic battery,
+composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I
+dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this
+enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
+electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
+me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I
+commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense
+toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the
+care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the
+lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had
+yet undergone.
+
+At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
+trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
+Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
+to be placed upon its platform, my hand fairly shook as I enveloped
+a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
+to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the
+rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip
+of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid
+of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my
+eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an
+instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a
+vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and
+seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently,
+and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'
+breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens
+approached the object, a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded
+to my view.
+
+I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
+beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
+the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
+animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that
+dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous
+power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
+aqueous matter, beyond the realms of Infusoria and Protozoa, down to
+the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was
+gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
+radiance.
+
+It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
+side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and
+colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
+appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific
+definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they
+undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with
+splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is
+as dross compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance
+stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
+and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The
+pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista
+seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping
+silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied
+with a thousand hues lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the
+crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no
+forms animate or inanimate were to be seen, save those vast auroral
+copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves
+and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealizable by
+mere imagination.
+
+How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
+solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
+life,--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
+present acquainted,--but still, some living organism. I find my
+newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic
+desert.
+
+While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
+economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
+our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
+through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more at
+tentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict
+the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this
+mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in
+suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an
+animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting
+behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly
+revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed
+nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and the form
+floated out into the broad light.
+
+It was a female human shape. When I say "human," I mean it possessed
+the outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable
+beauty lifted it inimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
+Adam.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
+revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
+serene, evade my words. Her long lustrous hair following her
+glorious head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a
+falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its
+splendors. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would
+still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that
+enclosed her form.
+
+She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
+into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
+of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
+clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She
+floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending
+through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of
+her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening
+to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the
+harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply
+purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal
+of this wonder through another's blood? I would have given my own to
+enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.
+
+Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
+instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
+microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that
+lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from
+prism sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny
+bead of dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet
+Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more
+to apply my eye to the microscope.
+
+Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
+bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
+the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
+of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
+with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on
+its summit, and sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula.
+The sylph took it in her delicate hand, and began to eat. My
+attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply
+myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or
+was not instinct with volition.
+
+I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
+attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
+through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
+eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
+have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
+luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple
+and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement,
+she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then
+cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash
+of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
+
+Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
+seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
+still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
+sudden disappearance? Had she a lover, or a husband? Yes, that was
+the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
+through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
+
+The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion,
+startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced
+upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was
+so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
+
+It is true, that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope,
+she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the
+revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle
+and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop,
+she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what
+account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the
+instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I
+must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.
+
+Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the
+mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper
+all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest
+of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be
+something to have established even the faintest personal link to
+bind us together--to know that at times, when roaming through those
+enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had
+broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle
+memory in her heart!
+
+But it could not be. No invention, of which human intellect was
+capable, could break down the barriers that Nature had erected. I
+might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always
+remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her,
+and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of
+anguish I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed
+myself to sleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+THE SPILLING OF THE CUP.
+
+I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
+microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
+that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
+surrounded by its moderator's, burning, when I went to bed the night
+before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
+pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
+surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
+shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the
+transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and
+gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might
+have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus.
+I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection
+were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably. By the dim
+light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
+her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
+flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
+and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some
+substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips
+moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
+reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of
+happiness would then have entranced my ears! What jubilant hymns to
+Adonais would have thrilled the illumined air!
+
+I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
+mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
+lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
+purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
+practically realized.
+
+How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
+know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
+the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
+saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
+for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
+that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
+divine form strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always
+overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could
+gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!
+
+At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and
+continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions,
+that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it.
+"Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has
+bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess.
+Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of
+mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and
+this false enchantment will vanish."
+
+I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
+advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at
+Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the
+most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I
+instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
+
+The curtain drew up. The usual semi-circle of fairies in white
+muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled
+flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was
+sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees
+open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters.
+It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause,
+and lighting on one foot remained poised in air. Heavens! was this
+the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels?
+Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes,
+that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted checks! Where were the
+vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
+Animula?
+
+The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of
+her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
+athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I
+could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew
+every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the
+Signorina's _pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.
+
+I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
+sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
+impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Aninula was there,--but
+what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
+place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
+lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and
+haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her
+golden hair had faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her!
+I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to
+my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size
+of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had
+forever divided me.
+
+I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
+afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
+contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony.
+The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty.
+Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I
+watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed
+absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered
+that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I
+hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between
+Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the
+microscope. The slide was still there,--but, great heavens! the
+water-drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had
+evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the
+naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
+Animula,--and she was dying!
+
+I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas!
+the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all
+melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
+a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so
+round and lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes
+that shone like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
+golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld
+that final struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
+
+When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
+the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as
+it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
+
+They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
+have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
+and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke
+invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me,
+and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is
+the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture.
+Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly
+memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the
+radiant form of my lost Animula!
+
+
+
+
+THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.
+
+  Amid the aisle, apart, there stood
+  A mourner like the rest;
+  And while the solemn rites were said,
+  He fashioned into verse his mood,
+  That would not be repressed.
+
+  Why did they bring him home,
+  Bright jewel set in lead?
+  Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
+  And lay him with the mighty dead,--
+  With Adonais, and the rest
+  Of all the young and good and fair,
+  That drew the milk of English breast,
+  And their last sigh in Latian air!
+
+  Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
+  Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;
+  For many a lustre, many an aeon,
+  He might sleep well in the Pantheon,
+  Deep in the sacred city's womb,
+  The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
+
+  Lay him 'neath Diocletian's dome,
+  Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
+  Near to that house in which he dwelt,--
+  House that to many seemed a home,
+  So much with him they loved and felt.
+  We were his guests a hundred times;
+  We loved him for his genial ways;
+  He gave me credit for my rhymes,
+  And made me blush with praise.
+
+  Ah! there be many histories
+  That no historian writes,
+  And friendship hath its mysteries
+  And consecrated nights;
+  Amid the busy days of pain,
+  Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
+  Weary midnight, weary morn,
+  Years of struggle paid with scorn;--
+  Yet oft amid all this despair,
+  Long rambles in the Autumn days
+  O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
+  Bright moments snatched from care,
+
+    When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
+      We roved and dined on crust and curds,
+      Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
+    And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
+      And then returning late,
+      After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
+      Suppers and nights of gods; and then
+      Mornings that made us new-born men;
+      Rare nights at the Minerva tavern,
+      With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
+      Free nights, but fearless and without reproof,--
+      For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
+
+    O Rome! what memories awake,
+      When Crawford's name is said,
+    Of days and friends for whose dear sake
+    That path of Hades unto me
+      Will have no more of dread
+    Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice!
+      O Crawford! husband, father, brother
+    Are in that name, that little word!
+      Let me no more my sorrow smother;
+    Grief stirs me, and I must be stirred.
+
+    O Death, thou teacher true and rough!
+      Full oft I fear that we have erred,
+    And have not loved enough;
+    But oh, ye friends, this side of Acheron,
+      Who cling to me to-day,
+    I shall not know my love till ye are gone
+      And I am gray!
+      Fair women with your loving eyes,
+    Old men that once my footsteps led,
+      Sweet children,--much as all I prize,
+    Until the sacred dust of death be shed
+      Upon each dear and venerable head,
+    I cannot love you as I love the dead!
+
+    But now, the natural man being sown,
+    We can more lucidly behold
+      The spiritual one;
+      For we, till time shall end,
+      Full visibly shall see our friend
+    In all his hand did mould,--
+    That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!
+
+    When on some blessed studious day
+    To my loved Library I wend my way,
+    Amid the forms that give the Gallery grace
+    His thought in that pale poet I shall trace,--
+      Keen Orpheus with his eyes
+        Fixed deep in ruddy hell,
+
+  Seeking amid those lurid skies
+  The wife he loved so well,--
+  And feel that still therein I see
+  All that was in my Master's thought,
+  And, in that constant hand wherewith he wrought,
+  The eternal type of constancy.
+  Thou marble husband! might there be
+  More of flesh and blood like thee!
+
+  Or if, in Music's festive hall,
+  I come to cheat me of my care,
+  Amid the swell, the dying fall,
+  His genius greets me there.
+  O man of bronze! thy solemn air--
+  Best soother of a troubled brain--
+  Floods me with memories, and again
+  As thou stand'st visibly to men,
+  Beloved musician! so once more
+  Crawford comes back that did thy form restore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Well,--_requiescat_! let him pass!
+
+  Good mourners, go your several ways!
+  He needs no further rite, nor mass,
+  Nor eulogy, who best could praise
+  Himself in marble and in brass;
+  Yet his best monument did raise,
+  Not in those perishable things
+  That men eternal deem,--
+  The pride of palaces and kings,--
+  But in such works as must avail him there,
+  With Him who, from the extreme
+  Love that was in his breast,
+  Said, "Come, all ye that heavy burdens bear,
+  And I will give you rest!"
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
+
+As a mere literary production, the Message of Mr. Buchanan is so
+superior to any of the Messages of his immediate predecessor, that
+the reader naturally expects to find in it a corresponding
+superiority of sentiment and aim. When we meet a man who is
+well-dressed, and whose external demeanor is that of a gentleman, we
+are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and
+honorable feelings. But we are very often mistaken in this inference;
+the nice garment proves to be little better than a nice disguise;
+and the robe of respectability may cover the heart of a very scurvy
+fellow.
+
+Mr. Buchanan's sentences run smoothly enough; they are for the most
+part grammatical; the tone throughout is sedate, if not dignified;
+and the general spirit unambitious and moderate. But the doctrine,
+in our estimation, is, on the most essential point, atrocious, and
+the objects which are sought to be compassed are unworthy of the man,
+the office, the country, and the age. We refer, of course, to what
+is said of the one vital question with us now, the question of
+Slavery in Kansas; but before proceeding to a discussion of that,
+let us say a word or two of other parts of this important document.
+
+The President introduces, as the first of his topics, the prevailing
+money pressure, which he treats at considerable length, with some
+degree of truth, but without originality or comprehensiveness of view.
+He profiles to inquire into the causes of the unfortunate disasters
+of trade, and into the remedies which may be devised against their
+recurrence; but on neither head is he remarkably profound or
+instructive. It is merely reiterating the commonplaces of the
+newspapers, to talk about "the excessive loans and issues of the
+banks," and to ring changes of phraseology on the vices of
+speculation, over-trading, and stock-jobbing. All the world is as
+familiar with all that as the President can be, and scarcely needed
+a reminder on either score; what we wanted of the head of the nation,--
+what a real statesman, who understood his subject, would have given
+us,--that is, if he had pretended to go at all beyond the simple
+statement of the fact of commercial revulsion, into a discussion of
+it,--was a comprehensive and philosophic analysis of all the causes
+of the phenomenon, a calm and careful review of all its circumstances,
+and a rigid deduction of broad general principles from an adequate
+study of the entire case. But this the President has not furnished.
+In connecting our commercial derangements with the disorders of the
+banking system he has unquestionably struck upon a great and
+fundamental truth; but it is merely a single truth, and he strikes
+it in rather a vague and random way. In considering these reverses,
+there are many things to be taken into account besides the
+constitution and customs, whether good or bad, of our American banks,--
+many things which do not even confine themselves to this continent,
+but are spread over the greater part of the civilized world.
+
+Mr. Buchanan is still lamer in his suggestion of remedies than he is
+in his inquiry after causes. The Federal Government, he thinks, can
+do little or nothing in the premises,--a fatal admission at the
+outset,--and we are coolly turned over to the most unsubstantial and
+impracticable of all reliances, "the wisdom and patriotism of the
+State legislatures"! Why cannot the Federal Government do anything
+in the premises? The President tells us that the Constitution has
+conferred upon Congress the exclusive right "to coin money _and
+regulate the value thereof_," and that it has prohibited the States
+from "issuing bills of credit,"--which phrase, if it mean anything,
+means making paper-money; and the inference would seem to be
+inevitable that Congress has a sovereign authority and power over
+the whole matter. It may, moreover, touch the circulation of bills,
+by means of its indisputable right to lay a stamp-tax upon paper;
+and Mr. Gallatin long ago recommended the exercise of this power, as
+an effectual method of restraining the emission of small notes. Upon
+what principle, then, can the President assert so dictatorially as
+he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If
+the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents,
+and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not
+interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the
+proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of
+which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not
+ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main
+force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we
+think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency;
+but from the stand-point of the President, and with his views of the
+efficiency of legislative restrictions upon banks, we do not see how
+he could consistently avoid recommending the instant action of
+Congress. On the heel of his grandiloquent description of the evils
+of redundant paper money,--evils which are felt all over the country,--
+it is a lamentably impotent conclusion to say, "After all, we can't
+do much to help it! Yes, let us confide piously in 'the wisdom and
+patriotism of the State legislatures,'"--which are almost the last
+places in the world, as things go, where we should look for either
+quality.
+
+Not being able to do anything himself, however, what does he urge
+upon the wise and patriotic State legislatures? Why, a series of
+flimsy restrictions, which would have about as much effect in
+preventing the tremendous abuses of banking which he himself depicts,
+as a bit of filigree iron-work would have in restraining the
+expansion of steam. Restrictions! restrictions! _toujours_
+restrictions!--as if that method of correcting the evil had not been
+utterly exploded by nearly two centuries of experience! Mr. Buchanan
+calls himself a Democrat; he is loud in his protestations of respect
+for the sagacity, the good-sense, and the virtue of the people; his
+political school takes for its motto the well-known adage, "That
+government is best which governs least"; his party, if he does not,
+purports to be a great advocate of the emancipation of trade from
+all the old-fashioned restraints which take the names of protections,
+tariffs, bounties, etc. etc.; and we wonder how it is, that, in his
+presumed excursions over the entire domain of free-trade, he should
+have got no inkling of a thought as to the benefits of free-trade in
+banking. We wonder that so great a subject could be dismissed with
+the suggestion of a few petty restraints.
+
+"If the State legislatures," remarks the President, summing up his
+entire thought, "afford us a real specie basis for our circulation,
+by increasing the denomination of bank-notes, first to twenty, and
+afterwards to fifty dollars; if they will require that the banks
+shall at all times keep on hand at least one dollar of gold and
+silver for every three dollars of their circulation and deposits;
+and if they will provide, by a self-executing enactment, which
+nothing can arrest, that the moment they suspend they shall go into
+liquidation; I believe that such provisions, with a weekly
+publication by each bank of a statement of its condition, would go
+far to secure us against future suspensions of specie payments."
+
+Singular blindness! Mr. Buchanan lived for several years, as
+American ambassador, in England. It is to be presumed that while
+there he used his eyes, and possibly his brains. He must have
+noticed occasionally, at least, in his walks through "the city," the
+immense marble structure in Threadneedle Street, known as the Bank
+of England. It is certain that he has read the history of that bank,
+inasmuch as it is twice or thrice alluded to in his Message; he
+cannot be ignorant, therefore, that the "circulation" of England has
+essentially "a specie basis"; that no bank-notes are issued there for
+less than the amount of twenty-five dollars; that the banks at all
+times keep on hand "one dollar of gold for every three dollars of
+their circulation and deposits"; and that the laws of bankruptcy are
+alike rigid in regard to institutions and individuals. These are
+precisely the provisions which he commends to the adoption of wise
+and patriotic State legislatures as an admirable corrective for
+suspensions; yet he forgets to explain to us how it happens that the
+Bank of England, to which they are all applied, has virtually
+suspended payment six times in the course of its existence, having
+been saved from open dishonor only by the timely assistance of the
+government,--while the trade of England, in spite of the staid and
+conservative habits of the people, is quite as liable to those
+terrific tarantula-dances, called revulsions, as our own. Before
+urging his "restraints," the President ought to have inquired a
+little into the history of such restraints; and he would then have
+saved himself from the absurdity of patronizing remedies which an
+actual trial had proved ludicrously inapt and inefficacious.
+
+With regard to the second topic of the Message,--our foreign
+relations,--it may be said that the positions assumed are frank,
+manly, and explicit; unless we have reason to suspect, in the
+slightly belligerent attitude towards Spain, a return, on the part
+of the President, to one of his old and unlawful loves,--the
+acquisition of Cuba. In that case, we should deplore his language,
+and be inclined to doubt also the sincerity of his just
+denunciations of Walker's infamous schemes of piracy and brigandage.
+Until events, however, have developed the signs of a sinister policy
+of this sort, we must bestow an earnest plaudit upon his decided
+rebuke of the filibusters, coupling that praise with a wish that the
+"vigilance" of his subordinates may hereafter prove of a more
+wide-awake and energetic kind than has yet been manifested.
+
+But for the terms in which the President has disposed of his third
+topic,--the Kansas difficulty,--we can scarcely characterize their
+disingenuousness and meanings. We have already spoken of the object
+of this part of the document as atrocious,--and we repeat the word,
+as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing
+less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked
+the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their
+initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts.
+Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached
+when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the
+antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of
+the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes that the
+late Lecompton Convention was a legitimate Convention, and that the
+Constitution framed by it (or said to have been framed by it,--for
+there is no official report of the instrument as yet) was framed in
+pursuance of proper authority or law. He does not tell us that the
+Territorial legislature which called this Convention was a usurping
+legislature, brought together, as the Congressional records show, by
+an invading horde from a neighboring State; he does not tell us, that,
+even if it had been a properly constituted body in itself, it had no
+right to call a Convention for the purpose of superseding the
+Territorial organization; he does not tell us that the Convention,
+as assembled, represented but one-tenth of the legal voters of the
+Territory; nor does he seem to regard the fact, that the other
+nine-tenths of the people were virtually disfranchised by that
+Convention, so far as their right to determine the provisions of
+their organic law is concerned, as at all a vital and important fact.
+By a miserable juggle, worthy of the frequenters of the
+gambling-house or the race-course, the people of Kansas have been
+nominally allowed to decide the question of Slavery, and that
+permission, according to Mr. Buchanan, fulfils and completes all that
+he ever meant, or his associates ever meant, by the promise of
+popular sovereignty!
+
+Now this may be all that the President and his party ever meant by
+that phrase, but it is not all that their words expressed or the
+country expected. In the course of the last three or four years, and
+by a series of high-handed measures, the established principles of
+the Federal Government, in regard to its management of the
+Territories,--principles sanctioned by every administration from
+Washington's down to Fillmore's,--have been overruled for the sake
+of a new doctrine, which goes by the name of Popular Sovereignty.
+The most sacred and binding compacts of former years were annulled
+to make way for it; and the judicial department of the government
+was violently hauled from its sacred retreat, into the political
+arena, to give a gratuitous _coup-de-grace_ to the old opinions and
+the apparent sanction of law to the new dogma, so that Popular
+Sovereignty might reign triumphant in the Territories. At the
+convention of the party which nominated Mr. Buchanan as a candidate
+for his present office,--"a celebrated occasion," as he calls it,--
+the members affirmed in the most emphatic manner the right of the
+people of all the Territories, including Kansas, to form their own
+Constitutions as they pleased, under the single condition that it
+should be republican. Mr. Buchanan reiterated that assertion in his
+Inaugural address, and in subsequent communications. When he
+appointed Mr. Robert J. Walker Governor of the Territory, he
+instructed him to assure the people that they should be guarantied
+against all "fraud or violence" when they should be called upon
+"to vote for or against the Constitution which would be submitted to
+them," so that there might be "a fair expression of the popular will."
+Nothing, in short, could have been clearer, more direct, more
+frequently repeated, than the asseverations of the "Democratic Party,"
+made through its official representatives, its newspapers, and its
+orators,--to the effect, that its only object, in its Kansas policy,
+was to secure "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty." On the
+strength of these assurances alone, it was enabled to achieve its
+hard-won victory in the last Presidential campaign. Mr. Buchanan
+owes his position to them, as is repeatedly admitted by Mr. Douglas
+in his speech of December 9th last,--and the whole nation, having
+discussed and battled and voted on the principle, acquiesced, as it
+is accustomed to do after an election, in the ascendency of the
+victors. It prepared itself to see the application of the principle
+which had been announced and defended as so important and wise.
+
+Under these pledges and promises, what has been the performance? A
+Convention, for which, inasmuch as it was illegally called by an
+illegal body, a large proportion of the citizens of Kansas refused
+to vote, frames a Constitution, in the interest and according to the
+convictions of the slenderest minority of the people; it
+incorporates in that Constitution a recognition of old Territorial
+laws to the last degree offensive to the majority of the people; it
+incorporates in it a clause establishing slavery in perpetuity; it
+connects with it a Schedule perpetuating the existing slavery,
+whatever it may be, against all future remedy which has not the
+sanction of the slave-master; and then, by a miserable chicane, it
+submits the Constitution to a vote of the people, but it submits it
+under such terms, that the people, if they vote at all, must vote
+_for_ it, whether they like it or not, while the only part in
+which they can exercise any choice is the _clause_ which relates to
+future slavery. The other parts, especially the Schedule, which
+recognizes the existing slavery, and that almost irremediably, the
+people are not allowed to pronounce upon. They are not allowed to
+pronounce upon the thousand-and-one details of the State organization;
+they are fobbed off with a transparent cheat of "heads I win,--tails
+you lose";--and the whole game is denominated, Popular Sovereignty.
+
+What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this
+would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise
+of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is
+amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle,"
+as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the
+approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only
+mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically
+ascertained is by a direct vote"; he admits that the "friends and
+supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when struggling to sustain
+its provisions before the great tribunal of the American people,"
+"everywhere, throughout the Union, publicly pledged their faith and
+honor" to submit the question of their domestic institutions
+"to the decision of the _bona-fide_ people of Kansas, without any
+qualification or restriction whatever"; but then,--and here is the
+subterfuge,--"domestic institutions" means only the single
+institution of slavery; and the Convention, in consenting to yield
+_that_ (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the
+people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of
+Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the
+questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative,
+and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their
+distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of
+taxation, etc., etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and
+provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the
+existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept.
+Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes
+already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced;
+for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is
+already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must
+not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that
+would be "an act of gross injustice." In other words, Popular
+Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to
+vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body,
+under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which
+officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,--
+while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. It is just the
+sort of sovereignty for which Louis Napoleon provided when he wished
+to procure a popular sanction for the numberless atrocities of the
+_coup-d'etat_ of the 2d December.
+
+An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks";
+and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in
+kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed
+himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of
+his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to
+how he shall hide his tracks. He knows, as all the world knows, that
+this jugglery in Kansas has been performed for no other purpose than
+to secure a foothold for Slavery there, against the demonstrated
+opinion of nine-tenths of the people; he knows, as all the world
+knows, that if the Convention had had the least desire to arrive at
+a fair expression of the popular will, on the question of Slavery or
+any other question, it was easy to make a candid and honorable
+submission of it to an election to be held honestly under the
+recognized officers of the Territory; but he knows, also, that under
+such circumstances the case would have been carried overwhelmingly
+against the "domestic institution," and thus have rebuked, with all
+the emphasis that an outraged community could give to the expression
+of its will, the nefarious conduct which "the party" has pursued
+from the beginning,--and this was a consummation not to be wished.
+He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent
+inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely
+about "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty."
+
+The President thinks that it is time that these troubles in Kansas
+were at an end, and we cordially agree with him in the sentiment;
+but he needs scarcely to be reminded that they never will be at an
+end, until the wicked schemes, which have been so long persisted in,
+to override the convictions and hopes and interests of a large
+majority of the Kansas settlers, are utterly abandoned by those who
+are in power.
+
+Of the remaining and mostly routine topics of the Message we have no
+occasion to speak; and we only regret that the deficiencies of the
+most important parts are so glaring as to oblige us to treat them
+with undisguised severity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WEDDING VEIL.
+
+  Dear Anna, when I brought her veil,
+  Her white veil, on her wedding-night,
+  Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds,
+  And, laughing, turned me to the light.
+
+  "See, Bessie, see! you wear for once
+  The bridal veil, forsworn for years!"
+  She saw my face,--her laugh was hushed,
+  Her happy eyes were filled with tears.
+
+  With kindly haste and trembling hand
+  She drew away the gauzy mist;
+  "Forgive, dear heart!"--her sweet voice said;
+  Her loving lips my forehead kissed.
+
+  We passed from out the searching light;
+  The summer night was calm and fair:
+  I did not see her pitying eyes,
+  I felt her soft hand smooth my hair.
+
+  Her tender love unlocked my heart;
+  'Mid falling tears, at last I said,
+  "Forsworn indeed to me that veil,
+  Because I only love the dead!"
+
+  She stood one moment statue-still,
+  And, musing, spake in under-tone,
+  "The living love may colder grow;
+  The dead is safe with God alone!"
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+  _The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History
+  of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
+  I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
+
+This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
+account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
+beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
+as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
+planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
+has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
+
+Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
+historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
+wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
+sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
+vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
+excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
+religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
+his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
+long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
+strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
+reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
+the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
+book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
+priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
+they were engaged.
+
+Mr. Helps has investigated his subject with zeal, industry, and
+patience. He has sought out the original authorities, has brought to
+light many important facts, has redeemed some great memories from
+unjust oblivion, and has presented a new view of several of the
+chief features of the history. In a graceful advertisement to the
+third volume he says, "The reader will observe that there is
+scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern
+writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for
+the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the
+conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object
+in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs;
+and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these
+eminent persons might have exercised upon it."
+
+A considerable space in these volumes is devoted to an investigation
+of the character and condition of the native races of the continent
+at the period of the Spanish Conquest. This subject is treated with
+peculiar skill and learning, and with unusual power of sympathetic
+analysis and appreciation of remote and obscure developments of
+society. Another portion of the history, which his plan has led
+Mr. Helps to treat at length and with exhaustive thoroughness, is
+the early relations between the conquerors and the conquered,
+embracing the method of settlement of the different countries, the
+whole disastrous system of _ripartimientos_ and _encomiendas_, which,
+in its full development, led to the destruction of the native
+population of Hispaniola, and to the introduction of negroes into
+this and the other West India islands to supply the demand for
+laborers.
+
+Another most interesting portion of his subject, and one which has
+never till now been fairly exhibited, relates to the labors of the
+Dominican and Franciscan monks, and their admirable and unwearied
+efforts to counteract and to remedy some of the bitterest evils of
+the conquest. Theirs were the first protests that were raised
+against slavery in America, and their ranks afforded the first
+martyrs in the cause of the Indian and the Negro. Las Casas has
+found an eloquent and just biographer, and Mr. Helps has the
+satisfaction of having securely placed his name among the few that
+deserve the lasting honor and remembrance of the world. The
+narrative of Las Casas's life is one of strong dramatic interest.
+His life was a varied and remarkable one, even for those times of
+striking contrasts and varieties in the fortunes of men; and in
+Mr. Helps's pages one sees the man himself, with his simplicity and
+elevation of purpose, his honesty of motive, his energy, his
+impetuosity, his courage, and his faith.
+
+The three volumes already published embrace the progress of Spanish
+conquest from the first discoveries of Columbus to Pizarro's
+incursion into Peru. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Helps may
+continue his work, at least to the period when the Spanish conquest
+and colonization were met and limited by the conquest and the
+colonization of the other European nations. Its importance, as a wise,
+thoughtful, unpolemic investigation of the origin and the results of
+Slavery, is hardly to be overestimated. The space allowed to a
+critical notice does not permit us to render it full justice. We can
+do little more than recommend it warmly to the readers of history
+and to the students of the most difficult and the darkest social
+problem of the age.
+
+
+
+  _Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American
+  Engineers. Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae for
+  the Location, Construction, Equipment, and Management of Railroads,
+  as built in the United States_. With 158 Illustrations. By GEORGE L.
+  VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1857. 12 mo. pp. 480.
+
+All who trust their persons to railroad cars, or their estates to
+railroad stocks, will welcome every effort to enlighten that
+irresponsible body of railroad builders and managers in whose wits
+we put our faith.
+
+The work which we here notice is intended for uneducated American
+engineers, of whom there are unfortunately too many. The rapidity
+with which our railroads have been built, and the experimental
+character of this new branch of engineering, have obliged us to
+resort to such native ability and mother wit as our people could
+afford. The great body of our railroad engineers have had no training
+but the experience they have blundered through; and even our
+railroad financiers are men more distinguished for courage and
+energy than for experimental skill. Mr. Vose's book will doubtless
+be of great service in remedying these evils, by bringing within the
+reach of every intelligent man a valuable and very carefully
+prepared summary of such rules, formulas, and statistics as our
+railroad experiences have furnished and proved.
+
+Railroad engineering and management have united almost every branch
+of mechanical and financial science, and have developed several new
+and peculiar arts; so that the successful construction, equipment,
+and management of a railroad require a rare combination of
+accomplishments. Managers hitherto have been too little acquainted
+with their business to settle many questions of economy, but they
+are now beginning to look upon their enterprises with cooler
+judgments.
+
+The "Handbook" discusses several questions of economy, but seeks,
+especially in its rules and formulas, to avoid those risks by which
+economy has often been turned into the most ruinous extravagance. On
+the question of fuel, our author advocates the use of coke as the
+most economical and convenient, and every way preferable where it
+can be readily obtained. He also urges, on economical grounds, a
+more moderate rate of speed in railroad travel; thus showing that we
+may save our forests, our lives, and a considerable expense all at
+the same time.
+
+The style is clear, and, for a work not professing to be a complete
+treatise, but only a manual of useful facts, the arrangement is
+admirable. The book is thoroughly practical, and touches upon such
+matters, and for the most part upon such matters only, as are likely
+to be of service to the practical man; yet it is quite elementary in
+its character, and free from unnecessary technicalities.
+
+The book has, however, one great fault. It is full of errata. No
+carefully prepared table of corrections can make amends for such a
+fault in a book in which typographical correctness is of the
+greatest importance. To insert in their places with a pen more than
+two hundred published corrections is a labor which no reader would
+willingly undertake. We hope, therefore, that a new and correct
+edition will soon be published.
+
+
+
+  _The Life of Handel_. By VICTOR SCHOELCHER. Reprinted from the
+    London Edition. New York: Mason, Brothers.
+
+It is a remarkable fact, and one not very creditable to the musical
+public of England, that the works of Mainwaring, Hawkins, Barney,
+and Coxe should remain for almost an entire century after the death
+of Handel our main sources of information concerning his career, and
+that the first attempt to write a complete biography of that great
+composer, correcting the errors, reconciling the contradictions, and
+supplying the deficiencies of those authors, should be from the pen
+of a French exile. And yet during all this time materials have been
+accumulating, the fame of the composer has been extending, the demand
+for such a work increasing, and the number of intelligent and
+elegant English writers upon music growing greater.
+
+M. Schoelcher's work, though perhaps the most valuable contribution
+to musical historical literature which has for many years appeared
+from the English press, leaves much to be desired. Excepting a
+correction of the chronology of Handel's visit to Italy, very little,
+if anything, of importance is added to what we already possessed in
+regard to the early history of the composer. We look in vain for the
+means of tracing the development of his genius. The impression left
+upon the mind of the reader is, that his powers showed themselves
+suddenly in full splendor, and that at a single bound he placed
+himself at the head of the dramatic composers of his age. This was
+not true of Hasse, Mozart, Gluck, Cherubini, Weber, in dramatic
+composition; nor of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, in other branches of the
+musical art. However great a man's genius may be, he must live and
+learn. To attain the highest excellence, long continued study is
+necessary; and Handel, as we believe, was no exception to the
+general law.
+
+The list of works consulted by M. Schoelcher, prefixed to the
+biography, shows that he has by no means exhausted the German
+authorities which may be profitably used in writing upon the early
+history of Handel: indeed, the author, though of German descent, is
+unacquainted with the German language. We can learn from them the
+state of dramatic music at that time in Berlin, Leipsic, Brunswick,
+Hanover, Koethen; we can form from them some correct idea of the
+powers of Keiser, Steffani, Graupner, Schieferdecker, Telemann,
+Gruenwald, and others, then in possession of the lyric stage; we can
+thus estimate the influences which led Handel from the path that
+Bach so successfully followed, into that which he pursued with equal
+success; and though the amount of matter relating to him personally
+be small, much that throws light upon his early life still remains
+inaccessible to the English reader.
+
+The biography of a great creative artist must in great measure
+consist of a history of his works; and the great value of the
+book before us arises from the searching examination to which
+M. Schoelcher has subjected the several collections of Handel's
+manuscripts which are preserved in England, one of which, in some
+respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This
+examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful
+and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the
+various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to
+correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by
+step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio,
+which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general
+reader, perhaps, M. Schoelcher has been drawn too far into detail,
+and some passages of his work might have been better reserved for
+his "Catalogue of Handel's Works"; but these details are of the
+highest value to the student of musical literature, and, indeed,
+form for him the principal charm of the work. The importance of the
+author's labors can be duly appreciated only by those who have had
+occasion to study somewhat extensively the musical history of the
+last century. For them the results of those labors as here presented
+are invaluable.
+
+
+
+  _Sermons of the_ REV. C. H. SPURGEON, of London. Third Series.
+    New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
+
+There can be no doubt of the merit of these sermons, considered as
+examples of method and embodiments of character. Whatever elements
+of Christianity may be left unexpressed in them, it is certain that
+Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in expressing himself. His discourses at
+least give us Christianity as he understands, feels, and lives it.
+They should be studied by all clergymen who desire to master the
+secret of influencing masses of men. They will afford valuable hints
+in respect to method, even when their spirit, tone, and teaching
+present no proper model for imitation. Mr. Spurgeon, we suppose,
+would be classed among Calvinists, but he is not merely that.
+Without any force, depth, amplitude, or originality of thought, he
+has considerable force and originality of nature. He detaches from
+their relations certain doctrines of Calvinism which especially
+interest him, and so emphasizes and intensifies them, so blends them
+with his personal being and experience, that the impression he
+stamps upon the mind is rather of Spurgeonism than Calvinism. He
+gives vivid reality to his doctrines, because they are incorporated
+with his nature,--and not merely with his spiritual, but with his
+animal nature. He is thoroughly in earnest from the fact that he
+preaches himself. His converts, therefore, are likely to mistake
+being Spurgeonized for being Christianized; for the Christianity he
+preaches is not so much vital Christianity as it is Christianity
+passed through the vitalities of his own nature, and essentially
+modified and lowered in the process. To understand, then, the kind
+of influence he exerts, we have simply to inquire, What kind of man
+is Mr. Spurgeon?
+
+The answer to this question is given on every page of his sermons.
+He has no reserves, but lets his character transpire in every
+sentence. He is a bold, eager, earnest, devout, passionate,
+well-intentioned man, with considerable experience in the sphere of
+the religious emotions, full of sympathy with rough natures, full of
+mother wit and practical sagacity, but, as a theologian, coarse,
+ignorant, narrow-minded, and strikingly deficient in fine spiritual
+perceptions. These qualities inhere in a nature of singular vigor,
+intensity, and directness, that sends out words like bullets. Warmth
+of feeling combined with narrowness of mind makes him a bigot; but
+his bigotry is not the sour assertion of an opinion, but the racy
+utterance of a nature. He believes in Spurgeonism so thoroughly and
+so simply that toleration is out of the question, and doctrines
+opposed to his own he refers, with instantaneous and ingenuous
+dogmatism, to folly or wickedness. "I think," he says, in one of his
+sermons, "I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites.
+I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one
+person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe
+the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so
+nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts
+that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were
+taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe
+it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort,
+that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to some of
+the dogmas of their assailant. Indeed, the incapacity of our
+preacher to discern, or mentally to reproduce, a religious character
+differing in creed from his own, makes him the most amusingly
+intolerant of Popes, not because he is malignant, but because he is
+Spurgeon. If he had learning or largeness of mind, he would probably
+lose the greater portion of his power. He gets his hearers into a
+corner, limits the range of their vision to the doctrine he is
+expounding, refuses to listen to any excuses or palliations, and
+then screams out to them, "Believe or be damned!" In his own mind he
+is sure they will be damned, if they do not believe. So far as
+regards his influence over those minds whose religious emotions are
+strong, but whose religious principles are weak, every limitation of
+his mind is an increase of his force.
+
+This theological narrowness is unaccompanied with theological rancor.
+A rough but genuine benevolence is at the heart of Mr. Spurgeon's
+system. He wishes his opponents to be converted, not condemned. He
+very properly feels, that, with his ideas of the Divine Government,
+he would be the basest of criminals, if he spared himself, or spared
+either entreaty or denunciation, in the great work of saving souls.
+He throws himself with such passionate earnestness into his business,
+that his sermons boil over with the excitement of his feelings.
+Indeed, it is difficult to say whether our impressions of him,
+derived from the written page, come to us more from the eye than the
+ear. His very style foams, rages, prays, entreats, adjures, weeps,
+screams, warns, and execrates. His words are words that everybody
+understands,--bold, blunt, homely, quaint, level to his nature, all
+alive with passion, and directed with the single purpose of carrying
+the fortresses of sin by assault. The reader who contrives to
+preserve his calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed
+that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions
+so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so
+materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest
+living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian
+spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and
+purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all,
+little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican,
+easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of
+his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may
+thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify
+him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does
+he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure,
+as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny
+nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to
+insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, if alive,
+would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the
+doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his
+hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted
+religion in order that the public "might be more generally
+accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's
+celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine"
+from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's
+nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination,
+and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously
+impressed, he animalizes his creed in attempting to give it
+sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this
+process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by
+more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened
+to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind
+than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on
+"Regeneration." But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon's preaching is
+liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but
+because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original,
+exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It
+is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of
+every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people.
+But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded
+nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for
+the poor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Roumania: the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk.
+  Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia_.
+  By JAMES O. NOYES, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd &
+  Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
+
+Dr. James Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all
+over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny
+atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough
+not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness,
+energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a
+book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him
+a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of
+labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,--or unless some African prince
+cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their
+Thanksgiving-time.
+
+Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
+so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake,
+so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so
+perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers,
+and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who
+missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he
+had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval,
+but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
+
+In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change
+Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and
+lively descriptions,--perhaps a little too overlarded and
+oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,--but as lively as a
+golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most
+readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new
+costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make
+its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the
+work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the
+card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will
+very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be
+the better for the acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Dante's Hell_. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation.
+    By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
+
+A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real
+learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the
+present day a _new_ translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might
+claim exemption from this _dictum_, on the ground that his
+translation is not a _new_ one; but he himself does not put in this
+plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or
+declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his
+Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent,
+"The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and
+must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of
+disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who
+have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as
+their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more
+literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all."
+Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous
+translations of Dante could descend to _such_ labor and plodding as
+his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of
+the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has
+afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first
+progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or
+refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of
+the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not
+divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "Art thou, then, that Virgil and that fountain
+  which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? I answered him with bashful front.
+  O glory and light of other poets! May the
+  long zeal avail me and the great love which
+  made me search thy volume. Thou art my
+  master and my author."
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "Art thou that Virgil and that fountain,
+  then, which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? With bashful forehead him I gave
+  reply. O light and glory of the other bards!
+  May the long zeal and the great love avail me
+  that hath caused me thy volume to explore.
+  Thou art my master, thou my author art."
+
+Opening again at random, we take the two translations at the
+beginning of the Eighth Canto.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before we
+  reached the foot of the high tower our eyes
+  went upward to the summit, because of two
+  flamelets that we saw put there; and another
+  from far gave signal back,--so far that the
+  eye could scarcely catch it. And I, turning
+  to the Sea of all knowledge, said: What says
+  this? and what replies yon other light? And
+  who are they that made it?"
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before unto
+  the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
+  unto its summit upward went, cause of two
+  flamelets that we saw there placed; while
+  signal back another gave from far; so far the
+  eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
+  the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
+  sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
+  And who are they that made it?"
+
+We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
+between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
+perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
+the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
+text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
+striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
+Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
+unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
+acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
+little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
+_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
+In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
+greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
+appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
+all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
+Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
+translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
+narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
+of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
+read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
+quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchia" would have set him
+right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
+has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
+to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
+with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
+give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
+the following lines:--
+
+  Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
+  Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
+
+Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
+displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
+familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
+
+  Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
+
+Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
+Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
+which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
+and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
+
+Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
+learning; witness such lines as these:--
+
+  "My parents natives of Lombardy were."
+  "They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
+  "Like as at Palo near the Quarnaro."
+  "I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
+
+We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author
+declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He
+says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a
+specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one,
+the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear
+until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for
+which we may yet have to wait some time.
+
+We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of
+Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character
+of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name
+to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious
+participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will
+soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent
+translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long
+since, bearing their imprint.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and
+    other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+
+On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became
+light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric
+in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which
+we cannot find some novel image, _some Shakspearian felicity_ of
+expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the
+"Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another
+exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
+compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
+you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
+however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
+"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
+extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
+that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
+the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
+creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
+fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
+splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
+as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
+total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
+of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
+satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
+idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
+one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
+small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
+itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
+for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
+imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
+which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the
+luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
+pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
+his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
+has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
+demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
+not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
+should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
+are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
+and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
+each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
+exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
+subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
+are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
+the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
+striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
+many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
+close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
+award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOREIGN.
+
+
+  _Der Reichspostreiter in Ludwigsburg, Novelle auf geschichtlichem
+  Hintergrunde_. Von Robert Heller. 1858.
+
+A very interesting novel indeed, sketching life at the little court
+of the Duke of Wurtemberg at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
+and the overthrow of the government of a famous mistress of the Duke,
+the Countess Wuerben. The main points of interest in the story are
+historical, and the tissue of fiction interwoven with these is
+remarkably well arranged. Herr Heller belongs to the school of
+German novelists who, like Hermann Kurz, and others of minor mark,
+make a copious and comprehensive use of historical facts in Art.
+Their object and aim seem to be rather to illustrate and embody the
+historical facts in the flesh and blood of tangible reality, than
+merely to amuse by transforming history into a material for poetical
+entertainment. With all that, the abovenamed little volume is amply
+worth reading.
+
+
+
+  _Une Ete dans le Sahara_, par Eugene Fromentin. Paris. 1857.
+
+A painter describes here a summer journey through the Desert of
+Sahara, as far south from Algiers as El Aghouat, in the year 1853.
+There is not much that is new in this book, considering the many
+later and far more comprehensive and extensive illustrations of life
+in the Great Desert, since published by Bayard Taylor, Barth, and
+others; but it is a very interesting picture of this life, as seen
+and drawn by a painter. His descriptions contain many landscape and
+_genre_ pictures, by means of which a vivid idea of the scenery
+and life are conveyed to the imagination of the reader.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+#3 in our series by Various
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858
+       A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8947]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 28, 2003]
+[Date last updated: May 4, 2005]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Robert Prince and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS
+
+VOL. I--JANUARY, 1858.--NO. III.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
+
+If building many houses could teach us to build them well, surely we
+ought to excel in this matter. Never was there such a house-building
+people. In other countries the laws interfere,--or customs,
+traditions, and circumstances as strong as laws; either capital is
+wanting, or the possession of land, or there are already houses
+enough. If a man inherit a house, he is not likely to build another,--
+nor if he inherit nothing but a place in an inevitable line of
+lifelong hand-to-mouth toil. In such countries houses are built
+wholesale by capitalists, and only by a small minority for themselves.
+
+And where the man inherits no house, he at least inherits the
+traditional pattern of one, or the nature of the soil decides the
+main points; as you cannot build of brick where there is no clay,
+nor of wood where there are no forests. But here every man builds a
+house for himself, and every one freely according to his whims. Many
+materials are nearly equally cheap, and all styles and ways of
+building equally open to us; at least the general appearance of most
+should be known to us, for we have tried nearly all. Our public
+opinion is singularly impartial and cosmopolitan, or perhaps we
+should rather say knowing and unscrupulous. All that is demanded of
+a house is, that it should be of an "improved style," or at least
+"something different." Nothing will excuse it, if old-fashioned,--
+and hardly anything condemn it, if it have novelty enough.
+
+And this latitude is not confined to the owner's scheme of his house,
+but extends also to the executive department. In other countries,
+however extravagant your fancy, you are brought within some bounds
+when you come to carry it out; for the architect and the builder have
+been trained to certain rules and forms, and these will enter into
+all they do. But here every man is an architect who can handle a
+T-square, and every man a builder who can use a plane or a trowel;
+and the chances are that the owner thinks he can do all as well as
+either of them. For if every man in England thinks he can write a
+leading article, much more every Yankee thinks he can build a house.
+Never was such freedom from the rule of tradition. A fair field and
+no favor; whatever that can accomplish we shall have.
+
+The result, it must be confessed, is not gratifying. For if you
+sometimes find a man who is satisfied with his own house, yet his
+neighbors sneer at it, and he at his neighbors' houses. And even with
+himself it does not usually wear well. The common case is that even
+he accepts it as a confessed failure, or at best a compromise. And
+if he does not confess the failure, (for association, pride,
+use-and-wont reconcile one to much), the house confesses it. For
+what else but self-confessed failures are these thin wooden or cheap
+brick walls, temporarily disguised as massive stone,--this roof,
+leaking from the snow-bank retained by the Gothic parapet, or the
+insufficient slope which the "Italian style" demands?
+
+There is no lack of endeavor to make the house look well. People
+will sacrifice almost anything to that. They will strive their
+chambers into the roof,--they will have windows where they do not
+want them, or leave them out where they do,--in our tropical summers
+they will endure the glare and heat of the sun, rather than that
+blinds should interfere with the moulded window-caps, or with the
+style generally,--they will break up the outline with useless and
+expensive irregularity,--they will have brackets that support nothing,
+and balconies and look-outs upon which no one ever steps after the
+carpenter leaves them,--all for the sake of pleasing the eye. And
+all this without any real and lasting success,--with a success,
+indeed, that seems often in an inverse ratio to the effort. If a man
+have a pig-stye to build, or a log-house in the woods, he may hit
+upon an agreeable outline; but let him set out freely and with all
+deliberation to build something that shall be beautiful, and he fails.
+
+Not that the failure is peculiar at all to us. In Europe there may,
+perhaps, be less bad taste,--though I am not sure of that; but there,
+and everywhere, I think, the memorable houses, among those of recent
+date, are not those carefully elaborated for effect,--the
+premeditated irregularity of the English Gothic, the trig regularity
+of the French Pseudo-Classic, or the studied rusticity of Germany,--
+but such as seem to have grown of themselves out of the place where
+they stand,--Swiss _châlets_, Mexican or Manila plantation-houses,
+Italian farm-houses, built, nobody knows when or by whom, and built
+without any thought of attracting attention. And here I think we get
+a hint as to the reason of their success. For a house is not a
+monument, that it should seek to draw attention to itself,--but the
+dwelling-place of men upon the earth; and it must show itself to be
+wholly secondary to its purpose.
+
+We have had a good deal of exhortation lately, now getting rather
+wearisome, about avoiding pretence in architecture, and that we
+should let things show for what they are. The avoidance of pretence
+should begin farther back. If the house is _all_ pretence, we shall
+not help it by "frankness of treatment" in details.
+
+The house is the sign of man's entering into possession of the earth.
+A houseless savage, living on wild game and accidental fruits, is an
+alien in nature, or a minor not yet come to his estate. As soon as
+he begins to cultivate the soil he builds him a house,--no longer a
+hut or a cave but the work of his own hands, and as permanent as his
+tenure of the cultivated field. If that is to descend to his children,
+the house must be so built as to endure accordingly. It is the
+material expression of the _status_ of the family,--such people in
+such a place. Hence the two-fold requirement of fitness for its use
+and of harmony with its surroundings. A log-house is the appropriate
+dwelling of the lumberer in the woods; but transplant it to a
+suburban lawn and it becomes an absurdity, and a double absurdity.
+It is not in harmony with the place, nor fit for the use of the
+citizen. Nothing more satisfactory in their place than the old
+English parish-churches; but transfer one of them from its natural
+atmosphere and surroundings to the midst of one of our raw villages
+or bustling cities, exposed to the sudden and violent changes of our
+climate,--the open timber roof admitting the heat and the cold, and
+the stone walls bedewed with condensed moisture,--and after the first
+pleasant impression of the moment is over, there is left only a
+painful feeling of mimicry, not to be removed by any precision of
+copying, nor by the feeble attempts at ivy in the corners.
+
+This is all evident enough, and in principle generally admitted; but
+we dodge the application of the principle, because we are not ready
+to admit to ourselves, what history, apart from any reasoning, would
+show us, that those importations are failures, and that not
+accidentally in these particular cases, leaving the hope of better
+success for the next trial, but necessarily, and because they are
+importations.
+
+All good architecture must be the gradual growth of its country and
+its age,--the accumulation of men's experience, adding and leaving
+out from generation to generation. The air of permanence and stability
+that we admire in it must be gained by a slow and solid growth.
+It is the product, not of any one man's skill, but of a nation's;
+and its type, accordingly, must be gradually formed.
+
+But in this, as in everything else, there must be an aim, and one
+persisted in, else no experience is gained. A mere succession of
+generations will do nothing, if for each of them the whole problem
+is changed. The man of to-day cannot profit by his father's
+experience in the building of his house, if his culture, his habits,
+his associates, are different from his father's,--much less if they
+have changed since his own youth, and are changing from year to year.
+He will not imitate, he will not forbear to alter. On such shifting
+sands no enduring structure is possible, but only a tent for the
+night.
+
+We talk of the laws of architecture; but the fundamental law of all,
+and one that is sure to be obeyed, is, that the dwelling shall
+typify man's appropriation of the earth and its products,--what we
+call property. A man's house is naturally just as fixed a quantity
+as the kind and the amount of his possessions, and no more so. The
+style of it, depending on the inherited ideas of the class to
+which he belongs, will be as formed and as fixed as that class.
+Then where there is no fixed class, and where the property of
+every man is constantly varying, our quantity will be just so
+variable, and the true type of our architecture will be the
+tent,--of the frame-and-clapboard variety suited to the climate.
+
+For good architecture, then, we need castes in society, and fixed
+ways of living. We see the effect in the old parsonages in England,
+where from year to year have dwelt men of the same class, education,
+income, tastes, and circumstances generally, and so bringing from
+generation to generation nearly the same requirements, with the
+unessential changes brought in from time to time by new wants or
+individual fancies, here and there putting out a bay-window or
+adding a wing, but always in the spirit of the original building,
+and the whole getting each year more weather-stained and ivy-grown,
+and so toned into more complete harmony with the landscape, yet
+still living and expansive.
+
+It may be said that the result is here a partly accidental one, and
+not a matter of art. But domestic architecture is only half-way a
+fine art. It does not aim at a beauty of the monumental kind, as a
+statue, a triumphal arch, or even a temple does. Its primary aim is
+shelter, to house man in nature,--and it forms, as it were, the
+connecting link between him and the outward world. Its results,
+therefore, are partly the free artistic production, and partly
+retain unmodified their material character. In the image carved by
+the sculptor, the stone or wood used derive little of their effect
+from the original material; the important character is that imparted
+to them by his skill. Still more the canvas and pigments of the
+painter. But in architecture the wood and stone still fulfil the
+offices of covering, connecting, and supporting, as they did in the
+tree and the quarry, and their physical properties play an essential
+part in the work. The house, therefore, is a work of art only half
+emancipated from nature, and must depend on nature for much of its
+beauty also. It must not be isolated, as something merely to be
+looked at, apart from its position and its material use.
+
+The common mistake in our houses is, that they are designed, as
+inexperienced persons choose their paper-hangings, to be something
+of themselves, and not as mere background, as they should be. Thus
+it is that people seek to beautify their houses by ornamenting them,
+as a vulgar person sticks himself over with jewelry. A man's house
+is only a wider kind of dress; and as we do not call a man
+well-dressed when we are forced to see his dress before we see him,
+so a house cannot be satisfactory when it isolates itself from its
+inmates and from the landscape. In such houses, the more _effort_
+the worse they are; they may cheat us for the moment, but the oftener
+we see them the less we like them. Does not the uncomfortable
+sensation with which fine houses so often oppress us arise from the
+vague feeling that the owner has built himself out of his house, and
+his house out of the landscape?
+
+Hence it is mostly the novices that build the fine houses. A man of
+sense, I think, will generally build his second house plainer than
+his first. Not that he desires, perhaps, any the less what he
+desired before, but he is more alive to the difficulties and to the
+cost, and takes refuge in the safety of a lower scale. His
+experience has taught him that where he succeeded best he was really
+farthest from the end he sought. The fine house requires that its
+accessories should be in kind. All things within and without, the
+approach, the grounds, the furniture, must be brought up to the same
+pitch, and kept there. And when all is done, it is not done, but
+forever demands retouching. What is got in this kind cannot be paid
+for with money, nor finished once for all, but is a never-sated
+absorbent of time, thought, life. And it attacks the owner, too; he
+must conform, in his dress, his equipage, and his habits generally;
+he must be as fine as his house. The nicer his taste the more any
+incongruity will offend him, and the greater the danger of his
+becoming more or less an appendage to his house.
+
+Much of that chronic ailment of our society, the "trials of
+housekeeping," is traceable to this source. This is a complicated
+trouble, and probably other causes have their share in it. But we
+cannot fail to recognize in these seemingly accidental obstructions
+a stern, but beneficent adjustment of our circumstances to enforce a
+simplicity which we should else neglect. One cannot greatly
+deprecate the terrors of high rents and long bills, and the
+sufferings from clumsy and careless domestics, if they help to keep
+down senseless profusion and display.
+
+Our problem is, in truth, one of greater difficulty than at first
+appears. For we are each of us striving to do, by the skill and
+forethought of one man, what naturally accomplishes itself in a
+succession of generations and with the aid of circumstances. It is
+from our freedom that the trouble arises. Were our society composed
+of few classes, widely and permanently distinct, a fitting style for
+each would naturally arise and become established and perfected.
+There would be fewer occasions for new houses, and the new house
+would be less novel in style, and so two difficulties would be
+overcome. For novelty of style is a drawback to effect, as tending
+to isolate the house; and a new house is always at a disadvantage.
+Nature, in any case, is slow to adopt our handiwork into the
+landscape; sometimes the assimilation is so difficult that it must
+be ruined for its original purpose before it will be accepted.
+Sooner or later, indeed, it will be accepted. For though most of our
+buildings seem even in decay to resist the harmonizing hand of Nature,
+and to grow only ghastly and not venerable in dilapidation, yet
+leave them long enough and what of beauty was possible to them will
+appear, though it be only a crumbling heap of bricks where the
+chimney stood, or the grassy slope where the cellar-wall has fallen
+in.
+
+It is for this reason that persons of taste have taken pains to face
+their houses with weather-stained and lichen-crusted stone, or
+invent proper names for them, in imitation of the English
+manor-houses. But Nature is jealous of this helping, and neither the
+lichens nor the names will stick, for the reason that they never
+grew there. They cannot be naturalized without naturalizing their
+conditions. The gray ancestral houses of England are the beautiful
+symbols of the permanence of family and of caste. They are the
+embodiments of traditional institutions and culture. When we speak
+of the House of Stanley or of Howard, the expression is not wholly
+figurative. We do not mean simply the men and women of these families,
+but the whole complex of this manifold environment which has
+descended to them and in the midst of which they have grown up,--no
+more to be separated from it than the polyp from the coral stem.
+All this is centralized and has its expression in the House.
+
+Now as these conditions are not our conditions, the attempt to build
+fine houses is an attempt to import an effect where the cause has
+not existed. Our position is that of a perpetually shifting
+population,--the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place,
+circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and,
+whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally
+build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance
+rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the
+feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in
+outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so
+niched into the rock, that a change of fortune, or even a change in
+the direction of a town-road, shall leave us high and dry, like the
+fossils of the Norwegian cliffs, but rather, like the shell-fish of
+our beaches, free to travel up and down with the tide.
+
+The imitating of foreign examples comes from no real, heart-felt
+demand, but only from a fancied or simulated demand,--from tradition,
+association; at second-hand in one shape or another. It is at bottom
+something of the same flunkeyism that in a more exaggerated form
+assumes heraldic bearings and puts its servants into livery.
+
+It may well reconcile us to our deprivation to remember at what cost
+these things we admire are established and kept up. The imagination
+is pleased with this stability; but it is bought too dear, if
+progress is to be sacrificed to it, if the freedom and the true
+lives of the members are to be merged in the family, and if they are
+to be the stones of which the house is built. It is not desirable to
+be _adscriptus glebes_, whether the bonds be physical or only moral
+ones. We may well be content to have our limits free, even though
+our architecture suffer for it. It is better that houses should
+belong to men, and not men to houses.
+
+But whether we are content or not, it is evident that all hope of
+improvement lies in the tendency, somewhat noticeable of late, to
+the abnegation of exotic styles and graces. We have survived the
+Parthenon pattern, and there seems to be a prospect that we shall
+outlive the Gothic cottage. Even the Anglo-Italian bracketed villa
+has seen its palmiest days apparently, and exhausted most of its
+variations. We are in an extremely chaotic state just now; but there
+seems to be an inclination towards more rational ways, at least in
+the plans and general arrangement of houses.
+
+Of course mere negation cannot carry us far. We sometimes hear it
+said that it is as easy for a house to look well as to look ill, and
+those who say this seem to think that the failure is due solely to
+want of due consideration of the problem on the part of our builders,
+and that we have but to leave out their blunders to get at a
+satisfactory result. But if we look at the facts of the case, we
+find the builders have some reason on their side.
+
+Nothing can be more unsightly than the stalky, staring houses of our
+villages, with their plain gable-roofs, of a pitch neither high
+enough nor low enough for beauty, and disfigured, moreover, by mere
+excrescences of attic windows, and over the whole structure the
+awkward angularity, and the look of barren, mindless conformity and
+uniformity in the general outlines, and the meagre, frittered effect
+inherent in the material. But when we come to build, we find that
+the blockheads who invented this style, or no-style, have got at the
+cheapest way of supplying the first imperative demands of the people
+for whom they build,--namely, to be walled in and roofed
+weather-tight, and with a decent neatness, but without much care
+that the house should be solid and enduring,--for it cannot well be
+so flimsy as not to outlast the owner's needs. He does not look to
+it as the habitation of his children,--hardly as his own for his
+lifetime,--but as a present shelter, easily and quickly got ready,
+and as easily plucked up and carried off again. The common-law of
+England looks upon a house as real estate, as part of the soil; but
+with us it is hardly a fixture.
+
+Surely nothing can be more simple and common-sense than an ordinary
+New England house, but at the same time nothing can be uglier. The
+outline, the material, the color and texture of the surface are at
+all points opposed to breadth of effect or harmony with the
+surroundings. There is neither mass nor elegance; there are no lines
+of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of
+shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be
+impressive, and too large to be overlooked,--and finally, the paint,
+of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky
+blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of
+assimilation,--all combine to form something that shall forever
+remain a blot in the landscape.
+
+Evidently it is not merely a more common-sense treatment that we want;
+for here is sufficient simplicity, but a simplicity barren of all
+satisfaction. And singularly enough, it seems, with all its
+meagreness, to pass easily into an ostentatious display. In these
+houses there is no thought of "architecture"; that is considered as
+something quite apart, and not essential to the well-building of the
+house. But for this very reason matters are not much changed when
+the owner determines to spend something for looks. The house remains
+at bottom the same rude mass, with the "architecture" tacked on. It
+is not that the owner has any deeper or different sentiment towards
+his dwelling, but merely that he has a desire to make a flourish
+before the eyes of beholders. There is no heartfelt interest in all
+this on his part; it gives him no pleasure; how, then, should it
+please the spectator?
+
+The case is the same, whether it be the coarse ornamentation of the
+cheap cottage, or the work of the fashionable architect; we feel
+that the decoration is superficial and may be dispensed with, and
+then, however skillful, it becomes superfluous. The more elaborate
+the worse, for attention is the more drawn to the failure.
+
+What is wanted for any real progress is not so much a greater skill
+in our house-builders, as more thoughtful consideration on the part
+of the house-owners of what truly interests them in the house. We do
+not stop to examine what really weighs with us, but on some fancied
+necessity hasten to do superfluous things. What is it that we really
+care for in the building of our houses? Is it not, that, like dress,
+or manners, they should facilitate, and not impede the business
+of life? We do not wish to be compelled to think of them by
+themselves either as good or bad, but to get rid of any obstruction
+from them. They are to be lived in, not looked at; and their beauty
+must grow as naturally from their use as the flower from its stem,
+so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and
+the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be
+the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come.
+But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying
+to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has
+been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances.
+Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt
+to conceal it by our affectation of foreign airs and graces.
+
+
+
+
+MAYA, THE PRINCESS.
+
+The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its
+inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue
+sky was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver
+moon-fringes, or spangled with careless stars; the air was full of
+south-winds that had fluttered the hearts of a thousand roses and a
+million violets with long, deep kisses, and then flung the delicate
+odors abroad to tell their exploits, and set the butterflies mad
+with jealousy, and the bees crazy with avarice. And all this bloom
+was upon the country of Larrièrepensée, when Queen Lura's little
+daughter came to life in the Topaz Palace that stood on Sunrise Hills,
+and was King Joconde's summer pavilion.
+
+Now there was no searching far and wide for godfathers, godmothers,
+and a name, as there is when the princesses of this world are born:
+for, in the first place, Larrièrepensée was a country of pious
+heathen, and full of fairies; the people worshipped an Idea, and
+invited the fairy folk to all their parties, as we who are proper
+here invite the clergy; only the fairy folk did not get behind the
+door, or leave the room, when dancing commenced.
+
+And the reason why this princess was born to a name, as well as to a
+kingdom, was, that, long ago, the people who kept records in
+Larrièrepensée were much troubled by the ladies of that land never
+growing old: they staid at thirty for ten years; at forty, for twenty;
+and all died before fifty, which made much confusion in dates,--
+especially when some women were called upon to tell traditions, the
+only sort of history endured in that kingdom; because it was against
+the law to write either lies or romances, though you might hear and
+tell them, if you would, and some people would; although to call a
+man a historian there was the same thing as to say, "You lie!" here.
+
+But as I was saying, this evergreen way into which the women fell
+caused much trouble, and the Twelve Sages made a law that for six
+hundred years every female child born in any month of the
+seventy-two hundred following should be named by the name ordained
+for that month; and then they made a long list, containing
+seventy-two hundred names of women, and locked it up in the box of
+Great Designs, which stood always under the king's throne; and
+thenceforward, at the beginning of every month, the Twelve Sages
+unlocked the box, consulted the paper, and sent a herald through the
+town to proclaim the girl-name for that month. So this saved a world
+of trouble; for if some wrinkled old maid should say, "And that
+happened long ago, some time before I was born," all her gossips
+laughed, and cried out, "Ho! ho! there's a historian! do we not all
+know you were a born Allia, ten years before that date?"--and then
+the old maid was put to shame.
+
+Now it happened well for Queen Lura's lovely daughter, that on her
+birth-month was written the gracious name of Maya, for it seemed
+well to fit her grace and delicacy, while but few in that country
+knew its sad Oriental depth, or that it had any meaning at all.
+
+It was all one flush of dawn upon Sunrise Hills, when the
+maids-of-honor, in curls and white frocks, began to strew the great
+Hall of Amethyst with geranium leaves, and arrange light tripods of
+gold for the fairies, who were that day gathered from all
+Larrièrepensée to see and gift the new princess. The Queen had
+written notes to them on spicy magnolia-petals, and now the
+head-nurse and the grand-equerry wheeled her couch of state into the
+Hall of Amethyst, that she might receive the tender wishes of the
+good fairies, while yet the sweet languor of her motherhood kept her
+from the fresh wind and bright dew out of doors.
+
+The couch of state was fashioned like a great rose of crimson velvet;
+only where there should have been the gold anthers of the flower lay
+the lovely Queen, wrapped in a mantle of canary-birds' down, and
+nested on one arm slept the Child of the Kingdom, Maya. Presently a
+cloud of honey-bees swept through the wide windows, and settling
+upon the ceiling began a murmurous song, when, one by one, the
+flower-fairies entered, and flitting to their tripods, each garlanded
+with her own blossom, awaited the coming of their Head,--the Fairy
+Cordis.
+
+As the Queen perceived their delay, a sudden pang crossed her pale
+and tranquil brow.
+
+"Ah!" said she, to the nurse-in-chief, Mrs. Lita, "my poor baby, Maya!
+What have I done? I have neglected to ask the Fairy Anima, and now
+she will come in anger, and give my child an evil gift, unless
+Cordis hastens!"
+
+"Do not fear, Madam!" said Mrs. Lita, "your nerves are weak,--take a
+little cordial."
+
+So she gave the Queen a red glass full of honeybell whiskey; but she
+called it a fine name, like Rose-dew, or Tears-of-Flax, and then
+Queen Lura drank it down nicely;--so much depends on names, even in
+Larrièrepensée!
+
+But as Mrs. Lita set away the glass, the bees upon the ceiling began
+to buzz in a most angry manner, and rally about the queen-bee; the
+south-wind cried round the palace corner; and a strange light, like
+the sun shining when it rains, threw a lurid glow over the graceful
+fairy forms. Then the door of the hall flung open, and a beautiful,
+wrathful shape crossed the threshold;--it was the Fairy Anima. Where
+she gathered the gauzes that made her rainbow vest, or the
+water-diamonds that gemmed her night-black hair, or the sun-fringed
+cloud of purple that was her robe, no fay or mortal knew; but they
+knew well the power of her presence, and grew pale at her anger.
+
+With swift feet she neared the couch of state, but her steps
+lingered as she saw within those crimson leaves the delicate,
+fear-pale face of the Queen, and her sleeping child.
+
+"Always rose-folded!" she murmured, "and I tread the winds abroad! A
+fair bud, and I am but a stately stem! You were foolish and frail,
+Queen Lura, that you sent me no word of your harvest-time; now I
+come angry. Show me the child!"
+
+Mrs. Lita, with awed steps, drew near, and lifted the baby in her
+arms, and the child's soft hazel eyes looked with grave innocence at
+Anima. Truly, the Princess was a lovely piece of nature: her hair,
+like fine silk, fell in dark, yet gilded tresses from her snow-white
+brow; her eyes were thoughtless, tender, serene; her lips red as the
+heart of a peach; her skin so fair that it seemed stained with
+violets where the blue veins crept lovingly beneath; and her dimpled
+cheeks were flushed with sleep like the sunset sky.
+
+Anima looked at the baby.--"Ah! too much, too much!" said she.
+"Queen Lura, a butterfly can eat honey only; let us have a higher
+life for the Princess of Larrièrepensée. Maya, I give thee for a
+birth-gift another crown. Receive the Spark!"
+
+Queen Lura shrieked; but Anima stretching out her wand, a snake of
+black diamonds, with a blood-red head, touched the child's eyes, and
+from the serpent's rapid tongue a spark of fire darted into either
+eye, and sunk deeper and deeper,--for two tears flowed above, and
+hung on Maya's silky lashes, as she looked with a preternatural
+expression of reproach at the Fairy.
+
+Now all was confusion. Queen Lura tried to faint,--she knew it was
+proper,--and the grand-equerry rang all the palace bells in a row.
+Anima gave no glance at the little Princess, who still sat upright
+in Mrs. Lita's petrified arms, but went proudly from the hall alone.
+
+The flower-fairies dropped their wands with one sonorous clang upon
+the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one
+after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted
+gifts and powers.
+
+"Why should I give her beauty?" cried the Fairy Rose; "all eyes will
+be dazzled with the Spark; who will know on what form it shines?"
+
+So the red rose dropped and died.
+
+"Why should I bring her innocence?" said the Fairy Lily; "the Spark
+will burn all evil from her, thought and deed!"
+
+Then the white lily dropped and died.
+
+"Is there any use to her in grace?" wept the Fairy Eglantine;
+"the Spark will melt away all mortal grossness, till she is light
+and graceful as the clouds above."
+
+And the eglantine wreaths dropped and died.
+
+"She will never want humility," said the Fairy Violet; "for she will
+find too soon that the Spark is a curse as well as a crown!"
+
+So the violet dropped and died.
+
+Then the Sun-dew denied her pity; the blue Forget-me not, constancy;
+the Iris, pride; the Butter-cup, gold; the Passion-flower, love; the
+Amaranth, hope: all because the Spark should gift her with every one
+of these, and burn the gift in deeply. So they all dropped and died;
+and she could never know the flowers of life,--only its fires.
+
+But in the end of all this flight came a ray of consolation, like
+the star that heralds dawn, springing upward on the skirt of night's
+blackest hour. The raging bees that had swarmed upon the golden
+chandelier returned to the ceiling and their song; the scattered
+flowers revived and scented the air: for the Fairy Cordis came,--too
+late, but welcome; her face bright with flushes of vivid, but
+uncertain rose,--her deep gray eyes brimming with motherhood, a
+sister's fondness, and the ardor of a child. The tenderest
+garden-spider-webs made her a robe, full of little common blue-eyed
+flowers, and in her gold-brown hair rested a light circle of such
+blooms as beguile the winter days of the poor and the desolate, and
+put forth their sweetest buds by the garret window, or the bedside
+of a sick man.
+
+Mrs. Lita nearly dropped the baby, in her great relief of mind; but
+Cordis caught it, and looked at its brilliant face with tears.
+
+"Ah, Head of the Fairies, help me!" murmured Queen Lura, extending
+her arms toward Cordis; for she had kept one eye open wide enough to
+see what would happen while she fainted away.
+
+"All I can, I will," said the kindly fairy, speaking in the same key
+that a lark sings in. So she sat down upon a white velvet mushroom
+and fell to thinking, while Maya, the Princess, looked at her from
+the rose where she lay, and the Queen, having pushed her down robe
+safely out of the way, leaned her head on her hand, and very
+properly cried as much as six tears.
+
+Soon, like a sunbeam, Cordis looked up. "I can give the Princess a
+counter-charm, Queen Lura," said she,--"but it is not sure. Look you!
+she will have a lonely life,--for the Spark burns, as well as shines,
+and the only way to mend that matter is to give the fire better fuel
+than herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in
+peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no
+more be hidden,--since to be a woman is to have power and pain,--
+then let her veil herself, and with a staff and scrip go abroad into
+the world, for her time is come. Now in this kingdom of
+Larrièrepensée there stand many houses, all empty, but swept and
+garnished, and a fire laid ready on the hearth for the hand of the
+Coming to kindle. But sometimes, nay, often, this fire is a cheat:
+for there be men who carve the semblance of it in stone, and are so
+content to have the chill for the blaze all their lives; and on some
+hearths the logs are green wood, set up before their time; and on
+some they are but ashes, for the fire has burned and died, and left
+the ghostly shape of boughs behind; and sometimes, again, they are
+but icicles clothed in bark, to save the shame of the possessor. But
+there are some hearths laid with dry and goodly timber; and if the
+Princess Maya does not fail, but chooses a real and honest heap of
+wood, and kindles it from the Spark within her, then will she have a
+most perfect life; for the fire that consumes her shall leave its
+evil work, and make the light and warmth of a household, and rescue
+her forever from the accursed crown of the Spark. But I grieve to
+tell you, yet one of my name cannot lie--if the Princess mistake the
+false for the true, if she flashes her fire upon stone, or ice, or
+embers, either the Spark will recoil and burn her to ashes, or it
+will die where she placed it and turn her to stone, or--worst fate
+of all, yet likeliest to befall the tenderest and best--it will
+reenter her at her lips, and turn her whole nature to the bitterness
+of gall, so that neither food shall refresh her, sleep rest her,
+water quench her thirst, nor fire warm her body. Is it worth the
+trial? or shall she live and burn slowly to her death, with the
+unquenchable fire of the Spark?"
+
+"Ah! let her, at the least, try for that perfect life," said Queen
+Lura.
+
+Then the Fairy Cordis drew from her delicate finger a ring of
+twisted gold, in which was set an opal wrought into the shape of a
+heart, and in it palpitated, like throbbing blood, one scarlet flash
+of flame.
+
+"Let her keep this always on her hand," said Cordis. "It will serve
+to test the truth of the fire she strives to kindle; for if it be
+not true wood, this heart will grow cold, the throb cease, the glow
+become dim. The talisman may, will, save her, unless in the madness
+of joy she forget to ask its aid, or the Spark flashing upon its
+surface seems to create anew the fire within, and thus deceives her."
+
+So the Fairy put the ring upon Queen Lura's hand, and kissed Maya's
+fair brow, already shaded with sleep. The bees upon the ceiling
+followed her, dropping honey as they went; the maids-of-honor
+wheeled away the couch of state; the castle-maids swept up the fading
+leaves and blossoms, drew the tulip-tree curtains down, fastened the
+great door with a sandal-wood bar, sprinkled the corridors with
+rosewater; and by moonrise, when the nightingales sung loud from the
+laurel thickets, all the country slept,--even Maya; but the Spark
+burned bright, and she dreamed.
+
+So the night came on, and many another night, and many a new day,--
+till Maya, grown a girl, looked onward to the life before her with
+strange foreboding, for still the Spark burned.
+
+Hitherto it had been but a glad light on all things, except men and
+women; for into their souls the Spark looked too far, and Maya's
+open brow was shadowed deeply and often with sorrows not her own,
+and her heart ached many a day for pains she could not or dared not
+relieve; but if she were left alone, the illumination of the Spark
+filled everything about her with glory. The sky's rapturous blue,
+the vivid tints of grass and leaves, the dismaying splendor of
+blood-red roses, the milky strawberry-flower, the brilliant
+whiteness of the lily, the turquoise eyes of water-plants,--all
+these gave her a pleasure intense as pain; and the songs of the winds,
+the love-whispers of June midnights, the gathering roar of autumn
+tempests, the rattle of thunder, the breathless and lurid pause
+before a tropic storm,--all these the Spark enhanced and vivified;
+till, seeing how blest in herself and the company of Nature the
+Child of the Kingdom grew, Queen Lura deliberated silently and long
+whether she should return the gift of the Fairy Cordis, and let Maya
+live so tranquil and ignorant forever, or whether she should awaken
+her from her dreams, and set her on her way through the world.
+
+But now the Princess Maya began to grow pale and listless. Her eyes
+shone brighter than ever, but she was consumed with a feverish
+longing to see new and strange things. On her knees, and weeping,
+she implored her mother to release her from the court routine, and
+let her wander in the woods and watch the village children play.
+
+So Queen Lura, having now another little daughter, named Maddala,
+who was just like all other children, and a great comfort to her
+mother, was the more inclined to grant Maya's prayer. She therefore
+told Maya all that was before her, and having put upon her tiny
+finger the fairy-ring, bade the tiring-woman take off her velvet robe,
+and the gold circlet in her hair, and clothe her in a russet suit of
+serge, with a gray kirtle and hood. King Joconde was gone to the wars.
+Queen Lura cried a little, the Princess Maddala laughed, and Maya
+went out alone,--not lonely, for the Spark burned high and clear,
+and showed all the legends written on the world everywhere, and Maya
+read them as she went.
+
+Out on the wide plain she passed many little houses; but through all
+their low casements the red gleam of a fire shone, and on the
+door-steps clustered happy children, or a peasant bride with warm
+blushes on her cheek sat spinning, or a young mother with pensive
+eyes lulled her baby to its twilight sleep and sheltered it with
+still prayers.
+
+One of these kindly cottages harbored Maya for the night; and then
+her way at dawn lay through a vast forest, where the dim tree-trunks
+stretched far away till they grew undefined as a gray cloud, and
+only here and there the sunshine strewed its elf-gold on ferns and
+mosses, feathery and soft as strange plumage and costly velvet.
+Sometimes a little brook with bubbling laughter crept across her
+path and slid over the black rocks, gurgling and dimpling in the
+shadow or sparkling in the sun, while fish, red and gold-speckled,
+swam noiseless as dreams, and darting water-spiders, poised a moment
+on the surface, cast a glittering diamond reflection on the yellow
+sand beneath.
+
+The way grew long, and Maya weary. The new leaves of opalescent tint
+shed odors of faint and passionate sweetness; the birds sang
+love-songs that smote the sense like a caress; a warm wind yearned
+and complained in the pine boughs far above her; yet her heart grew
+heavy, and her eyes dim; she was sick for home;--not for the palace
+and the court; not for her mother and Maddala; but for home;--she
+knew her exile, and wept to return.
+
+That night, and for many nights, she slept in the forest; and when
+at length she came out upon the plain beyond, she was pale and wan,
+her dark eyes drooped, her slender figure was bowed and languid, and
+only the mark upon her brow, where the coronet had fretted its
+whiteness, betrayed that Maya was a princess born.
+
+And now dwellings began to dot the country: brown cottages, with
+clinging vines; villas, aërial and cloud-tinted, with pointed roofs
+and capricious windows; huts, in which some poor wretch from his bed
+of straw looked out upon the wasteful luxury of his neighbor, and,
+loathing his bitter crust and turbid water, saw feasts spread in the
+open air, where tropic fruits and beaded wine mocked his feverish
+thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and
+turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm,
+while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal
+music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes of a
+warrior's return.
+
+All these Maya passed by, for no door was open, and no fireless
+hearth revealed; but before night dropped her starry veil, she had
+travelled to a mansion whose door was set wide, and, within, a cold
+hearth was piled with boughs of oak and beech. The opal upon Maya's
+finger grew dim, but she moved toward the unlit wood, and at her
+approach the false pretence betrayed itself; the ice glared before
+her, and chilled her to the soul, as its shroud of bark fell off.
+She fled over the threshold, and the house-spirit laughed with
+bitter mirth; but the Spark was safe.
+
+Now came thronging streets, and many an open portal wooed Maya, but
+wooed in vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque
+cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure,
+and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look
+tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and
+likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with
+the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever
+changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness,
+and beauty-love, she would have drawn near the hearth, a sigh like
+the passing of a soul shivered by her, and before its breath the
+shapely embers fell to dust, the hearth beneath was heaped with ashes,
+and with tearful lids Maya turned away, and the house-spirit, weeping,
+closed the door behind her.
+
+Long days and nights passed ere she essayed again; and then, weary
+and faint with home-woe, she lingered on the steps of a lofty house
+whose carved door was swung open, whose jasper hearthstone was
+heaped with goodly logs, and beside it, on the soft flower-strewn
+skin of a panther, slept a youth beautiful as Adonis, and in his
+sleep ever murmuring, "Mother!" Maya's heart yearned with a kindred
+pang. She, too, was orphaned in her soul, and she would gladly have
+lit the fire upon this lonely hearth, and companioned the solitude
+of the sleeper; but, alas! the boughs still wore their summer garland,
+and from each severed end slow tears of dryad-life distilled
+honeyedly upon the stone beneath. Of such withes and saplings comes
+no living fire! Maya, smiling, set a kiss upon the boy-sleeper's brow,
+but the Spark lay quiet, and the house-spirit flung a blooming
+cherry-bough after its departing guest.
+
+The year was now wellnigh run. The Princess Maya despaired of home.
+The earth seemed a harsh stepmother, and its children rather stones
+than clay. A vague sense of some fearful barrier between herself and
+her kind haunted the woman's soul within her, and the unquenchable
+flames of the Spark seemed to girdle her with a defence that drove
+away even friendly ingress. Night and day she wept, oppressed with
+loneliness. She knew not how to speak the tongues of men, though
+well she understood their significance. Only little children mated
+rightly with her divine infancy; only the mute glories of nature
+satisfied for a moment her brooding soul. The celestial impulses
+within her beat their wings in futile longing for freedom, and with
+inexpressible anguish she uttered her griefs aloud, or sung them to
+such plaintive strains that all who heard wept in sympathy. Yet she
+had no home.
+
+After many days she came upon a broad, champaign, fertile land, where,
+on a gentle knoll, among budding orchards, and fields green with
+winter grains, stood a low, wide-eaved house, with gay parterres and
+clipped hedges around it, all ordered with artistic harmony, while
+over chimney and cornice crept wreaths of glossy ivy, every deep
+green leaf veined with streaks of light, and its graceful sprays
+clasping and clinging wherever they touched the chiselled stone
+beneath. Upon the lawn opened a broad, low door, and the southern sun
+streamed inward, showing the carved panels of the fireplace and its
+red hearth, where heavy boughs of wood and splinters from the heart
+of the pine lay ready for the hand of the Coming to kindle. Upon the
+threshold, plucking out the dead leaves of the ivy, stood one from
+whose face strength, and beauty, and guile that the guileless knew
+not, shone sunlike upon Maya; and as she faltered and paused, he
+spoke a welcome to her in her own language, and held toward her the
+clasping hand of help. A thrill of mad joy cleft the heart of the
+Princess, a glow of incarnate summer dyed with rose her cheek and lip,
+the Spark blazed through her brimming eyes, weariness vanished.
+"Home! home!" sung her rapt lips; and in the delirious ecstasy of
+the hour she pressed toward the hearth, laid down her scrip and
+staff upon the heaped wood, flung herself on the red stone, and,
+heedless of the opal talisman, flashed outward from her joyful eyes
+the Spark,--the Crown, the Curse! So a forked tongue of lightning
+speeds from its rain-fringed cloud, and cleaves the oak to its centre;
+so the blaze of a meteor rushes through mid-heaven, and--is gone!
+The Spark lit, quivered, sunk, and flashed again; but the wood lay
+unlighted beneath it. Maya gasped for breath, and with the long
+respiration the Spark returned, lit upon her lips, seared them like
+a hot iron, and entered into her heart,--the blighting canker of her
+fate, a bitterness in flesh and spirit forevermore.
+
+Writhing with anguish and contempt, she turned away from the wrought
+stone whose semblance had beguiled her to her mortal loss; and as
+she passed from the step, another hand lit a consuming blaze beneath
+her staff and scrip, sending a sword of flame after her to the
+threshold, and the house-spirit shrieked aloud, "Only stones
+together strike fire, Maya!"--while from the casement above looked
+forth two faces, false and fair, with eyes of azure ice, and
+disdainful smiles, and bound together by a curling serpent, that
+ringed itself in portentous symbol about their waists.
+
+With star-like eyes, proud lips, and erect head, Maya went out. Her
+laugh rang loud; her song soared in wild and mocking cadence to the
+stars; her rigid brow wore scorn like a coronal of flame; and with a
+scathed nature she trod the streets of the city, mixed with its
+wondering crowds, made the Spark a blaze and a marvel in all lands,--
+but hid the opal in her bosom; for its scarlet spot of life-blood
+had dropped away, and the jewel was broken across.
+
+So the wide world heard of Maya, the Child of the Kingdom, and from
+land to land men carried the stinging arrows of her wit, or
+signalled the beacon-fires of her scorn, while seas and shores
+unknown echoed her mad and rapt music, or answered the veiled agony
+that derided itself with choruses of laughter, from every mystic
+whisper of the wave, or roar of falling headlands.
+
+And then she fled away, lest, in the turbulent whirl of life, the
+Curse should craze, and not slay her. For sleep had vanished with
+wordless moans and frighted aspect from her pillow,--or if it dared,
+standing afar off, to cast its pallid shadow there, still there was
+neither rest nor refreshing in the troubled spell. Nor could the
+thirst that consumed her quench itself with red wine or crystal water,
+translucent grapes or the crimson fruits that summer kisses into
+sweetness with her heats; forever longing, and forever unsated, it
+parched her lips and burnt her gasping mouth, but there was no
+draught to allay it. And even so food failed of its office. Kindly
+hands brought to her, whose queenliness asserted itself to their
+souls with an innocent loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all
+delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and
+stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest
+bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat.
+The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet,
+sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those
+lips of fire burned all things in their touch to tasteless ashes.
+
+So she fled away; for the forest was cool and lonely, and even as
+she learned the lies and treacheries of men, so she longed to leave
+them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude.
+But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of
+despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled
+hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no
+rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and
+dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the
+ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation she flung
+herself by the clear fountain that had already fallen upon her lips
+and cooled them with bitter water, and hiding her head under the
+broad, fresh leaves of a calla that bent its marble cups above her
+knitted brow and loosened hair, she lay in deathlike trance, till the
+Fairy Anima swept her feet with fringed garments, and cast the
+serpent wand writhing and glittering upon her breast.
+
+"Wake, Maya!" said the organ-tones of the Spark-Bringer; and Maya
+awoke.
+
+"So! the Spark galls thee?" resumed those deep, bitter-sweet tones;
+and for answer the Princess Maya held toward her, with accusing eyes,
+the broken, bloodless opal.
+
+"Cordis's folly!" retorted Anima. "Thou hadst done best without it,
+Maya; the Spark abides no other fate but shining. Yet there is a
+little hope for thee. Wilt thou die of the bitter fire, or wilt thou
+turn beggar-maid? The sleep that charity lends to its couch shall
+rest thee; the draught a child brings shall slake thy thirst; the
+food pity offers shall strengthen and renew. But these are not the
+gifts a Princess receives; she who gathers them must veil the Crown,
+shroud the Spark, conceal the Curse, and in torn robes, with bare
+and bleeding feet, beg the crumbs of life from door to door. Wilt
+thou take up this trade?"
+
+Maya rose up from the leaves of the cool lily, and put aside the
+veiling masses of her hair.
+
+"I will go!" she whispered, flutelike, for hope beat a living pulse
+in her brain.
+
+So with scrip and hood she went out of the forest and begged of the
+world's bounty such life as a beggar-maid may endure.
+
+Long ago the King and Queen died in Larrièrepensée, and there the
+Princess Maddala reigns with a goodly Prince beside her, nor cares
+for her lost sister; but songless, discrowned, desolate, Maya walks
+the earth.
+
+All ye whose fires burn bright on the hearth, whose dwellings ring
+with child-laughter, or are hushed with love-whispers and the peace
+of home, pity the Princess Maya! Give her food and shelter; charm
+away the bitter flames that consume her life and soul; drop tears
+and alms together into the little wasted hand that pleads with dumb
+eloquence for its possessor; and even while ye pity and protect,
+revere that fretted mark of the Crown that still consecrates to the
+awful solitude of sorrow Maya, the Child of the Kingdom!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  CATAWBA WINE.
+
+      This song of mine
+        Is a Song of the Vine,
+  To be sung by the glowing embers
+        Of wayside inns,
+        When the rain begins
+  To darken the drear Novembers.
+
+      It is not a song
+        Of the Scuppernong,
+  From warm Carolinian valleys,--
+        Nor the Isabel
+        And the Muscatel
+  That bask in our garden alleys,--
+
+      Nor the red Mustang,
+      Whose clusters hang
+  O'er the waves of the Colorado,
+      And the fiery flood
+      Of whose purple blood
+  Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
+
+      For richest and best
+      Is the wine of the West,
+  That grows by the Beautiful River;
+      Whose sweet perfume
+      Fills all the room
+  With a benison on the giver.
+
+      And as hollow trees
+      Are the haunts of bees
+  Forever going and coming,
+      So this crystal hive
+      Is all alive
+  With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
+
+      Very good in their way
+      Are the Verzenay,
+  And the Sillery soft and creamy;
+      But Catawba wine
+      Has a taste more divine,
+  More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
+
+      There grows no vine
+      By the haunted Rhine,
+  By Danube or Guadalquivir,
+      Nor on island or cape,
+      That bears such a grape
+  As grows by the Beautiful River.
+
+      Drugged is their juice
+      For foreign use,
+  When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
+      To rack our brains
+      With the fever pains
+  That have driven the Old World frantic.
+
+      To the sewers and sinks
+      With all such drinks,
+  And after them tumble the mixer!
+      For a poison malign
+      Is such Borgia wine,
+  Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
+
+      While pure as a spring
+      Is the wine I sing,
+  And to praise it, one needs but name it;
+      For Catawba wine
+      Has need of no sign,
+  No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
+
+      And this Song of the Vine,
+      This greeting of mine,
+  The winds and the birds shall deliver
+      To the Queen of the West,
+      In her garlands dressed,
+  On the banks of the Beautiful River.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WINDS AND THE WEATHER.
+
+
+  _The Physical Geography of the Sea_. By M. F. MAURY. New York:
+    Harper & Brothers. 1857.
+
+  _Climatology of the United States and of the Temperate Latitudes
+    of the North American Continent_. By LORIN BLODGET. Philadelphia: J.
+    B. Lippincott & Co. 1857.
+
+  _Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of
+    Science_. 1857.
+
+An eloquent philosopher, depicting the deplorable results that would
+follow, if some future materialist were "to succeed in displaying to
+us a mechanical system of the human mind, as comprehensive,
+intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian mechanism of the
+heavens," exclaims, "Fallen from their elevation, Art and Science
+and Virtue would no longer be to man the objects of a genuine and
+reflective adoration." We are led, in reflecting upon the far more
+probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon
+the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced
+when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes
+of the atmosphere to rules and predictions,--when the rain shall
+fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth,"
+and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature. But we
+console ourselves by contemplating the difficulties of the problem,
+and the improbability, that, in our generation at least, we shall be
+deprived of these subjects of general news and universal interest.
+
+During the last half-century, the progress of experimental
+philosophy in the direction of the weather, though its results are
+for the most part of a negative character, has yet been sufficient
+to excite the apprehensions of the philanthropist. We have unlearned
+many fables and false theories, and have made great advancement in
+that knowledge of our ignorance, which is the only true foundation
+of positive science.
+
+The moon has been deposed from the executive chair, though she still
+has her supporters and advocates; and an innumerable host of minor
+causes are found to constitute, upon strictly republican principles,
+the ruling power of the winds and the rain. That regularity, however
+complicated, which reason still demands, and expects even from the
+weather, is not found to be so simple as our rules and signs of the
+weather indicate; for the operation of these innumerable causes is
+so complicated, that the repetition of similar phenomena or similar
+combinations of causes, to any great extent, is the most improbable
+of events. Perhaps the meteorologist will ultimately find that
+Nature has succeeded, in what seems, indeed, to be her aim, in
+completely retracing her steps, and reducing the operation of that
+simple and regular system of causes, which she brought out of chaos,
+back to a confusion of detail, from which all law and regularity are
+obliterated.
+
+Meteorological observations have, however, determined many regular
+and constant causes and a few regular phenomena. The method pursued
+in these investigations is, for the most part, the elimination, by
+general averages, of limited and temporary changes in the elements
+of the weather, and the determination of those changes which depend
+upon the constant influences of locality, of season, and of constant
+or slowly varying causes. These constant influences constitute the
+climate; and the study of climates is thus the first step towards
+the solution of the problem of the weather. Climates, in their
+changes and distribution, are very important elements in the
+determination of the movements of the weather, and are to the
+meteorologist what the elements of the planetary orbits are to the
+astronomer; but, unlike planetary perturbations, the weather makes
+the most reckless excursions from its averages, and obscures them by
+a most inconsequent and incalculable fickleness.
+
+Whether mechanical science will hereafter succeed in calculating
+these perturbations of climate, as we may style the weather, or will
+find the problem beyond its capacity, it will yet, doubtless, account
+for much that is now obscure, as observation brings the facts more
+distinctly to view. We propose to give a brief general survey of the
+mechanics of the atmosphere in its present state, and to indicate
+the nature and limits of our knowledge on this subject.
+
+Among the first noticed and most remarkable features of regularity
+in atmospheric changes are constant, periodic, and prevailing winds.
+The most remarkable instances of these are the trade-winds of the
+torrid zone, the monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and the prevailing
+southwest wind of our northern temperate latitudes. Of these, the
+trade-winds are the most important to science, as furnishing the key
+to that general explanation of the winds which was first advanced by
+the distinguished Halley.
+
+In Halley's celebrated theory, the trade-winds are explained as the
+effects of the unequal distribution of the sun's heat in different
+latitudes. The air of the equator, heated more than the northern or
+southern air, expands more, and overflows, moving in the upper
+regions of the atmosphere toward the poles; while the lower, colder
+air on both sides moves toward the equator to preserve equilibrium.
+Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface
+of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns
+as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises and moves
+toward the poles.
+
+Now the air of the equator, moving with the earth's rotary motion,
+has a greater velocity than the earth itself at high northern or
+southern latitudes, and consequently appears to gain an eastward
+motion in its progress toward the poles. Without friction, this
+relative eastward motion would increase as the air moves toward the
+poles, and diminish at the same rate as the air returns, till at the
+equator the velocity of the earth and of the air would again be equal;
+but friction reduces the motion of the returning air to that of the
+earth, at or near the calms of the tropics; so that the air, passing
+the tropics, gains a relative westward motion in its further
+progress through the torrid zone. The southwestward motion thus
+produced between the tropic of Cancer and the equator is the
+well-known trade-wind.
+
+Now, according to this theory, the prevailing winds of our temperate
+latitudes ought to have a southeastward motion as far as the calms
+of Cancer or "the horse latitudes." Moreover, instead of these calms,
+there should still be a southward motion. But observation has shown,
+that though the prevailing lower winds of our latitude move eastward,
+still their motion is toward the north rather than the south; so
+that they appear to contradict the theory by which the trade-winds
+are explained.
+
+To account for these anomalies, Lieut. Maury has invented a very
+ingenious hypothesis, which is published in his "Physical Geography
+of the Sea." He supposes that the air, which passes from the equator
+toward the poles in the upper regions of the atmosphere, is brought
+down to the surface of the earth beyond the calms of the tropics,
+and that it thence proceeds with an increasing eastward motion,
+appearing in our northern hemisphere as the prevailing northeastward
+winds. Approaching the poles with a spiral motion, the air there
+rises, according to this hypothesis, in a vortex, and returns toward
+the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually acquiring a westward
+motion; till, returning to the tropics, it is again brought down to
+the earth, and thence proceeds, with a still increasing westward
+motion, as the trade-winds. At the equator the air rises again, and,
+according to Lieut. Maury, crosses to the other side, and proceeds
+through a similar course in the other hemisphere.
+
+The rising of the air at the equator is supposed to cause the
+equatorial rains; and the drought of the tropics is also explained
+by that descent of the air, in these latitudes, which this
+hypothesis supposes.
+
+Now although this hypothesis explains the phenomena, it has still
+met with great opposition. The motions which Lieut. Maury supposes
+can hardly be accounted for without resorting, as is usual in such
+cases, to electricity or magnetism,--to some occult cause, or some
+occult operation of a known cause. Moreover, it has been difficult
+for the mechanical philosopher to understand how the winds manage to
+cross each other, as Lieut. Maury supposes them to do, at the
+equator and the tropics, without getting into "entangling alliances."
+If this hypothesis were advanced, not as a physical explanation of
+the phenomena, but, like the epicycles and eccentrics of Ptolemy,
+"to save the appearances," its ingenuity would be greatly to its
+author's credit; but, like the epicycles and eccentrics, though it
+represents the phenomena well enough, it contradicts laws of motion,
+now well known, which ought to be familiar to every physical
+philosopher. But these speculations of Lieut. Maury will now be
+superseded by a new theory of atmospheric movements, an account of
+which was presented by its author, Mr. J. Thompson, at the recent
+meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A fuller discussion of this theory the author
+reserved for the Royal Society. The _London Athenaeum_ gives a brief
+abstract of his paper, in its report of the proceedings of the
+Association.]
+
+Mr. Thompson's theory takes account of forces, hitherto unnoticed,
+which are generated by the eastward circulation of the atmosphere in
+high latitudes. He shows that these forces cause the prevailing
+northeastward under-current of our latitudes, while above this, yet
+below the highest northeastward current, the air ought still to move
+southward according to Halley's theory.
+
+This under-current is not the immediate effect of differences of
+temperature, but a secondary effect induced by the friction of the
+earth's surface and the continual deflection of the air's eastward
+motion from a great circle, (in which the air tends to move,) into
+the small circle of the latitude, in which the air actually does move.
+The force of this deflection, measured by the centrifugal force of
+the air as it circulates around the pole, retards the movement from
+the equator, and finally wholly suspends it; so that the upper air
+circulates around in the higher latitudes as water may be made to
+circulate in a pail; and the air is drawn away from the polar
+regions as this circulatory motion is communicated to it, and tends
+to accumulate in the middle latitudes, as the circulating water is
+heaped up around the sides of the pail. Hence, in the middle
+latitudes there is a greater weight of air than at the poles, and
+this tends to press the lower air to higher latitudes. Centrifugal
+force, however, balances this pressure, so long as the lower air
+moves with the velocity of the upper strata; but as the friction of
+the earth retards its motion and diminishes its centrifugal force,
+it gradually yields to the pressure of the air above it, and moves
+toward the poles. Near the polar circles it is again retarded by its
+increasing centrifugal force, and it returns through the middle
+regions of the atmosphere.
+
+Thus there are two systems of atmospheric circulation in each
+hemisphere. The principal one extends from the equator to high
+middle latitudes and partly overlies the other, which extends from
+the tropical calms to the polar circles. These two circulations move
+in opposite directions; like two wheels, when one communicates its
+motion to the other by the contact of their circumferences.
+
+In the middle latitudes the lower current of the principal
+circulation lies upon the upper current of the secondary circulation,
+and both move together toward the equator. This principal lower
+current first touches the earth's surface beyond the tropical calms,
+and having lost its relative eastward motion and now tending westward,
+it appears as the trade-wind, very regular and constant; while the
+upper secondary current returns, without reaching the tropics, as an
+undercurrent, and in our latitude appears as the prevailing
+northeastward wind,--a very feeble motion, usually lost in the
+weather winds and other disturbances, and only appearing distinctly
+in the general average.
+
+Mr. Thompson illustrates the effect of the friction of the earth's
+surface on the eastward circulation of the air by a very simple
+experiment with a pail of water. If we put into the pail grains of
+any material a little heavier than water, and then give the water a
+rotatory motion by stirring it, the grains ought, by the centrifugal
+force imparted to them, to collect around the sides of the pail; but,
+sinking to the bottom, they do in fact tend to collect at the centre,
+carried inward by those currents which the friction of the sides and
+bottom indirectly produces.
+
+Thus Mr. Thompson's beautiful and philosophical theory completes
+that of Halley, and explains all those apparent anomalies which have
+hitherto seemed irreconcilable with the only rational account of the
+trade-winds. The rainless calms of the tropics are explained by this
+theory without that crossing and interference of winds which Lieut.
+Maury supposes; for the secondary circulation returns as an
+under-current toward the poles without reaching the tropics, and the
+dry lower current of the principal circulation passes over the
+tropical latitudes, in its gradual descent, before it reaches the
+earth as the trade-winds.
+
+These trade-winds, absorbing moisture from the sea, precipitate it
+as they rise again, and produce the constant equatorial rains; and
+these rains, doubtless, tend much more powerfully than the mere
+unequal distribution of heat to direct the wind toward the equator;
+for the fall of rain rapidly diminishes the pressure of the air and
+disturbs its equilibrium, so that violent winds are frequently
+observed to blow toward rainy districts. Thus, primarily, the unequal
+distribution of heat, and, more immediately, the equatorial rains
+cause the principal circulation of our atmosphere; and this
+indirectly produces the secondary circulation of Mr. Thompson's
+theory. Both these regular movements are, however, greatly disturbed,
+and especially the latter, by winds which are occasioned by local
+and irregular rains.
+
+In these movements and their causes we have the general outline of
+our subject, within which we must now sketch the weather. The causes
+of atmospheric movement, which we have thus far considered, are the
+unequal distribution of the sun's heat, the absorption and
+precipitation of moisture, the direct and the inductive action of
+the earth's rotation and friction. If to these we should add the
+tidal action of the sun's and moon's attractions, we should perhaps
+complete the list of _vera causae_ which are certainly known to
+exert a more or less general influence upon the atmosphere. But this
+short list is long enough, as we shall soon see.
+
+If the earth were wholly covered with water of a uniform depth, its
+climates would be distributed with greater regularity, and the
+perturbations of climate would be comparatively small and regular;
+though even under such circumstances there would still exist a
+tendency to discontinuity and complexity of movements from that
+influence of rain, the peculiar character of which we shall soon
+consider.
+
+The irregular distribution of land and water, and the peculiar
+action of each in imparting the heat of the sun to the incumbent air,--
+the irregular distribution of plains and mountains, and their various
+effects in different positions and at different altitudes,--the
+distribution of heat effected by ocean currents,--all these tend to
+produce permanent derangements of climate and great irregularities
+in the weather. To these we must add what the astronomer calls
+disturbing actions of the second order,--effects of the disturbances
+themselves upon the action of the disturbing agencies,--effects of
+the irregular winds upon the distribution of heat and rain, and upon
+the action of lands and seas, mountains and plains. Though such
+disturbances are comparatively insignificant in the motions of the
+planets, yet in the weather they are often more important than the
+primary causes.
+
+The aggregate and permanent effect of all these disturbing causes,
+primary and secondary, is seen in that irregular distribution of
+climates, which the tortuous isothermal lines and the mottled
+raincharts illustrate. The isothermal lines may be regarded as the
+topographical delineations of that bed of temperatures down which
+the upper atmosphere flows from the equator toward the poles, till
+its downward tendency is balanced by the centrifugal force of its
+eastward motion. This irregular bed shifts from month to month, from
+day to day, and even from hour to hour; and the lines that are drawn
+on the maps are only averages for the year or the season.
+
+In the midst of these irregular, but continuous agencies, the rain
+introduces a peculiar discontinuity, and turns irregularity into
+discord. We have shown that the rain is an immediate cause of wind;
+but how is the rain itself produced? For so marked an effect we
+naturally seek a special cause; but no adequate single cause has
+ever been discovered. The combination of many conditions, probably,
+is necessary, such as a peculiar distribution of heat and moisture
+and atmospheric movements; though the immediate cause of the fall of
+rain is doubtless the rising, and consequent expansion and cooling,
+of the saturated air.
+
+The winds that blow hither and thither, vainly striving to restore
+equilibrium to the atmosphere, burden themselves with the moisture
+they absorb from the seas; and this moisture absorbs their heat,
+retards their motion, and slowly modifies the forces which impel them.
+Now when the saturated air, extending far above the surface of the
+earth, and carried in its movements still higher, is relieved of an
+incumbent weight of air, it becomes rarefied, and its temperature
+and capacity for moisture are simultaneously diminished; its moisture,
+suddenly precipitated, appears as a cloud, the particles of which
+collect into rain-drops and fall to the earth. Thus the air suddenly
+loses much of its weight, and instead of restoring equilibrium to
+the troubled atmosphere, it introduces a new source of disturbance.
+Though the weight of the air is diminished by the fall of rain, yet
+the bulk is increased by the expansive force of the latent heat
+which the condensed vapors set free. Thus the rainy air expands
+upwards and flows outwards, and no longer able to balance the
+pressure of the surrounding air, it is carried still higher by
+inblowing winds, which rise in turn and continue the process, often
+extending the storm over vast areas. The force of these movements is
+measured partly by the force of latent heat set free, and partly by
+the mechanical power of the rain-fall, a very small fraction of
+which constitutes the water-power of all our rivers. Such a fruitful
+source of disturbance, generated by so slight an accident as the
+upward movement of the saturated air, expanded by its own agency to
+so great an extent, so sudden and discontinuous in its action, so
+obscure in its origin, and so distinct in its effects,--such a
+phenomenon defies the powers of mathematical prediction, and rouses
+all the winds to sedition.
+
+A storm not only disturbs the lower winds, but its influences reach
+even to the upper movements. The sudden expansion and rising of the
+rainy air delay these movements, which afterwards react as violent
+winds.
+
+The forces stored away by the gradual rise of vapor and its
+absorption of heat, and then suddenly exhibited in a mechanical form
+by the effects of rain, afford an illustration of that principle of
+conservation and economy of power, of which there are so many
+examples in modern science. No power is ever destroyed. Whether
+exhibited as heat or mechanical force, in the products and forces of
+chemical or of vital action, in movement or in altered conditions of
+motion,--whether changed by the growth of plants into fuel or into
+food, and converted again to heat by combustion or by vital processes,
+and brought out as mechanical power in the steam-engine or in the
+horse,--it is still the same power, and is measured in each of its
+forms by an invariable standard. It first appears as the heat of the
+sun, and a portion escapes at once back into space, while the rest
+passes first through a series of transformations. A part is changed
+into moving winds or into suspended vapor, and a part into fuel or
+food. From conditions of motion it is changed into motion; from
+motion it is changed by friction or resistance into heat, electric
+force, molecular vibrations, or into new conditions of motion, and
+passing through its course of changes, it remains embroiled in its
+permanent effects or escapes into space as heat.
+
+Though mechanical science will probably never be able to predict the
+beginning or duration of storms, it will yet, doubtless, be able to
+account for all their general features, and for such distinct local
+peculiarities as observation may determine. Great advancement has
+already been made in the determination of prevailing winds and in
+the study of storms. Two theories have been brought forward upon the
+general movements of storms; both have been proved, to the entire
+satisfaction of their advocates, by the storms themselves; and
+probably both are, with some limitations, true. The first of these
+theories we have already described. According to it, the winds move
+inward toward the centre of the storm; according to the other theory,
+they blow in a circumference around the centre.
+
+Observations upon storms of small extent, such as thunder-storms or
+tornadoes, show very clearly that the winds blow toward the stormy
+district. But when observations are made upon the winds within the
+district of such extensive storms as sometimes visit the United
+States, the directions of the wind are found to be so various, that
+the advocates of either theory, making due allowance for local
+disturbances, can triumphantly refute their adversaries. In such
+storms there are doubtless many centres or maxima of rain, and
+whether the wind move around or toward these centres, it would
+inevitably get confused.
+
+The opinion, that the winds move around the central point or line of
+the storm, was strenuously maintained by the late Mr. Redfield,
+whose activity in his favorite pursuit has connected his name
+inseparably with meteorology. Others have maintained the same opinion,
+and the rotatory motion of the tropical hurricanes is offered as a
+principal proof. It is obvious from the causes of motion already
+considered, that, if the air is carried far, by its tendency toward a
+rainy district, it will acquire a secondary relative motion from its
+change of latitude; and this, in our hemisphere, if the air move
+toward the south, will be westward,--if toward the north, eastward.
+Hence the motion of the air from both directions toward a stormy
+district is deflected to the right side of the storm; and this gives
+rise to that motion from right to left which is observed in the
+hurricanes of the northern hemisphere.
+
+To suppose, as many do, that regular winds, arising from constant
+and extensive causes, can come into bodily conflict and preserve
+their identity and original impetus for days, without immediate and
+strongly impelling forces to sustain their motion, implies a
+profound ignorance of mechanical science, and is little better than
+those ancient superstitions which gave a personal identity to the
+winds. The momentum of ordinary winds is a feeble force in
+comparison with those forces of pressure and friction which
+continually modify it. Hence sudden changes in the direction and
+intensity of winds must primarily arise from similar changes in
+these forces. But there are no known forces which change so suddenly,
+except the pressure and latent heat of suspended vapor; and therefore
+the fall of rain is the only adequate known cause of those
+storm-winds which, interpolated among the gentler winds, keep the
+atmosphere in perpetual commotion.
+
+Storms have, however, certain habits and peculiarities, more or less
+regular and distinct, which depend upon locality and season. And
+this is what ought to be expected; for, though the storms themselves
+are essentially anomalous, yet many of the causes which cooperate to
+induce them are constant or periodic, while others are subject to
+but slight perturbations. It is obvious that no more moisture can be
+precipitated than has been evaporated, and that the winds only gain
+suddenly by the fall of rain the forces which they have lost at their
+leisure in the absorption of moisture. Thus the rage of the storm is
+kept within bounds, and though the exact period at which the winds
+are set free cannot be determined, yet their force and frequency
+must be subject to certain limitations. The study of the habits and
+peculiarities of storms is of the greatest importance to navigation
+and agriculture, and these arts have already been benefited by the
+labors of the meteorologist.
+
+The lawlessness of the weather, within certain limitations, though
+discouraging to the physical philosopher, has yet its bright side
+for the student of final causes. The uses of the weather and its
+adaptation to organic life are subjects of untiring interest. The
+progression of the seasons, varied by differences of latitude, is
+also diversified and adapted to a fuller development of organic
+variety by irregularities of climate.
+
+The regular alternations of day and night, summer and winter, dry
+seasons and wet, are adapted to those alternations of organic
+functions which belong to the economy of life. The vital forces of
+plants and of the lower orders of animals have not that
+self-determining capacity of change which is necessary to the
+complete development of life; but they persist in their present mode
+of action, and, when they are not modified by outward changes,
+reduce life to its simplest phases. Changes of growth are effected
+by those apparent hardships to which life is subject; and progression
+in new directions is effected by retrogression in previous modes of
+growth. The old leaves and branches must fall, the wood must be
+frost-bitten or dried, the substance of seeds must wither and then
+decay, the action of leaves must every night be reversed, vines and
+branches must be shaken by the winds, that the energies and the
+materials of new forms of life may be rendered active and available.
+
+Some of the outward changes of nature are regular and periodic, while
+others, without law or method, are apparently adapted by their
+diversity to draw out the unlimited capacities and varieties of life;
+so that as inorganic nature approaches a regulated confusion, the
+more it tends to bring forth that perfect order, of which fragments
+appear in the incomplete system of actual organic life.
+
+The classification of organic forms presents to the naturalist, not
+the structure of a regular though incomplete development, but the
+broken and fragmentary form of a ruin. We may suppose, then, with a
+recent physiological writer, that the creation of those organic
+forms which constitute this fragmentary system was effected in the
+midst of an elemental storm, a regulated confusion, uniting all the
+external conditions which the highest capacities and the greatest
+varieties of organized life require for their fullest development;
+and that as the storm subsided into a simpler, but less genial
+diversity,--into the weather,--whole orders and genera and species
+sank with it from the ranks of possible organic forms. The weather,
+fallen from its high estate, no longer able to develope, much less to
+create new forms, can only sustain those that are left to its care.
+
+Man finds himself everywhere mirrored in nature. Wayward, inconstant,
+always seeking rest, always impelled by new evils, the greatest of
+which he himself creates,--protecting and cherishing or blighting and
+destroying the fragmentary life of a fallen nature,--incapable
+himself of creating new capacities, but nourishing in prosperity and
+quickening in adversity those that are left,--he sees the workings of
+his own life in the strife of the elements. His powers and activities
+are related to his spiritual capacities, as inorganic movements are
+related to an organizing life. The resurrection of his higher nature
+is like a new creation, secret, sudden, inconsequent. "The wind
+bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
+canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every
+one that is born of the Spirit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+AKIN BY MARRIAGE [Continued]
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The designs of Mr. Elam Hunt upon the hand of Laura Stebbins have
+already been mentioned, in a former chapter of this history, as well
+as the fact that his hopes were encouraged by Mrs. Jaynes who
+(to make no secret of the matter) had pledged her word to the
+enamored Elam, that when he should be settled in a parish of his own,
+Laura should be added to complete the sum of his felicity.
+
+To this agreement Laura herself was not a party; nay, her consent
+had never been so much as asked; for though Elam knew that marriage
+by proxy was impossible, and, indeed, would doubtless have preferred
+to be the bridegroom at his own wedding, he had no objection
+whatever to a vicarious courtship; for he was not a forward suitor,
+delighting to prattle of his pains to his fair tormentor, as the way
+of many is. But touching all the terms and conditions of this
+contract Laura was informed by Mrs. Jaynes, who, when the other
+protested with tears and sobs against this disposition of her person
+without even asking her leave thereto, replied, with a quiet voice
+and manner, that she had the right to make the promise in Laura's
+name, and had done so upon due consideration.
+
+This ominous reserve frightened Laura far more than an angry reply
+would have done; for when her sister spoke with such brief decision,
+it was a sign that her mind was made up; and Laura knew full well
+the resolute purpose with which Mrs. Jaynes was wont to pursue any
+design that she had once formed. She distrusted her own ability to
+withstand her sister's inflexible will, and felt a secret misgiving,
+that, in spite of herself, she would by some means be forced or
+persuaded to yield at last. This very lack of faith in her own power
+of resistance caused her more distress and terror than all her other
+fears. Sometimes she almost fancied a spell of enchantment had been
+put upon her, which would render all her efforts to escape her fate
+as unavailing as the struggles of a gnat in a spider's web.
+
+A friend in time of trouble is like a staff to one that is lame or
+weary. But when Laura, in these straits, leaned upon her dearest
+friend, Cornelia, for aid and comfort, she found but a broken reed;
+for, instead of words of consolation and encouragement, Cornelia
+uttered only dismal prophecies that Laura was surely doomed to be
+the young parson's bride.
+
+"If you only had another lover to run away with, now," said she,
+"why, then it would be delightful to have your sister act as she does;
+but, as it is, I'm sure I don't see any way to avoid it."
+
+"Nor I," cried Laura, sinking still deeper in despair. "Oh, dear!
+what shall I do?"
+
+"In novels, you know," pursued Cornelia, "where there's a cruel,
+tyrannical father, like your sister, there's always a hero in love
+with the heroine----"
+
+"I'm sure I wish there was a hero in love with me," said Laura,
+thinking of her own hero in regimentals. "I'd run away with him,"
+she added, with animation, "if--if both his legs were shot off,"--not
+considering duly, I dare say, how greatly such a dreadful mutilation,
+however glorious in itself, would conflict with the rapid locomotion
+essential to her plan of elopement.
+
+But when Tira Blake came to be told of Laura's trouble, and the
+reasons of it, that sage and prudent friend gave counsel that
+cheered her like a cordial, telling her it would be sinful to marry
+a man whom she disliked so heartily, and that in such a matter no
+one had the right to demand or enforce obedience.
+
+"It's bad enough to be married when you're willin'," said she;
+"but when you a'n't willin', there's no law nor no gospel to make you."
+
+"But if Maria should compel me, what should I do?" cried Laura, to
+whom her sister's will seemed more mighty than both law and gospel.
+
+"She can't," replied Statira, sententiously; "she can't. Her 'yes,'
+in such a case, is only good for herself; it can't make you any
+man's wife.--What shall you do? Why, nothin',--nothin' in the world.
+If they should bring bridegroom and parson, and stand you up side of
+him by main force, (which of course is foolish to think of their
+doing so, only I suppose it just to show you what I mean,) even in
+such a case you needn't do anything. Keep your mouth shut and your
+head from bobbin', and there a'n't lawyers, nor squires, nor parsons,
+nor parsons' wives either for that matter, enough in all Connecticut
+to marry you to a mouse, let alone a man. Humph!" added Miss Blake,
+with scornful accent, "I should like to see 'em set out to marry me
+to anybody I didn't want to have!"
+
+There was nothing in all that Tira said which Laura did not know
+before; but it was uttered in such a way that it sounded in her ears
+like a new revelation, filling her heart with peace and comfort, and
+inspiring her with hope and courage. The magic spell that had
+enthralled her spirit was broken by the power of a few cheery,
+confident, assuring words. A heavy weight seemed lifted from her
+heart, and, relieved from the pressure, her spirits rose, joyous and
+elastic. The shadow was dispelled which had darkened her future, and
+the sun seemed to shine brighter and the birds to sing more sweetly.
+She herself was changed,--or at least it was hard to believe she was
+the same Laura Stebbins who, the night before, had cried herself to
+sleep, and whose doleful visage, that very morning, had looked out
+at her from the mirror. She flew at Tira in a transport, and,
+without asking her leave, kissed her twenty times in less than a
+minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have
+tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she
+danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step,
+singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near
+the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball,
+bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture
+of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed
+teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow,
+that, never, _never_, the longest day she lived, would she marry
+Elam Hunt, to please anybody,--as her sister Maria (said she, with a
+saucy toss of the head) would find, if she tried to make her!
+
+I doubt greatly, whether, if Laura had known what I am now going to
+tell my reader, she would have indulged in such vivacious pranks,
+and bold, defiant words: namely, that Mrs. Jaynes was hearing
+everything she said, and, in fact, had listened to and taken special
+heed of nearly the whole conversation, a part of which has been set
+forth above. Coming through the wicket in the garden fence, on an
+errand to the Bugbee kitchen, the sound of her own name, in Laura's
+excited tones, struck Mrs. Jaynes's ear and excited her curiosity.
+Walking nearer to the house, and concealing herself behind a little
+thicket of lilac bushes, near the open window of Statira's bedroom,
+she was enabled to hear with distinctness almost every word uttered
+by the unconscious conspirators, who were plotting against the
+fulfilment of her cherished project.
+
+There is good reason for believing that what Mrs. Jaynes overheard,
+while lying in ambush, as has been related, excited in her heart
+emotions of indignation and resentment. Be that as it may, no trace
+of displeasure was visible upon her face or in her voice or manner,
+when, a few minutes afterwards, she stood by the side of the
+unsuspicious Tira, in the back veranda of the house, holding in her
+hand a plate containing a pat of butter she had just borrowed from
+the Doctor's housekeeper, while the latter, peeping through the
+curtain of vine-leaves, gazed at as pretty a spectacle as just then
+could have been seen anywhere in Belfield. On the grassplot, in the
+shade of a great cherry-tree, Laura and Helen were playing at graces.
+Both were full of frolicsome glee; the former, with spirits in their
+first glad rebound from recent despondency, being wild with gayety,
+enjoying the sport no less than the merry child, her playmate.
+Laura's glowing face was fairly radiant with beauty, and her figure
+was unconsciously displayed in such a variety of bewitching
+attitudes and dainty postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens,
+that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down
+the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still,
+crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if
+taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard
+Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say
+for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though
+her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter
+she held in her hand would not have melted in her pursed-up mouth.
+
+Mrs. Jaynes, for reasons of her own, thought proper to keep
+her temper in control, abstaining from any manifestation of
+displeasure for a much longer time than while she remained
+standing in the back veranda of Doctor Bugbee's house. She did not
+think it prudent to apprise Laura that her rebellious conference
+with Statira had been discovered, nor to forbid her from holding
+further communication with her evil counsellors; but contented
+herself, for the present, with keeping a stricter watch over her
+sister's conduct, by practising with increased rigor and vigilance
+that efficient system of tactics hereinbefore commemorated, by which
+the ardor of Laura's chance admirers was repressed and their
+advances repelled, and by alluding, from time to time, to Laura's
+prospective nuptials, as to an event predestined and inevitable, or,
+at least, no less sure to come to pass than if Laura herself had
+engaged her hand to Mr. Hunt of her own free will and accord, and
+was only waiting to be asked to name the wedding-day.
+
+It was many months after Elam left the shady height of East Windsor
+Hill before he received a call to settle; for though he preached in
+different parts on trial, before many congregations that were
+destitute of pastors, none of these fastidious flocks would listen
+to his voice a second time, or agree to choose him for its shepherd.
+At last, however, the people of Walbury, a town in Windham County,
+lying nearly twenty miles from Belfield, made choice of Mr. Hunt to
+be their spiritual guide, and accordingly extended to him an
+invitation to be ordained and installed as the settled minister over
+their ancient parish. Upon receiving this proposal, Elam at once
+despatched a letter to his friend and ally, Mrs. Jaynes, informing
+her of his good fortune, and suggesting that Laura should at once
+bestir herself in preparations for their wedding, in order that this
+blissful event might precede his ordination. Then, after waiting for
+the lapse of that period of decorous delay which immemorial usage
+has prescribed in such cases, he indited an epistle to the church in
+Walbury, stating, in proper and accustomed form, that his native
+humility inclined him to refuse their request; but that, after a
+wrestle with his inclinations, he had got the better of them, and
+had resolved to sacrifice his own wishes and feelings, and to enter
+the field of labor to which the Israel in Walbury had invited him.
+
+A year and more had elapsed since Laura, encouraged by Tira Blake's
+assuring words, had begun to hope that a better fate was in store
+for her than to become the wife of a man she detested. Meanwhile,
+Elam had often come to Belfield, sometimes preaching a sermon for
+Mr. Jaynes, and going away again, after a brief sojourn, without
+having opened his mouth to Laura to speak of love or marriage. At
+his later visits it was evident that he was inclined to despond
+about his prospects of getting a settlement, and Laura began to
+entertain strong hopes that he never would be successful; for she
+would have given up all the chances of beholding her military hero
+in person, and would have been content to live a maid forever,
+continually waiting for Elam, if she could have been assured the
+time would never come for him to claim her.
+
+But, one morning, after breakfast, having made her bed and arranged
+her chamber, singing blithely all the while, she was just going to
+sit down by the window with her sewing, when Mrs. Jaynes came in
+with a letter in her hand. Laura guessed at once that the letter was
+from Elam, and that it contained the news of which the reader has
+been apprised already. Though she did not need to read the letter in
+order to inform herself of its contents, she took it in her hand,
+when her sister bade her read it, and made a pretence of obedience,
+shuddering, meanwhile, with disgust and terror. At last she came to
+the conclusion of the epistle, where Elam had mentioned his desire
+to be married before being ordained, and had subscribed himself as
+united in gospel bonds to the worthy lady to whom the letter was
+addressed. Then, folding up the paper with trembling hands, she held
+it towards her sister, without daring to look up, or to say a word.
+
+"Now, Laura," asked Mrs. Jaynes, in a quiet tone, "when can you be
+ready to be married?"
+
+Laura tried to speak, and looked up, with a pale, frightened face,
+into her sister's impassive countenance. Her white lips failed to
+form the words she strove to utter.
+
+"When shall the wedding be?" said Mrs. Jaynes, with a smile of
+affected sportiveness. "Name the happy day, my love."
+
+"Happy day!" repeated poor Laura. "Oh, Maria!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter, child?" said Mrs. Jaynes; "what are you
+crying for?"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear sister!" sobbed Laura, falling on her knees at
+Mrs. Jaynes's feet, "do hear me! You are my mother, for you fill her
+place."
+
+"I have endeavored to do so," said Mrs. Jaynes.
+
+"Then, for God's sake, don't make me marry this horrid man!" pursued
+Laura. "Don't tell me that I must! Don't force me to such a fate!"
+And with many passionate words like these, Laura implored her
+sister not to lay any command upon her to marry Elam Hunt.
+
+"Hush, Laura! hush, my dear child!" said Mrs. Jaynes, who had
+anticipated this scene, and was well prepared with her replies.
+"Be calm; you behave absurdly. I have no power to force you to marry
+any man. I don't expect to compel you to accept Mr. Hunt for a
+husband. For at least two years past I had supposed, however, that
+it was your intention to do so. If you have changed your mind, and
+if you wish to break an engagement that has subsisted so long,
+whether for or without cause, I cannot prevent it. You have read so
+many foolish romances, that your head is turned, and you fancy
+yourself a heroine in distress. But let me tell you, my dear, that
+in real life, here, in New England, a woman cannot be forced to marry.
+So calm your transports, wipe your eyes, and get up from your knees.
+I'm not to be kneeled to, pray remember."
+
+Laura did as she was told,--so much abashed that she dared not look
+up. To increase her confusion, her sister began to laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, dear," said she, "but, ha, ha, ha! it was so
+funny!--like a scene in a play, I should think."
+
+"I know I've been silly, Maria," said Laura, weeping again,--with
+shame, this time.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said her sister, in a kind tone, "we're all
+silly sometimes. You'll never be guilty of the folly again, at any
+rate, of supposing that girls can be married, in spite of themselves,
+by cruel sisters; eh, Laura?"
+
+"Oh, Maria, do forgive me!" cried Laura, blushing crimson. "I was so
+very silly!"
+
+"Well, let it all go," said Mrs. Jaynes, kissing her. "Now we'll
+talk about this letter. Tell me why you don't wish to marry Mr. Hunt.
+If you have any good reason against it, I'm sure I don't desire it;
+though, I confess, having supposed so long it was a settled thing, I
+had set my heart upon it. Perhaps this disappointment has been sent
+to me for some wise purpose," added Mrs. Jaynes, with a pious sigh.
+
+Thus encouraged, Laura opened her heart and began to talk, saying
+that she didn't like Mr. Hunt, that she didn't love him, that she
+disliked him, and hated him, and that he was hateful, and horrid, and
+awful, and dreadful, and so homely, and pale, and pimpled, and, ugh!
+she should never like him, nor love him, but always dislike him, and
+hate him. And on she went in this manner, till her fervor was cooled,
+and she had exhausted, by frequent repetition, every form of speech
+capable of expressing her great repugnance to a union with Elam Hunt.
+In conclusion, she said she was willing never to marry, but would
+remain with her sister and work for her and the children all her life.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Jaynes. "We'll talk of your kind offer
+presently; and you will see, I think, that I have no desire that you
+should live and die an old maid, even in case you do not marry
+Mr. Hunt."
+
+"I'm sure I'd rather than not," said Laura, with a twinge of
+conscience at the thought of her hero.
+
+"Have you said all that you've got to say?" asked Mrs. Jaynes, very
+quietly.
+
+Laura looked up into her sister's grave, sober face, and felt a
+chill of vague apprehension begin to take the place of the hopeful
+glow in her heart.
+
+"Eh?" said Mrs. Jaynes, inquiringly.
+
+"Y--yes," faltered Laura, "only this,--I don't like him, and he's
+such a horrid, disgusting man,--and--and--that's all, I believe,
+except that I don't like him, and think he's so disagreeable,--and--
+oh, yes! there's another thing,--he wears blue spectacles,--ugh!
+_blue_ spectacles!"
+
+"Is there anything more?" said Mrs. Jaynes, still speaking with the
+same even, quiet voice.
+
+"N--no," said Laura, "only I--" and here she paused.
+
+"Don't like him," added Mrs. Jaynes, supplying the words.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Laura. "I know I'm foolish, but--"
+
+"It's much to confess it," said Mrs. Jaynes. "Now that I've
+patiently heard all that you have to say, I wish to be heard a few
+words in favor of a dear and worthy friend of mine, against whom you
+appear to entertain a groundless antipathy."
+
+"No, not groundless," interposed Laura.
+
+"Well, I'll agree that a pale, studious face and blue spectacles are
+good reasons for hating a man. Now let me say a word or two in his
+favor, notwithstanding, and also in favor of a plan which I had
+supposed was agreed upon, and which I dislike extremely to see
+abandoned. You have reasons against it, which you have stated. I
+have reasons for it, which I will state. But first answer me two or
+three simple questions, 'yes' or 'no,'--will you, dear?"
+
+And Laura assenting, she went on to ask if Mr. Hunt was not good,
+and pious, and of blameless life and reputation; extorting from
+Laura an affirmative reply to each separate inquiry.
+
+"He's all these good qualities, then, to offset the complexion of
+his face and spectacles," resumed Mrs. Jaynes. "Now let us look at
+the matter in a worldly point of view. He is able to give you not
+only a place, but the very highest position in society; he can offer
+you, not wealth, but competence, which is better than either poverty
+or riches. Why, my dear, there are a hundred girls in this town,
+many of whom excel you in everything which men think desirable in a
+wife, except, perhaps, the poor, perishable quality of beauty,--
+girls of good family, rich, or likely to be so, intelligent, well
+educated, some of them, to say the least, almost as pretty as you,
+any one of whom would think herself honored by this offer which you
+despise; for most people are aware that to be a minister's wife, in
+New England, is, my dear, to occupy, as I have just said, the very
+summit of the social structure."
+
+Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words.
+After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain
+with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened
+with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet,
+Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had
+been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no
+claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.
+
+"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes,
+"to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would
+bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But
+young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It
+is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event
+was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's
+warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this
+good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you
+prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to
+marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue
+spectacles and pale complexion?"
+
+Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor
+paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.
+
+"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms
+together, in sore distress.
+
+"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and
+speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It
+used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are
+getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more,
+and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez
+has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If--well, never
+mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of
+Mr. Hunt,--such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances,
+from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose
+preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands,
+would be glad to win,--who is going to be settled in a good old
+parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large,
+I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,--I _do_ say, Laura, that you ought to
+give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a
+two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his
+spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a
+home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but
+Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we
+have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection.
+To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will
+be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind,
+imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish
+whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and
+opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had
+better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner.
+If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear,
+I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice
+against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."
+
+With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought
+she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and
+went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting
+with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.
+
+At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely
+have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the
+door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a
+sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro
+across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and
+sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the
+while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some
+reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person,
+nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that
+her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who
+provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those
+who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to
+her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained
+for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first
+time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and
+felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.
+
+At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of
+frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on
+purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new
+exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a
+whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing
+but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she
+must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to
+think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what
+good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister
+that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told
+her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had
+been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that
+she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was
+all true and reasonable,--but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she
+conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,--his lank, slim figure,
+arrayed in sombre black,--his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with
+pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,--his spectral
+glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She
+imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers,
+and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the
+certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an
+invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she
+screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting
+herself, she sank down moaning.--Oh, heavens! she thought, there was
+no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all
+alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor
+father, nor mother, nor brother,--with only a sister who had a
+husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than
+she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,--
+nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her
+heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What
+could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was
+worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer.
+If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her
+and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only
+knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so
+pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put
+upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared.
+For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to
+write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the
+dictionary, to see how they were spelt;--and parsing! and doing sums!--
+oh, gracious! she never could teach school,--that was out of the
+question!
+
+At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit
+her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam
+of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit
+upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always
+been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange
+laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and
+trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it
+would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing
+and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than
+marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she
+began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied
+herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps,
+among a group of other girls,--sometimes rising to attend upon a
+customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in
+the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be
+ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to
+see her in Hartford.
+
+What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl
+that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking
+how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was
+a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping
+of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her
+new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford,
+and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get
+a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the
+city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there,
+and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it
+was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of
+Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the
+great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small,
+for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen
+scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee
+could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay,
+even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask
+him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her,
+unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would
+not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see
+Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and
+forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon
+his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so
+much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children
+complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed
+the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she
+troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause
+to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless
+gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened
+to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of
+sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his
+aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense
+benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to
+refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to
+help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn
+her away. At all events, she could try.
+
+Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and
+strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face,
+arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then
+sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for
+Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed
+visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very
+day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was
+represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable
+temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at
+the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated
+and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by
+his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by
+a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by
+robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even
+teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a
+jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and
+himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.
+
+Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose
+unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of
+even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page
+near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit
+of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces
+her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then
+Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten
+at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught
+sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of
+coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted
+the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the
+message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information
+that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.
+
+Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and
+console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite
+of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this
+lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward
+accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she
+never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this
+interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor
+would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference
+to appear at the end of a chapter.
+
+[To be continued in the next Number.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SPARTACUS.
+
+The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the
+virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity.
+They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The
+quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,
+
+  "Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"
+
+Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who
+resisted them, and enslaved the rest."
+
+But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited
+their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that
+are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high
+as well as the low,--of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks
+and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.
+
+The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their
+bondmen,--by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,--affecting as they
+did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made
+slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians
+and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their
+necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses,
+and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of
+their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the
+head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae.
+One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the
+greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since
+that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his
+javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.
+
+The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that
+which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are
+many facts which show that the relations between master and slave
+were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were
+exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be
+where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and
+the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where
+cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the
+slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were
+the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love
+of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men
+were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and
+abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So
+ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway,
+and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the
+private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves.
+Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their
+maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but
+little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded
+as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the
+ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters
+manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by
+Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates
+this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade
+slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size
+was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its
+size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed
+that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave,
+not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to
+present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the
+animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor
+ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of
+thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through
+many generations.
+
+The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the
+efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to
+the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in
+Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should
+become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the
+Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians,
+about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property
+ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says
+Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large
+tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates
+which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had
+been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners.
+The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became
+rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had
+cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was
+suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded
+with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors,
+whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that
+they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer
+Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were
+well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of
+others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus,
+although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and
+though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with
+evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the
+horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318,
+London edition.]
+
+The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the
+destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of
+the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline
+may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two
+or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred
+thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He
+was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and
+conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his
+elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts,
+he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be
+recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The
+victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the
+credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he
+must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his
+position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said
+to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only
+that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner,
+but died before he could be brought to punishment,--no doubt, to the
+vast regret of his savage captors.
+
+In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and
+was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting.
+The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a
+Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their
+leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to
+his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was
+not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves
+were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one
+arising to make their place good.
+
+The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer,
+than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it
+was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military
+genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps,
+of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies,
+and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the
+Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war
+took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with
+Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the
+exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,--the great
+Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in
+contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with
+Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to
+Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their
+walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their
+assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man
+of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means
+at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing
+powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and
+in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were,
+of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a
+long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus.
+The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his
+father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian,
+without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his
+enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most
+heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The
+palm must be aligned to the latter.
+
+To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a
+Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave
+people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual
+superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large
+views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch
+pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he
+deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was,
+says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength,
+but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition,
+and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation."
+It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace
+was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion
+of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found
+in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to
+Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were
+Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians
+themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior
+physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from
+attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for
+soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the
+preference as gladiators,--a dubious honor, to say the best of it.
+
+How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is
+a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it
+was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie
+for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was
+first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter
+and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from
+choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he
+writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that
+Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly
+gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a
+contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by
+the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals.
+Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been
+a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,--
+a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek,
+who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a
+word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but
+introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us,
+"that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was
+seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the
+same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and
+possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this
+was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him
+to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress,
+being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when
+he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War
+of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain
+know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was
+loved by such a man.
+
+The passion of the Romans for gladiatorial combats is well known.
+Not a few persons followed the calling of gladiator-trainers, and
+had whole corps of these doomed men, whom they let to those who
+wished to get up such shows. There were several schools of gladiators,
+the chief of which were at Ravenna and Capua, where garrisons were
+maintained to keep the pupils in subjection. According to one account,
+Spartacus, while on a predatory incursion, was made prisoner, and
+afterwards sold to Cneius Lentulus Batiatus, a trainer of gladiators,
+who sent him to his school at Capua. He was to have fought at Rome.
+But he had higher thoughts than of submitting to so degrading a
+destiny as the being "butchered to make a Roman holiday." Most of
+his companions were Gauls and Thracians, the bravest of men, who
+bore confinement with small patience. They conspired to make their
+escape,--the chief conspirators being Spartacus and two others, who
+were subsequently made his lieutenants,--Crixus, a Gaul, and Oenomaus,
+a Greek. Some two hundred persons were in the conspiracy, but only a
+portion of them succeeded in breaking the school bounds. Florus says
+that not more than thirty got out, while Velleius makes the number
+to have been sixty-four, and Plutarch seventy-eight. Having armed
+themselves with spits, knives, and cleavers, from a cook's shop,
+they hastened out of Capua. Passing along the Appian Way, they fell
+in with a number of wagons loaded with gladiators' weapons, which
+they seized, and were thus placed in good fighting condition.
+Shortly after this they encountered a small body of soldiers, whom
+they routed, and whose arms they substituted for the gladiatorial,
+deeming these no longer worthy of them.
+
+They were now joined by a few others, fugitives and mountaineers,
+with whom they took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, then, as from
+time immemorial, and for nearly a century and a half later, inactive.
+Thence, under the leadership of Spartacus and his lieutenants, Crixus
+and Oedomaus, they ravaged the country; but it is not probable that
+they caused much alarm, their number being only two hundred, and
+such collections of slaves being by no means uncommon. The Romans
+little dreamed that they were on the eve of one of the most terrible
+of their many wars. Claudius Pulcher, one of the Praetors, was sent
+against the "robbers," as they were considered to be. He found them
+so advantageously posted on the mountain, that, though superior to
+them in numbers in the ratio of fifteen to one, he resolved to
+blockade them, and so compel them to descend to the plain and fight
+at disadvantage, or starve. But he was contending with a man of
+genius, against whom even Rome's military system could not then
+succeed. He despised his enemy,--a sort of gratification which to
+those indulging in it generally costs very dear. Spartacus caused
+ropes to be made of vine branches, with the aid of which he and his
+followers lowered themselves to the base of the mountain, at a point
+which had been left unguarded by the Romans because considered
+inaccessible by the red-tapist who commanded them, and consequently
+affording a capital outlet for bold men under a daring leader. In
+the dead of night the gladiators stole round to the rear of the
+Roman camp, and assailed it. Taken by surprise and heavy with sleep,
+the Romans were routed like sheep, and their arms and baggage passed
+into the hands of the despised enemy.
+
+Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to
+assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them.
+Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of
+the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which,
+while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who
+groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how
+strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining
+that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful
+submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land
+belonged of right to the bravest,--a sentiment as natural and proper
+when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding
+from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his
+own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is
+contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for
+a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust,
+but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as
+Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to
+disregard keeping in what he wrote.
+
+Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been
+men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made
+captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost
+entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had
+pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that
+the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry
+to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his
+murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate,
+the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery
+to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural
+population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been
+conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to
+baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of
+Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the
+Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were
+indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An
+anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the
+character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty
+years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius
+Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the
+brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed,
+"Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you
+in chains to Rome!"
+
+The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves,
+Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was
+particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of
+Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the
+Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness
+that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the
+cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having
+asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no
+travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell,
+"was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti,
+and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
+adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder
+the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged
+to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the
+year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for
+brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land
+of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were
+shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they
+talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The
+century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus
+had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them
+ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number,
+men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible
+material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to
+the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and
+active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority
+of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular
+manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the
+men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some
+discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the
+men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the
+hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had
+to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to
+the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military
+force then to be found in the world.
+
+[Footnote 3: Liddell, _History of Rome_, Vol. II, p. 144]
+
+With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led,
+Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name.
+Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were
+perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species
+of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation
+which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and
+which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and
+destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the
+conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the
+fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without
+supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw
+that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it
+unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
+
+[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on
+the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later
+Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of
+Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young
+slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War,
+"If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus."
+The manner in which he, the son of a _libertinus_, speaks of
+Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but
+is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working
+out more important results than could have followed from all the
+acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense
+connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
+
+Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it
+was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The
+government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at
+the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was
+not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later,
+Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy;
+and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate
+of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong
+enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently
+skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But
+they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of
+invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time
+apparently justified their confidence.
+
+The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly
+armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to
+use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"--never yet having been
+matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were
+chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made
+by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon
+retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his
+lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated
+themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly
+routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and
+even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted.
+Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military
+principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a
+Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly
+after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting
+him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground
+hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters,
+and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of
+those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when,
+one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a
+state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had
+happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond
+their reach.
+
+This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a
+division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night
+was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's
+march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the
+Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without
+making any show of resistance,--abandoning everything to the
+assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to
+escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they
+were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place
+not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
+
+Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a
+Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had
+fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of
+superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though
+still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust
+represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling
+them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but
+upon a long war,--that from success, then, would follow a series of
+victories,--and that therein lay their only salvation from a death
+at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon
+victory after victory,--an expression that showed he had a clear
+comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that
+followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for
+his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus.
+His lictors, with the _fasces_, shared the same fate. Spartacus
+assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He
+has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince
+every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound
+appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which
+his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of
+authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the
+possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and
+about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power,
+but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it.
+Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of
+the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.
+
+The defeat of Varinius left the whole of Lower Lucania at the mercy
+of the gladiators. Spartacus now established posts at Metapontum and
+at Thurii. Here he labored, with unceasing energy and industry, to
+organize and discipline his men. Adopting various measures to
+prevent them from becoming enervated through the abundance in which
+they were revelling, he prohibited the use of money among them, and
+gave all that he himself had to relieve those who had suffered from
+the war. Some of his officers are said to have followed his example
+in making so great a sacrifice for the common good.
+
+Towards the close of the year Varinius had succeeded in getting
+another army on foot. With this he resolved to watch the enemy,--
+repeated defeats having made the Romans cautious, though they were
+not even yet seriously alarmed. He formed and fortified a camp,
+whence he kept a look-out. There was some skirmishing, but no
+fighting on a large scale. This did not suit Spartacus, who had
+become confident in himself and his men. He desired battle, but
+wished the Romans should take the initiative, and was convinced that
+the near approach of winter would compel them soon to fight or to
+retreat. To encourage them, he feigned fear, and commenced a
+retrograde movement; but no sooner had the elated Romans advanced in
+pursuit than he turned upon them, and they were compelled to fight
+under circumstances that made defeat certain. This second rout of
+Varinius was total, and we hear no more of him.
+
+Never had there been a more successful campaign than that which
+Spartacus had just closed. His force had been increased from less
+than one hundred men to nearly one hundred thousand. He had proved
+himself more than the equal of the generals who had been sent
+against him, both in strategy and in arms. He had fought three great
+battles, and numerous lesser actions, and had been uniformly
+successful. Like Carnot, he had "organized victory." A large part of
+Italy was at his command, and, under any other circumstances than
+those which existed, or against any other foe than Rome, he would
+probably have found little difficulty in establishing a powerful
+state, the origin of which would have been far more respectable than
+of that with which he was contending. But he was a statesman, and
+knew, that, brilliant as were his successes, he had no chance of
+accomplishing anything permanent within the Peninsula. He was
+fighting, too, for freedom, not for dominion. His plan was to get
+out of Italy. Two courses were open to him. He might retreat to the
+extremity of the Peninsula, cross the strait that separates it from
+Sicily, and renew the servile wars of that island; or he might march
+north, force his way out of Italy, and so with most of his followers
+reach their homes in Gaul and Thrace. The latter course was
+determined upon; but the more hot-headed portion of his men, the
+Gauls, were opposed to it, and resolved to march upon Rome. A
+division of the victorious army ensued. The larger number, under
+Spartacus, proceeded to carry out the wise plan of their leader, but
+the minority refused to obey him. We have seen, that, at the very
+outset of his enterprise, Spartacus encountered opposition from the
+Gauls in his army, who were ever for rash measures, and that,
+separating themselves from their associates, under the lead of Crixus,
+they had been defeated. Crixus rejoined his old chieftain, and did
+good service; but he and his countrymen, untaught by experience, and
+inflated with a notion of invincibility,--on what founded, it would
+be hard to say,--would not aid Spartacus in his prudent attempt to
+lead his followers out of Italy. Rome was their object, and, to the
+number of thirty thousand, they separated themselves from the main
+army. At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting
+a Roman army, commanded by the Prætor Arrius, on the borders of
+Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not
+less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But
+this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and,
+while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon
+by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his
+followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was
+the first great victory won by the Romans in the war.
+
+The defeat of Varinius aroused the Roman government to see that their
+enemy was not to be despised, and, revolted slave though he was,
+they were compelled to pay him the respect of making prodigious
+efforts to effect his destruction. The Consuls Gellius and Lentulus
+were charged with the conduct of the war. The former overthrew the
+Gauls. The latter followed Spartacus, and came up with him in Etruria.
+Here a contest of pure generalship took place. Lentulus was
+determined not to fight until Gellius--whose victory he knew of--
+should have come up; and Spartacus was equally determined that fight
+he should before the junction could be effected. He succeeded in
+blocking up the road by which Gellius was advancing, unknown to
+Lentulus, and then offered the latter battle. Supposing that his
+colleague would join him in the course of the action, the Roman
+accepted the challenge and was beaten. The victors then marched to
+meet Gellius, who was served after the same manner as Lentulus.
+Spartacus was the only general who ever defeated two great Roman
+armies, each headed by a Consul, on the same day, and in different
+battles. Hannibal's Austerlitz, Cannae, approaches nearest to this
+exploit of the Thracian; but on that field the two consular armies
+were united under the command of Varro.
+
+These great successes were soon followed by the defeat of two lesser
+Roman armies, combined under the lead of the Praetor Manlius and the
+Proconsul Cassius. This last victory not only left the whole open
+country at the command of Spartacus, but also the road to Rome, upon
+which city he now resolved to march. It would have been wiser, had
+he persevered in his original plan, the execution of which his
+victories must have made it easy to carry out. But perhaps success
+had its usual effect, even on his mind, and blinded him to the
+impossibility of permanent triumph in Italy. He winnowed his army,
+dismissing all his soldiers except such as were distinguished by
+their bravery, their strength, and their intelligence. In order that
+his march might be swift, he caused all the superfluous baggage to be
+destroyed. Every beast of burden that could be dispensed with was
+slain. His prisoners were disposed of after the same fashion. In a
+modern general such an act would be utterly without excuse. But it
+was strictly in accordance with the laws of ancient warfare, and
+Spartacus probably felt far more regret at sacrificing his beasts of
+burden than he experienced in consenting to, if he did not order,
+the butchery of some thousands of men whom he must have looked upon
+as so many brutes.
+
+Proceeding to the south, Spartacus fell in with a great Roman army
+led by Arrius, and a battle was fought near Ancona, in which victory
+was true to the gladiator. The Romans were not only beaten, their
+army was utterly destroyed; a result which they seem to have felt to
+be so shameful, that they made no apologies for it. Why, after this
+signal victory, Spartacus did not forthwith carry out his grand
+design of attacking Rome,--a design every way so worthy of his
+genius, and which alone could give him a chance of achieving
+permanent success after he had abandoned the idea of forcing his way
+out of Italy by a northern march,--can never be known. It is
+supposed to have been in consequence of information that
+circumstances had now placed it in his power to effect a passage
+into Sicily, a project which he had regarded with favor at an
+earlier period.
+
+At this time the Cilician pirates had the command of the
+Mediterranean, which they held until they were conquered, some years
+later, by Pompeius. It was by the aid of these men that Spartacus
+expected to carry his army into Sicily. They had shipping in
+abundance, and in a few days they could have conveyed a hundred
+thousand men across the narrow strait that separates Sicily from
+Italy. This they agreed to do, and were paid in advance by Spartacus,
+though it is probable that he relied less upon that payment for
+their assistance than upon the palpable fact that their interests
+were the same as his own. The pirates were on the sea what the
+gladiatorial army was on land. They were the victims of Roman
+oppression, and had become outlaws because the world's law was
+against them. A union of their fleets, which numbered more than a
+thousand vessels, with the army of Spartacus, in the harbors and on
+the fields of Sicily, would perhaps have been more than a match for
+the whole power of Rome, contending as the republic then was with
+Mithridates, and bleeding still from the wounds inflicted by Marius
+and Sulla, as well as from the blows of Spartacus. Sicily, too, was
+then in a state which promised well for the design of the Thracian.
+Verres was ruling over the island,--and how he ruled it Cicero has
+told us. Had the victorious Thracian entered the island, both the
+free population and the slaves would have risen against the Romans.
+A new state might have been formed, strong both in fleets and in
+armies, and compelled from the very nature of its origin to contend
+to the death with its old oppressors. Whatever the result, it is
+certain that a long Sicilian war, like that which the Romans had
+been compelled to wage with the Carthaginians, would have changed
+the course of history, by directing the attention and the energies
+of such men as Crassus, Pompeius, and Caesar to very different fields
+from those on which their fame and power were won.
+
+But it was not to be. There was work for Rome to do, which could be
+done by no other nation. The power that had been found superior to
+Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its
+course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of
+Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his
+supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less
+than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the
+sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus
+to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his
+followers were, it is altogether probable, incapable of building them.
+The Romans, too, must have had ships in the strait, and a very few
+would have been found enough to keep it clear of the unskilful
+gladiators, even had the latter had the time and the means to
+construct boats.
+
+After the defeat of the Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called
+Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort
+to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused,
+but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against
+Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his
+lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and harass the gladiators, but with
+orders to avoid a general engagement. The lieutenant disobeyed his
+orders, fought a battle, and was defeated. Not a few of his men threw
+away their arms, and fled,--an uncommon thing with a Roman army. The
+victors continued their march, but, as we have seen, failed in their
+main object. Spartacus then took up a position in the territory of
+Rhegium, which is over against Sicily. He must have been convinced
+by this time that the crisis of his fortune had arrived, and though
+he would not even then entirely give up all idea of crossing over
+into the island that lay within sight of his camp, he prepared to
+meet the coming storm, which had been for some time gathering in his
+rear. Accordingly he faced about, and commenced a game of
+generalship with Crassus, who was now in person at the head of the
+Roman army. [5]
+
+[Footnote 5: It is probable that justice has never been done to
+Crassus as a military man. Roman writers were not likely to deal
+fairly with a man who closed his career so fatally to himself, and
+so disgracefully in every way to his country. It was his misfortune--
+a misfortune of his own creating--to lead the finest Roman army that
+had ever been seen in the East to destruction, in an unjust attack on
+the Parthians. Had he succeeded, the injustice of his course would
+have been overlooked by his countrymen; but they never could forgive
+his defeat. Yet it is certain that this man, who has come down to us
+as a contemptible creature, having small claim to consideration
+beyond what he derived from his enormous possessions, not only
+exhibited eminent military ability in the War of Spartacus, but,
+when a young man, won that great battle which takes its name from
+the Colline Gate, and which laid the Roman world at the feet of Sulla.
+Pontius Telesious had marched upon Rome, with the intention of
+"destroying the den of the wolves of Italy," and Sulla arrived to
+the city's rescue but just in time. In the battle that immediately
+followed, Sulla, at the head of the left wing of his army, was
+completely defeated, while the right wing, commanded by Crassus, was
+as completely victorious. Talent must have had something to do with
+Crassus's success, which enabled Sulla to retrieve his fortunes, and
+to triumph over the Marius party. One hundred thousand men are said
+to have fallen in this battle. The avarice of Crassus and his want
+of popular manners were fatal to him in life, and his defeat left
+him no friends in death.]
+
+Of all men then living, Crassus was best entitled to command an army
+employed in fighting revolted slaves. If not the greatest
+slaveholder in Rome, he was the most systematic of the class of
+owners, and knew best how to turn the industry of slaves to account.
+He was the wealthiest citizen of the republic. One can understand
+how indignant such a person must have felt at the audacity of the
+gladiator and his followers. As a slaveholder, as a man of property,
+as a lover of law and order, he was concerned at so very disorderly
+a spectacle as that of slaves subverting all the laws of the republic;
+as a Roman, he felt that abhorrence for slaves which was common to
+the character. Here were motives enough to bring out the powers of
+any man, if powers he had in him; and it does not follow that
+because Crassus was very rich he was therefore a fool. He was a man
+of consummate talents, and at this particular time was probably the
+most influential citizen of Rome. The Romans had confidence in him,
+as the embodiment of the spirit of supremacy by which they were so
+completely animated. The event showed that their confidence was not
+misplaced.
+
+The army of Crassus was two hundred thousand strong, and having
+restored its discipline by examples of great severity, he marched to
+meet Spartacus; but on arriving in front of the latter's position,
+he would not attack it, while Spartacus showed an equal
+unwillingness to fight. The Roman determined to blockade the enemy.
+As they had the sea on one side, and that was held by a fleet, he
+commenced a line of works, the completion of which would have
+rendered it impossible for the gladiators to escape. These works
+were on the usual Roman scale, and consisted principally of walls and
+ditches, a hundred thousand men being employed in their construction.
+So cleverly did Crassus conceal what he was about, that it was not
+until he had almost accomplished his design that Spartacus
+discovered the intention of his foe. The emergency was suited to his
+genius, and he was not unequal to it. He began a series of attacks
+on the Romans, harassing them perpetually, retarding their labors,
+and drawing their attention from that point of their line by which he
+purposed to extricate his army. At last, on a night when a terrible
+snow-storm was raging, he led his men to a place where the Roman
+works were yet incomplete, the snow enabling them to march
+noiselessly. When they reached the line, the immense ditches seemed
+to bar their further advance; but they set resolutely at work to
+fill them. Earth, snow, fagots, and dead bodies of men and beasts
+were hastily thrown into them; and across this singular bridge the
+whole army poured into the country, leaving the Roman camp behind,
+and having rendered nugatory all the laborious digging and
+trenching of the legions.
+
+It was not until the next morning that Crassus discovered what had
+been done, and how thoroughly he had been out-generalled by Spartacus.
+But he had no room for vexation in his mind. He was so frightened as
+a Roman citizen, that he could not feel mortified as a Roman soldier.
+He took counsel of his fears, and did that which he had cause both
+to be ashamed of and to regret in after days. He wrote to the Senate,
+stating that in his opinion not only should Pompeius be summoned home
+from Spain, but Lucullus also from the East, to aid in putting down
+an enemy who was unconquerable by ordinary means. A short time
+sufficed to show how indiscreetly for his own fame he had acted; for
+Spartacus was unable to follow up his success, in consequence of
+mutinies in his army. The Gauls again rebelled against his authority,
+and left him. Crassus concentrated his whole force in an attack on
+the seceders, and a battle followed which Plutarch says was the most
+severely contested of the war. The Romans remained masters of the
+field, more than twelve thousand of the Gauls being slain, of whom
+only two were wounded in the back, the rest falling in the ranks.
+Spartacus retreated to the mountains of Petelia, closely followed by
+Roman detachments. Turning upon them, he drove them back; but this
+last gleam of success led to his destruction. His policy was to
+avoid a battle, but his men would not listen to his prudent counsels,
+and compelled him to face about and march against Crassus. This was
+what the Roman desired; for Pompeius was bringing up an army from
+Spain, and would be sure to reap all the honors of the war, were it
+to be prolonged.
+
+Some accounts represent Spartacus as anxious for battle. Whether he
+was so or not, he made every preparation that became a good general.
+The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and
+the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable
+war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble
+ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers,
+warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall
+alive into the hands of their old masters. By way of practical
+commentary on his text, he caused a cross to be erected on a height,
+and to that cross was nailed a living Roman, whose agonies were
+visible to the whole army. Spartacus then ordered his horse to be
+brought to him in front of the army, and slew the animal with his own
+hands. "I am determined," he said to his men, "to share all your
+dangers. Our positions shall be the same. If we are victorious, I
+shall get horses enough from the foe. If we are beaten, I shall need
+a horse no more." [6]
+
+[Footnote 6: When the Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, killed his
+horse in front of the Yorkist army, at the battle of Towton,
+(fought on Palm Sunday, 1461,) he little knew that he was imitating
+the action of a general of revolted slaves, more than fifteen
+centuries earlier. Warwick is said to have done the same thing at
+the battle of Barnet, the last of his fields, where he was defeated
+and slain, fighting for the House of Lancaster.]
+
+The battle that followed was the most severely contested action of
+that warlike period, which, extending through two generations, saw
+the victories of Marius over the Northern barbarians at its
+commencement, and Pharsalia and Munda and Philippi at its close. The
+insurgents attacked with great fury, but with method, Spartacus
+leading the way at the head of a band of select followers, thus
+acting the part of a soldier as well as of a general. The Romans
+steadily resisted,--and the slaughter was great on both sides. At
+last, victory began to incline towards the gladiators, when
+Spartacus fell, and the fortune of the day was changed. He had made a
+fierce charge on the Romans, with the intention of cutting his way
+to Crassus. Two centurions had fallen by his sword, and a number of
+inferior men, when he was himself wounded in one of his thighs.
+Falling upon one knee, he still continued to fight, until he was
+overpowered and slain. The battle was maintained for some time longer,
+and ended only with the destruction of the insurgents, thirty
+thousand of whom were killed;--Livy puts their killed at forty
+thousand. The Roman slain numbered twenty thousand, and they had as
+many more wounded. Only six thousand prisoners fell into the hands
+of Crassus, who caused the whole of them to be crucified,--the
+crosses being placed at intervals on both sides of the Appian Way,
+between Capua and Rome, and the whole Roman army being marched
+through the horrible lines. A body of five thousand fugitives, who
+sought refuge in the north, were intercepted by Pompeius on his
+homeward march from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.
+
+Thus fell Spartacus, and far more nobly than either of the great
+republican chiefs whose deaths were so soon to follow. Pompeius, who
+boasted that he had cut up the war by the roots, ran away from
+Pharsalia, without an effort to retrieve his fortunes, though the
+force opposed to him in the battle was only half as large as his own,
+and he had still abundant resources for future operations. Crassus,
+who claimed to have conquered Spartacus, and who not unreasonably
+resented the pretensions of Pompeius, fell miserably in Parthia,
+after having led the Romans to the most fatal of their fields except
+Cannae. Wanting the nerve to die sword in hand in the midst of his
+foes, like Spartacus, he consented to adorn the triumph of those foes,
+and perished as ignominiously as the great gladiator gloriously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WHO PAID FOR THE PRIMA DONNA?
+
+
+I.
+
+"If anything could make a man forgive himself for being sixty years
+old," said the Consul, holding up his wine-glass between his eye and
+the setting sun,--for it was summer-time, "it would be that he can
+remember M. ---- in her divine sixteenity at the Park Theatre, thirty
+odd years ago. Egad, Sir, one couldn't help making great allowances
+for _Don Giovanni_, after seeing her in _Zerlina_. She was beyond
+imagination _piquante_ and delicious."
+
+The Consul, as my readers may have partly inferred, was not a Roman
+Consul, nor yet a French one. He had had the honor of representing
+this great republic at one of the Hanse Towns,--I forget which,--in
+President Monroe's time. I don't recollect how long he held the
+office, but it was long enough to make the title stick to him for
+the rest of his life with the tenacity of a militia colonelcy or
+village diaconate. The country people round about used to call him
+"the _Counsel_" which, I believe,--for I am not very fresh from my
+school-books,--was etymologically correct enough, however
+orthoepically erroneous. He had not limited his European life,
+however, within the precinct of his Hanseatic consulship, but had
+dispersed himself very promiscuously over the Continent, and had
+seen many cities, and the manners of many men--and of some women,--
+singing-women, I mean, in their public character; for the Consul,
+correct of life as of ear, never sought to undeify his divinities by
+pursuing them from the heaven of the stage to the purgatorial
+intermediacy of the _coulisses_, still less to the lower depth of
+disenchantment into which too many of them sunk in their private life.
+
+"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all,--Catalani,
+Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag,--
+though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is
+none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so
+permanently as the Signorina G----, or that I can see and hear so
+distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself. _Rosina,
+Desdemona, Cinderella_, and, as I said just now, _Zerlina_,--she is
+as fresh in them all to my mind's eye and ear, as if the Park
+Theatre had not given way to a cursed shoe-shop, and I had been
+hearing her there only last night. Let's drink her memory," the
+Consul added, half in mirth and half in melancholy,--a mood to which
+he was not unused, and which did not ill become him.
+
+Now no intelligent person, who knew the excellence of the Consul's
+wine, could refuse to pay this posthumous honor to the harmonious
+shade of the lost Muse. The Consul was an old-fashioned man in his
+tastes, to be sure, and held to the old religion of Madeira which
+divided the faith of our fathers with the Cambridge Platform, and
+had never given in to the later heresies which have crept into the
+communion of good-fellowship from the South of France and the Rhine.
+
+"A glass of Champagne," he would say, "is all well enough at the end
+of dinner, just to take the grease out of one's throat, and get the
+palate ready for the more serious vintages ordained for the solemn
+and deliberate drinking by which man justifies his creation; but
+Madeira, Sir, Madeira is the only stand-by that never fails a man
+and can always be depended upon as something sure and steadfast."
+
+I confess to having fallen away myself from the gracious doctrine
+and works to which he had held so fast; but I am no bigot,--which
+for a heretic is something remarkable,--and had no scruple about
+uniting with him in the service he proposed, without demur or
+protestation as to form or substance. Indeed, he disarmed fanaticism
+by the curious care he bestowed on making his works conformable to
+the faith that was in him; for, partly by inheritance and partly by
+industrious pains, his old house was undermined by a cellar of wine
+such as is seldom seen in these days of modern degeneracy. He is the
+last gentleman, that I know of, of that old school that used to
+import their own wine and lay it down annually themselves,--their
+bins forming a kind of vinous calendar suggestive of great events.
+Their degenerate sons are content to be furnished, as they want it,
+from the dubious stores of the vintner, by retail.
+
+"I suppose it was her youth and beauty, Sir," I suggested, "that
+made her so rememberable to you. You know she was barely turned
+seventeen when she sung in this country."
+
+"Partly that, no doubt," replied the Consul, "but not altogether,
+nor chiefly. No, Sir, it was her genius which made her beauty so
+glorious. She was wonderfully handsome, though. She was a phantom of
+delight, as that Lake fellow says,"--it was thus profanely that the
+Consul designated the poet Wordsworth, whom he could not abide,--
+"and the best thing he ever said, by Jove!"
+
+"And did you never see her again?" I inquired.
+
+"Once, only," he answered,--"eight or nine years afterwards, a year
+or two before she died. It was at Venice, and in _Norma_. She was
+different, and yet not changed for the worse. There was an
+indescribable look of sadness out of her eyes, that touched one
+oddly and fixed itself in the memory. But she was something apart
+and by herself, and stamped herself on one's mind as Rachel did in
+_Camille_ or _Phèdre_. It was true genius, and no imitation, that
+made both of them what they were. But she actually had the physical
+beauty which Rachel only compelled you to think she had by the force
+of her genius and consummate dramatic skill, while she was on the
+scene before you."
+
+"But do you rank M. ---- with Rachel as a dramatic artist?" I asked.
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered; "but if she had not the studied
+perfection of Rachel, which was always the same and could not be
+altered without harm, she had at least a capacity of impulsive
+self-adaptation about her which made her for the time the character
+she personated,--not always the same, but such as the woman she
+represented might have been in the shifting phases of the passion
+that possessed her. And to think that she died at eight-and-twenty!
+What might not ten years more have made her!"
+
+"It is odd," I observed, "that her fame should be forever connected
+with the name she got by her first unlucky marriage in New York. For
+it was unlucky enough, I believe,--was it not?"
+
+"You may say that," responded the Consul, "without fear of denial or
+qualification. It was disgraceful in its beginning and in its ending.
+It was a swindle on a large scale; and poor Maria G---- was the one
+who suffered the most by the operation."
+
+"I have always heard," said I, "that old G---- was cheated out of
+the price for which he had sold his daughter, and that M. M. ----
+got his wife on false pretences."
+
+"Not altogether so," returned the Consul. "I happen to know all
+about that matter from the best authority. She was obtained on false
+pretences, to be sure, but it was not G---- that suffered by them.
+M. M. ----, moreover, never paid the price agreed upon, and yet G----
+got it for all that."
+
+"Indeed!" I exclaimed, "it must have been a neat operation. I cannot
+exactly see how the thing was done; but I have no doubt a tale hangs
+thereby, and a good one. Is it tellable?"
+
+"I see no reason why not," said the Consul; "the sufferer made no
+secret of it, and I know of no reason why I should. Mynheer Van
+Holland told me the story himself, in Amsterdam, in the year
+'Thirty-five."
+
+"And who was he?" I inquired, "and what had he to do with it?"
+
+"I'll tell you," responded the Consul, filling his glass and passing
+the bottle, "if you will have the goodness to shut the window behind
+you and ring for candles; for it gets chilly here among the
+mountains as soon as the sun is down."
+
+I beg your pardon,--did you make a remark?--Oh, _what mountains_? You
+must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the
+identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient
+reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number,
+you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent,
+from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just where you like. Only
+you must leave a gap to the westward, through which the river--also
+anonymous for the present distress--breaks its way, and which gives
+him half an hour's more sunshine than he would otherwise be entitled
+to, and slope the fields down to its margin near a mile off, with
+their native timber thinned so skilfully as to have the effect of
+the best landscape-gardening. It is a grand and lovely scene; and
+when I look at it, I do not wonder at one of the Consul's apophthegms,
+namely, that the chief advantage of foreign travel is, that it
+teaches you that one place is just as good to live in as another.
+Imagine that the one place he had in his mind at the time was just
+this one. But that is neither here nor there. When candles came, we
+drew our chairs together, and he told me in substance the following
+story. I will tell it in my own words,--not that they are so good as
+his, but because they come more readily to the nib of my pen.
+
+
+II.
+
+New York has grown considerably since she was New Amsterdam, and has
+almost forgotten her whilom dependence on her first godmother. Indeed,
+had it not been for the historic industry of the erudite Diedrich
+Knickerbocker, very few of her sons would know much about the
+obligations of their nursing mother to their old grandame beyond sea,
+in the days of the Dutch dynasty. Still, though the old monopoly has
+been dead these two hundred years, or thereabout, there is I know
+not how many fold more traffic with her than in the days when it was
+in full life and force. Doth not that benefactor of his species,
+Mr. Udolpho Wolfe, derive thence his immortal, or immortalizing,
+Schiedam Schnapps, the virtues whereof, according to his
+advertisements, are fast transferring dram-drinking from the domain
+of pleasure to that of positive duty? Tobacco-pipes, too, and toys,
+such as the friendly saint, whom Protestant children have been
+taught by Dutch tradition to invoke, delights to drop into the
+votive stocking,--they come from the mother city, where she sits
+upon the waters, quite as much a Sea-Cybele as Venice herself. And
+linens, too, fair and fresh and pure as the maidens that weave them,
+come forth from Dutch looms ready to grace our tables or to deck our
+beds. And the mention of these brings me back to my story,--though
+the immediate connection between Holland linen and M. ----'s marriage
+may not at first view be palpable to sight. Still, it is a fact that
+the web of this part of her variegated destiny was spun and woven
+out of threads of flax that took the substantial shape of fine
+Hollands;--and this is the way in which it came to pass.
+
+Mynheer Van Holland, of whom the Consul spoke just now, you must
+understand to have been one of the chief merchants of Amsterdam, a
+city whose merchants are princes and have been kings. His
+transactions extended to all parts of the Old World and did not skip
+over the New. His ships visited the harbor of New York as well as of
+London; and as he died two or three years ago a very rich man, his
+adventures in general must have been more remunerative than the one
+I am going to relate. In the autumn of the year 1825, it seemed good
+to this worthy merchant to despatch a vessel with a cargo chiefly
+made up of linens to the market of New York. The honest man little
+dreamed with what a fate his ship was fraught, wrapped up in those
+flaxen folds. He happened to be in London the Winter before, and was
+present at the _début_ of Maria G---- at the King's Theatre. He must
+have admired the beauty, grace, and promise of the youthful _Rosina_,
+had he been ten times a Dutchman; and if he heard of her intended
+emigration to America, as he possibly might have done, it most likely
+excited no particular emotion in his phlegmatic bosom. He could not
+have imagined that the exportation of a little singing-girl to New
+York should interfere with a potential venture of his own in fair
+linen. The gods kindly hid the future from his eyes, so that he might
+enjoy the comic vexation her lively sallies caused to _Doctor Bartolo_
+in the play, unknowing that she would be the innocent cause of a
+more serious provocation to himself, in downright earnest. He
+thought of this, himself, after it had all happened.
+
+Well, the good ship _Steenbok_ had prosperous gales and fair weather
+across the ocean, and dropped anchor off the Battery with some days
+to spare from the amount due to the voyage. The consignee came off
+and took possession of the cargo, and duly transferred it to his own
+warehouse. Though the advantages of advertising were not as fully
+understood in those days of comparative ignorance as they have been
+since, he duly announced the goods which he had received, and waited
+for a customer. He did not have to wait long. It was but a day or
+two after the appearance of the advertisement in the newspapers that
+he had prime Holland linens on hand, just received from Amsterdam,
+when he was waited upon by a gentleman of good address and evidently
+of French extraction, who inquired of the consignee, whom we will
+call Mr. Schulemberg for the nonce, "whether he had the linens he
+had advertised yet on hand."
+
+"They are still on hand and on sale," said Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"What is the price of the entire consignment?" inquired the customer.
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," responded Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"And the terms?"
+
+"Cash, on delivery."
+
+"Very good," replied the obliging buyer, "if they be of the quality
+you describe in your advertisement, I will take them on those terms.
+Send them down to my warehouse, No. 118 Pearl Street, tomorrow
+morning, and I will send you the money."
+
+"And your name?" inquired Mr. Schulemberg.
+
+"Is M. ----," responded the courteous purchaser.
+
+The two merchants bowed politely, the one to the other, mutually
+well pleased with the morning's work, and bade each other good day.
+
+Mr. Schulemberg knew but little, if anything, about his new customer;
+but as the transaction was to be a cash one, he did not mind that.
+He calculated his commissions, gave orders to his head clerk to see
+the goods duly delivered the next morning, and went on change and
+thence to dinner in the enjoyment of a complacent mind and a good
+appetite.
+
+It is to be supposed that M. M. ---- did the same. At any rate, he
+had the most reason,--at least, according to his probable notions of
+mercantile morality and success.
+
+
+III.
+
+The next day came, and with it came, betimes, the packages of linens
+to M. M. ----'s warehouse in Pearl Street; but the price for the
+same did not come as punctually to Mr. Schulemberg's counting-room,
+according to the contract under which they were delivered. In point
+of fact, M. M. ---- was not in at the time; but there was no doubt
+that he would attend to the matter without delay, as soon as he came
+in. A cash transaction does not necessarily imply so much the instant
+presence of coin as the unequivocal absence of credit. A day or two
+more or less is of no material consequence, only there is to be no
+delay for sales and returns before payment. So Mr. Schulemberg gave
+himself no uneasiness about the matter when two, three, and even five
+and six days had slid away without producing the apparition of the
+current money of the merchant. A man who transacted affairs on so
+large a scale as M. M. ----, and conducted them on the sound basis
+of ready money, might safely be trusted for so short a time. But when
+a week had elapsed and no tidings had been received either of
+purchaser or purchase-money, Mr. Schulemberg thought it time for
+himself to interfere in his own proper person. Accordingly, he
+incontinently proceeded to the counting-house of M. M. ---- to
+receive the promised price or to know the reason why. If he failed
+to obtain the one satisfaction, he at least could not complain of
+being disappointed of the other. Matters seemed to be in some
+little unbusiness-like confusion, and the clerks in a high state
+of gleeful excitement. Addressing himself to the chief among them,
+Mr. Schulemberg asked the pertinent question,--
+
+"Is M. M. ---- in?"
+
+"No, Sir," was the answer, "he is not; and he will not be just at
+present."
+
+"But when will he be in? for I must see him on some pressing
+business of importance."
+
+"Not to-day, Sir," replied the clerk, smiling expressively;
+"he cannot be interrupted to-day on any business of any kind whatever."
+
+"The deuce he can't!" returned Mr. Schulemberg. "I'll see about that
+very soon, I can tell you. He promised to pay me cash for fifty
+thousand dollars' worth of Holland linens a week ago; I have not
+seen the color of his money yet, and I mean to wait no longer. Where
+does he live? for if he be alive, I will see him and hear what he
+has to say for himself, and that speedily."
+
+"Indeed, Sir," pleasantly expostulated the clerk, "I think when you
+understand the circumstances of the case, you will forbear
+disturbing M. M. ---- this day of all others in his life."
+
+"Why, what the devil ails this day above all others," said
+Mr. Schulemberg, somewhat testily, "that he can't see his
+creditors and pay his debts on it?"
+
+"Why, Sir, the fact is," the clerk replied, with an air of interest
+and importance, "it is M. M. ----'s wedding-day. He marries this
+morning the Signorina G----, and I am sure you would not molest him
+with business on such an occasion as that."
+
+"But my fifty thousand dollars!" persisted the consignee, "and why
+have they not been paid?"
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness at all about that, Sir," replied
+the clerk, with the air of one to whom the handling of such trifles
+was a daily occurrence; "M. M. ---- will, of course, attend to that
+matter the moment he is a little at leisure. In fact, I imagine, that,
+in the hurry and bustle inseparable from an event of this nature,
+the circumstance has entirely escaped his mind; but as soon as he
+returns to business again, I will recall it to his recollection, and
+you will hear from him without delay."
+
+The clerk was right in his augury as to the effect his intelligence
+would have upon the creditor. It was not a clerical error on his
+part when he supposed that Mr. Schulemberg would not choose to enact
+the part of skeleton at the wedding breakfast of the young _Prima
+Donna_. There is something about the great events of life, which
+cannot happen a great many times to anybody,--
+
+  "A wedding or a funeral,
+  A mourning or a festival,--"
+
+that touches the strings of the one human heart of us all and makes
+it return no uncertain sound. _Shylock_ himself would hardly have
+demanded his pound of flesh on the wedding-day, had it been _Antonio_
+that was to espouse the fair _Portia_. Even he would have allowed
+three days of grace before demanding the specific performance of his
+bond. Now Mr. Schulemberg was very far from being a Shylock, and he
+was also a constant attendant upon the opera, and a devoted admirer
+of the lovely G----. So he could not wonder that a man on the eve of
+marriage with that divine creature should forget every other
+consideration in the immediate contemplation of his happiness,--even
+if it were the consideration for a cargo of prime linens, and one to
+the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And it is altogether likely that
+the mundane reflection occurred to him, and made him easier in his
+mind under the delay, that old G---- was by no means the kind of man
+to give away a daughter who dropped gold and silver from her sweet
+lips whenever she opened them in public, as the princess in the
+fairy-tale did pearls and diamonds, to any man who could not give
+him a solid equivalent in return. So that, in fact, he regarded the
+notes of the Signorina G---- as so much collateral security for his
+debt.
+
+So Mr. Schulemberg was content to bide his reasonable time for the
+discharge of M. M. ----'s indebtedness to his principal. He had
+advised Mynheer Van Holland of the speedy sale of his consignment,
+and given him hopes of a quick return of the proceeds. But as days
+wore away, it seemed to him that the time he was called on to bide
+was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision
+exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet
+influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted
+that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in
+peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of
+earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my
+readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their
+own notions of the proprieties of the case. But at the proper time,
+after patience had thrown up in disgust the office of a virtue, he
+took his hat and cane one fine morning and walked down to No. 118,
+Pearl Street, for the double purpose of wishing M. M. ---- joy of
+his marriage and of receiving the price, promised long and long
+withheld, of the linens which form the tissue of my story.
+
+  "The gods gave ear and granted half his prayer;
+  The rest the winds dispersed in empty air."
+
+There was not the slightest difficulty about his imparting
+his epithalamic congratulation,--but as to his receiving the
+numismatic consideration for which he hoped in return, that was
+an entirely different affair. He found matters in the Pearl-Street
+counting-house again apparently something out of joint, but with a
+less smiling and sunny atmosphere pervading them than he had remarked
+on his last visit. He was received by M. M. ---- with courtesy, a
+little over-strained, perhaps, and not as flowing and gracious as at
+their first interview. Preliminaries over, Mr. Schulemberg, plunging
+with epic energy into the midst of things, said, "I have called,
+M. M. ----, to receive the fifty thousand dollars, which, you will
+remember, you engaged to pay down for the linens I sold you on such
+a day. I can make allowance for the interruption which has prevented
+your attending to this business sooner, but it is now high time that
+it were settled."
+
+"I consent to it all, Monsieur," replied M. M. ----, with a
+deprecatory gesture; "you have reason, and I am desolated that it is
+the impossible that you ask of me to do."
+
+"How, Sir!" demanded the creditor; "what do you mean by the
+impossible? You do not mean to deny that you agreed to pay cash for
+the goods?"
+
+"My faith, no, Monsieur," shruggingly responded M. M. ----;
+"I avow it; you have reason; I promised to pay the money, as you say
+it; but if I have not the money to pay you, how can I pay you the
+money? What to do?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Sir," returned Mr. Schulemberg. "You have
+not the money? And you do not mean to pay me according to agreement?"
+
+"But, Monsieur, how can I when I have not money? Have you not heard
+that I have made--what you call it?--failure, yesterday? I am
+grieved of it, thrice sensibly; but if it went of my life, I could
+not pay you for your fine linens, which were of a good market at the
+price."
+
+"Indeed, sir," replied Mr. Schulemberg, "I had not heard of your
+misfortunes; and I am heartily sorry for them, on my own account and
+yours, but still more on account of your charming wife. But there is
+no great harm done, after all. Send the linens back to me and
+accounts shall be square between us, and I will submit to the loss
+of the interest."
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur, you are too good, and Madame will be recognizant
+to you forever for your gracious politeness. But, my God, it is
+impossible that I return to you the linen. I have sold it, Monsieur,
+I have sold it all!"
+
+"Sold it?" reiterated Mr. Schulemberg, regardless of the rules of
+etiquette, "Sold it? And to whom, pray? And when?"
+
+"To M. G----, my father-in-the-law," answered the catechumen, blandly;
+"and it is a week that he has received it."
+
+"Then I must bid you a good morning, Sir," said Mr. Schulemberg,
+rising hastily and collecting his hat and gloves, "for I must lose
+no time in taking measures to recover the goods before they have
+changed hands again."
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted the poor, but honest M. ----,
+"but it is too late! One cannot regain them. M. G---- embarked
+himself for Mexico yesterday morning, and carried them all with him!"
+
+Imagine the consternation and rage of poor Mr. Schulemberg at
+finding that he was sold, though the goods were not! I decline
+reporting the conversation any farther, lest its strength of
+expression and force of expletive might be too much for the more
+queasy of my readers. Suffice it to say, that the _swindlee_, if I
+may be allowed the royalty of coining a word, at once freed his own
+mind and imprisoned the body of M. M. ----; for in those days
+imprisonment for debt was a recognized institution, and I think few
+of its strongest opponents will deny that this was a case to which
+it was no abuse to apply it.
+
+
+IV.
+
+I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in
+captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which
+beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my
+hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he
+obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being
+entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of
+him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though
+that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his
+young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice
+into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be
+told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another
+matrimonial venture in partnership with De B----. I have nothing to
+do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the
+object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and
+here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not
+quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising
+_impresario_, Signor G----, who had so deftly turned his daughter
+into a ship-load of fine linens.
+
+This excellent person sailed, as M. M. ---- told Mr. Schulemberg, for
+Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers,
+and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage
+was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion
+could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as
+he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a
+whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow
+of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties
+was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of
+linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest
+sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous
+height. So the good G---- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing
+the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the
+same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost
+price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and
+having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in
+those latitudes, Signor G---- set forth for the Aztec City. As the
+relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory
+footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry
+his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither
+was a triumphal procession. Not Cortés, not General Scott, himself,
+marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads
+from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song.
+Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and
+from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the
+vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
+
+Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most
+populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself
+master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine
+love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few
+opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G----
+was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished
+singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit,
+if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and,
+though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give
+them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the
+intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Señoras and
+Señoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their
+fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very
+pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds
+and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give
+pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and
+hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their
+private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself
+never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer
+hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the
+portly person of the happy G----. Saturated at length with the
+golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,--if, indeed, singer
+were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable
+forever like a sieve of the Danaides,--saturated, or satisfied that
+it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back
+again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going,
+and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his
+safe return.
+
+But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints
+were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not
+hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate,
+they did not take that care of the worthy G---- which their devotees
+had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the
+Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on
+his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit
+to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his
+linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the
+vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native
+Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared
+onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy
+of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to
+the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road
+turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a
+dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind
+intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the
+_impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature
+of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into
+the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men
+whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the
+intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in
+this case, as Signor G---- was a Spaniard by birth, and their
+expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for
+speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very
+little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
+
+Now Signor G---- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his
+operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were
+perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense.
+Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights,
+pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of
+explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now
+saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe,
+and, in the opinion of Signor G----, at least, very much inferior to
+it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped,
+these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and
+weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the
+two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between
+Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed
+induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's
+fancy-dress breakfast,--for this integument, I say, these minions of
+the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in
+preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic
+cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new
+Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away,
+these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their
+thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough
+sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the
+ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy
+travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so
+they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there
+they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in
+their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while
+their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
+
+There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it
+was entirely unequal to the emergency,--even if it were not, as was
+afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy
+had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was
+nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or
+to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily
+administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,--as the King
+of France, by virtue of his _Droit d'Aubaine_, would have
+confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in
+spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced
+to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G----
+had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly
+rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely
+chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new
+acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking
+open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved
+doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever
+felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers
+to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his
+pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the
+sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished
+from the shirt-frills,--for in those days studs were not,--and the
+rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining
+testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the
+celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road.
+Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on
+at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good
+Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and
+Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as
+he professed to feel.
+
+At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the
+spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they
+should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic
+seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their
+utmost, and poor G---- and his companions in misery stood in the
+centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their
+backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the
+victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their
+toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded
+Signor G---- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he
+had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself
+directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and
+spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea
+was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized
+results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were
+unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him
+some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued.
+Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground,
+a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G---- for a song.
+A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a
+stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for
+the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a
+tyring-room," as poor G---- had no clothes to change for those he
+stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their
+captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the
+task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would
+brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor
+sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would
+avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated,
+the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in
+expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
+
+So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold,"
+before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was
+one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening
+began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a
+glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he
+delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,--that the tenor himself
+could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held
+the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and
+applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of
+their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or
+dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving
+singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would
+be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his
+meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or
+Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would
+sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just
+lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It
+was lucky for the unfortunate G---- that their approbation took this
+solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all
+he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating
+audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many
+encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook
+themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their
+patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket
+as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two
+furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for
+Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
+
+And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering
+for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G---- received the
+price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing,
+and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his
+losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes;
+but then it is equally true that M. M. ---- actually obtained his
+wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this
+can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest
+I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle," in my mind.
+I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am
+quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so
+comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical
+or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the
+reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only
+undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,--
+and I have done it.
+
+
+V.
+
+"I consider that a good story," said the Consul, when he had
+finished the narration out of which I have compounded the foregoing,--
+"and, what is not always the case with a good story, it is a true one."
+
+I cordially concurred with my honored friend in this opinion, and if
+the reader should unfortunately differ from me on this point, I beg
+him to believe that it is entirely my fault. As the Consul told it
+to me, it was an excellent good story.
+
+"Poor Mynheer Van Holland," he added, laughing, "never got over that
+adventure. Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich
+for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to
+a parcel of Mexican _ladrones_, after buying an opera-singer for a
+Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to
+the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or
+opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don't
+wonder at it!"
+
+Nor I, neither, for the matter of that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO RIVERS.
+
+  Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
+  Repeats the music of the rain;
+  But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
+  Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
+
+  Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
+  The stream I love unbounded goes
+  Through flood and sea and firmament;
+  Through light, through life, it forward flows.
+
+  I see the inundation sweet,
+  I hear the spending of the stream
+  Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
+  Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
+
+  Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
+  Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
+  They lose their grief who hear his song,
+  And where he winds is the day of day.
+
+  So forth and brighter fares my stream,--
+  Who drink it shall not thirst again;
+  No darkness stains its equal gleam,
+  And ages drop in it like rain.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL.
+
+  [The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round
+  again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made since
+  the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to remember
+  this is _talk_; just as easy and just as formal as I choose to make
+  it.]
+
+--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did
+not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (_Felis Catus_,
+LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand.
+
+But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an
+author he is _droll_. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does,
+be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you
+_cried_ over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and
+send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in
+private.
+
+--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--
+Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The
+clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but
+with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion
+never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a
+procession.
+
+If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to
+tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit--
+using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in a
+partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a
+single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any
+intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the
+province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the
+prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight. A
+pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much shallower trick
+in mental optics; throwing the _shadows_ of two objects so that one
+overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects,
+but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of
+truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little further?
+
+[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape
+the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all
+must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that Proserpina's
+cutting the yellow hair had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,
+and that breakfast was over.]
+
+--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say
+disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer
+you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and
+courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave
+your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are
+ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding _never_ forgets that
+_amour-propre_ is universal. When you read the story of the
+Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor old
+man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater fool
+of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in
+turning him out of doors.
+
+--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find
+everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly
+mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I
+once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for
+its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken
+ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should have
+shown up the Professor, who had once belabored me in his feeble way,
+but one can generally tell these wholesale thieves easily enough,
+and they are not worth the trouble of putting them in the pillory. I
+doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made on telling
+unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny.
+
+Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some
+persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly
+stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is
+precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but
+perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat
+sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say, that,
+just as music must have all these, so conversation must have its
+partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths. It
+is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal
+element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little too
+literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of _esprit_.--
+"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense?
+Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"--Certainly, if a man
+is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and empty,--if, instead
+of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords,
+often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of
+thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords,
+stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking is
+one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most important, and the most
+difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the
+intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore conversation which is
+suggestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the most of
+each talker's results of thought, is commonly the pleasantest and
+the most profitable. It is not easy, at the best, for two persons
+talking together to make the most of each other's thoughts, there
+are so many of them.
+
+[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
+
+When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is
+natural enough that among the six there should be more or less
+confusion and misapprehension.
+
+[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw
+loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a
+boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a
+sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand
+to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded,
+with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of
+the mouth, and somewhat rasping _voce di petto_, to Falstaff's nine
+men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman
+opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate,
+he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]
+
+I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that
+there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as
+taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
+
+                   {1. The real John; known only
+                   {   to his Maker.
+                   {
+                   {2. John's ideal John; never the
+  Three Johns      {   real one, and often very unlike him.
+                   {
+                   {3. Thomas's ideal John; never
+                   {   the real John, nor John's
+                   {   John, but often very unlike
+                   {   either.
+
+                   {1. The real Thomas.
+  Three Thomases.  {2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.
+                   {3. John's ideal Thomas
+
+
+Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a
+platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the
+conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and
+ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the
+gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly
+conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks
+from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to
+be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as
+Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue,
+though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the
+three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows
+himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him,
+there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between
+two. Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the
+one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants
+often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening
+all at the same time.
+
+[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by
+a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at
+table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known
+to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _viâ_ this unlettered
+Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,
+remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him
+that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
+mean time he had eaten the peaches.]
+
+--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly
+of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh
+and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as
+likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of
+considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what
+florists style the _breaking_ of a seedling tulip into what we may
+call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one with
+the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in old
+Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the seckel pear,
+which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise,--
+there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that twice
+two make _five_. Nature is fond of what are called "gift-enterprises."
+This little book of life which she has given into the hands of its
+joint possessors is commonly one of the old story-books bound over
+again. Only once in a great while there is a stately poem in it, or
+its leaves are illuminated with the glories of art, or they enfold a
+draft for untold values signed by the millionfold millionnaire old
+mother herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find the
+"gift" that came with the little book.
+
+It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own
+flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still
+more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of
+any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his
+own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one
+remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for
+exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
+self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just
+stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found in
+the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what your
+cousins, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about
+the fine poem you have written, but send it (postage paid) to the
+editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the way, is
+not so called because it is a _notion_, as some dull wits wish they
+had said, but are too late.
+
+--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled
+with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,
+peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them
+are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps;
+they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet
+assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly
+the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what
+he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who
+deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a
+mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a
+hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision
+with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional,
+incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of
+things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal
+with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature;
+only in a less degree. Every probability--and most of our common,
+working beliefs are probabilities--is provided with _buffers_ at
+both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing
+against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy,
+no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the minds that
+handle these forms of truth.
+
+--Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most
+gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preëminent in the
+ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But
+mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force
+enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen
+most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only
+in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a
+certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the
+sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an
+attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and
+appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash
+man stuck to his hasty generalization, notwithstanding.
+
+[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated
+in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of
+music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned
+before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked
+barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes
+add my vocal powers to her execution of:
+
+  "Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom,"--
+
+not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is
+present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken a
+good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to,
+sometimes called B.F. or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that
+felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted
+by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is
+very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris,
+which is awkward, as B.F. devoted himself to it with the peculiar
+advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well,
+between us, notwithstanding. The following is an _uncorrected_ French
+exercise, written by this young gentleman. His mother thinks it very
+creditable to his abilities; though, being unacquainted with the
+French language, her judgment cannot be considered final.
+
+  LE RAT DES SALONS À LECTURE.
+
+  Ce rat çi est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de derrière
+  sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il fait
+  usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a le peau noir pour le
+  plupart, et porte un cercle blanchâtre autour de son cou. On le
+  trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, digere, s'il y
+  a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue, dort, et
+  ronfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblance de lire. On ne sait
+  pas s'il a une autre gite que celà. Il a l'air d'une bête très
+  stupide, mais il est d'une sagacité et d'une vitesse extraordinaire
+  quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne sait pas
+  pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idées. Il
+  vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers.
+  Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel
+  il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des livres,
+  semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas cependant les
+  prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole pas, ordinairement;
+  il fait rarement même des echanges de parapluie, et jamais de chapeau,
+  parceque son chapeau a toujours un caractère specifique. On ne sait
+  pas au juste ce dont il se nourrit. Feu Cuvier était d'avis que
+  c'etait de l'odeur du cuir des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une
+  nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chère. Il vit bien longtems.
+  Enfin il meure, en laissant à ses héritiers une carte du Salon à
+  Lecture ou il avait existé pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient
+  toutes les nuits, après la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir,
+  dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir,
+  et ayant à sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des
+  caractères inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le
+  spiritulisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professors de Cambridge
+  sont des imbeçiles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.
+
+I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be
+touched in any way, is very creditable to B.F. You observe that he
+is acquiring a knowledge of zoölogy at the same time that he is
+learning French. Fathers of families who take this periodical will
+find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode of
+instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's exercise.
+The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire Naturelle des
+Bêtes Ruminans et Rougeurs, Bipèdes et Autres," lately published in
+Paris. This was translated into English and published in London. It
+was republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and additions by the
+American editor. The notes consist of an interrogation-mark on page
+53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" by the
+same hand. The additions consist of the editor's name on the
+title-page and back, with a complete and authentic list of said
+editor's honorary titles in the first of these localities. Our boy
+translated the translation back into French. This may be compared
+with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division X, of the
+Public Library of this metropolis.]
+
+--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a
+story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering
+each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the
+wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by
+the piece and by the bale.
+
+That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for
+one novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a
+cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that
+many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that
+are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing
+in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that all
+records of human experience are as so many bound _herbaria_ to the
+innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing, fragrance-laden,
+poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling leaves and flowers of
+the forest and the prairies. All we can do with books of human
+experience is to make them alive again with something borrowed from
+our own lives. We can make a book alive for us just in proportion to
+its resemblance in essence or in form to our own experience. Now an
+author's first novel is naturally drawn, to a great extent, from his
+personal experiences; that is, is a literal copy of nature under
+various slight disguises. But the moment the author gets out of his
+personality, he must have the creative power, as well as the
+narrative art and the sentiment, in order to tell a living story;
+and this is rare.
+
+Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall
+clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives, though
+their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, drop
+a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. Oftentimes a
+single _cradling_ gets them all, and after that the poor man's labor
+is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which proves that I,
+as an individual of the human family, could write one novel or story
+at any rate, if I would.
+
+--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it. In
+the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain that
+verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and rhyme
+and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the fire of
+imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness of a
+heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in the
+luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A beauty
+shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the glitter of her
+diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms and shoulders
+laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain calico, she would
+be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies.
+
+Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I
+should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am
+afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they
+have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I am
+pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories among us
+there is hardly one I can recall that has not drawn too faithfully
+some living portrait that might better have been spared.
+
+Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull
+to write such a story as I should wish to write.
+
+And finally, I think it very likely I _shall_ write a story one of
+these days. Don't be surprised at anytime, if you see me coming out
+with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite."
+
+[_Our_ schoolmistress and _our_ old gentleman that sits opposite
+had left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing
+the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write
+when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the
+reputation they might have made!
+
+----I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being
+too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you
+meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark that may hereafter
+prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has been led
+by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or herself
+possessed of talent arrives at the full and final conclusion that he
+or she is really dull, it is one of the most tranquillizing and
+blessed convictions that can enter a mortal's mind. All our failures,
+our short-comings, our strange disappointments in the effect of our
+efforts are lifted from our bruised shoulders, and fall, like
+Christian's pack, at the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit
+to deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, with which one
+look may overflow us in some wider sphere of being.
+
+----How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate
+books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not learned,
+of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better
+than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge of the
+world and society, but certainly not clever either in the arts or
+sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I did not
+recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so distinctly as
+I did simplicity of character and fearless acknowledgment of his
+inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think there are a great many
+gentlemen and others, who read with a mark to keep their place, that
+really "hate books," but never had the wit to find it out, or the
+manliness to own it.
+
+[_Entre nous_, I always read with a mark.]
+
+We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual man"
+was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or thereabouts,
+of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if he is actually
+so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a strong solution
+of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best worth reading, as
+hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If I were a prince, I
+would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, in which I would steep
+all the leaves of new books that promised well. The infusion would do
+for me without the vegetable fibre. You understand me; I would have
+a person whose sole business should be to read day and night, and
+talk to me whenever I wanted him to. I know the man I would have: a
+quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive fellow; knows history, or at any
+rate has a shelf full of books about it, which he can use handily,
+and the same of all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common
+plots of plays and novels, and the stock company of characters that
+are continually coming on in new costume; can give you a criticism
+of an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it;
+cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in what he says;
+delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the
+disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as
+tender and reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is;
+of a new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In
+short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to
+make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal
+compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another pawn,
+in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would of
+course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide.
+In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase,
+"put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered,
+warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on
+his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of shutting it off at will.
+
+A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with
+about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of
+the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A
+dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of
+civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the
+senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by well-studied
+artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into their natural
+attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a short jacket.
+
+The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take for
+granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out; nothing
+short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies their dull
+apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble game! White
+stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red says, Mate in six
+moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over. Just so in talking
+with first-rate men; especially when they are good-natured and
+expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That blessed clairvoyance
+which sees into things without opening them,--that glorious license,
+which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from its key-hole,
+calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to get off from her pedestal and
+drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant
+place on the _medius lectus_,--that carnival-shower of questions and
+replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like
+bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping
+its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of
+_bon-bons_ pelting everybody that shows himself,--the picture of a
+truly intellectual banquet is one that the old Divinities might well
+have attempted to reproduce in their----
+
+----"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--
+"that is from one of your lectures!"
+
+I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.
+
+  "The trail of the serpent is over them all!"
+
+All lecturers, all professors, all school-masters, have ruts and
+grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually
+sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still June
+evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum of air,
+and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere beyond?
+Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay,--where
+the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating the "Metropolitan"
+boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a narrow, local
+gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little underdone, through
+which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to bring you back
+to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just so, in talking
+with any of the characters above referred to, one not unfrequently
+finds a sudden change in the style of the conversation. The
+lack-lustre eye, rayless as a Beacon-Street door-plate in August,
+all at once fills with light; the face flings itself wide open like
+the church-portals when the bride and bridegroom enter; the little
+man grows in stature before your eyes, like the small prisoner with
+hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of early childhood; you were
+talking with a dwarf and an imbecile,--you have a giant and a
+trumpet-tongued angel before you!----Nothing but a streak out of a
+fifty-dollar lecture.----As when, at some unlooked-for moment, the
+mighty fountain-column springs into the air before the astonished
+passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from
+the bosom of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet
+batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less amiable and less
+elevated order of _reptilia_ in other latitudes.
+
+----Who was that person that was so abused some time since for
+saying that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go
+with the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on
+in India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned,
+inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and
+American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful
+questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come out
+most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that the
+human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does the
+same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The India
+mail brings stories of women and children outraged and murdered; the
+royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. England takes
+down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with empire, and
+makes a correction thus:
+
+[Strike-out: DELHI]. _Dele_.
+
+The civilized world says, Amen.
+
+----Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly,
+that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them
+and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes
+and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did
+with their _melas oinos_,--that black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which
+they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream.
+
+[Could it have been _melasses_, as Webster and his provincials
+spell it,--or _Molossa's_, as dear old smattering, chattering,
+would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"?
+Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights
+of learning in "Notes and Queries"!--ye Historical Societies, in one
+of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while
+other hands tug at the oars!--ye Amines of parasitical literature,
+who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having
+gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe
+speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!]
+
+----Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses.
+You will understand by the title that they are written in an
+imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man
+well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on
+_a priori_ grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There
+is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a
+soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and
+nurtured it; that its mysterious _compages_ or frame-work has
+survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity;
+that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the
+traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial clothing;
+that he will, having all the world to choose from, select the very
+locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It
+builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that
+Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in
+every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.--Now hear the
+verses.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN DREAMS.
+
+  O for one hour of youthful joy!
+    Give back my twentieth spring!
+  I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
+    Than reign a gray-beard king!
+
+  Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
+    Away with learning's crown!
+  Tear out life's wisdom-written page,
+    And dash its trophies down!
+
+  One moment let my life-blood stream
+    From boyhood's fount of flame!
+  Give me one giddy, reeling dream
+    Of life all love and fame!
+
+  --My listening angel heard the prayer,
+    And calmly smiling, said,
+  "If I but touch thy silvered hair,
+    Thy hasty wish hath sped."
+
+  "But is there nothing in thy track
+    To bid thee fondly stay,
+  While the swift seasons hurry back
+    To find the wished-for day?"
+
+  --Ah, truest soul of womankind!
+    Without thee, what were life?
+  One bliss I cannot leave behind:
+    I'll take--my--precious--wife!
+
+  --The angel took a sapphire pen
+    And wrote in rainbow dew,
+  "The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a husband too!"
+
+  --"And is there nothing yet unsaid
+    Before the change appears?
+  Remember, all their gifts have fled
+    With those dissolving years!"
+
+  Why, yes; for memory would recall
+    My fond paternal joys;
+  I could not bear to leave them all:
+    I'll take--my--girl--and--boys!
+
+  The smiling angel dropped his pen,--
+    "Why this will never do;
+  The man would be a boy again,
+    And be a father too!"
+
+  And so I laughed,--my laughter woke
+    The household with its noise,--
+  And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
+    To please the gray-haired boys.
+
+
+
+
+AGASSIZ'S NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+  _Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of
+  America_. By LOUIS AGASSIZ. Vols. I. and II. Boston: Little,
+  Brown & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1857.
+
+The Great Professor has given the first Monograph of his _Magnum Opus_
+to the Great Republic and the wider realm of Science. The learned
+world resolves itself into committees to consider every important
+work; claiming leave to sit for as long a time as they choose,--for
+years, or for a whole generation. Every alleged fact is to be
+verified or cancelled or qualified, every inference to be measured
+over and over again by its premises, every proposition to be tried
+by all the tests that can prove its strength or weakness, and the
+whole to be marshalled to the place it may claim in the alcoves of
+the universal library. No hasty opinion can anticipate this final
+and peremptory judgment. Its elements must of necessity be gathered
+slowly from many and scattered sources. The accumulated learning of
+the great centres of civilization, the patient investigation of
+plodding observers, the keen insight of subtile analysts, the
+jealous clairvoyance of dissentient theorists, the oblique glances
+of suspicious sister-sciences, the random flashes that skepticism
+throws from her faithless mirror to dazzle all eyes that seek for
+truth; through such a varied and protracted ordeal must every record
+that embodies long and profound observation, large and lofty thought,
+reach the golden _Imprimatur_ which is its warrant for immortality.
+
+The work of Mr. Agassiz, if we may judge it by the portion now
+before us, has a right to challenge such a matured opinion, and to
+wait for it. Not the less does a certain duty belong to us as
+literary journalists with reference to these stately volumes, which
+are in the hands of thousands, learned and unlearned, and of which
+there are scores of thousands waiting to hear. Our duty we consider
+to be four-fold: first, that of recognition in terms of fitting
+courtesy; secondly, of analysis for the general reader; thirdly, of
+accentuation, so to speak, of what seems most widely applicable or
+interesting; and lastly, of making such comments as so pregnant a
+text may suggest.
+
+And first, of recognition. Here are the fruits of ten years of
+patient labor, taken out of the heart of life, in the age of vigor,
+which is that of ambition,--to use the phrase of another great
+observer,--by a man of large endowments and of vast knowledge,
+assisted by skilful collaborators, by finished artists, by the
+counsels and liberality of the learned few, and the generous
+countenance of the intelligent many. Before analysis, before
+criticism, there should be uttered a welcome; not grudging, not
+envious of an overshadowing reputation, not over-curious in
+searching for qualifications to abate its warmth, not carefully
+taming down its enthusiasm to tepid formalisms; but full-souled and
+free-spoken, such as all noble works and deeds should claim.
+
+The learned men of past centuries have left us an example of this
+treatment of authors, in those gratulatory verses with which they
+were wont to hail every considerable literary or scientific
+performance. They knew human nature well. They knew that the author,
+when he quenches the lamp over which he has grown haggard and pale,
+and steps from his cell into daylight and the chill outside air,
+longs, longs unutterably, for kind words, and the cheering
+fellowship of kindred souls; and with instinctive grace they chose
+the poetical form of expression, simply because this alone gives
+full license to the lips of friendship.
+
+This old folio which stands by us is not precious only because it
+contains the quaint wisdom and manifold experience of Ambroise Paré,
+mingled with his credulous gossip, and again sweetened by his simple
+reverence; not precious alone because it contains the noblest words
+ever uttered by one of his profession,--_Ie le pensay et Dieu le
+guarit_; but also because PIERRE RONSARD, the "Poet of France," has
+left his deathless name thrice inscribed in its earlier pages at the
+foot of tributes to its author.
+
+And here in the next century comes Schenck of Grafenberg, staggering
+under his monstrous volume of "Casus Rariores,"--ready to fall
+fainting by the wayside, when lo! the shining ones meet him too, and
+lift him and lighten him with the utterance of these _fifty-one_
+distinct poems which we see hung up on so many votive tablets at the
+entrance of this miniature Babel of Science.
+
+Even so late as the last century the genial custom survived; for our
+worthy Stalpart van der Wiel, whose little pair of volumes was
+published in 1727, can boast of twenty-two pages of well-ordered
+commendatory verse, much of it in his native Dutch,--a little of
+which goes a good way with all except Batavian readers.
+
+But as the "Arundines Cami," musical as they are, have lent no
+prelude to these harmonies of science, we must say in a few plain
+words of prose our own first thought as to the work the commencement
+of which lies before us. We believe, that, if completed according to
+its promise, it is to be one of the monumental labors of our century.
+Comparisons are not to be lightly instituted, and especially under
+circumstances that do not allow a fair survey of the whole field
+from which the objects to be compared are to be taken. We suppose,
+however, it will be conceded that the sunset continent has never
+witnessed anything like the inception of this mighty task in the way
+of systematic natural science. And if, since Cuvier, the greatest of
+naturalists, as Mr. Agassiz considers him, slept with the fossils to
+which he had given life, there has been any other student of Nature
+who has attempted a task so immense, with the same union of observing,
+reflecting, analyzing, and coördinating power, we cannot name him.
+Our civilization has a right to be proud of such an accession to its
+thinking and laboring constituency; it is also bound to be grateful
+for it, and to express its gratitude.
+
+It is just one hundred years since another Swiss, the magnificent
+Albert von Haller, gave to the world the first volume of the
+"Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani." Nine years afterwards, in
+1766, the last of the eight volumes appeared; and the vast structure,
+which embodied his untiring study of Nature, his world-wide erudition,
+his deepest thought, his highest imaginings, his holiest aspirations,
+stood, like the Alps whose shadow fell upon its birthplace, the
+lovely Lausaune, pride of the Pays de Vaud. The clepsydrae that
+measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs--the
+glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a
+shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each
+revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the
+summer's sun--have registered a new centennial circle, and at the
+very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient
+renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of
+another of her honored children. May the auspicious omen lead to as
+happy a conclusion!
+
+Lovingly, then, we lay open the generous quarto and look upon its
+broad, bright title-page. It tells us that we have here the first of
+a series of "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States of America." We see that one of its three parts embraces the
+largest generalities of Natural Science, under the head of an
+"Essay on Classification." We see that the other two parts are
+devoted to the description and delineation of a single order of
+Reptilia,--the Testudinata, or "Turtles."
+
+If Mr. Agassiz had intentionally chosen the simplest way of proving
+that he had naturalized himself in New England, he could not have
+selected more fortunately than he has done by adopting our word
+_Turtle_ to cover all the Testudinates. To an Englishman a turtle
+is a sea-monster, that for a brief space lies on his back and fights
+the air with his useless paddles in the bow-window of a
+provision-shop, bound eventually to Guildhall, there to feed Gog and
+Magog, or his worshippers, known as aldermen. For him a
+land-testudinate is a _tortoise_. When his poets and romancers speak
+of turtles, again, they commonly mean turtle-_doves_.
+
+  "Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies
+  That drives a turtle through the liquid skies."
+
+The only flight of a testudinate which we remember is that downward
+one of the unfortunate tortoise that cracked the bald crown of
+Aeschylus. But turtle, as embracing all chelonians, or, as liberal
+shepherds call it, "turkle," is unquestionably Cisatlantic. The
+distinguished naturalist has made himself an American citizen by
+adopting our own expression, and should have the freedom of all our
+cities presented to him in the shell of a box-TURTLE.
+
+It is singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the
+testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and
+sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury,
+as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise
+that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world.
+Under the _testudo_ the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities
+of the _orbis terrarum_. And in that wise old fable which childhood
+learns, and age too often remembers, sorrowing, it was the tortoise
+that won the race against the swiftest of the smaller tribes, his
+competitor.
+
+And here once more we have his shell strung with vibrating thoughts
+that repeat the harmonies of nature. Once more his broad back stoops
+to the weighty problems which the planet proposes to its children.
+Once more the great cities are stormed--by science--beneath his coat
+of mail. Once more he has run the race, not against the hare only,
+but the whole animal kingdom, and won it, and with it the new fame
+which awaits him, as he leads in the long array of his fellows that
+are to come up, one by one, in these enduring records. And so we
+turn the leaf, and come to the DEDICATION.
+
+The Dedication of a work like this, destined to preserve all the
+names it enrols in the sculpture-like immortality of science,
+naturally delays us for a moment. Of the foreign teacher and friend
+to whom the author owes some of his earliest lessons, and of that
+group of our own citizens, most of them still living, who lent their
+united efforts to the enterprise of publication after it was
+commenced, we need not speak individually. But we cannot pass over
+the name of FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY without a word of grateful
+remembrance for one who was the friend and adviser of the author
+in planning the publication of the work before us. We who remember
+his varied culture, his large and fluent discourse, with its
+formidable accuracy of knowledge and gracious suavity of utterance,
+his taste in literature and art, which made his home a suite of
+princely cabinets, his generous and elegant hospitality, which
+scholars and artists knew so well,--counting him as the peer, and in
+many points the more than peer of such as the wide world of letters
+is proud to claim,--are pleased to see that his cherished name will
+be read by the students of unborn generations on the first leaf of
+this noble record of the science of our own.
+
+The PREFACE which follows the Dedication is full of grateful
+acknowledgments to the many friends of science, in all parts of the
+country, who came forward to lend their aid in various forms,
+especially in collecting and transmitting specimens from the
+most widely remote sections of the continent. The pious zeal of
+Mr. Winthrop Sargent, who brought a cargo of living turtles more
+than a thousand miles to the head-quarters of testudinous learning
+at Cambridge, is only paralleled by the memorable act of the Pisans
+in transporting ship-loads of holy soil from Palestine to fill their
+Campo Santo. Genius is marked by nothing more distinctly than that
+it makes the world its tributary. He from whose lips it speaks has
+but to look calmly into the eyes of dull routine, of jaded toil, of
+fickle childhood, and utter the words, "Follow me." Custom-house
+officials close their books, tired fishermen leave their nets,
+riotous boys forsake their play, to do the master's bidding. Is he
+making collections for some great purpose of study? Piece by piece
+the fragmentary spoils flow in upon him, of all sizes, shapes, and
+hues; a chaos of confused riches, perhaps only a wealth of rubbish,
+as they lie at his feet. One by one they fall into harmonious
+relations, until the meaningless heap has become a vast mosaic,
+where nothing is too minute to fill some interstice, nothing too
+angular to fit some corner, nothing so dull or brilliant of tint
+that it will not furnish its fraction of light or shadow. Such has
+been the history of those years of labor the results of which these
+volumes present to us. Whatever may have been said of the devotion
+of our countrymen to material interests, the wise and winning lips
+had only to speak, and such a currency of _plastrons_ and _carapaces_
+was set in circulation, that the contemplative stranger who saw the
+mighty coinage of Chelonia flowing in upon Cambridge might well have
+thought that the national idea was not the Almighty Dollar, but the
+Almighty Turtle.
+
+Mr. Agassiz places a high estimate on the intelligence as well as
+the kind spirit of his adopted countrymen. "There is not a class of
+learned men here," he says, "distinct from the other cultivated
+members of the community. On the contrary, so general is the desire
+for knowledge, that I expect to see my book read by operatives, by
+fishermen, by farmers, quite as extensively as by the students of
+our colleges, or by the learned professions; and it is but proper
+that I should endeavor to make myself understood by all."
+
+The deficiencies of our scientific libraries, and the want of a
+class of elementary works upon Natural History, such as are widely
+circulated in Europe, are adverted to and alleged as a reason for
+entering into details which the professional naturalist might think
+misplaced.
+
+We quote one paragraph entire from the Preface, as not susceptible
+of being abridged, and as briefly stating those general facts with
+regard to the work which all our readers must desire to know.
+
+  "I have a few words more to say respecting the two first volumes,
+  now ready for publication. Considering the uncertainty of human life,
+  I have wished to bring out at once a work that would exemplify the
+  nature of the investigations I have been tracing during the last ten
+  years, and show what is likely to be the character of the whole
+  series. I have aimed, therefore, in preparing these two volumes, to
+  combine them in such a manner as that they should form a whole. The
+  First Part contains an exposition of the general views I have
+  arrived at thus far, in my studies of Natural History. The Second
+  Part shows how I have attempted to apply these results to the
+  special study of Zoology, taking the order of Testudinata as an
+  example. I believe, that, in America, where turtles are everywhere
+  common, and greatly diversified, a student could not make a better
+  beginning than by a careful perusal of this part, specimens in hand,
+  with constant reference to the second chapter of the First Part. The
+  Third Part exemplifies the bearing of Embryology upon these general
+  questions, while it contains the fullest illustration of the
+  embryonic growth of the Testudinata."
+
+The Preface closes with honorable mention of the gentlemen who have
+furnished direct assistance in the preparation of the work, and
+especially of Mr. Clark in microscopic observation and illustration,
+and of Mr. Sonrel in drawing the zoological figures.
+
+The LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS is not without its special meaning and
+interest. If, as has been said, the grade of civilization in any
+community can be estimated by the amount of sulphuric acid it
+consumes, the extent to which a work like this has been called for
+in different sections of the country may to some extent be
+considered an index of its intellectual aspirations, if not of its
+actual progress. This is especially true of those remoter regions
+where personal motives would exercise least influence. But without
+instituting any comparisons, we may well be proud of this ample list
+of twenty-five hundred subscribers, most of them citizens of the
+republic,--"a support such as was never before offered to any
+scientific man for purely scientific ends, without any reference to
+government objects or direct practical aims."
+
+Our analysis must confine itself mainly to the first of the three
+parts into which these two volumes are divided. This first part it
+is that contains those large results which every thinker must desire
+to learn from one whose life has been devoted to the searching and
+contemplative study of Nature. It is in the realm of thought here
+explored, that Natural Science, whose figure we are wont to look
+down upon, crouching to her task, like him of the muck-rake, as he
+painfully gathers together his sticks and straws, rises erect, and
+lifts her forehead into the upper atmosphere of philosophy, where
+the clouds are indeed thickest, but the stars are nearest. The
+second and third parts belong more exclusively to the professed
+students of Natural History in its different special departments.
+Our notice of these divisions of the work must therefore be
+comparatively brief.
+
+The first chapter of the first part has for its title, "The
+fundamental relations of animals to one another and to the world in
+which they live, as the basis of the natural system of animals."
+
+Certain general doctrines, the spirit of which runs through all the
+scientific works of Mr. Agassiz, are distinctly laid down in the
+first section of this chapter. It is headed with the statement,
+"The leading features of a natural zoological system are all founded
+in nature." The systems named from the great leaders of science are
+but translations of the Creator's thoughts into human language.
+"If it can be proved that man has not invented, but only traced this
+systematic arrangement in nature,--that these relations and
+proportions which exist throughout the animal and vegetable world
+have an intellectual, an ideal connection in the mind of the Creator,--
+that this plan of creation, which so commends itself to our highest
+wisdom, has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws,
+but was the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in
+his thought, before it was manifested in tangible, external forms,--
+if, in short, we can prove premeditation prior to the act of creation,
+we have done, once and forever, with the desolate theory which
+refers us to the laws of matter as accounting for all the wonders of
+the universe, and leaves us with no God but the monotonous, unvarying
+action of physical forces, binding all things to their inevitable
+destiny."
+
+One more extract must be given from this section, for it is the key
+to the general argument which follows.
+
+"I disclaim every intention of introducing in this work any evidence
+irrelevant to my subject, or of supporting any conclusions not
+immediately flowing from it; but I cannot overlook nor disregard
+here the close connection there is between the facts ascertained by
+scientific investigations, and the discussions now carried on
+respecting the origin of organized beings. And though I know those
+who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not
+something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential
+difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings, I shall
+not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from
+expressing my conviction, that, as long as it cannot be shown that
+matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
+manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking
+being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an
+intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature
+as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as
+man exhibits the power of thinking when he recognizes their natural
+relations."
+
+We must content ourselves with the most general statement of the
+nature and bearing of the series of propositions which follow. They
+are illustrated by a large survey of the material universe in its
+manifestations of life, and of the relations between the various
+forms of life to each other and to the inorganic world. These
+propositions, thirty-one in number, might be called an analysis of
+the qualities of the Infinite Mind exhibited in the realm of
+organized and especially of animal being. Nothing but want of space
+prevents our reproducing at full length the very careful
+recapitulation to be found at the close of the chapter, or the
+analysis to be found in the Table of Contents. With something more
+of labor than the task of copying would have been, we have attempted
+to compress the truths already crowded in these brief and pregnant
+sentences into the still narrower compass of a few lines in our
+straitened pages.
+
+The harmony of the universe is a manifestation of illimitable
+intellect, displaying itself in various modes of thought, as these
+are shown in the characters and relations of organized beings: unity
+of thought, manifesting itself independently of space, of time, of
+known material agencies, of special form,--illustrated by repetition
+of similar types in different circumstances, by identities, or
+partial resemblances, or serial connections, found under varying
+conditions of being; power of expressing the same idea in innumerable
+forms, as in those instances of essential identity of parts in the
+midst of formal differences known as _special homologies_; power of
+combination, as in the adjustment of organized beings to each other
+and to the inorganic world, or in the harmonious allotment of the
+most varied gifts to different beings; definite recognition of time
+and space, as in the life of individuals, of species, in the stages
+of growth, in the geographical limitation of types; prescience and
+omniscience, as shown in the _prophetic_ types of earlier geological
+ages; omnipresence, by the adjustment of the whole series of animal
+organisms to the various parts of the planet they inhabit.
+
+The final _résumé_ of Mr. Agassiz is as follows:--
+
+"We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in
+still fewer words.
+
+"All organized beings exhibit in themselves all those categories of
+structure and of existence upon which a natural system may be founded,
+in such a manner, that, in tracing it, the human mind is only
+translating into human language the Divine thoughts expressed in
+Nature in living realities.
+
+"All these beings do not exist in consequence of the continued
+agency of physical causes, but have made their successive appearance
+upon earth by the immediate intervention of the Creator. As proof, I
+may sum up my argument in the following manner:--
+
+"The products of what are commonly called physical agents are
+everywhere the same, (that is, upon the whole surface of the globe,)
+and have always been the same (that is, during all geological periods);
+while organized beings are everywhere different, and have differed
+in all ages. Between two such series of phenomena there can be no
+causal or genetic connection.
+
+"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful
+conceptions exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation,
+power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In
+one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud
+the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History
+must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the
+Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable
+kingdoms."
+
+To this statement we must add two paragraphs from the pages just
+preceding, (pp. 130, 131.)
+
+  "If I have succeeded, even very imperfectly, in showing that the
+  various relations observed between animals and the physical world,
+  as well as between themselves, exhibit thought, it follows that the
+  whole has an Intelligent Author; and it may not be out of place to
+  attempt to point out, as far as possible, the difference there may
+  be between Divine thinking and human thought."
+
+  "Taking nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me,
+  that, while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is
+  simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past,
+  the present, and the future, the most diversified relations among
+  hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present
+  complications, again, which to study and understand even imperfectly,
+  as, for instance, man himself, mankind has already spent thousands of
+  years. And yet, all this has been done by one Mind, must be the work
+  of one Mind only, of Him before whom man can only bow in grateful
+  acknowledgment of the prerogatives he is allowed to enjoy in this
+  world, not to speak of the promises of a future life."
+
+Chapter Second is entitled, "Leading Groups of the existing systems
+of animals."
+
+Its nine sections treat successively of the great types or branches
+of the animal kingdom, of classes, orders, families, genera, species,
+other natural divisions, successive development of characters, and
+close with some very significant conclusions on the importance of
+the study of classification.
+
+Mr. Agassiz has attempted to give definiteness to the terms above
+enumerated, which have been used with various significance, by
+limiting each one of them to covering a single category of natural
+relationship. Thus:--
+
+  _Branches_ or _types_ are characterized by their plan of structure.
+
+  _Classes_, by the manner in which that plan is executed, so far as
+  ways and means are concerned.
+
+  _Orders_, by the degrees of complication of that structure.
+
+  _Families_, by their form, so far as determined by structure.
+
+  _Genera_, by the details of the execution in special parts.
+
+  _Species_, by the relations of individuals to one another and to
+  the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their
+  parts, their ornamentation, etc.
+
+  "And yet there are other natural divisions which must be acknowledged
+  in a natural zoölogical system; but these are not to be traced so
+  uniformly in all classes as the former,--they are, in reality, only
+  limitations of the other kinds of divisions."
+
+This chapter must be studied in the original text, the arguments by
+which its conclusions are supported hardly admitting of brief analysis.
+The most superficial reader will be interested in Mr. Agassiz's
+account of the mode in which he sought for the natural boundaries
+of the various divisions, by observing the special point of view
+in which various eminent naturalists have considered their subject;
+as, for instance, Audubon, among the biographers of species,--
+Latreille, among the students of genera,--and Cuvier, at the head
+of those who have contemplated the higher groups, such as classes
+and types. The most indifferent reader will be arrested by the
+opinions boldly promulgated with reference to species.
+
+  "The evidence that all animals have originated in large numbers is
+  growing so strong, that the idea that every species existed in the
+  beginning in single pairs may be said to be given up almost entirely
+  by naturalists." "If we are led to admit as the beginning of each
+  species the simultaneous origin of a large number of individuals, if
+  the same species may originate at the same time in different
+  localities, these first representatives of each species, at least,
+  were not connected by sexual derivation; and as this applies equally
+  to any first pair, this fancied test criterion of specific identity
+  must at all events be given up, and with it goes also the pretended
+  real existence of the species, in contradistinction from the mode of
+  existence of genera, families, orders, classes and types; for what
+  really exists are individuals, not species." (pp. 166-167.)
+
+Chapter Third is headed, "Notice of the principal systems of Zoology."
+It is divided into the six following sections: General remarks upon
+modern systems; Early attempts to classify animals; Period of Linnaeus;
+Period of Cuvier, and Anatomical systems; Physiophilosophical systems;
+Embryological systems.
+
+This chapter is invaluable to the general student, as giving him in
+a single view not only a _conspectus_, of the most important
+attempts at classification in Zoology, but an examination of the
+principles involved in each, by the one among all living men most
+fitted to perform the task. No cultivated person who desires to know
+anything of Natural Science can pass over this portion of the work
+without careful study. Those who are not prepared to follow the
+author through the details of the Second Part will yet consider
+these volumes as indispensable companions for reference, as
+containing this brief but comprehensive encyclopedia and commentary,
+covering the whole philosophical machinery of zoological science.
+
+For the first section of this chapter Mr. Agassiz adopts the
+fundamental divisions (branches) of Cuvier, introducing such changes
+among the classes and orders as the progress of science demands. The
+second section gives a short account of the early attempts to
+classify animals, more particularly of the divisions established by
+Aristotle. The third section embraces the period of Linnaeus, and
+gives his classification. The fourth, that of Cuvier, and Anatomical
+systems, with the classifications of Cuvier, Lamark, De Blainville,
+Ehrenberg, Burmeister, Owen, Milne-Edwards, Von Siebold and Stannius,
+Leuckart. The fifth section includes the Physiophilosophical systems,
+with diagrams of Oken's and Fitzinger's classifications, and a
+special article for the circular groups of McLeay. The sixth and last
+section is devoted to Embryological systems, and presents diagrams
+of the classifications of Von Baer, Van Beneden, Kölliker, and Vogt.
+
+The second part of the Monograph introduces us to the consideration
+of a special subject of Natural History,--the North American
+Testudinata. Its three chapters treat successively of this order of
+Reptiles,--of its families,--of its North American genera and species.
+
+The THIRD PART, contained in the second volume, is entitled,
+"Embryology of the Turtle." It consists of two chapters: "Development
+of the Egg, from its first appearance to the formation of the embryo."
+"Development of the Embryo, from the time the egg leaves the ovary
+to that of the hatching of the young." Then follow the explanation
+of the plates and the plates themselves, thirty-four in number.
+
+We need not attempt to give any account of the parts devoted to the
+development of these particular subjects. This we must necessarily
+leave to the journals devoted to scientific matters, and the class
+of students most intimate with these departments of Natural Science.
+
+Yet the American who asks for a model to work by in his
+investigations will find a great deal more than the "North American
+Testudinata" in the part to which that title is prefixed. The
+principles of classification exemplified, the methods of description
+illustrated, the rules of nomenclature tested,--what matter is it
+whether the _gran maestro_ has chosen this or that string to play
+the air upon, when each has compass enough for all its melody?
+
+Still more forcibly does this comment apply to the elaborate and
+ample division of the work embracing the Embryology of the Turtle.
+He who has mastered the details of this section has at his feet the
+whole broad realm of which this province holds one of the
+key-fortresses. _Ex testudine naturam_.
+
+We are unwilling to speak of the illustrations comparatively
+without more extended means of judgment than we have at hand. But
+that they are of superlative excellence, brilliant, delicate,
+accurate, life-like, and nature-like, is what none will dispute.
+Look at these turtles, models of real-estate owners as they are,
+Observe No. 13, Plate IV.,--"Chelydra Serpentina,"--"snapper",
+or "snappin' turtle," in the vernacular. He is out collecting
+rents from the naked-skinned reptiles, his brethren; in default
+thereof, taking the bodies of the aforesaid. Or behold No. 5, Plate
+VI., bewailing the wretchedness of those who have no roofs to cover
+them. Or No. 2, of the same plate, bestowing an archiepiscopal
+benediction on the houseless multitudes, before he retires for the
+night to slumber between his tessellated floor and his frescoed
+ceiling.
+
+Of the smooth, white eggs, with their rounded reliefs and tenderly
+graduated light and shadow, all eyes are judges. But of the
+exquisite figures showing the various stages of development and the
+details of structural arrangement, the uninitiated must take the
+opinions of a microscopic expert: and if they will accept our
+testimony as that of one not unfamiliar with the instrument and the
+mysteries it reveals, we can assure them that these figures are of
+supreme excellence. The hazy semitransparency of the embryonic
+tissues, the halos, the granules, the globules, the cell-walls, the
+delicate membranous expansions, the vascular webs, are expressed
+with purity, softness, freedom, and a conscientiousness which
+reminds us of Donne's microscopic daguerreotypes, while in many
+points the views are literally truer to nature,--just as a
+sculptor's bust of a living person is often more really like him in
+character than a cast moulded on his features.
+
+We have attempted to give a slight idea of the contents of these two
+volumes, in the compass of a few pages. We have called the reader's
+attention to various points of special interest, as we were going
+along. It remains to make such comments as suggest themselves to us,
+either in our character of "the scholiast," or in our own right as a
+freed citizen of the intellectual as well as the political republic.
+
+WHENCE? WHY? WHITHER? These are the three great questions that arise
+in the soul of every race and of every thinking being. He who looks
+at either of them with the least new light, though he whisper what
+he sees ever so softly, has the world to listen to him. No matter
+how he got his knowledge nor what he calls it; it belongs to mankind.
+But "Science" has been mainly engaged with another question, in
+itself of very inferior interest, namely, _How?_
+
+We must be permitted to speak of "Science" in our freest capacity,
+and will endeavor not to abuse our liberty. The study of natural
+phenomena for the sake of the pleasing variety of aspects they
+present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the
+exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for
+the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is
+an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with
+a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even
+constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power
+wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but
+not affix the wrong label to it. Those who possess it acquire
+knowledge sometimes so extensive and uncommon that we regard them
+with a certain admiration. But knowledge is not wisdom. Unless these
+narrow trains of ideas are brought into relation with other and
+wider ranges of thought, or with the conduct of life, they cannot
+aspire to that loftier name.
+
+We must go farther than this. The study of the _How?_ in Nature, or
+the simple observation of phenomena, is often used as an opiate to
+quiet the higher faculties. There can be no question of the fact
+that many persons pass much of their lives working in the in-door or
+out-door laboratories of science, just as old women knit, just as
+prisoners carve quaintly elaborate toys in their dungeons. The
+product is not absolutely useless in either case; the fingers of the
+body or of the mind become swift and cunning, but the soul does not
+grow under such culture. We are willing to allow that many of those
+who browse in the sleepy meadows of aimless observation,--loving to
+keep their heads down as they gaze at and gather their narcotic herbs,
+rather than lift them to the horizon beyond or the heaven above,--
+act in obedience to the law of their limited natures. Still, let us
+recognize the limitation, and not forget that the pursuit which may
+be fitting and praiseworthy toil for one class of minds may be
+ignoble indolence for another. We must remember, on the other hand,
+that, however humble may be the intellectual position of the man of
+science or knowledge, in distinction from wisdom, the results of his
+labors may be of the highest importance. The most ignorant laborer
+may get a stone out of the quarry, and the poorest slave unearth a
+diamond. These intellectual artisans come to their daily task with
+hypertrophied special organs, fitted to their peculiar craft. Some
+of them are all eyes; some, all hands; some are self-recording
+microscopes; others, self-registering balances. If a man would watch
+a thermometer every hour of the day and night for ten years, and
+give a table of his observations, the result would be of interest
+and value. But the bulbous extremity of the instrument would
+probably contain as much thought at the end of the ten years as that
+of the observer.
+
+Clearly, then, "Science" does not properly belong to "scientific" men,
+unless they happen also to be wise ones; not more to them than honey
+to bees, or books to printers. The bee _may_, certainly, feed on the
+honey he has made, and the printer read the books he has put in type.
+But _Vos non vobis_ is the rule. "Science" is knowledge, it is true,
+but knowledge disarticulated and parcelled out among certain
+specialists, like Truth in Milton's glorious comparison. He who can
+restore each part to its true position, and orient the lesser whole
+in its relations to the universe, he it is to whom science belongs.
+He must range through all time and follow Nature to her farthest
+bounds. Then he can dissect beetles like Straus Derekheim, without
+becoming a myope. But even this is not enough. Let us see what
+qualities would go to make up the ideal model of the truly wise
+student of Nature.
+
+He must have, in the first place, as the substratum of his faculties,
+the power of observation, with the passion that keeps it active and
+the skilful hand to serve its needs. Secondly, a quick eye for
+resemblances and differences. Thirdly, a wide range of mental vision.
+Fourthly, the coordinating or systematizing faculty. Fifthly, a
+large scholarship. Lastly, and without which all these gifts fall
+short of their ultimate aim, an instinct for the highest forms of
+truth,--a centripetal tendency, always seeking the idea behind the
+form, the Deity in his manifestations, and thence working outward
+again to solve those infinite problems of life and its destinies
+which are, in reality, all that the thinking soul most lives for.
+
+It is as easy to find all these qualities separate as it is to turn
+beneath the finger one of the letters of a revolving padlock. But
+they must all be brought together in line before the grand portals
+of Nature's hypaethral temple will open to her chosen student. How
+incomplete the man of science is with only one or two of these
+endowments may be seen by a few examples.
+
+The power and instinct of observation combined with the most
+consummate skill do not necessarily make a great philosophical
+naturalist. Leeuwenhoek had all these. They bore admirable fruits,
+too. We cannot but read the old man's letters to the Royal Society,
+written, if we remember right, after the age of eighty, with delight
+and admiration. Those little lenses in their silver mountings, all
+ground and set and fashioned by his own hand, showed him the
+blood-globules, and the "pipes" of the teeth, which Purkinje and
+Retzius found with their achromatic microscopes a century later. We
+honor his skill and sagacity as they deserve; but a little trick of
+Mr. Dollond's, applied to the microscopic object-glass, has left all
+his achievements a mere matter of curious history.
+
+Few have been more remarkable for perceiving resemblances and
+differences than Oken. This is the poetical side of the scientific
+mind; and he shares with Goethe the honor of that startling and
+far-reaching discovery, the vertebral character of the bones of the
+cranium. At this very time the four vertebral cranial bones
+recognized by Owen are the same Oken has described. But
+notwithstanding the generous tribute of Mr. Agassiz to his great
+merits, the writer who assigns special colors to the persons in the
+Trinity, (red, blue, and green,) and then allots to Satan a
+constituent of one of these, (yellow,) has drifted away from the
+solid anchorage of observation into the shoreless waste of the inane,
+if not amidst the dark abysses of the profane.
+
+If the widest range of mental vision, joined, too, with great
+learning, could make a successful student of Nature, Lord Bacon
+should have stood by the side of Linnaeus. But open the "Sylva
+Sylvarum" anywhere and see what Bacon was as a naturalist. "It was
+observed in the _Great Plague_ of the last yeare, that there were
+scene in divers _Ditches_ and low _Grounds_ about _London_, many
+_Toads_ that had _Tailes_, two or three inches long, at the least:
+Whereas _Toads_ (usually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a
+great disposition to _Putrefaction_ in the _Soile_ and _Aire_." This
+in that "great birth of time," the "Instauration of the Sciences"!
+
+The systematizing or coordinating power is worse than nothing,
+unless it be supported by the other qualities already mentioned.
+Darwin had it, and something of what is called genius with it; but
+where is now the "Zoönomia"?
+
+And what is erudition without the power to correct errors by
+appealing to Nature, to arrange methodically, to use wisely? It
+would be a shame to mention any name in illustration of its
+insignificance. Our shelves bend and crack under the load of unwise
+and learned authorship. There are two stages in every student's life.
+In the first he is afraid of books; in the second books are afraid
+of him. For they are a great community of thieves, and one finds the
+same stolen patterns in all their pockets. Though often dressed in
+sheep's clothing, they have the maw of wolves. When the student has
+once found them out, he laughs at the pretensions of erudition, and
+strides gayly up and down great libraries, feeling that the most
+blustering folio of them all will turn as pale as if it were bound
+in law-calf, if he only lay his hand on its shoulder.
+
+Nor, lastly, can any elevation of aim, any thirst for the divine
+springs of knowledge, enable a man to dispense with the sober habits
+of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the
+stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings
+are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and
+his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may
+suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into
+such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist on laying
+down.
+
+That all these qualities which go to make up our ideal should exist
+in absolute perfection in any single man of mortal birth is not to
+be expected. But there are names in the history of Science which
+recall so imposing a combination of these several gifts, that,
+comparing the men who bore them with the civilization of their time,
+we can hardly conceive that uninspired intellect should come nearer
+the imaginary standard. Such a man was Aristotle. The slender and
+close-shaven fop, with the showy mantle on his ungraceful person and
+the costly rings on his fingers, who hung on the lips of Plato for
+twenty years, and trained the boy of Macedon to whatever wisdom he
+possessed,--whose life was set by destiny between the greatest of
+thinkers and the greatest of conquerors,--seems to have borrowed the
+intellect of the one and the universal aspirations of the other. But
+because he invaded every realm of knowledge, it must not be thought
+he dealt with Nature at second-hand. He was a collector and a
+dissector. He could display the anatomical structure of a fish as
+well as write a treatise on the universe or on rhetoric, or
+government or logic, or music or mathematics. Dethroned we call him;
+and yet Mr. Agassiz quotes his descriptions with respect, and
+confesses that the systematic classification of animals makes but
+one stride from Aristotle to Linnaeus.
+
+Cuvier was such a man. Alone, and unapproached in his own spheres of
+knowledge, his "Report on the Progress of the Natural Sciences" is
+only an index to the wide range of his intellect. In one point,
+however, we must own that he seems slow of apprehension or limited
+by preconceived opinions,--in his reception of the homologies pointed
+out by Oken and the Physiophilosophical observers.
+
+In the same range of intellects we should reckon Linnaeus and
+Humboldt, and should have reckoned Goethe, had he given himself to
+science.
+
+We do not assume to say where in the category of fully equipped
+intelligences Mr. Agassiz belongs. But if the union of the most
+extraordinary observing powers with an almost poetic perception of
+analogies, with a wide compass of thought, the classifying instinct
+and habit, large knowledge of books, and personal intimacy with the
+leaders in various departments of knowledge, and with this the
+upward-looking aspect of mind and heart, which is the crowning gift
+of all,--if the union of these qualities can give to the man of
+science a claim to the nobler name of wisdom, it is not flattery,
+but justice, to award this distinction to Mr. Agassiz.
+
+To him, then, we listen, when, after having sounded every note in
+the wide gamut of Nature, after reading the story of life as it
+stands written in the long series of records reaching from Cambrian
+fossils to ovarian germs, after tracing the divine principle of
+order from the starlike flower at his feet to the flower-like circle
+of planets which spreads its fiery corolla, in obedience to the same
+simple law that disposes the leaves of the growing plant,--as our
+eminent mathematician tells us,--he relates in simple and
+reverential accents the highest truths he has learned in traversing
+God's mighty universe. For him, and such as him,--for us, too, if we
+read wisely,--the toiling slaves of science, often working with
+little consciousness of the full proportions of the edifice they are
+helping to construct, have spent their busy lives. All knowledge
+asserts its true dignity when once brought into relation with the
+grand end of knowledge,--a wider and deeper view of the significance
+of conscious and unconscious created being, and the character of its
+Creator.
+
+We shall close this article with some remarks upon the great
+doctrines that dominate all the manifold subordinate thoughts which
+fill these crowded pages. The plan of creation, Mr. Agassiz maintains,
+"has not grown out of the necessary action of physical laws, but was
+the free conception of the Almighty Intellect, matured in his
+thought before it was manifested in tangible, external forms."
+Before Mr. Agassiz, before Linnaeus, before Aristotle, before Plato,
+Timaeus the Locrian spake; the original, together with the version
+we cite, is given with the Plato of Ficinus:--"Duas esse rerum
+omnium causas: mentem quidem, earum quae ratione quadam nascuntur, et
+necessitatem, earum quae existunt vi quadam, secundum corporum
+potentias et faculitates. Harrum rerum, id est, Natunae bonorum,
+optimum esse quoddam rerum optimarum principium, et Deum vocari....
+Esse praeterea in hac Naturae universitate quiddam quod maneat et
+intelligible sit, rerum genitarum, quae quidem in perpetuo quodam
+mutationum fluxu versantur, exemplar, Ideam dici et mente comprehendi....
+Permanet igitur mundus constanter talis qualis est creatus a Deo ...
+proponente sibi non exemplaria quaedam manuum opificio edita, sed
+illam Ideam intelligibilemque essentiam."--So taught the
+half-inspired pagan philosopher whom Plato took as his guide in his
+contemplations of Nature.
+
+We trace the thought again in Dante, amidst the various fragments of
+ancient wisdom which he has embodied in the "Divina Commedia":
+
+  Ciò che non muore e ciò che può morire
+    Non è se non splendor cli quella idea
+  Che partorisco, amando, il nosfro Sire.
+           ----_Paradiso_, XIII. 52-54.
+
+Two thousand years after the old Greek had written, the Christian
+philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, repeats the same doctrine in a new
+phraseology:--"_Before Abraham was, I am_, is the saying of Christ;
+yet it is true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I was not
+only before myself, but _Adam_, that is, in the idea of God, and the
+decree of that Synod held from all eternity. And in this sense, I say,
+the World was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a
+beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be
+_England_, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me
+before she conceived of Cain."
+
+The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical
+whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or
+little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its
+hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the
+pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its
+mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came
+from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in
+various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the
+Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach,
+and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was
+it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the
+whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.
+
+We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained
+by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action
+of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the
+physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As
+opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to
+modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no
+qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force
+or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as
+Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to
+"waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so
+profound a student of Nature as Mr. Agassiz has tracked the warm
+foot-prints of Divinity throughout all the vestiges of creation.
+
+There is danger, however, that, in accepting this doctrine as a truth,
+we may be led into an inexact conception of the so-called physical
+laws, unless we closely examine the sense in which we use the
+expression. The forces which act according to these laws, and the
+various forms of the so-called _matter_, or concrete forces, are
+often spoken of as if they were blind agencies and existences, acting
+by an inherent fate-like power of their own. But if everything
+outside of our consciousness resolves itself, in the last analysis,
+into force, or something capable of producing change, and if force
+existing by the will of an omniscient and omnipresent Being, to whom
+time has no absolute significance, is simply God himself in action,
+then we shall find it impossible to limit the causal agency of the
+physical forces. All we can say is, that commonly they appear to
+move in certain rectilinear paths, in which they manifest a degree
+of uniformity and precision so amazing that we are lost in the
+infinite intelligence they display,--unless we become perfectly
+stupid to it, and think, as in the old fable, there is no music in
+it because we are made deaf by its continued harmony. No single leaf
+ever made a mistake in falling, though in so doing it solved more
+problems than were ever held in all the libraries that have changed
+or are changing into dust or ashes.
+
+We are willing to accept the belief of Mr. Agassiz, "that matter
+does not exist as such, but is everywhere and always a specific thing,
+as are all finite beings." But we must extend the same idea to the
+physical forces, and believe them to be specific agencies, and their
+acts specific acts,--in other words, each one of them a Divine
+manifestation. Theology is close upon us in these speculations.
+"Perhaps," says Mr. Robertson, in the volume of admirable sermons
+just republished, "even the Eternal himself is more closely bound to
+his works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps
+matter is only a mode of thought." Looking, then, at our recognized
+forms of matter and physical force as expressions of a self-limiting
+omnipotence, we concede that the uniform lines of action in which
+human observation has hitherto traced them do not, and, so far as we
+can see, cannot, shape the curves of the simplest organism.
+
+It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even
+hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals
+that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have
+taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of
+life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no
+more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day
+engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have
+broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the
+Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he
+fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn
+reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with
+us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection
+proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and
+Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the
+thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal
+and vegetable kingdoms."
+
+
+
+
+TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The weather leech of the topsail shivers,
+    The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
+  The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,
+    And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  Open one point on the weather bow
+    Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head;
+  There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,
+    And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
+
+
+  III.
+
+  I stand at the wheel and with eager eye
+    To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze,
+  Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!"
+    Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  The ship bends lower before the breeze,
+    As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;
+  And she swifter springs to the rising seas,
+    As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"
+
+
+  V.
+
+  It is silence all, as each in his place,
+    With the gathered coils in his hardened hands,
+  By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,
+    Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  And the light on Fire Island head draws near,
+    As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout
+  From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,
+    With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  No time to spare! It is touch and go,
+    And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!"
+  As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,
+    While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,
+    As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;
+  And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
+    As I answer, "AYE, AYE, SIR! HA-A-R-D A-LEE!"
+
+
+  IX.
+
+  With the swerving leap of a startled steed
+    The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,
+  The dangerous shoals on the lee recede,
+    And the headland white we have left behind.
+
+
+  X.
+
+  The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
+    And belly and tug at the groaning cleats,
+  The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps,
+    And thunders the order, "TACKS AND SHEETS!"
+
+
+  XI.
+
+  'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,
+    Hisses the rain of the rushing squall;
+  The sails are aback from clew to clew,
+    And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL, HAUL!"
+
+
+  XII.
+
+  And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
+    By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung;
+  She holds her way, and I look with joy
+    For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
+
+
+  XIII.
+
+  "LET GO AND HAUL!" 'Tis the last command,
+    And the head-sails fill to the blast once more;
+  Astern and to leeward lies the land,
+    With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
+
+
+  XIV.
+
+  What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?
+    I steady the helm for the open sea;
+  The first mate clamors, "BELAY THERE, ALL!"
+    And the captain's breath once more comes free.
+
+
+  XV.
+
+  And so off shore let the good ship fly;
+    Little care I how the gusts may blow,
+  In my fo'castle-bunk in a jacket dry,--
+    Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
+
+
+
+
+MAMOUL.
+
+
+THROUGH THE COSSITOLLAH KALEIDOSCOPE.
+
+Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the
+motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;--
+one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace;
+the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;--
+and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the
+hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from
+the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_
+house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent
+eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior,
+and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul
+shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It
+is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in
+Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or
+down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a
+common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean
+rabble.
+
+Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to
+commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same
+Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and
+Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most
+picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most
+directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the
+imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn
+chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless
+and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of
+British enlightenment and accountability.
+
+From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of
+Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_,
+(as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its
+solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by
+whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from
+Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance,
+and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its
+stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the
+pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the
+carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises;
+from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department
+well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and
+Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and
+Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come
+of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most
+profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who
+approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O
+Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and
+with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)--
+from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.
+
+And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the
+characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending
+the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of
+the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preëminently the
+type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs,
+and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;--
+Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and
+_ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of
+pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses,
+_durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_
+or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of
+_banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts;
+together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers,
+horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors,
+British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter
+of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met,
+whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives
+the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the
+shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by
+all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.
+
+Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of
+a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to
+the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but
+nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.
+
+What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with
+elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a
+monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is
+impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!")
+at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.
+
+  "Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  This is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Very small Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Sixpenny Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Holes in his elbows!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Slipshod!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Son of a sea-cook!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will beat us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hush! he will kick us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Kick us and curse us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Not he, the greenhorn!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't understand us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Don't know the lingo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Let's shake the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rattle the pig's bones!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Set down the palkee!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Call him a great lord!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Ask him for buksheesh!
+    _Putterum_."
+
+And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the
+pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the
+sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening
+sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within,
+but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud
+of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck,
+with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--
+
+"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord!
+O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon
+whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother
+is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos
+of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy
+abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the
+golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay
+his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"
+
+"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you
+bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'?
+Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga,
+the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all
+your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"
+
+Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar,
+and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at
+first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly,
+and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.
+
+  "_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
+    _Putterum_.
+  Carry him softly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Swiftly and smoothly!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rich little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Fierce little Rajah!
+    _Putterum_.
+  See how his eyes flash!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Hear how his voice roars!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He is a Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Capitan Tippoo!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Tremble before him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Serve him and please him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Please him and serve him!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will reward us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will protect us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  He will enrich us!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Charity Lord Sa'b!
+    _Putterum._
+  Out of the way there!
+    _Putterum_.
+  Way for the great ...
+    _Putterum_.
+  Rajah of ten crores!
+    _Putter_....
+  .... Ten crores!..
+    _Putter_....
+  Rajah.... ....
+    _Put...._
+  .... Lard.... ..
+    _Putter...._
+  ....  ... Sa'b!
+    _.... rum_.
+
+And so they have turned down Flag Street.
+
+But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,--
+four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate
+coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers,
+supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like
+Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running
+at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made
+from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,--
+a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne,
+behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs,
+that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya
+Mullick, on the back seat.
+
+"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the
+umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes,
+this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is
+honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump,
+_sooa_. Jump!"
+
+And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the
+common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the
+fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our
+_godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman
+of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but
+_Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.
+
+As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the
+place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_
+first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and
+commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our
+Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and
+address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is
+threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard,
+and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the
+last; his life he holds of less account than either.
+
+As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with
+profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the
+very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead
+lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining
+his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality
+of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much
+for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the
+other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm
+applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.
+
+How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks
+all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five
+rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say,
+when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years
+old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling,
+on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the
+occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the
+Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature.
+Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.
+
+And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score
+of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of
+the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest
+corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head
+circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is
+only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen
+rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his
+salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands
+high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the
+Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two
+thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a
+hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts
+of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides
+two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold
+the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture,
+as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo
+condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!
+
+"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle
+bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and
+enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is
+disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,--
+feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot
+blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,--
+ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo
+not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket.
+Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty
+i-strong, plenty proud.
+
+"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar
+Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar
+foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban.
+'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar
+say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master
+und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"
+
+"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the
+Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with
+the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"
+
+"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young
+English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to
+make it their own for a day or two."
+
+"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin.
+They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better
+for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a
+strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for
+the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows
+next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."
+
+"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the
+Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or
+Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and
+we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah
+to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
+'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
+stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
+appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
+of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
+minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
+samples."
+
+Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
+with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
+pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
+its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
+perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
+match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
+astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
+a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
+it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
+who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
+without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
+will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
+while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
+Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
+Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
+the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
+the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
+
+Just now a _palkee-gharree_, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with
+but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a
+footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a
+respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at
+Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window,
+and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing
+barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,--dust that has been
+churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,--
+humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban,
+murmuring a pious _Namaskarum_; for the respectable accountant in the
+Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen
+Brahmin,--only a little more so. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his
+prophet!
+
+At the gate-lodge of the Baboo's garden-house on the Durumtollah
+Road, a gray and withered hag, all crippled and leprosied, sits
+_durhna_.
+
+What may that be?
+
+Be patient; you shall know.
+
+When the Baboo was as yet a youth, his uncle Rajinda, the pride of
+the Mullicks, died of cholera, and the administration of the estate
+devolved upon our free-thinking Kalidas. Of course there were
+mortgages to foreclose, and delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain
+small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern
+for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by
+Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and
+castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt
+_chit_, (that is, note, or _sheet_ of paper, as near as a Bengalee
+can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar
+come down forthwith with the rupees.
+
+But, behold you now, "he had paid," he said. "By the Holy Ganges and
+the Blessed Cow! by the turban of his father and the veil of his
+mother! restitution had been made long ago," the old man said;
+"and the soul of Uncle Rajinda, the pride of the Mullicks, had no
+reason to be disquieted for the rupees, though the seersuckers had
+been but vanity, and the castor-oil vexation of spirit."
+
+"Produce the documents," said the Baboo, with a business-like
+impassibility that in Wall Street would have made him a great bear;--
+"where are the receipts?"
+
+"My Lord, I know not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the
+lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my _gureeb purwar_, the
+destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the
+Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother,
+that I settled the little account long ago!"
+
+That unhappy speculator in seersuckers and castor-oil died in prison,
+and a _gooroo_ (that is, a spiritual teacher) feed by the Baboo,
+desolated his last hour with the assurance that he should
+transmigrate into the bodies of seven generations of _gharree_-horses,
+and drag _feringhee_ sailormen, in a state of beer, from the ghauts
+to the punch-houses, all his miserable lives.
+
+Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
+discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
+and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
+Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
+were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
+
+But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
+once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
+of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
+"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
+be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
+Haranu the Lost!"
+
+But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
+bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
+So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
+leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
+Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
+till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
+this?"
+
+And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
+crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
+have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
+no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
+matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
+hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
+
+The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
+the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
+insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
+Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
+away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
+solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
+louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
+But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
+he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
+lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
+the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
+and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
+durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
+Young Bengal.
+
+  _Mootrib i koosh nuwà bigo,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Baduè dil kooshà bidoh,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
+  Koosh biu sheen bu kilwulé
+  Chung nuwaz-a sa-uté,
+  Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
+    Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Songster sweet, begin the lay,
+    Ever sweet and ever gay!
+  Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
+    Ever fresh and ever fine!
+  With a heart-alluring lass
+  Gayly let the moments pass,
+  Kisses stealing while you may,
+    Ever fresh and ever gay!"
+
+Now surely she who thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo
+type;--that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream;
+"her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute;
+she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's;
+her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait
+of a young elephant of pure blood." Let us see.
+
+Alas, no! She entertains a set of lazy bearers, smoking the
+hubble-bubble around a palanquin as they wait for a fare; and her
+buksheesh may be a cowry or two. By no means is she of the
+_nautch_-maidens of Lucknow, who were wont to lighten the hours of
+debauched majesty between the tiger-fights and the games of leap-frog;
+by no means is she ringed as to her fingers or belled as to her toes;
+and though she carries her music wherever she goes, she also carries
+a shiny brown baby, slung in a canvas tray between her shoulders.
+
+No excessively voluminous folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber
+her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora
+MacFlimsey would call _skimped_,) and pitifully mean as to quality.
+By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her
+professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price;
+but a narrow red strip of some poor cotton stuff crosses her bosom
+like a scarf, and leaves exposed too much of the ruins of once
+daintier beauties. A string of glass beads, black and red alternate,
+are all her jewels,--save one silver bodkin, all forlorn, in her hair,
+and a ring of thin gold wire piercing the right nostril, and, with
+an effect completely deforming, encircling the lips. Her teeth and
+nails are deeply stained, and the darkness of her eyes is enhanced
+by artificial shadows.
+
+And so, while that baby-Tantalus, catching glimpses, over the
+unveiled shoulder, of the Micawberian fount he cannot reach,
+stretches his little brown arms, bites, kicks, and squalls,--while a
+small female apprentice, by way of chorus, in costume and gesture
+absurdly caricaturing her _prima donna_, (a sort of Cossitollah
+marchioness, indeed, for some Dick Swiveller of the Sahibs,) shuffles
+rheumatically with her feet, or impotently dislocates her slender
+arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy
+cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "_Wah wah!_" and clap
+their sweaty hands,--our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums
+her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks
+corkscrewishly her _Chota, chota natchelee_:--
+
+  _Badi subå choo boog zuree,
+  Bar suri kove an puree,
+  Qassué Hufiz ush bigo
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
+
+  "Zephyrs, while you gently move
+  By the mansion of my love,
+  Softly Hafiz' strains repeat,
+      Ever new and ever sweet!"
+
+Heaven save the key!
+
+"_Ka munkta_, Bearer?--What is it, my gentle Karlee?"
+
+"_Chittee, Sahib!--chittee_ for Master."
+
+"Note, hey? from whom? let us see!"
+
+Pink paper,--scented with sandal-wood, pah!--embossed, too, with
+cornucopias in the corners,--seal motto, _Qui hi?_ ("Who waits?")--
+denoting that the bearer is to bring an answer. Now for the inside:
+
+  "DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR:--"
+
+  "Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an
+  eleëmosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your
+  Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various
+  denominations. For our Heavenly Father's sake, if not inconvenient,--
+  which we have been beneficently bereaved of other paternal
+  description,--we humbly present our implorations to your munificent
+  Excellency, if any small change, to bestow the same, winch it will
+  be eternally acceptable to said eleëmosynary widow of late Colonel
+  with distinguished medal in Honorable Service, deceased of cholera,
+  which it was suddenly attacks, and as pretty near destitute. Therefore,
+  hoping your munificent and respectable Excellency will not order,
+  being scornful, your pitiful Excellency's durwan to disperse us; but
+  five rupees, which nothing to Excellency's regards, and our tenacious
+  gratitude never forget; but kissing Excellency's hands on
+  indifferent occasions, and throwing at mercy feet with two imbecile,
+  offsprings of different denominations, I shall ever pray, &c."
+
+  "MRS. DIANA, THEODOSIA, COMFORT, GREEN."
+
+  "P.S. If not five rupees, two rupees five annas, in name of
+  Excellency's exalted mother, if quite convenient."
+
+There now! for an imposing structure in the florid style of
+half-caste begging-letters, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green
+flatters herself that is hard to beat.
+
+"'_Qui hi_?'--Karlee, who is at the gate?"
+
+"_Mem Sahib_! one chee-chee woman wanch look see Master, ispeakee
+Master buksheesh give; _paunch butcha_ have got."
+
+"_Paunch butcha!--five_ children! why, Karlee, there are but two here.
+But remembering, I suppose, that my Excellency has but two 'mercy
+feet,' and with an eye to symmetry in the arrangement of the grand
+tableau of which she proposes to make me the central figure, she has
+made it two 'imbecile offsprings' for the looks of the thing. Do you
+know her, Karlee?"
+
+"_Man, Sahib_! too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that
+chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,--
+one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good that
+woman, Karlee think."
+
+"Very well, old man; send her away; tell the durwan to disperse
+Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green; but let him not insult her
+decrepit widowhood, nor alarm her imbecile offsprings of various
+denominations. For the 'Eurasian' is a great institution, without
+which polkas at Coolee Bazaar were not, nor pic-nics _dansantes_ at
+Chandernagore."
+
+But now to tiffin. I smell a smell of curried prawns, and the first
+mangoes of the season are fragrant. Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
+cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
+_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
+knows no caste or country.
+
+  _Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
+  Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
+  Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
+      Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
+
+  "Gentle boy, whose silver feet
+  Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
+  Fill us quick the generous wine,
+      Ever fresh and ever fine!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found, and the
+best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly
+there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and
+do nothing for us. In Plato's "Gorgias," Socrates says, "The
+ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his
+passengers from Aegina or from Pontus, not thinking he has done
+anything extraordinary, and certainly knowing that his passengers are
+the same, and in no respect better than when he took them on board."
+So is it with books, for the most part; they work no redemption in us.
+The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no
+respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The
+volume is dear at a dollar, and, after reading to weariness the
+lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did,
+without surprise, of a surly bank-director, that in bank parlors
+they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.
+
+But it is not less true that there are books which are of that
+importance in a man's private experience, as to verify for him the
+fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus
+of Thrace; books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers
+and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so
+revolutionary, so authoritative; books which are the work and the
+proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world
+which they paint, that, though one shuts them with meaner ones, he
+feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living.
+
+Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of
+the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil
+countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results
+of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and
+inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by
+etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom
+friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers
+of another age.
+
+We owe to books those general benefits which come from high
+intellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the
+perception of immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the
+moral power. Go with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then
+read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of
+positive quality, with heroes and demigods standing around us who
+will not let us sleep. Then, they address the imagination; only
+poetry inspires poetry. They become the organic culture of the time.
+College education is the reading of certain books which the common
+sense of all scholars agrees will represent the science already
+accumulated. If you know that,--for instance, in geometry, if you
+have read Euclid and Laplace,--your opinion has some value; if you
+do not know these, you are not entitled to give any opinion on the
+subject. Whenever any skeptic or bigot claims to be heard on the
+questions of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar with the
+books of Plato, where all his pert objections have once for all been
+disposed of. If not, he has no right to our time. Let him go and
+find himself answered there.
+
+Meantime, the colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries,
+furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much
+wanted. In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear
+friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and
+leathern boxes; and though they know us, and have been waiting two,
+ten, or twenty centuries for us,--some of them,--and are eager to
+give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo
+that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has
+dressed them like battalions of infantry in coat and jacket of one
+cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the
+right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation
+and Combination,--not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half
+a million caskets, all alike. But it happens in our experience, that
+in this lottery there are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a
+prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a
+great deal of time among the false books, and alighting upon a few
+true ones which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in
+naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely
+over dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of sacred cities,
+into palaces and temples. This would be best done by those great
+masters of books who from time to time appear,--the Fabricii, the
+Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons,
+whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning. But private readers,
+reading purely for love of the book, would serve us by leaving each
+the shortest note of what he found.
+
+There are books, and it is practicable to read them, because they
+are so few. We look over with a sigh the monumental libraries of
+Paris, of the Vatican, and the British Museum. In the Imperial
+Library at Paris, it is commonly said, there are six hundred
+thousand volumes, and nearly as many manuscripts; and perhaps the
+number of extant printed books may be as many as these numbers united,
+or exceeding a million. It is easy to count the number of pages
+which a diligent man can read in a day, and the number of years
+which human life in favorable circumstances allows to reading; and
+to demonstrate, that, though he should read from dawn till dark, for
+sixty years, he must die in the first alcoves. But nothing can be
+more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none but a natural method
+is really pertinent. I visit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and
+I can seldom go there without renewing the conviction that the best
+of it all is already within the four walls of my study at home. The
+inspection of the catalogue brings me continually back to the few
+standard writers who are on every private shelf; and to these it can
+afford only the most slight and casual additions. The crowds and
+centuries of books are only commentary and elucidation, echoes and
+weakeners of these few great voices of Time.
+
+The best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a
+mechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a
+pursuit of his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let
+him read what is proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd
+of mediocrities. As whole nations have derived their culture from a
+single book,--as the Bible has been the literature as well as the
+religion of large portions of Europe,--as Hafiz was the eminent
+genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the
+Spaniards; so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer, if all the
+secondary writers were lost,--say, in England, all but Shakspeare,
+Milton, and Bacon, through the profounder study so drawn to those
+wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own genius, let the
+student read one, or let him read many, he will read advantageously.
+Dr. Johnson said, "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son
+shall read first, another boy has read both: read anything five
+hours a day, and you will soon be learned."
+
+Nature is much our friend in this matter. Nature is always
+clarifying her water and her wine. No filtration can be so perfect.
+She does the same thing by books as by her gases and plants. There
+is always a selection in writers, and then a selection from the
+selection. In the first place, all books that get fairly into the
+vital air of the world were written by the successful class, by the
+affirming and advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands feel,
+though they cannot say. There has already been a scrutiny and choice
+from many hundreds of young pens, before the pamphlet or political
+chapter which you read in a fugitive journal comes to your eye. All
+these are young adventurers, who produce their performance to the
+wise ear of Time, who sits and weighs, and ten years hence out of a
+million of pages reprints one. Again it is judged, it is winnowed by
+all the winds of opinion, and what terrific selection has not passed
+on it, before it can be reprinted after twenty years, and reprinted
+after a century!--it is as if Minos and Rhadamanthus had indorsed
+the writing. 'Tis therefore an economy of time to read old and famed
+books. Nothing can be preserved which is not good; and I know
+beforehand that Pindar, Martial, Terence, Galen, Kepler, Galileo,
+Bacon, Erasmus, More, will be superior to the average intellect. In
+contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish betwixt notoriety
+and fame.
+
+Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on
+the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn without
+asking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, "he always
+went into stately shops"; and good travellers stop at the best hotels;
+for, though they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is
+the good company and the best information. In like manner, the
+scholar knows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best
+thoughts and facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish
+Grub Street is the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best
+information. If you should transfer the amount of your reading day
+by day in the newspaper to the standard authors,--but who dare speak
+of such a thing?
+
+The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are,
+
+1. Never read any book that is not a year old.
+2. Never read any but famed books.
+3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase,
+
+  "No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en;
+  In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Montaigne says, "Books are a languid pleasure"; but I find certain
+books vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was; he
+shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others
+than such. And I will venture, at the risk of inditing a list of old
+primers and grammars, to count the few books which a superficial
+reader must thankfully use.
+
+Of the old Greek books, I think there are five which we cannot spare:--
+1. Homer, who, in spite of Pope, and all the learned uproar of
+centuries, has really the true fire, and is good for simple minds,
+is the true and adequate germ of Greece, and occupies that place as
+history, which nothing can supply. It holds through all literature,
+that our best history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in
+Sanscrit, and in Greek. English history is best known through
+Shakspeare; how much through Merlin, Robin Hood, and the Scottish
+ballads! the German, through the Nibelungen Lied; the Spanish,
+through the Cid. Of Homer, George Chapman's is the heroic translation,
+though the most literal prose version is the best of all.--2.
+Herodotus, whose history contains inestimable anecdotes, which
+brought it with the learned into a sort of disesteem; but in these
+days, when it is found that what is most memorable of history is a
+few anecdotes, and that we need not be alarmed, though we should
+find it not dull, it is regaining credit.--3. Aeschylus, the
+grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us under a thin veil
+the first plantation of Europe. The "Prometheus" is a poem of the
+like dignity and scope as the book of Job, or the Norse "Edda."--4.
+Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end. You find
+in him that which you have already found in Homer, now ripened to
+thought,--the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier strains
+of musical wisdom than Homer reached, as if Homer were the youth,
+and Plato the finished man; yet with no less security of bold and
+perfect song, when he cares to use it, and with some harpstrings
+fetched from a higher heaven. He contains the future, as he came out
+of the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe in its causes and
+seed,--all that in thought, which the history of Europe embodies or
+has yet to embody. The well-informed man finds himself anticipated.
+Plato is up with him, too. Nothing has escaped him. Every new crop
+in the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern
+humanity is there. If the student wish to see both sides, and
+justice done to the man of the world, pitiless exposure of pedants,
+and the supremacy of truth and the religious sentiment, he shall be
+contented also. Why should not young men be educated on this book?
+It would suffice for the tuition of the race,--to test their
+understanding, and to express their reason. Here is that which is so
+attractive to all men,--the literature of aristocracy shall I call it?--
+the picture of the best persons, sentiments, and manners, by the
+first master, in the best times,--portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades,
+Crito, Prodicus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the
+lovely background of the Athenian and suburban landscape. Or who can
+overestimate the images with which he has enriched the minds of men,
+and which pass like bullion in the currency of all nations? Read the
+"Phaedo," the "Protagoras," the "Phaedrus," the "Timaeus," the
+"Republic," and the "Apology of Socrates." 5. Plutarch cannot be
+spared from the smallest library: first, because he is so readable,
+which is much; then, that he is medicinal and invigorating. The
+Lives of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus
+and the rest, are what history has of best. But this book has taken
+care of itself, and the opinion of the world is expressed in the
+innumerable cheap editions, which make it as accessible as a
+newspaper. But Plutarch's "Morals" is less known, and seldom
+reprinted. Yet such a reader as I am writing to can as ill spare it
+as the "Lives." He will read in it the essays "On the Daemon of
+Socrates," "On Isis and Osiris," "On Progress in Virtue," "On
+Garrulity," "On Love," and thank anew the art of printing, and the
+cheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch charms by the facility
+of his associations; so that it signifies little where you open his
+book, you find yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is like
+the Isthmian Games, where all that was excellent in Greece was
+assembled, and you are stimulated and recruited by lyric verses, by
+philosophic sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, by the
+worship of the gods, and by the passing of fillets, parsley and
+laurel wreaths, chariots, armor, sacred cups, and utensils of
+sacrifice. An inestimable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the
+three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch.
+Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the
+meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of
+ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife,
+and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of
+Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of
+Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,--being a
+repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject of love,--a
+picture of a feast of wits, not less descriptive than Aristophanes,--
+and, lastly, containing that ironical eulogy of Socrates which is
+the source from which all the portraits of that head current in
+Europe have been drawn.
+
+Of course, a certain outline should be obtained of Greek history, in
+which the important moments and persons can be rightly set down; but
+the shortest is the best, and, if one lacks stomach for Mr. Grote's
+voluminous annals, the old slight and popular summary of Goldsmith
+or Gillies will serve. The valuable part is the age of Pericles, and
+the next generation. And here we must read the "Clouds" of
+Aristophanes, and what more of that master we gain appetite for, to
+learn our way in the streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of
+Aristophanes, requiring more genius and sometimes not less cruelty
+than belonged to the official commanders. Aristophanes is now very
+accessible, with much valuable commentary, through the labors of
+Mitchell and Cartwright. An excellent popular book is J. A. St.
+John's "Ancient Greece"; the "Life and Letters" of Niebuhr, even
+more than his Lectures, furnish leading views; and Winckelmann, a
+Greek born out of due time, has become essential to an intimate
+knowledge of the Attic genius. The secret of the recent histories in
+German and in English is the discovery, owed first to Wolff, and
+later to Boeckh, that the sincere Greek history of that period must
+be drawn from Demosthenes, specially from the business orations, and
+from the comic poets.
+
+If we come down a little by natural steps from the master to the
+disciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,--
+who also cannot be skipped,--Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,
+Jamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Julian said, "that he was
+posterior to Plato in time, not in genius." Of Plotinus, we have
+eulogies by Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Emperor
+Gallienus,--indicating the respect he inspired among his
+contemporaries. If any one who had read with interest the "Isis and
+Osiris" of Plutarch should then read a chapter called "Providence,"
+by Synesius, translated into English by Thomas Taylor, he will find
+it one of the majestic remains of literature, and, like one walking
+in the noblest of temples, will conceive new gratitude to his
+fellowmen, and a new estimate of their nobility. The imaginative
+scholar will find few stimulants to his brain like these writers. He
+has entered the Elysian Fields; and the grand and pleasing figures
+of gods and daemons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" and the
+"aquatic gods," daemons with fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the
+Platonic rhetoric, exalted a little under the African sun, sail
+before his eyes. The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave at
+Delphi; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. These guides speak
+of the gods with such depth and with such pictorial details, as if
+they had been bodily present at the Olympian feasts. The reader of
+these books makes new acquaintance with his own mind; new regions of
+thought are opened. Jamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras" works more
+directly on the will than the others; since Pythagoras was eminently
+a practical person, the founder of a school of ascetics and
+socialists, a planter of colonies, and nowise a man of abstract
+studies alone.
+
+The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn's
+Library have done for literature what railroads have done for
+internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have
+named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in
+any book is translatable,--any real insight or broad human sentiment.
+Nay, I observe, that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral
+tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of
+the original into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling
+at translators, _i traditori traduttori_, but I thank them. I rarely
+read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book
+in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be
+beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which
+receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as
+soon think of swimming across Charles River, when I wish to go to
+Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them
+rendered for me in my mother tongue.
+
+For history, there is great choice of ways to bring the student
+through early Rome. If he can read Livy, he has a good book; but one
+of the short English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should be
+used, that will place in the cycle the bright stars of Plutarch. The
+poet Horace is the eye of the Augustan age; Tacitus, the wisest of
+historians; and Martial will give him Roman manners, and some very
+bad ones, in the early days of the Empire: but Martial must be read,
+if read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring him to Gibbon,
+who will take him in charge, and convey him with abundant
+entertainment down--with notice of all remarkable objects on the way--
+through fourteen hundred years of time. He cannot spare Gibbon, with
+his vast reading, with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though
+never profound, his book is one of the conveniences of civilization,
+like the proposed railroad from New York to the Pacific,--and, I
+think, will be sure to send the reader to his "Memoirs of Himself,"
+and the "Extracts from my Journal," and "Abstracts of my Readings,"
+which will spur the laziest scholar to emulation of his prodigious
+performance.
+
+Now having our idler safe down as far as the fall of Constantinople
+in 1453, he is in very good courses; for here are trusty hands
+waiting for him. The cardinal facts of European history are soon
+learned. There is Dante's poem, to open the Italian Republics of the
+Middle Age; Dante's "Vita Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice; and
+Boccaccio's "Life of Dante,"--a great man to describe a greater. To
+help us, perhaps a volume or two of M. Sismondi's "Italian Republics"
+will be as good as the entire sixteen. When we come to Michel Angelo,
+his Sonnets and Letters must be read, with his Life by Vasari, or,
+in our day, by Mr. Duppa. For the Church, and the Feudal Institution,
+Mr. Hallam's "Middle Ages" will furnish, if superficial, yet
+readable and conceivable outlines.
+
+The "Life of the Emperor Charles V.," by the useful Robertson, is
+still the key of the following age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther,
+Erasmus, Melancthon, Francis I., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Henry IV.
+of France, are his contemporaries. It is a time of seeds and
+expansions, whereof our recent civilization is the fruit.
+
+If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to
+British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history
+takes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and
+mythology to the "Younger Edda" and the "Heimrskringla" of Snorro
+Sturleson, to Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," to Ellis's "Metrical
+Romances," to Asser's "Life of Alfred," and Venerable Bede, and to
+the researches of Sharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him
+for an intelligent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the
+richest period of the English mind, with the chief men of action and
+of thought which that nation has produced, and with a pregnant
+future before him. Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh,
+Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne,
+Herrick; and Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after.
+
+In reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He
+will not repent the time he gives to Bacon,--not if he read the
+"Advancement of Learning," the "Essays," the "Novum Organon," the
+"History of Henry VII.," and then all the "Letters," (especially
+those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business,) and
+all but his "Apophthegms."
+
+The task is aided by the strong mutual light which these men shed on
+each other. Thus, the Works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to bind
+all these fine persons together, and to the land to which they belong.
+He has written verses to or on all his notable contemporaries; and
+what with so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches in his
+"Discoveries," and the gossiping record of his opinions in his
+conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, has really illustrated
+the England of his time, if not to the same extent, yet much in the
+same way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the persons and places of
+Scotland. Walton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write also
+to the times.
+
+Among the best books are certain _Autobiographies_: as, St.
+Augustine's Confessions; Benvenuto Cellini's Life; Montaigne's Essays;
+Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs; Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz;
+Rousseau's Confessions; Linnaeus's Diary; Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's,
+Burns's, Alfieri's, Goethe's, and Haydon's Autobiographies.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to these, and of like interest,
+are those which may be called _Table-Talks_; of which the best are
+Saadi's Gulistan; Luther's Table-Talk; Aubrey's Lives; Spence's
+Anecdotes; Selden's Table-Talk; Boswell's Life of Johnson;
+Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe; Coleridge's Table-Talk; and
+Hazlitt's Life of Northcote.
+
+There is a class whose value I should designate as favorites; such
+as Froissart's Chronicles; Southey's Chronicle of the Cid; Cervantes;
+Sully's Memoirs; Rabelais; Montaigne; Izaak Walton; Evelyn; Sir
+Thomas Browne; Aubrey; Sterne; Horace Walpole; Lord Clarendon;
+Doctor Johnson; Burke, shedding floods of light on his times; Lamb;
+Landor; and De Quincey;--a list, of course, that may easily be
+swelled, as dependent on individual caprice. Many men are as tender
+and irritable as lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed,
+a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender
+readers have a great prudencey in showing their books to a stranger.
+
+The annals of bibliography afford many examples of the delirious
+extent to which book-fancying can go, when the legitimate delight in
+a book is transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. This
+mania reached its height about the beginning of the present century.
+For an autograph of Shakspeare one hundred and fifty-five guineas
+were given. In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was
+sold. The sale lasted forty-two days,--we abridge the story from
+Dibdin,--and among the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio
+published by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of
+this edition. Among the distinguished company which attended the
+sale were the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of
+Marlborough, then Marquis of Blandford. The bid stood at five hundred
+guineas. "A thousand guineas," said Earl Spencer: "And ten," added
+the Marquis. You might hear a pin drop. All eyes were bent on the
+bidders. Now they talked apart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet,
+but without the least thought of yielding one to the other.
+"Two thousand pounds," said the Marquis. The Earl Spencer bethought
+him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed and waste of powder,
+and had paused a quarter of a minute, when Lord Althorp with long
+steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to
+renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and Earl Spencer
+exclaimed, "Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!" An electric
+shock went through the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis.
+There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused;
+the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when
+the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest
+shores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries
+of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five
+hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain amidst the royal
+alcoves in Paris, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio.
+
+Another class I distinguish by the term _Vocabularies_. Burton's
+"Anatomy of Melancholy" is a book of great learning. To read it is
+like reading in a dictionary. 'Tis an inventory to remind us how
+many classes and species of facts exist, and, in observing into what
+strange and multiplex by-ways learning has strayed, to infer our
+opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no
+cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion,--
+the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing is wanting
+but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of a
+hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "On the Vanity of Arts and
+Sciences" is a specimen of that scribatious-ness which grew to be
+the habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern
+Germans, they read a literature, whilst other mortals read a few
+books. They read voraciously, and must disburden themselves; so they
+take any general topic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or
+Praise of Folly, and write and quote without method or end. Now and
+then out of that affluence of their learning comes a fine sentence
+from Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boëthius, but no high method, no
+inspiring efflux. But one cannot afford to read for a few sentences;
+they are good only as strings of suggestive words.
+
+There is another class more needful to the present age, because the
+currents of custom run now in another direction, and leave us dry on
+this side;--I mean the _Imaginative_. A right metaphysics should do
+justice to the coördinate powers of Imagination, Insight,
+Understanding, and Will. Poetry, with its aids of Mythology and
+Romance, must be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men are
+ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not
+ciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is
+hustled out of sight. Our orators and writers are of the same poverty,
+and, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagination, the great awakening
+power, nor the Morals, creative of genius and of men, are addressed.
+But though orator and poet are of this hunger party, the capacities
+remain. We must have symbols. The child asks you for a story, and is
+thankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with
+meaning. The man asks for a novel,--that is, asks leave, for a few
+hours, to be a poet, and to paint things as they ought to be. The
+youth asks for a poem. The very dunces wish to go to the theatre.
+What private heavens can we not open, by yielding to all the
+suggestion of rich music! We must have idolatries, mythologies, some
+swing and verge for the creative power lying coiled and cramped here,
+driving ardent natures to insanity and crime, if it do not find vent.
+Without the great and beautiful arts which speak to the sense of
+beauty, a man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. These
+are his becoming draperies, which warm and adorn him. Whilst the
+prudential and economical tone of society starves the imagination,
+affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The novel is that
+allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything else pins it
+down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas, Sand,
+Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their education is neglected;
+but the circulating library and the theatre, as well as the
+trout-fishing, the Notch Mountains, the Adirondac country, the tour
+to Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts, make such amends
+as they can.
+
+The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It
+has a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like
+planets, and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the
+music, they never quite subside to their old stony state. But what
+is the Imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy;
+only the precursor of the Reason. And books that treat the old
+pedantries of the world, our times, places, professions, customs,
+opinions, histories, with a certain freedom, and distribute things,
+not after the usages of America and Europe, but after the laws of
+right reason, and with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put
+us on our feet again, enable us to form an original judgment of our
+duties, and suggest new thoughts for to-morrow.
+
+"Lucrezia Floriani," "Le Péché de M. Antoine," "Jeanne," of George
+Sand, are great steps from the novel of one termination, which we
+all read twenty years ago. Yet how far off from life and manners and
+motives the novel still is! Life lies about us dumb; the day, as we
+know it, has not yet found a tongue. These stories are to the plots
+of real life what the figures in "La Belle Assemblée," which
+represent the fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the novel
+will find the way to our interiors one day, and will not always be
+the novel of costume merely. I do not think them inoperative now. So
+much novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched;
+and doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young
+study noble behavior; and as the player in "Consuelo" insists that
+he and his colleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine
+etiquette and strokes of grace and dignity which they practise with
+so much effect in their villas and among their dependents, so I
+often see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in the courtesy
+and brilliancy of young midshipmen, collegians, and clerks. Indeed,
+when one observes how ill and ugly people make their loves and
+quarrels, 'tis pity they should not read novels a little more, to
+import the fine generosities, and the clear, firm conduct, which are
+as becoming in the unions and separations which love effects under
+shingle roofs as in palaces and among illustrious personages.
+
+In novels the most serious questions are really beginning to be
+discussed. What made the popularity of "Jane Eyre," but that a
+central question was answered in some sort? The question there
+answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated
+according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding
+individualism will answer it as Rochester does,--as Cleopatra, as
+Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the exception into a rule,
+dwarfing the world into an exception. A person of less courage, that
+is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does,--giving
+way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of
+men and women.
+
+For the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We
+admire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,
+and parliaments. They make us skeptical, by giving prominence to
+wealth and social position.
+
+I remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the
+oranges hanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were
+tied to the twigs by thread. I fear 'tis so with the novelist's
+prosperities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the man to his
+fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. But the novelist
+plucks this event here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly
+to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying
+success, or scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole,
+'tis a juggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which
+only oddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element,
+no power, no furtherance. 'Tis only confectionery, not the raising
+of new corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was
+beautiful, and he fell in love_. Money, and killing, and the
+Wandering Jew, and persuading the lover that his mistress is
+betrothed to another,--these are the mainsprings; new names, but no
+new qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain endeavor to keep
+any bit of this fairy gold, which has rolled like a brook through
+our hands. A thousand thoughts awoke; great rainbows seemed to span
+the sky; a morning among the mountains;--but we close the book, and
+not a ray remains in the memory of evening. But this passion for
+romance, and this disappointment, show how much we need real
+elevations and pure poetry; that which shall show us, in morning and
+night, in stars and mountains, and in all the plight and
+circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like
+impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.
+
+If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of
+rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.
+Every good fable, every mythology, every biography out of a
+religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
+when they proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not
+detached and critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables,
+the Persian history, (Firdousi,) the "Younger Edda" of the
+Scandinavians, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the poem of Dante, the
+Sonnets of Michel Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont
+and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in
+our time, the ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of
+Goethe, have this richness, and leave room for hope and for generous
+attempts.
+
+There is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as
+to leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles
+of the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
+each the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and
+Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,
+these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;
+the Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the
+Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the
+"Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius
+and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical
+authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope
+of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be
+Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus;
+the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the
+"Imitation of Christ," of Thomas à Kempis; and the "Thoughts" of
+Pascal.
+
+All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal
+conscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year's
+almanac or this day's newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to
+be read on the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given
+or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the
+glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should
+give and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and
+enact them. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but
+are living characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.
+I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;
+they fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter
+and blushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures
+which the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean,
+to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which
+is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--
+was there already long before him. The missionary must be carried by
+it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
+these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
+perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
+and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
+ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
+few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
+Bible.
+
+These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
+yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
+the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
+be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
+sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
+British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
+each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
+so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
+on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
+or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
+the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
+the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
+time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
+study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
+give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
+keeping nothing back. Another member, meantime, shall as honestly
+search, sift, and as truly report on British mythology, the Round
+Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry; a third, on
+the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmesbury;
+a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, "Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and
+Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold,
+after the washing; and every other shall then decide whether this is
+a book indispensable to him also.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND LENS.
+
+
+I.
+
+THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.
+
+From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my
+inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was
+not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,
+hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope
+for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a
+drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very
+primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it
+is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently
+wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of
+excitement.
+
+Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
+to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope,
+related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished
+through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly
+constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the
+days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
+and his departure.
+
+Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
+remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
+vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
+construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
+containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
+"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
+lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
+crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
+endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
+to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
+a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
+properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
+totally failed.
+
+At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
+Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
+dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
+could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
+on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
+comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
+Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
+across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
+land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might
+feel towards the ordinary masters of men. I held conversations with
+Xanure in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily
+communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in
+their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of
+things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a
+drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe
+of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life,
+and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and
+protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my
+mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from
+her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
+enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
+foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
+boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering
+with green and silver and gold.
+
+It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
+the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
+disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
+microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night
+poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
+having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its
+primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never
+betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was
+bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.
+
+Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
+ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
+the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantages of instruments a
+thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
+Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and
+Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
+ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
+specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I
+believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
+ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that
+shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel
+animalcule (_Rotifera vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its
+flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as
+I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study,
+I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the
+investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were
+devoting their lives and intellects.
+
+As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
+practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops
+of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious
+that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should
+enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous
+merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I
+decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a
+failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.
+
+But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
+staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor;
+and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha,
+I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to
+place me above want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for
+this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
+in rendering myself independent.
+
+After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
+selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New
+York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
+from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased,
+without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I
+might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
+the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no
+danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place
+for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest
+publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,--in
+short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my
+life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires
+that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my
+object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my
+becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was
+with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and
+established myself in New York.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
+
+My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
+obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
+pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
+and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
+furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
+all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I
+visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
+splendid collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Higham's,
+Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular, (that founded on the principles of
+the stereoscope,) and at length fixed upon that form known as
+Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
+improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with
+this I purchased every possible accessory,--drawtubes, micrometers,
+a _camera-lucida_, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud
+illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus,
+forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles,
+all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced
+microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the
+slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
+how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
+suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently
+was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or
+a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
+mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is
+greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.
+
+Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
+students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to
+the delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the
+most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest
+hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile
+manipulation.
+
+For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of
+my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every
+possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was
+that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
+never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
+understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
+could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
+fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
+that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
+became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
+
+During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
+every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
+lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
+was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
+Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
+proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
+of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
+their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
+generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
+higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
+resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
+plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
+Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
+optical illusion.
+
+But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
+made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
+found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like
+all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed,
+it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the
+defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I
+imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of
+my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night
+constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which
+I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its
+original atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity
+through ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the
+secret of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be limited
+only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time
+should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short
+from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds
+himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
+microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power,
+was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound
+microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the
+wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
+to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if
+conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.
+
+It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
+After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on
+every imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals,
+artificial crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--
+in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus
+had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing
+gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost
+dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of
+progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended one lecture
+since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses of my mad pursuit
+had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.
+
+I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
+on a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power,
+having always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a
+young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the
+habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.
+
+I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
+character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There
+was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell,
+and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should
+perhaps have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined
+to the disposal of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a
+rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress
+of a Mexican _caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he
+paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
+which he assured me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for
+that,--and some other knick-knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
+should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He apparently
+had plenty of money, and had the _entrée_ of the best houses in the
+city,--taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within
+the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
+conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater
+object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to
+be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
+affair.
+
+On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
+considerable excitement.
+
+"_Ah! mon ami_!" he cried, before I could even offer him the
+ordinary salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the
+most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the
+house of Madame -----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name
+himself in the Latin?"
+
+"Vulpes," I answered.
+
+"Ah! yes, Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."
+
+"The spirit medium?"
+
+"Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman! I write on a
+slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--
+affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most
+profound; and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman
+makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me
+of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
+I am fixed to the earth!"
+
+"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
+questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
+known only to yourself?"
+
+"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
+some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
+pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
+these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
+saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
+It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
+can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
+Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
+it to you."
+
+I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
+and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
+dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
+Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
+should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
+subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
+goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
+enable me to attain?
+
+While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
+mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK.
+
+Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
+promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
+residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with a keen and
+rather cruel dark eye, and an exceedingly sensual expression about
+her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an
+apartment on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre
+of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common
+round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her
+chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my
+appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with any awe.
+Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with
+the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
+Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.
+
+"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
+business-like tone of voice.
+
+"By appointment,--yes."
+
+"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"
+
+"Yes,--I wish for a written one."
+
+"From any particular spirit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"
+
+"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
+him some information which he ought to be able to give better than
+any other."
+
+"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
+"and place your hands upon it?"
+
+I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite me, with her hands also
+on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
+violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
+on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window panes.
+Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.
+
+"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate."
+She then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"
+
+Vigorous affirmative.
+
+"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"
+
+A very confused rapping followed this question.
+
+"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
+"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
+you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
+invisible guests.
+
+That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
+While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
+scribbled a name under the table.
+
+"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
+the medium once more.
+
+After a moment's pause her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
+tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
+spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
+of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
+loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper
+with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few
+moments had elapsed she handed me the paper, on which I found written,
+in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
+been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which
+Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at
+regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
+hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and
+she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper,
+which she handed to me. They were as follows:
+
+"I am here. Question me.
+
+"LEEUWENHOEK."
+
+I was, astounded. The name was identical with that I had written
+beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at
+all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know
+even the name of the great father of microscopies. It may have been
+Biology; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on
+my slip--still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of
+questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the
+responses in the order in which they occurred.
+
+I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
+
+SPIRIT.--Yes.
+
+I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
+
+SPIRIT.--You are.
+
+I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
+which you bear to science, help me!
+
+SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
+electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
+rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
+form the universal lens.
+
+I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
+
+SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.
+
+I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
+image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
+surmounted?
+
+SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
+obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
+itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!
+
+I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
+communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
+biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
+medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
+gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
+But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
+would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
+defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some
+such theory may have passed through my head, it is true, but if so,
+I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no
+course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the
+most painful nervous exultation that I left the medium's house that
+evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
+The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the
+balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily
+expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night
+air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me,--how to
+obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means
+multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its
+purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I
+could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+THE EYE OF MORNING.
+
+There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
+impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his
+sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
+over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some
+object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly,
+thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
+crimson with confusion.
+
+"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
+don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
+
+Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
+protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
+
+"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
+
+This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
+if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some
+incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually
+kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too
+preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
+
+"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
+continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather
+was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only
+get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
+
+Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
+lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
+savagely, and rushing to the mantel-piece, where some foreign weapons
+hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it
+furiously before him.
+
+"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited.
+"No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted
+with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I
+am brave! You cannot make me fear!"
+
+All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement,
+astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon
+the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to
+reassure him.
+
+"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
+mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
+problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
+size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
+the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What
+can be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
+valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
+The diamond which I require you could not possess; or if you did
+possess it, you would not be living here."
+
+Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
+expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
+combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my
+movements. He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he
+was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which
+betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
+off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making
+this explanation, and endeavored, with some success, to assume a
+more cheerful air.
+
+All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much
+accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I
+determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.
+
+"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
+Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vongeot_ down-stairs,
+fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
+Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
+
+"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
+
+I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
+famous vintage, that of 1818, a year when war and wine throve
+together, and its pure, but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
+vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
+bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
+while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to
+send a flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became
+more and more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a
+not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the
+conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eyes on
+him with a quiet smile, said:
+
+"Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You
+may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather, one of her
+spirits, told me all."
+
+He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to
+fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a
+short time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
+
+"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
+shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
+
+"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell
+me all about it."
+
+The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin
+earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated;
+then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
+mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy
+look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he
+drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the
+mild lamp-light was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it
+fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no
+judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare
+size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and--must I confess
+it?--with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply
+to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements
+(of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had
+been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
+Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead
+of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he
+saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up, and fled with it,
+but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly,--
+so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention
+to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to discover
+any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed
+away safely. He added, that, in accordance with Oriental practice,
+he had named his diamond by the fanciful title of "The Eye of Morning."
+
+While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
+attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the
+glories of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in
+its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was
+exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence.
+The hand of Destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
+spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the
+microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start
+up within my easy reach! I determined, with the most perfect
+deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.
+
+I sat opposite him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
+revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
+foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
+or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
+interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
+taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a hide
+peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human
+beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be
+experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own
+confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer.
+He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws;
+why should I not, like government, contrive that his punishment
+should contribute to the progress of human knowledge?
+
+The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
+There stood upon the mantel-piece a bottle half full of French
+laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
+restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his
+glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
+
+I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket
+in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I
+laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
+myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while
+with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation
+the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the
+aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I
+calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon,
+if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with
+one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which
+I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs.
+I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
+bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches
+the surface of the water; he turned half round on his side, and as if
+to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
+more spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the creese, which it
+remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this
+there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralyzed
+the usual nervous action. He must have died instantaneously.
+
+There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
+suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
+house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be
+found in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and
+afterwards escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical
+impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also
+should he found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended
+softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for
+holding small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass,
+etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice,
+with a very powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last
+was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was
+simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its
+stem in this vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock
+the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of
+papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before
+they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into
+Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all traces of wine,--
+cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles away with me.
+If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the
+question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides,
+the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The
+laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in
+case of _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be
+that he first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a
+little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed
+his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
+arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
+door with my vice, and went to bed.
+
+Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
+The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light
+streaming on the dark landing from under the door, peeped through
+the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door
+was burst open, and the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.
+
+Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
+inquest; but no clue to his death, beyond that of suicide, could be
+obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
+friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
+One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that
+"he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed, that Simon, when
+paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he would not pay
+him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded, the door
+locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I
+anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon,
+so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a
+prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
+neighborhood once more settled down into its accustomed quiet.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+ANIMULA
+
+The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and
+day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast, galvanic battery,
+composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I
+dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this
+enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
+electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
+me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I
+commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense
+toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the
+care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the
+lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had
+yet undergone.
+
+At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
+trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
+Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
+to be placed upon its platform, my hand fairly shook as I enveloped
+a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
+to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the
+rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip
+of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid
+of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my
+eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an
+instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a
+vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and
+seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently,
+and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'
+breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens
+approached the object, a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded
+to my view.
+
+I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
+beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
+the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
+animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that
+dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous
+power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
+aqueous matter, beyond the realms of Infusoria and Protozoa, down to
+the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was
+gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
+radiance.
+
+It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
+side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and
+colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
+appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific
+definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they
+undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with
+splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is
+as dross compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance
+stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
+and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The
+pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista
+seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping
+silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied
+with a thousand hues lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the
+crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no
+forms animate or inanimate were to be seen, save those vast auroral
+copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves
+and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealizable by
+mere imagination.
+
+How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
+solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
+life,--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
+present acquainted,--but still, some living organism. I find my
+newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic
+desert.
+
+While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
+economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
+our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
+through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more at
+tentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict
+the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this
+mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in
+suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an
+animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting
+behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly
+revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed
+nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and the form
+floated out into the broad light.
+
+It was a female human shape. When I say "human," I mean it possessed
+the outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable
+beauty lifted it inimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
+Adam.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
+revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
+serene, evade my words. Her long lustrous hair following her
+glorious head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a
+falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its
+splendors. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would
+still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that
+enclosed her form.
+
+She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
+into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
+of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
+clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She
+floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending
+through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of
+her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening
+to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the
+harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply
+purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal
+of this wonder through another's blood? I would have given my own to
+enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.
+
+Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
+instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
+microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that
+lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from
+prism sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny
+bead of dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet
+Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more
+to apply my eye to the microscope.
+
+Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
+bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
+the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
+of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
+with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on
+its summit, and sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula.
+The sylph took it in her delicate hand, and began to eat. My
+attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply
+myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or
+was not instinct with volition.
+
+I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
+attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
+through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
+eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
+have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
+luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple
+and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement,
+she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then
+cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash
+of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
+
+Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
+seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
+still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
+sudden disappearance? Had she a lover, or a husband? Yes, that was
+the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
+through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
+
+The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion,
+startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced
+upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was
+so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
+
+It is true, that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope,
+she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the
+revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle
+and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop,
+she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what
+account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the
+instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I
+must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.
+
+Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the
+mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper
+all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest
+of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be
+something to have established even the faintest personal link to
+bind us together--to know that at times, when roaming through those
+enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had
+broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle
+memory in her heart!
+
+But it could not be. No invention, of which human intellect was
+capable, could break down the barriers that Nature had erected. I
+might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always
+remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her,
+and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of
+anguish I fled from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed
+myself to sleep like a child.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+THE SPILLING OF THE CUP.
+
+I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
+microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
+that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
+surrounded by its moderator's, burning, when I went to bed the night
+before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
+pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
+surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
+shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the
+transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and
+gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might
+have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus.
+I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection
+were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably. By the dim
+light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
+her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
+flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
+and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some
+substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled, and her lips
+moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
+reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what carols of
+happiness would then have entranced my ears! What jubilant hymns to
+Adonaïs would have thrilled the illumined air!
+
+I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
+mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
+lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
+purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
+practically realized.
+
+How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
+know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
+the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I
+saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time
+for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as
+that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the
+divine form strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always
+overshadowed by the maddening conviction, that, although I could
+gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!
+
+At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest, and
+continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions,
+that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it.
+"Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has
+bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess.
+Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of
+mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and
+this false enchantment will vanish."
+
+I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
+advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at
+Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the
+most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I
+instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
+
+The curtain drew up. The usual semi-circle of fairies in white
+muslin were standing on the right toe around the enamelled
+flower-bank, of green canvas, on which the belated prince was
+sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees
+open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters.
+It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause,
+and lighting on one foot remained poised in air. Heavens! was this
+the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels?
+Those heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes,
+that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted checks! Where were the
+vermeil blooms, the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
+Animula?
+
+The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of
+her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful
+athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I
+could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew
+every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the
+Signorina's _pas-de-fascination_ and abruptly quitted the house.
+
+I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
+sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
+impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Aninula was there,--but
+what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
+place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
+lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and
+haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her
+golden hair had faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her!
+I believe at that moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to
+my human birthright, if I could only have been dwarfed to the size
+of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had
+forever divided me.
+
+I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
+afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
+contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony.
+The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty.
+Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I
+watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed
+absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered
+that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I
+hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between
+Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the
+microscope. The slide was still there,--but, great heavens! the
+water-drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had
+evaporated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the
+naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
+Animula,--and she was dying!
+
+I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas!
+the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all
+melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
+a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so
+round and lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes
+that shone like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
+golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld
+that final struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
+
+When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
+the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as
+it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
+
+They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
+have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent,
+and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke
+invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me,
+and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is
+the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture.
+Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly
+memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the
+radiant form of my lost Animula!
+
+
+
+
+THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL.
+
+  Amid the aisle, apart, there stood
+  A mourner like the rest;
+  And while the solemn rites were said,
+  He fashioned into verse his mood,
+  That would not be repressed.
+
+  Why did they bring him home,
+  Bright jewel set in lead?
+  Oh, bear the sculptor back to Rome,
+  And lay him with the mighty dead,--
+  With Adonais, and the rest
+  Of all the young and good and fair,
+  That drew the milk of English breast,
+  And their last sigh in Latian air!
+
+  Lay him with Raphael, unto whom
+  Was granted Rome's most lasting tomb;
+  For many a lustre, many an aeon,
+  He might sleep well in the Panthéon,
+  Deep in the sacred city's womb,
+  The smoke and splendor and the stir of Rome.
+
+  Lay him 'neath Diocletian's dome,
+  Blessed Saint Mary of the Angels,
+  Near to that house in which he dwelt,--
+  House that to many seemed a home,
+  So much with him they loved and felt.
+  We were his guests a hundred times;
+  We loved him for his genial ways;
+  He gave me credit for my rhymes,
+  And made me blush with praise.
+
+  Ah! there be many histories
+  That no historian writes,
+  And friendship hath its mysteries
+  And consecrated nights;
+  Amid the busy days of pain,
+  Wear of hand, and tear of brain,
+  Weary midnight, weary morn,
+  Years of struggle paid with scorn;--
+  Yet oft amid all this despair,
+  Long rambles in the Autumn days
+  O'er Appian or Flaminian Ways,
+  Bright moments snatched from care,
+
+    When loose as buffaloes on the wild Campagna
+      We roved and dined on crust and curds,
+      Olives, thin wine, and thinner birds,
+    And woke the echoes of divine Romagna;
+      And then returning late,
+      After long knocking at the Lateran gate,
+      Suppers and nights of gods; and then
+      Mornings that made us new-born men;
+      Rare nights at the Minerva tavern,
+      With Orvieto from the Cardinal's cavern;
+      Free nights, but fearless and without reproof,--
+      For Bayard's word ruled Beppo's roof.
+
+    O Rome! what memories awake,
+      When Crawford's name is said,
+    Of days and friends for whose dear sake
+    That path of Hades unto me
+      Will have no more of dread
+    Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice!
+      O Crawford! husband, father, brother
+    Are in that name, that little word!
+      Let me no more my sorrow smother;
+    Grief stirs me, and I must be stirred.
+
+    O Death, thou teacher true and rough!
+      Full oft I fear that we have erred,
+    And have not loved enough;
+    But oh, ye friends, this side of Acheron,
+      Who cling to me to-day,
+    I shall not know my love till ye are gone
+      And I am gray!
+      Fair women with your loving eyes,
+    Old men that once my footsteps led,
+      Sweet children,--much as all I prize,
+    Until the sacred dust of death be shed
+      Upon each dear and venerable head,
+    I cannot love you as I love the dead!
+
+    But now, the natural man being sown,
+    We can more lucidly behold
+      The spiritual one;
+      For we, till time shall end,
+      Full visibly shall see our friend
+    In all his hand did mould,--
+    That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!
+
+    When on some blessed studious day
+    To my loved Library I wend my way,
+    Amid the forms that give the Gallery grace
+    His thought in that pale poet I shall trace,--
+      Keen Orpheus with his eyes
+        Fixed deep in ruddy hell,
+
+  Seeking amid those lurid skies
+  The wife he loved so well,--
+  And feel that still therein I see
+  All that was in my Master's thought,
+  And, in that constant hand wherewith he wrought,
+  The eternal type of constancy.
+  Thou marble husband! might there be
+  More of flesh and blood like thee!
+
+  Or if, in Music's festive hall,
+  I come to cheat me of my care,
+  Amid the swell, the dying fall,
+  His genius greets me there.
+  O man of bronze! thy solemn air--
+  Best soother of a troubled brain--
+  Floods me with memories, and again
+  As thou stand'st visibly to men,
+  Beloved musician! so once more
+  Crawford comes back that did thy form restore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Well,--_requiescat_! let him pass!
+
+  Good mourners, go your several ways!
+  He needs no further rite, nor mass,
+  Nor eulogy, who best could praise
+  Himself in marble and in brass;
+  Yet his best monument did raise,
+  Not in those perishable things
+  That men eternal deem,--
+  The pride of palaces and kings,--
+  But in such works as must avail him there,
+  With Him who, from the extreme
+  Love that was in his breast,
+  Said, "Come, all ye that heavy burdens bear,
+  And I will give you rest!"
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
+
+As a mere literary production, the Message of Mr. Buchanan is so
+superior to any of the Messages of his immediate predecessor, that
+the reader naturally expects to find in it a corresponding
+superiority of sentiment and aim. When we meet a man who is
+well-dressed, and whose external demeanor is that of a gentleman, we
+are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and
+honorable feelings. But we are very often mistaken in this inference;
+the nice garment proves to be little better than a nice disguise;
+and the robe of respectability may cover the heart of a very scurvy
+fellow.
+
+Mr. Buchanan's sentences run smoothly enough; they are for the most
+part grammatical; the tone throughout is sedate, if not dignified;
+and the general spirit unambitious and moderate. But the doctrine,
+in our estimation, is, on the most essential point, atrocious, and
+the objects which are sought to be compassed are unworthy of the man,
+the office, the country, and the age. We refer, of course, to what
+is said of the one vital question with us now, the question of
+Slavery in Kansas; but before proceeding to a discussion of that,
+let us say a word or two of other parts of this important document.
+
+The President introduces, as the first of his topics, the prevailing
+money pressure, which he treats at considerable length, with some
+degree of truth, but without originality or comprehensiveness of view.
+He profiles to inquire into the causes of the unfortunate disasters
+of trade, and into the remedies which may be devised against their
+recurrence; but on neither head is he remarkably profound or
+instructive. It is merely reiterating the commonplaces of the
+newspapers, to talk about "the excessive loans and issues of the
+banks," and to ring changes of phraseology on the vices of
+speculation, over-trading, and stock-jobbing. All the world is as
+familiar with all that as the President can be, and scarcely needed
+a reminder on either score; what we wanted of the head of the nation,--
+what a real statesman, who understood his subject, would have given
+us,--that is, if he had pretended to go at all beyond the simple
+statement of the fact of commercial revulsion, into a discussion of
+it,--was a comprehensive and philosophic analysis of all the causes
+of the phenomenon, a calm and careful review of all its circumstances,
+and a rigid deduction of broad general principles from an adequate
+study of the entire case. But this the President has not furnished.
+In connecting our commercial derangements with the disorders of the
+banking system he has unquestionably struck upon a great and
+fundamental truth; but it is merely a single truth, and he strikes
+it in rather a vague and random way. In considering these reverses,
+there are many things to be taken into account besides the
+constitution and customs, whether good or bad, of our American banks,--
+many things which do not even confine themselves to this continent,
+but are spread over the greater part of the civilized world.
+
+Mr. Buchanan is still lamer in his suggestion of remedies than he is
+in his inquiry after causes. The Federal Government, he thinks, can
+do little or nothing in the premises,--a fatal admission at the
+outset,--and we are coolly turned over to the most unsubstantial and
+impracticable of all reliances, "the wisdom and patriotism of the
+State legislatures"! Why cannot the Federal Government do anything
+in the premises? The President tells us that the Constitution has
+conferred upon Congress the exclusive right "to coin money _and
+regulate the value thereof_," and that it has prohibited the States
+from "issuing bills of credit,"--which phrase, if it mean anything,
+means making paper-money; and the inference would seem to be
+inevitable that Congress has a sovereign authority and power over
+the whole matter. It may, moreover, touch the circulation of bills,
+by means of its indisputable right to lay a stamp-tax upon paper;
+and Mr. Gallatin long ago recommended the exercise of this power, as
+an effectual method of restraining the emission of small notes. Upon
+what principle, then, can the President assert so dictatorially as
+he does, that the Federal Government is concluded from action? If
+the excesses of the State Banks are so enormous as he represents,
+and so perpetually and so widely disastrous, why should it not
+interpose to avert the fearful evil? Why refer us for relief to the
+proceedings of thirty-one different legislative bodies, no three of
+which, probably, would agree upon any coherent system? We do not
+ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main
+force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we
+think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency;
+but from the stand-point of the President, and with his views of the
+efficiency of legislative restrictions upon banks, we do not see how
+he could consistently avoid recommending the instant action of
+Congress. On the heel of his grandiloquent description of the evils
+of redundant paper money,--evils which are felt all over the country,--
+it is a lamentably impotent conclusion to say, "After all, we can't
+do much to help it! Yes, let us confide piously in 'the wisdom and
+patriotism of the State legislatures,'"--which are almost the last
+places in the world, as things go, where we should look for either
+quality.
+
+Not being able to do anything himself, however, what does he urge
+upon the wise and patriotic State legislatures? Why, a series of
+flimsy restrictions, which would have about as much effect in
+preventing the tremendous abuses of banking which he himself depicts,
+as a bit of filigree iron-work would have in restraining the
+expansion of steam. Restrictions! restrictions! _toujours_
+restrictions!--as if that method of correcting the evil had not been
+utterly exploded by nearly two centuries of experience! Mr. Buchanan
+calls himself a Democrat; he is loud in his protestations of respect
+for the sagacity, the good-sense, and the virtue of the people; his
+political school takes for its motto the well-known adage, "That
+government is best which governs least"; his party, if he does not,
+purports to be a great advocate of the emancipation of trade from
+all the old-fashioned restraints which take the names of protections,
+tariffs, bounties, etc. etc.; and we wonder how it is, that, in his
+presumed excursions over the entire domain of free-trade, he should
+have got no inkling of a thought as to the benefits of free-trade in
+banking. We wonder that so great a subject could be dismissed with
+the suggestion of a few petty restraints.
+
+"If the State legislatures," remarks the President, summing up his
+entire thought, "afford us a real specie basis for our circulation,
+by increasing the denomination of bank-notes, first to twenty, and
+afterwards to fifty dollars; if they will require that the banks
+shall at all times keep on hand at least one dollar of gold and
+silver for every three dollars of their circulation and deposits;
+and if they will provide, by a self-executing enactment, which
+nothing can arrest, that the moment they suspend they shall go into
+liquidation; I believe that such provisions, with a weekly
+publication by each bank of a statement of its condition, would go
+far to secure us against future suspensions of specie payments."
+
+Singular blindness! Mr. Buchanan lived for several years, as
+American ambassador, in England. It is to be presumed that while
+there he used his eyes, and possibly his brains. He must have
+noticed occasionally, at least, in his walks through "the city," the
+immense marble structure in Threadneedle Street, known as the Bank
+of England. It is certain that he has read the history of that bank,
+inasmuch as it is twice or thrice alluded to in his Message; he
+cannot be ignorant, therefore, that the "circulation" of England has
+essentially "a specie basis"; that no bank-notes are issued there for
+less than the amount of twenty-five dollars; that the banks at all
+times keep on hand "one dollar of gold for every three dollars of
+their circulation and deposits"; and that the laws of bankruptcy are
+alike rigid in regard to institutions and individuals. These are
+precisely the provisions which he commends to the adoption of wise
+and patriotic State legislatures as an admirable corrective for
+suspensions; yet he forgets to explain to us how it happens that the
+Bank of England, to which they are all applied, has virtually
+suspended payment six times in the course of its existence, having
+been saved from open dishonor only by the timely assistance of the
+government,--while the trade of England, in spite of the staid and
+conservative habits of the people, is quite as liable to those
+terrific tarantula-dances, called revulsions, as our own. Before
+urging his "restraints," the President ought to have inquired a
+little into the history of such restraints; and he would then have
+saved himself from the absurdity of patronizing remedies which an
+actual trial had proved ludicrously inapt and inefficacious.
+
+With regard to the second topic of the Message,--our foreign
+relations,--it may be said that the positions assumed are frank,
+manly, and explicit; unless we have reason to suspect, in the
+slightly belligerent attitude towards Spain, a return, on the part
+of the President, to one of his old and unlawful loves,--the
+acquisition of Cuba. In that case, we should deplore his language,
+and be inclined to doubt also the sincerity of his just
+denunciations of Walker's infamous schemes of piracy and brigandage.
+Until events, however, have developed the signs of a sinister policy
+of this sort, we must bestow an earnest plaudit upon his decided
+rebuke of the filibusters, coupling that praise with a wish that the
+"vigilance" of his subordinates may hereafter prove of a more
+wide-awake and energetic kind than has yet been manifested.
+
+But for the terms in which the President has disposed of his third
+topic,--the Kansas difficulty,--we can scarcely characterize their
+disingenuousness and meanings. We have already spoken of the object
+of this part of the document as atrocious,--and we repeat the word,
+as the most befitting that could be used. That object is nothing
+less than an attempt to cover the enormous frauds which have marked
+the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery agents in Kansas, from their
+initiation, with a varnish of smooth and plausible pretexts.
+Adroitly taking up the question at the point which it had reached
+when his own administration began, he leaves out of view all the
+antecedent crimes, treacheries, and tricks by which the people of
+the Territory had been led into civil war, and thus assumes that the
+late Lecompton Convention was a legitimate Convention, and that the
+Constitution framed by it (or said to have been framed by it,--for
+there is no official report of the instrument as yet) was framed in
+pursuance of proper authority or law. He does not tell us that the
+Territorial legislature which called this Convention was a usurping
+legislature, brought together, as the Congressional records show, by
+an invading horde from a neighboring State; he does not tell us, that,
+even if it had been a properly constituted body in itself, it had no
+right to call a Convention for the purpose of superseding the
+Territorial organization; he does not tell us that the Convention,
+as assembled, represented but one-tenth of the legal voters of the
+Territory; nor does he seem to regard the fact, that the other
+nine-tenths of the people were virtually disfranchised by that
+Convention, so far as their right to determine the provisions of
+their organic law is concerned, as at all a vital and important fact.
+By a miserable juggle, worthy of the frequenters of the
+gambling-house or the race-course, the people of Kansas have been
+nominally allowed to decide the question of Slavery, and that
+permission, according to Mr. Buchanan, fulfils and completes all that
+he ever meant, or his associates ever meant, by the promise of
+popular sovereignty!
+
+Now this may be all that the President and his party ever meant by
+that phrase, but it is not all that their words expressed or the
+country expected. In the course of the last three or four years, and
+by a series of high-handed measures, the established principles of
+the Federal Government, in regard to its management of the
+Territories,--principles sanctioned by every administration from
+Washington's down to Fillmore's,--have been overruled for the sake
+of a new doctrine, which goes by the name of Popular Sovereignty.
+The most sacred and binding compacts of former years were annulled
+to make way for it; and the judicial department of the government
+was violently hauled from its sacred retreat, into the political
+arena, to give a gratuitous _coup-de-grace_ to the old opinions and
+the apparent sanction of law to the new dogma, so that Popular
+Sovereignty might reign triumphant in the Territories. At the
+convention of the party which nominated Mr. Buchanan as a candidate
+for his present office,--"a celebrated occasion," as he calls it,--
+the members affirmed in the most emphatic manner the right of the
+people of all the Territories, including Kansas, to form their own
+Constitutions as they pleased, under the single condition that it
+should be republican. Mr. Buchanan reiterated that assertion in his
+Inaugural address, and in subsequent communications. When he
+appointed Mr. Robert J. Walker Governor of the Territory, he
+instructed him to assure the people that they should be guarantied
+against all "fraud or violence" when they should be called upon
+"to vote for or against the Constitution which would be submitted to
+them," so that there might be "a fair expression of the popular will."
+Nothing, in short, could have been clearer, more direct, more
+frequently repeated, than the asseverations of the "Democratic Party,"
+made through its official representatives, its newspapers, and its
+orators,--to the effect, that its only object, in its Kansas policy,
+was to secure "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty." On the
+strength of these assurances alone, it was enabled to achieve its
+hard-won victory in the last Presidential campaign. Mr. Buchanan
+owes his position to them, as is repeatedly admitted by Mr. Douglas
+in his speech of December 9th last,--and the whole nation, having
+discussed and battled and voted on the principle, acquiesced, as it
+is accustomed to do after an election, in the ascendency of the
+victors. It prepared itself to see the application of the principle
+which had been announced and defended as so important and wise.
+
+Under these pledges and promises, what has been the performance? A
+Convention, for which, inasmuch as it was illegally called by an
+illegal body, a large proportion of the citizens of Kansas refused
+to vote, frames a Constitution, in the interest and according to the
+convictions of the slenderest minority of the people; it
+incorporates in that Constitution a recognition of old Territorial
+laws to the last degree offensive to the majority of the people; it
+incorporates in it a clause establishing slavery in perpetuity; it
+connects with it a Schedule perpetuating the existing slavery,
+whatever it may be, against all future remedy which has not the
+sanction of the slave-master; and then, by a miserable chicane, it
+submits the Constitution to a vote of the people, but it submits it
+under such terms, that the people, if they vote at all, must vote
+_for_ it, whether they like it or not, while the only part in
+which they can exercise any choice is the _clause_ which relates to
+future slavery. The other parts, especially the Schedule, which
+recognizes the existing slavery, and that almost irremediably, the
+people are not allowed to pronounce upon. They are not allowed to
+pronounce upon the thousand-and-one details of the State organization;
+they are fobbed off with a transparent cheat of "heads I win,--tails
+you lose";--and the whole game is denominated, Popular Sovereignty.
+
+What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this
+would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise
+of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is
+amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle,"
+as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the
+approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only
+mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically
+ascertained is by a direct vote"; he admits that the "friends and
+supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when struggling to sustain
+its provisions before the great tribunal of the American people,"
+"everywhere, throughout the Union, publicly pledged their faith and
+honor" to submit the question of their domestic institutions
+"to the decision of the _bonâ-fide_ people of Kansas, without any
+qualification or restriction whatever"; but then,--and here is the
+subterfuge,--"domestic institutions" means only the single
+institution of slavery; and the Convention, in consenting to yield
+_that_ (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the
+people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of
+Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the
+questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative,
+and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their
+distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of
+taxation, etc., etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and
+provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the
+existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept.
+Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes
+already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced;
+for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is
+already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must
+not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that
+would be "an act of gross injustice." In other words, Popular
+Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to
+vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body,
+under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which
+officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,--
+while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. It is just the
+sort of sovereignty for which Louis Napoleon provided when he wished
+to procure a popular sanction for the numberless atrocities of the
+_coup-d'état_ of the 2d December.
+
+An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks";
+and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in
+kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed
+himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of
+his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to
+how he shall hide his tracks. He knows, as all the world knows, that
+this jugglery in Kansas has been performed for no other purpose than
+to secure a foothold for Slavery there, against the demonstrated
+opinion of nine-tenths of the people; he knows, as all the world
+knows, that if the Convention had had the least desire to arrive at
+a fair expression of the popular will, on the question of Slavery or
+any other question, it was easy to make a candid and honorable
+submission of it to an election to be held honestly under the
+recognized officers of the Territory; but he knows, also, that under
+such circumstances the case would have been carried overwhelmingly
+against the "domestic institution," and thus have rebuked, with all
+the emphasis that an outraged community could give to the expression
+of its will, the nefarious conduct which "the party" has pursued
+from the beginning,--and this was a consummation not to be wished.
+He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent
+inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely
+about "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty."
+
+The President thinks that it is time that these troubles in Kansas
+were at an end, and we cordially agree with him in the sentiment;
+but he needs scarcely to be reminded that they never will be at an
+end, until the wicked schemes, which have been so long persisted in,
+to override the convictions and hopes and interests of a large
+majority of the Kansas settlers, are utterly abandoned by those who
+are in power.
+
+Of the remaining and mostly routine topics of the Message we have no
+occasion to speak; and we only regret that the deficiencies of the
+most important parts are so glaring as to oblige us to treat them
+with undisguised severity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE WEDDING VEIL.
+
+  Dear Anna, when I brought her veil,
+  Her white veil, on her wedding-night,
+  Threw o'er my thin brown hair its folds,
+  And, laughing, turned me to the light.
+
+  "See, Bessie, see! you wear for once
+  The bridal veil, forsworn for years!"
+  She saw my face,--her laugh was hushed,
+  Her happy eyes were filled with tears.
+
+  With kindly haste and trembling hand
+  She drew away the gauzy mist;
+  "Forgive, dear heart!"--her sweet voice said;
+  Her loving lips my forehead kissed.
+
+  We passed from out the searching light;
+  The summer night was calm and fair:
+  I did not see her pitying eyes,
+  I felt her soft hand smooth my hair.
+
+  Her tender love unlocked my heart;
+  'Mid falling tears, at last I said,
+  "Forsworn indeed to me that veil,
+  Because I only love the dead!"
+
+  She stood one moment statue-still,
+  And, musing, spake in under-tone,
+  "The living love may colder grow;
+  The dead is safe with God alone!"
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+  _The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History
+  of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
+  I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
+
+This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
+account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
+beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
+as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
+planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
+has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
+
+Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
+historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
+wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
+sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
+vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
+excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
+religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
+his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
+long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
+strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
+reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
+the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
+book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
+priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
+they were engaged.
+
+Mr. Helps has investigated his subject with zeal, industry, and
+patience. He has sought out the original authorities, has brought to
+light many important facts, has redeemed some great memories from
+unjust oblivion, and has presented a new view of several of the
+chief features of the history. In a graceful advertisement to the
+third volume he says, "The reader will observe that there is
+scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern
+writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for
+the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the
+conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object
+in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs;
+and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these
+eminent persons might have exercised upon it."
+
+A considerable space in these volumes is devoted to an investigation
+of the character and condition of the native races of the continent
+at the period of the Spanish Conquest. This subject is treated with
+peculiar skill and learning, and with unusual power of sympathetic
+analysis and appreciation of remote and obscure developments of
+society. Another portion of the history, which his plan has led
+Mr. Helps to treat at length and with exhaustive thoroughness, is
+the early relations between the conquerors and the conquered,
+embracing the method of settlement of the different countries, the
+whole disastrous system of _ripartimientos_ and _encomiendas_, which,
+in its full development, led to the destruction of the native
+population of Hispaniola, and to the introduction of negroes into
+this and the other West India islands to supply the demand for
+laborers.
+
+Another most interesting portion of his subject, and one which has
+never till now been fairly exhibited, relates to the labors of the
+Dominican and Franciscan monks, and their admirable and unwearied
+efforts to counteract and to remedy some of the bitterest evils of
+the conquest. Theirs were the first protests that were raised
+against slavery in America, and their ranks afforded the first
+martyrs in the cause of the Indian and the Negro. Las Casas has
+found an eloquent and just biographer, and Mr. Helps has the
+satisfaction of having securely placed his name among the few that
+deserve the lasting honor and remembrance of the world. The
+narrative of Las Casas's life is one of strong dramatic interest.
+His life was a varied and remarkable one, even for those times of
+striking contrasts and varieties in the fortunes of men; and in
+Mr. Helps's pages one sees the man himself, with his simplicity and
+elevation of purpose, his honesty of motive, his energy, his
+impetuosity, his courage, and his faith.
+
+The three volumes already published embrace the progress of Spanish
+conquest from the first discoveries of Columbus to Pizarro's
+incursion into Peru. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Helps may
+continue his work, at least to the period when the Spanish conquest
+and colonization were met and limited by the conquest and the
+colonization of the other European nations. Its importance, as a wise,
+thoughtful, unpolemic investigation of the origin and the results of
+Slavery, is hardly to be overestimated. The space allowed to a
+critical notice does not permit us to render it full justice. We can
+do little more than recommend it warmly to the readers of history
+and to the students of the most difficult and the darkest social
+problem of the age.
+
+
+
+  _Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American
+  Engineers. Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae for
+  the Location, Construction, Equipment, and Management of Railroads,
+  as built in the United States_. With 158 Illustrations. By GEORGE L.
+  VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1857. 12 mo. pp. 480.
+
+All who trust their persons to railroad cars, or their estates to
+railroad stocks, will welcome every effort to enlighten that
+irresponsible body of railroad builders and managers in whose wits
+we put our faith.
+
+The work which we here notice is intended for uneducated American
+engineers, of whom there are unfortunately too many. The rapidity
+with which our railroads have been built, and the experimental
+character of this new branch of engineering, have obliged us to
+resort to such native ability and mother wit as our people could
+afford. The great body of our railroad engineers have had no training
+but the experience they have blundered through; and even our
+railroad financiers are men more distinguished for courage and
+energy than for experimental skill. Mr. Vose's book will doubtless
+be of great service in remedying these evils, by bringing within the
+reach of every intelligent man a valuable and very carefully
+prepared summary of such rules, formulas, and statistics as our
+railroad experiences have furnished and proved.
+
+Railroad engineering and management have united almost every branch
+of mechanical and financial science, and have developed several new
+and peculiar arts; so that the successful construction, equipment,
+and management of a railroad require a rare combination of
+accomplishments. Managers hitherto have been too little acquainted
+with their business to settle many questions of economy, but they
+are now beginning to look upon their enterprises with cooler
+judgments.
+
+The "Handbook" discusses several questions of economy, but seeks,
+especially in its rules and formulas, to avoid those risks by which
+economy has often been turned into the most ruinous extravagance. On
+the question of fuel, our author advocates the use of coke as the
+most economical and convenient, and every way preferable where it
+can be readily obtained. He also urges, on economical grounds, a
+more moderate rate of speed in railroad travel; thus showing that we
+may save our forests, our lives, and a considerable expense all at
+the same time.
+
+The style is clear, and, for a work not professing to be a complete
+treatise, but only a manual of useful facts, the arrangement is
+admirable. The book is thoroughly practical, and touches upon such
+matters, and for the most part upon such matters only, as are likely
+to be of service to the practical man; yet it is quite elementary in
+its character, and free from unnecessary technicalities.
+
+The book has, however, one great fault. It is full of errata. No
+carefully prepared table of corrections can make amends for such a
+fault in a book in which typographical correctness is of the
+greatest importance. To insert in their places with a pen more than
+two hundred published corrections is a labor which no reader would
+willingly undertake. We hope, therefore, that a new and correct
+edition will soon be published.
+
+
+
+  _The Life of Handel_. By VICTOR SCHOELCHER. Reprinted from the
+    London Edition. New York: Mason, Brothers.
+
+It is a remarkable fact, and one not very creditable to the musical
+public of England, that the works of Mainwaring, Hawkins, Barney,
+and Coxe should remain for almost an entire century after the death
+of Handel our main sources of information concerning his career, and
+that the first attempt to write a complete biography of that great
+composer, correcting the errors, reconciling the contradictions, and
+supplying the deficiencies of those authors, should be from the pen
+of a French exile. And yet during all this time materials have been
+accumulating, the fame of the composer has been extending, the demand
+for such a work increasing, and the number of intelligent and
+elegant English writers upon music growing greater.
+
+M. Schoelcher's work, though perhaps the most valuable contribution
+to musical historical literature which has for many years appeared
+from the English press, leaves much to be desired. Excepting a
+correction of the chronology of Handel's visit to Italy, very little,
+if anything, of importance is added to what we already possessed in
+regard to the early history of the composer. We look in vain for the
+means of tracing the development of his genius. The impression left
+upon the mind of the reader is, that his powers showed themselves
+suddenly in full splendor, and that at a single bound he placed
+himself at the head of the dramatic composers of his age. This was
+not true of Hasse, Mozart, Gluck, Cherubini, Weber, in dramatic
+composition; nor of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, in other branches of the
+musical art. However great a man's genius may be, he must live and
+learn. To attain the highest excellence, long continued study is
+necessary; and Handel, as we believe, was no exception to the
+general law.
+
+The list of works consulted by M. Schoelcher, prefixed to the
+biography, shows that he has by no means exhausted the German
+authorities which may be profitably used in writing upon the early
+history of Handel: indeed, the author, though of German descent, is
+unacquainted with the German language. We can learn from them the
+state of dramatic music at that time in Berlin, Leipsic, Brunswick,
+Hanover, Köthen; we can form from them some correct idea of the
+powers of Keiser, Steffani, Graupner, Schieferdecker, Telemann,
+Grünwald, and others, then in possession of the lyric stage; we can
+thus estimate the influences which led Handel from the path that
+Bach so successfully followed, into that which he pursued with equal
+success; and though the amount of matter relating to him personally
+be small, much that throws light upon his early life still remains
+inaccessible to the English reader.
+
+The biography of a great creative artist must in great measure
+consist of a history of his works; and the great value of the
+book before us arises from the searching examination to which
+M. Schoelcher has subjected the several collections of Handel's
+manuscripts which are preserved in England, one of which, in some
+respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This
+examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful
+and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the
+various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to
+correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by
+step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio,
+which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general
+reader, perhaps, M. Schoelcher has been drawn too far into detail,
+and some passages of his work might have been better reserved for
+his "Catalogue of Handel's Works"; but these details are of the
+highest value to the student of musical literature, and, indeed,
+form for him the principal charm of the work. The importance of the
+author's labors can be duly appreciated only by those who have had
+occasion to study somewhat extensively the musical history of the
+last century. For them the results of those labors as here presented
+are invaluable.
+
+
+
+  _Sermons of the_ REV. C. H. SPURGEON, of London. Third Series.
+    New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
+
+There can be no doubt of the merit of these sermons, considered as
+examples of method and embodiments of character. Whatever elements
+of Christianity may be left unexpressed in them, it is certain that
+Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in expressing himself. His discourses at
+least give us Christianity as he understands, feels, and lives it.
+They should be studied by all clergymen who desire to master the
+secret of influencing masses of men. They will afford valuable hints
+in respect to method, even when their spirit, tone, and teaching
+present no proper model for imitation. Mr. Spurgeon, we suppose,
+would be classed among Calvinists, but he is not merely that.
+Without any force, depth, amplitude, or originality of thought, he
+has considerable force and originality of nature. He detaches from
+their relations certain doctrines of Calvinism which especially
+interest him, and so emphasizes and intensifies them, so blends them
+with his personal being and experience, that the impression he
+stamps upon the mind is rather of Spurgeonism than Calvinism. He
+gives vivid reality to his doctrines, because they are incorporated
+with his nature,--and not merely with his spiritual, but with his
+animal nature. He is thoroughly in earnest from the fact that he
+preaches himself. His converts, therefore, are likely to mistake
+being Spurgeonized for being Christianized; for the Christianity he
+preaches is not so much vital Christianity as it is Christianity
+passed through the vitalities of his own nature, and essentially
+modified and lowered in the process. To understand, then, the kind
+of influence he exerts, we have simply to inquire, What kind of man
+is Mr. Spurgeon?
+
+The answer to this question is given on every page of his sermons.
+He has no reserves, but lets his character transpire in every
+sentence. He is a bold, eager, earnest, devout, passionate,
+well-intentioned man, with considerable experience in the sphere of
+the religious emotions, full of sympathy with rough natures, full of
+mother wit and practical sagacity, but, as a theologian, coarse,
+ignorant, narrow-minded, and strikingly deficient in fine spiritual
+perceptions. These qualities inhere in a nature of singular vigor,
+intensity, and directness, that sends out words like bullets. Warmth
+of feeling combined with narrowness of mind makes him a bigot; but
+his bigotry is not the sour assertion of an opinion, but the racy
+utterance of a nature. He believes in Spurgeonism so thoroughly and
+so simply that toleration is out of the question, and doctrines
+opposed to his own he refers, with instantaneous and ingenuous
+dogmatism, to folly or wickedness. "I think," he says, in one of his
+sermons, "I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites.
+I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one
+person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe
+the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so
+nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts
+that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were
+taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe
+it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort,
+that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to some of
+the dogmas of their assailant. Indeed, the incapacity of our
+preacher to discern, or mentally to reproduce, a religious character
+differing in creed from his own, makes him the most amusingly
+intolerant of Popes, not because he is malignant, but because he is
+Spurgeon. If he had learning or largeness of mind, he would probably
+lose the greater portion of his power. He gets his hearers into a
+corner, limits the range of their vision to the doctrine he is
+expounding, refuses to listen to any excuses or palliations, and
+then screams out to them, "Believe or be damned!" In his own mind he
+is sure they will be damned, if they do not believe. So far as
+regards his influence over those minds whose religious emotions are
+strong, but whose religious principles are weak, every limitation of
+his mind is an increase of his force.
+
+This theological narrowness is unaccompanied with theological rancor.
+A rough but genuine benevolence is at the heart of Mr. Spurgeon's
+system. He wishes his opponents to be converted, not condemned. He
+very properly feels, that, with his ideas of the Divine Government,
+he would be the basest of criminals, if he spared himself, or spared
+either entreaty or denunciation, in the great work of saving souls.
+He throws himself with such passionate earnestness into his business,
+that his sermons boil over with the excitement of his feelings.
+Indeed, it is difficult to say whether our impressions of him,
+derived from the written page, come to us more from the eye than the
+ear. His very style foams, rages, prays, entreats, adjures, weeps,
+screams, warns, and execrates. His words are words that everybody
+understands,--bold, blunt, homely, quaint, level to his nature, all
+alive with passion, and directed with the single purpose of carrying
+the fortresses of sin by assault. The reader who contrives to
+preserve his calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed
+that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions
+so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so
+materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest
+living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian
+spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and
+purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all,
+little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican,
+easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of
+his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may
+thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify
+him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does
+he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure,
+as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny
+nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to
+insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, if alive,
+would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the
+doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his
+hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted
+religion in order that the public "might be more generally
+accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's
+celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine"
+from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's
+nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination,
+and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously
+impressed, he animalizes his creed in attempting to give it
+sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this
+process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by
+more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened
+to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind
+than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on
+"Regeneration." But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon's preaching is
+liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but
+because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original,
+exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It
+is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of
+every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people.
+But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded
+nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for
+the poor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Roumania: the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk.
+  Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia_.
+  By JAMES O. NOYES, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd &
+  Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
+
+Dr. James Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all
+over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny
+atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough
+not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness,
+energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a
+book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him
+a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of
+labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,--or unless some African prince
+cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their
+Thanksgiving-time.
+
+Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
+so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake,
+so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so
+perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers,
+and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who
+missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he
+had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval,
+but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
+
+In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change
+Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and
+lively descriptions,--perhaps a little too overlarded and
+oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,--but as lively as a
+golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most
+readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new
+costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make
+its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the
+work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the
+card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will
+very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be
+the better for the acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _Dante's Hell_. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation.
+    By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
+
+A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real
+learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the
+present day a _new_ translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might
+claim exemption from this _dictum_, on the ground that his
+translation is not a _new_ one; but he himself does not put in this
+plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or
+declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his
+Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent,
+"The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and
+must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of
+disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who
+have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as
+their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more
+literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all."
+Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous
+translations of Dante could descend to _such_ labor and plodding as
+his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of
+the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has
+afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first
+progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or
+refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of
+the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not
+divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "Art thou, then, that Virgil and that fountain
+  which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? I answered him with bashful front.
+  O glory and light of other poets! May the
+  long zeal avail me and the great love which
+  made me search thy volume. Thou art my
+  master and my author."
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "Art thou that Virgil and that fountain,
+  then, which pours abroad so rich a stream of
+  speech? With bashful forehead him I gave
+  reply. O light and glory of the other bards!
+  May the long zeal and the great love avail me
+  that hath caused me thy volume to explore.
+  Thou art my master, thou my author art."
+
+Opening again at random, we take the two translations at the
+beginning of the Eighth Canto.
+
+CARLYLE.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before we
+  reached the foot of the high tower our eyes
+  went upward to the summit, because of two
+  flamelets that we saw put there; and another
+  from far gave signal back,--so far that the
+  eye could scarcely catch it. And I, turning
+  to the Sea of all knowledge, said: What says
+  this? and what replies yon other light? And
+  who are they that made it?"
+
+PEABODY.
+
+  "I say, continuing, that long before unto
+  the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
+  unto its summit upward went, cause of two
+  flamelets that we saw there placed; while
+  signal back another gave from far; so far the
+  eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
+  the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
+  sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
+  And who are they that made it?"
+
+We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
+between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
+perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
+the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
+text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
+striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
+Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
+unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
+acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
+little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
+_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
+In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
+greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
+appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
+all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
+Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
+translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
+narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
+of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
+read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
+quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchià" would have set him
+right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
+has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
+to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
+with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
+give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
+the following lines:--
+
+  Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
+  Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
+
+Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
+displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
+familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
+
+  Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
+
+Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
+Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
+which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
+and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
+
+Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
+learning; witness such lines as these:--
+
+  "My parents natives of Lombardy were."
+  "They'll come to blood and then the savage party."
+  "Like as at Palo near the Quarnãro."
+  "I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul."
+
+We have exhibited sufficiently the merits of what its author
+declares to be "perhaps a better translation" than any other. He
+says that "the whole Divine Comedy of which these ten cantos are a
+specimen will appear in due time." If the specimen be a fair one,
+the translation of the "Purgatory" and the "Paradise" will not appear
+until after the publication of Dr. Carlyle's prose version, for
+which we may yet have to wait some time.
+
+We are confident that so honorable a publishing house as that of
+Messrs. Ticknor and Fields must have been unaware of the character
+of a book so full of false pretences, when they allowed their name
+to be put on the title-page. But to make up for even unconscious
+participation in such a literary imposition, we trust that they will
+soon put to press the remainder of Dr. Parsons's excellent
+translation of Dante's poem, a specimen of which appeared so long
+since, bearing their imprint.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+  _City Poems_. By ALEXANDER SMITH, Author of "A Life Drama, and
+    other Poems." Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
+
+On the first appearance of Alexander Smith, criticism became
+light-headed, and fairly exhausted its whole vocabulary of panegyric
+in giving him welcome. "There is not a page in this volume on which
+we cannot find some novel image, _some Shakspearian felicity_ of
+expression, or some striking simile," said the critic of the
+"Westminster Review." "Having read these extracts," said another
+exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
+compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
+you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
+however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
+"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
+extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
+that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
+the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
+creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
+fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
+splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
+as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
+total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
+of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
+satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
+idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
+one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
+small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
+itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
+for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
+imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
+which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the
+luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years
+pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at
+his feet. A few years have passed, and here is his second volume. It
+has less richness of fancy than the first, but its merits and
+demerits are the same. The man has not yet grown into a poet,--has
+not yet learned that the foliage, flowers, and fruits of the mind
+should be connected with primal roots in its individual being. These
+are still tied on, in his old manner, to a succession of thoughts
+and emotions, which have themselves little vital connection with
+each other. The "hey-day in his blood," which gave an appearance of
+exulting and abounding life to his first poems, has somewhat
+subsided now, and the effect is, that "The City Poems," as a whole,
+are leaner in spirit, and more morbid and despondent in tone, than
+the "Life Drama." Yet there is still so much that is superficially
+striking in the volume, such a waste of imagery and emotion, and so
+many occasional lines and epithets of real power and beauty, that we
+close the volume with some vexation and pain at our inability to
+award it the praise which many readers will think it deserves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+FOREIGN.
+
+
+  _Der Reichspostreiter in Ludwigsburg, Novelle auf geschichtlichem
+  Hintergrunde_. Von Robert Heller. 1858.
+
+A very interesting novel indeed, sketching life at the little court
+of the Duke of Wurtemberg at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
+and the overthrow of the government of a famous mistress of the Duke,
+the Countess Würben. The main points of interest in the story are
+historical, and the tissue of fiction interwoven with these is
+remarkably well arranged. Herr Heller belongs to the school of
+German novelists who, like Hermann Kurz, and others of minor mark,
+make a copious and comprehensive use of historical facts in Art.
+Their object and aim seem to be rather to illustrate and embody the
+historical facts in the flesh and blood of tangible reality, than
+merely to amuse by transforming history into a material for poetical
+entertainment. With all that, the abovenamed little volume is amply
+worth reading.
+
+
+
+  _Une Eté dans le Sahara_, par Eugene Fromentin. Paris. 1857.
+
+A painter describes here a summer journey through the Desert of
+Sahara, as far south from Algiers as El Aghouat, in the year 1853.
+There is not much that is new in this book, considering the many
+later and far more comprehensive and extensive illustrations of life
+in the Great Desert, since published by Bayard Taylor, Barth, and
+others; but it is a very interesting picture of this life, as seen
+and drawn by a painter. His descriptions contain many landscape and
+_genre_ pictures, by means of which a vivid idea of the scenery
+and life are conveyed to the imagination of the reader.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3,
+January 1858, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. ***
+
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