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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859
+by  Various
+(#22 in our series by  Various)
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+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859
+
+Author:  Various
+
+Release Date: November, 2005  [EBook #9265]
+[This file was first posted on September 16, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. IV, NO. 22, AUG., 1859 ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sandra Brown, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
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+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. IV.--AUGUST, 1859.--NO. XXII.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE.
+
+
+We say dramatic element _in_ the Bible, not dramatic element _of_ the
+Bible, since that of which we speak is not essential, but incidental; it
+is an aspect of the form of the book, not an attribute of its
+inspiration.
+
+By the use of the term _dramatic_ in this connection, let us, in the
+outset, be understood to have no reference whatever to the theatre and
+stage-effect, or to the sundry devices whereby the playhouse is made at
+once popular and intolerable. Nor shall we anticipate any charge of
+irreverence; since we claim the opportunity and indulge only the license
+of the painter, who, in the treatment of Scriptural themes, seeks both
+to embellish the sacred page and to honor his art,--and of the sculptor,
+and the poet, likewise, each of whom, ranging divine ground, remarks
+upon the objects there presented according to the law of his profession.
+As the picturesque, the statuesque, the poetical in the Bible are
+legitimate studies, so also the dramatic.
+
+But in the premises, is not the term _dramatic_ interdicted,--since it
+is that which is not the Bible, but which is foreign to the Bible, and
+even directly contradistinguished therefrom? The drama is
+representation,--the Bible is fact; the drama is imitation,--the Bible
+narrative; the one is an embodiment,--the other a substance; the one
+transcribes the actual by the personal,--the other is a return to the
+simplest originality; the one exalts its subjects by poetic
+freedom,--the other adheres to prosaic plainness.
+
+Yet are there not points in which they meet, or in which, for the
+purposes of this essay, they may be considered as coming together,--that
+is, admitting of an artistical juxtaposition?
+
+In the first place, to take Shakspeare for a type of the drama, what, we
+ask, is the distinguishing merit of this great writer? It is his
+fidelity to Nature. Is not the Bible also equally true to Nature? "It is
+the praise of Shakspeare," says Dr. Johnson, "that his plays are the
+mirror of life." Was there ever a more consummate mirror of life than
+the Bible affords? "Shakspeare copied the manners of the world then
+passing before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the
+traditions and superstitions of the vulgar." The Bible, perhaps, excels
+all other books in this sort of description. "Shakspeare was an exact
+surveyor of the inanimate world." The Bible is full of similar sketches.
+An excellence of Shakspeare is the individuality of his characters.
+"They are real beings of flesh and blood," the critics tell us; "they
+speak like men, not like authors." How truly this applies to the persons
+mentioned in sacred writ! Goethe has compared the characters of
+Shakspeare to "watches with crystalline cases and plates, which, while
+they point out with perfect accuracy the course of the hours and
+minutes, at the same time disclose the whole combination of springs and
+wheels whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and
+purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the
+Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero
+and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the
+various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of
+being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the
+imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, "seems so much a man
+of Nature's making, that we can scarce accord to Shakspeare the merit of
+creating him." What will you say of Balak, Nabal, Jeroboam? "Macbeth is
+rather guilty of tempting the Weird Sisters than of being tempted by
+them, and is surprised and horrified at his own hell-begotten
+conception." Saul is guilty of tampering with the Witch of Endor, and is
+alarmed at the Ghost of Samuel, whose words distinctly embody and
+vibrate the fears of his own heart, and he "falls straightway all along
+on the earth." "The exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her
+masculine attire." The exquisite refinement of Ruth triumphs in the
+midst of men.
+
+We see there are points in which dramatic representation and Scriptural
+delineation mutually touch.
+
+A distinguished divine of Connecticut said he wanted but two books in
+his library, the Bible and Shakspeare,--the one for religion, the other
+to be his instructor in human nature. In the same spirit, St. Chrysostom
+kept a copy of Aristophanes under his pillow, that he might read it at
+night before he slept and in the morning when he waked. The strong and
+sprightly eloquence of this father, if we may trust tradition, drew its
+support from the vigorous and masculine Atticism of the old comedian.
+
+But human nature, in every stage of its development and every variety of
+its operation, is as distinctly pronounced on the pages of Scripture as
+in the scenes of the dramatist. Of Shakespeare it is said, "He turned
+the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men,
+and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns,
+passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives." He has been
+called the "thousand-minded," the "oceanic soul." The Bible creates the
+world and peoples it, and gives us a profound and universal insight into
+all its concerns.
+
+Another peculiarity of Shakspeare is his self-forgetfulness. In reading
+what is written, you do not think of him, but of his productions. "The
+perfect absence of himself from his own pages makes it difficult for us
+to conceive of a human being having written them." This remark applies
+with obvious force to the Bible. The authors of the several books do not
+thrust themselves upon your notice, or interfere with your meditations
+on what they have written; indeed, to such an extent is this
+self-abeyance maintained, that it is impossible, at this period of time,
+to determine who are the authors of some of the books. The narrative of
+events proceeds, for the most part, as if the author had never existed.
+How _naively_ and perspicuously everything is told, without the
+colouring of prejudice, or an infusion of egotism on the part of the
+writer!
+
+Coleridge says, Shakspeare gives us no moral highwaymen, no sentimental
+thieves and rat-catchers, no interesting villains, no amiable
+adulteresses. The Bible even goes farther than this, and is faithful to
+the foibles and imperfections of its favorite characters, and describes
+a rebellious Moses, a perjured David, a treacherous Peter.
+
+"In nothing does Shakspeare so deeply and divinely touch the heart of
+humanity as in the representation of woman." We have the grandeur of
+Portia, the sprightliness of Rosalind, the passion of Juliet, the
+delicacy of Ophelia, the mournful dignity of Hermione, the filial
+affection of Cordelia. How shall we describe the Pythian greatness of
+Miriam, the cheerful hospitality of Sarah, the heroism of Rahab, the
+industry of Dorcas, the devotion of Mary? And we might set off Lady
+Macbeth with Jezebel, and Cleopatra with Delilah.
+
+But the Bible, it may be said, so far as the subject before us is
+concerned, is chiefly historical, while Shakspeare is purely dramatic.
+The one is description,--the other action; the one relates to
+events,--the other to feelings; the department of the one is the general
+course of human affairs,--that of the other, the narrower circle of
+individual experience; the field of the one is that which the eye of
+philosophy may embrace,--while that of the other is what the human frame
+may portray.
+
+However this may apply to the average of history, it will be found that
+the Bible, in its historical parts, is not so strictly historical as to
+preclude associations of another sort. The Bible is remarkable for a
+visual and embodied relief, a bold and vivid detail. We know of no book,
+if we may except the compositions of professed dramatists, that contains
+so much of personal feeling and incident. In simplicity and directness,
+in freedom from exaggeration, and in the general unreserve of its
+expression, it even exceeds the most of these. In it we may discover a
+succession of little dramas of Nature that will affect us quite as
+profoundly as those larger ones of Art.
+
+If the structure of the drama be dialogistic, we find the Bible formed
+on the same model. If the writers of the former disappear under the
+personages of their fancy, the writers of the latter disappear under the
+personages of fact. As in the one, so in the other, strangers are
+introduced to tell their own story, each in his own way.
+
+In the commencement of the Bible, after a brief prologue, the curtain
+rises, and we, as spectators, look in upon a process of interlocution.
+The scene is the green, sunny garden of Eden, that to which the memory
+of humanity reverts as to its dim golden age, and which ever expresses
+the bright dream of our youth, ere the rigor of misfortune or the
+dulness of experience has spoilt it. The _dramatis personae_ are three
+individuals, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. There are the mysterious tree,
+with its wonderful fruit,--the beautiful, but inquisitive woman,--the
+thoughtful, but too compliant man,--and the insinuating reptile. One
+speaks, the other rejoins, and the third fills up the chasm of interest.
+The plot thickens, the passions are displayed, and the tragedy hastens
+to its end. Then is heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool
+(the wind) of the garden, the impersonal presence of Jehovah is, as it
+were, felt in the passing breeze, and a shadow falls upon the
+earth,--but such a shadow as their own patient toil may dissipate, and
+beyond the confines of which their hope, which has now taken the place
+of enjoyment, is permitted ever to look.
+
+Without delaying on the moral of this passage, what we would remark upon
+is the clearness and freedom of the dialogue,--a feature which we find
+pervading the whole of the sacred writings.
+
+In the account of Cain, which immediately succeeds, the narrative is
+inelaborate, casual, secondary; the dialogue is simple and touching. The
+agony of the fratricide and his remorse are better expressed by his own
+lips than could be done by any skill of the historian.
+
+In the deception which Abraham put upon the Egyptians, touching his
+wife,--which it is no part of our present object to justify or to
+condemn,--what a stroke of pathos, what a depth of conjugal sentiment,
+is exhibited! "Thou art a fair woman to look upon, and the Egyptians,
+when they see thee, will kill me and save thee alive. _Say, I pray thee,
+thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my
+soul shall live because of thee_."
+
+Viola appears very interesting and very innocent, when, in boy's
+clothes, she wanders about in pursuit of a lover. Is not Sarah equally
+interesting and equally innocent, when, under cover of an assumed name,
+and that a sister's, she would preserve the love of one who has worthily
+won it?
+
+Will it be said that the dialogue of the Bible lacks the charm of
+poetry?--that its action and sentiment, its love and its sorrow, are not
+heightened by those efforts of the fancy which delight us in dramatic
+authors?--that its simplicity is bald, and its naturalness rough?--that
+its excessive familiarity repels taste and disturbs culture? If we may
+trust Wordsworth, simplicity is not inconsistent with the pleasures of
+the imagination. The style of the Bible is not redundant,--there is
+little extravagance in it, and it has no trickery of words. Yet this
+does not prevent its being deep in sentiment, brilliant with intrinsic
+thought or powerful effect.
+
+In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Valentine thus utters himself touching
+his betrothed:--
+
+  "What light is light, if Sylvia be not seen?
+  What joy is joy, if Sylvia be not by?
+  Except I see my Sylvia in the night,
+  There is no music in the nightingale.
+  Unless I look on Sylvia in the day,
+  There is no day for me to look upon.
+  She is my essence; and I cease to be,
+  If I be not by her fair influence
+  Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive."
+
+Compare with this the language of Abraham. "Thou art fair, my wife. Say,
+I pray thee, thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy
+sake, and my soul shall live because of thee." The first is an instance
+of poetic amplification and _abandon_; we should contend, for the last,
+that it expresses poetic tenderness and delicacy. In the one case,
+passion is diffuse,--in the other, concentrated. Which is the more
+natural, others must judge.
+
+"Euthanasy," "Theron and Aspasio," the "Phaedon" of Plato are dialogues,
+but they are not dramatic. It may be, that, for a composition to claim
+this distinction, it must embody great character or deep feeling,--that
+it must express not only the individuality, but the strength of the
+passions.
+
+Observing this criticism, we think we may find any quantity of dramatic
+dialogue in Scripture. The story of Joseph, the march in the wilderness,
+the history of David, are full of it.
+
+There are not only dramatic dialogue and movement, but dramatic
+monologue and episode. For illustration, we might refer to Hagar in the
+wilderness. Her tragic loneliness and shuddering despair alight upon the
+page of Scripture with the interest that attends the introduction of the
+veiled Niobe with her children into the Grecian theatre.
+
+There are those who say, that the truth of particular events, so far as
+we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure as well as the
+dignity of the drama,--in other words, that the Bible is too true to
+afford what is called dramatic delight, while the semblance of truth in
+Shakspeare is exactly graduated to this particular affection. Between
+the advocates of this theory, and those who say that Shakspeare is true
+as truth itself, we can safely leave the point.
+
+The subject has another aspect, which appears in the inquiry, What is
+the true object of the drama? If, as has been asserted, the object of
+the drama be the exhibition of the human character,--if, agreeably to
+Aristotle, tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity,--or if,
+according to a recent writer, it interests us through the moral and
+religious principles of our nature,--or even if, according to Dr.
+Johnson, it be the province of comedy to bring into view the customs,
+manners, vices, and the whole character of a people,--it is obvious that
+the Bible and the drama have some correspondence. If, in the somewhat
+heated language of Mrs. Jameson, "whatever in religion is holy and
+sublime, in virtue amiable and grave, whatever hath passion or
+admiration in the changes of fortune or the refluxes of feeling,
+whatever is pitiful in the weakness, grand in the strength, or terrible
+in the perversion of the human intellect," be the domain of tragedy,
+this correspondence increases upon us.
+
+If, however, it be the object of the drama to divert, then it occupies a
+wholly different ground from the Bible. If it merely gratifies curiosity
+or enlivens pastime, if it awakens emotion without directing it to
+useful ends, if it rallies the infirmities of human nature with no other
+design than to provoke our derision or increase our conceit, it shoots
+very, very wide of the object which the sacred writers propose.
+
+It is worthy to be remarked, that the Jews had no drama, or nothing that
+answers to our idea of that term at the present time; they had no
+theatres, no writers of tragedy or comedy. Neither are there any traces
+of the dramatic art among the Egyptians, among whom the Jews sojourned
+four hundred years, nor among the Arabs or the Persians, who are of
+kindred stock with this people. On the other hand, by the Hindoos and
+Chinese, the Greeks and Romans, histrionic representation was cultivated
+with assiduity.
+
+How shall we explain this national peculiarity? Was it because the
+religion of the Jews forbade creative imitation? Is it to be found in
+the letter or the spirit of the second commandment, which interdicts the
+making of graven images of any pattern in earth or heaven? We should
+hardly think so, since the object of this prohibition is rather to
+prevent idolatry than to discourage the gratification of taste. "Thou
+shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The Jews did have emblematic
+observances, costume, and works of art. Yet, on the other hand, the Jews
+possessed something resembling the drama, and that out of which the
+dramatic institutions of all nations have sprung. The question, then,
+why the Jews had no drama proper, and still preserved the semblance and
+germ thereof, will be partially elucidated by a reference to the early
+history of dramatic art.
+
+In its inception, the drama, among all nations, was a religious
+observance. It came in with the chorus and the ode. The chorus, or, as
+we now say, choir, was a company of persons who on stated occasions sang
+sacred songs, accompanying their music with significant gesture, and an
+harmonious pulsation of the feet, or the more deliberate march. The ode
+or song they sang was of an elevated structure and impassioned tone, and
+was commonly addressed to the Divinity. Instances of the ode are the
+lyrics of Pindar and David. The chorus was also divided into parts, to
+each of which was assigned a separate portion of the song, and which
+answered one another in alternate measures. A good instance of the
+chorus and its movement appears after the deliverance of the Jews from
+the dangers of the Red Sea. "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel
+this song unto the Lord: 'I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath
+triumphed gloriously,'" etc. "And Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel
+in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with
+dances; and Miriam answered them, 'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath
+triumphed gloriously.'" At a later period, in Jewish as in Greek
+history, choral exercises became a profession, and the choir constituted
+a detached portion of men and women.
+
+"Those who have studied the history of Grecian antiquities," says
+Archbishop Potter, "and collected the fragments which remain of the most
+ancient authors, have all concurred in the opinion, that poetry was
+first employed in celebrating the praises of the gods. The fragments of
+the Orphic hymns, and those of Linus and Musaeus, show these poets
+entertained sounder notions of the Supreme Being than many philosophers
+of a later date. There are lyric fragments yet remaining that bear
+striking resemblance to Scripture."
+
+So, says Bishop Horne, "The poetry of the Jews is clearly traceable to
+the service of religion. To celebrate the praises of God, to decorate
+his worship, and give force to devout sentiments, was the employment of
+the Hebrew Muse."
+
+The choral song, that is, a sacred ode united with appropriate action,
+distinguished the Jews and Greeks alike. At a later period of Jewish
+history, the chorus became perfected, yet without receiving any organic
+change. Among the Greeks, however, the chorus passed by degrees into the
+drama. To simple singing and dancing they added a variety of imitative
+action; from celebrating the praises of the Divinity, they proceeded to
+represent the deeds of men, and their orchestras were enlarged to
+theatres. They retained the chorus, but subordinated it to the action.
+The Jews, on the other hand, did no more than dramatize the chorus. So,
+Bishop Horsley says, the greater part of the Psalms are a sort of
+dramatic ode, consisting of dialogues between certain persons sustaining
+certain characters. In these psalms, the persons are the writer himself
+and a band of Levites,--or sometimes the Supreme Being, or a personation
+of the Messiah.
+
+We find, then, the Jews and the Greeks running parallel in respect of
+the drama, or that out of which the drama sprung, the chorus, for a long
+series of years. The practice of the two nations in this respect
+exhibits a striking coincidence, indeed, Lowth conceives that the Song
+of Solomon bears a strong resemblance to the Greek drama. "The chorus of
+virgins," he says, "seems in every respect congenial to the tragic
+chorus of the Greeks. They are constantly present, and prepared to
+fulfil all the duties of advice and consolation; they converse
+frequently with the different characters; they take part in the whole
+business of the poem." They fulfilled, in a word, all the purpose of the
+Greek chorus on the Greek stage.
+
+On certain occasions, the Greek chorus celebrated divine worship in the
+vicinity of the great altar of their god. Clad in magnificent vestments,
+they move to solemn measures about it; they ascend and descend the steps
+that lead to it; they offer sacrifices upon it; they carry in their
+hands lighted torches; they pour out lustral water; they burn incense;
+they divide into antiphonal bands, and sing alternate stanzas of their
+sacred songs.
+
+So, in their religious festivals, the Jewish chorus surrounded the high
+altar of their worship, gorgeously dressed, and with an harmonious
+tread; they mounted and remounted the steps; they offered sacrifices;
+they bore branches of trees in their hands; they scattered the lustral
+water; they burnt incense; they pealed the responsive anthem.
+
+But while we follow down the stream of resemblance to a certain point,
+it divides at last: on the Greek side, it is diverted into the lighter
+practice of the theatre; on the Jewish side, it seems to deepen itself
+in the religious feeling of the nation.
+
+Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, seizing upon the chorus, elaborated it
+into the drama. The religious idea, indeed, seems never to have deserted
+the gentile drama; for, at a later period, we find the Romans appointing
+theatrical performances with the special design of averting the anger of
+the gods. A religious spirit, also, pervades all the writings of the
+ancient dramatists; they bring the gods to view, and the terrors of the
+next world, on their stage, are seen crowding upon the sins of this.
+
+On the other hand, David, who may be denominated the Alfred of the Jews,
+seems to have contented himself with the chorus; he allotted its
+members, disciplined its ranks, heightened its effect, and supplied new
+lyrics for its use.
+
+Another exemplification of singular coincidence and diversity between
+the two nations appears in this, that the goat was common in the
+religious observances of both; a similar ritual required the sacrifice
+of this animal: but with the Jews the creature was an emblem of
+solemnity, while with the Greeks he was significant of joy; the Jews
+sacrificed him on their fasts,--the Greeks in their feasts. And here we
+may observe, that tragedy, the most dignified and the primitive form of
+the drama, deduces its origin from the goat,--being, literally, the song
+of the goat, that is, the song accompanying the sacrifice of the goat.
+
+Let us now endeavor to answer the question, Why, since the drama was
+generally introduced among surrounding nations, and Jewish customs and
+life comprised so many initial dramatic materials, this art was not
+known among that people?
+
+It was owing to the earnestness and solemnity of their religious faith.
+We find the cause in the simple, exalted, and comparatively spiritual
+ideas they had of the Supreme Being; in a word, we shall state the whole
+ground to be this,--that the Greeks were polytheists, and the Jews
+monotheists.
+
+Let us bear in mind that the chorus, and the drama that was built upon
+it, had a religious association, and were employed in religious
+devotion. We may add, moreover, that the Greeks introduced their gods
+upon the stage; this the Jews could not do. The Greeks, of course, had a
+great deal of religious feeling, but they could not cherish that
+profound reverence for the object of their worship which the Jews
+entertained towards theirs. The Jews accompanied the Greeks in the use
+of the chorus, but they could not go with them any farther. They both
+united in employing music and the dance, and all the pomp of procession
+and charm of ceremony, in divine worship; but when it came to displaying
+the object of their adoration in personal form to the popular eye, and
+making him an actor on the stage, however dignified that stage might be,
+the Jews could not consent.
+
+This, we think, will explain, in part, why others of the ancient
+nations, the Arabs and Persians, rich as they were in every species of
+literature, had no theatre; they were monotheists.
+
+But there is the department of comedy, of a lighter sort, which does not
+converse with serious subjects, or necessarily include reference to
+Deity; why do we find no trace of this among the Jews? We may remember,
+that all festivals, in very ancient time, of every description, the
+grave and the gay, the penitential and the jubilant, had a religious
+design, and were suggested by a religious feeling. We think the peculiar
+cast of the Judaic faith would hardly embody itself in such a mode of
+expression. Moreover, tragedy was the parent of comedy,--and since the
+Jews had not the first, we should hardly expect them to produce the
+last. It is not difficult to perceive how the Greeks could convert their
+goat to dramatic, or even to comic purposes; but the Jews could not deal
+so with theirs.
+
+We approach another observation, that there is no comedy in the Bible.
+There is tragedy there,--not in the sense in which we have just denied
+that the Jews had tragedy, but in the obvious sense of tragic elements,
+tragic scenes, tragic feelings. In the same sense, we say, there are no
+comic elements, or scenes, or feelings. There is that in the Bible to
+make you weep, but nothing to move you to laughter. Why is this? Are
+there not smiles as well as tears in life? Have we not a deep, joyous
+nature, as well as aspiration, reverence, awe? Is there not a
+free-and-easy side of existence, as well as vexation and sorrow? We
+assent that these things are so.
+
+But comedy implies ridicule, sharp, corroding ridicule. The comedy of
+the Greeks ridiculed everything,--persons, characters, opinions,
+customs, and sometimes philosophy and religion. Comedy became,
+therefore, a sort of consecrated slander, lyric spite, aesthetical
+buffoonery. Comedy makes you laugh at somebody's expense; it brings
+multitudes together to see it inflict death on some reputation; it
+assails private feeling with all the publicity and powers of the stage.
+
+Now we doubt if the Jewish faith or taste would tolerate this. The Jews
+were commanded to love their neighbor. We grant, their idea of neighbor
+was excessively narrow and partial; but still it was their neighbor.
+They were commanded not to bear false witness against their neighbor,
+and he was pronounced accursed who should smite his neighbor secretly.
+It might appear that comedy would violate each of these statutes. But
+the Jews had their delights, their indulgences, their transports,
+notwithstanding the imperfection of their benevolence, the meagreness of
+their truth, and the cumbersomeness of their ceremonials. The Feast of
+Tabernacles, for instance, was liberal and happy, bright and smiling; it
+was the enthusiasm of pastime, the psalm of delectableness. They did not
+laugh at the exposure of another's foibles, but out of their own merry
+hearts.
+
+Will it be said, the Bible is not true to Nature, if it does not
+represent the comical side of life, as well as Shakspeare does? We think
+the comical parts of Shakspeare, his extreme comical parts, are rather
+an exaggeration of individual qualities than a fair portraiture of the
+whole species. There is no Falstaff in the Bible, yet the qualities of
+Falstaff exist in the Bible and in Nature, but in combination, and this
+combination modifies their aspect and effect.
+
+There is laughter in the Bible, but it is not uttered to make you laugh.
+There are also events recorded, which, at the time, may have produced
+effects analogous to comedy. The approach of the Gibeonites to the camp
+of Israel in their mock-beggarly costume might be mentioned. Shimei's
+cursing David has always seemed to us to border on the ludicrous.
+
+But to leave these matters and return to the general thread of thought.
+Dramas have been formed on the Bible. We hardly need name "Paradise
+Lost," or "Samson Agonistes," or the "Cain" of Byron, the "Hadad" of
+Hillhouse, or Mrs. More's "David and Goliah." "Pilgrim's Progress" has a
+Scriptural basis.
+
+Moreover, if we may trust the best critics, certain portions of the
+sacred volume are conceived in a dramatic spirit, and are propounded to
+a dramatic interpretation. These are the Book of Job, the Song of
+Solomon, and, possibly, the Apocalypse of St. John. If we were disposed
+to contend for this view, we need but mention such authorities as
+Calmet, Carpzov, Bishops Warburton, Percy, Lowth, Bossuet.
+
+The Book of Job has a prose prologue and epilogue, the intermediate
+portions being poetic dialogue. The characters are discriminated and
+well supported. It does not preserve the unities of Aristotle, which,
+indeed, are found neither in the Bible nor in Nature,--which Shakspeare
+neglects, and which are to be met with only in the crystalline
+artificialness of the French stage. "It has no plot, not even of the
+simplest kind," says Dr. Lowth. It has a plot,--not an external and
+visible one, but an internal and spiritual one; its incidents are its
+feelings, its progress is the successive conditions of mind, and it
+terminates with the triumph of virtue. If it be not a record of actual
+conversation, it is an embodiment of a most wonderful ideality. The
+eternity of God, the grandeur of Nature, the profundity of the soul,
+move in silent panorama before you. The great and agitating problems of
+human existence are depicted with astonishing energy and precision, and
+marvellous is the conduct of the piece to us who behold it as a painting
+away back on the dark canvas of antiquity.
+
+We said the Jews had no drama, no theatre, because they would not
+introduce the Divinity upon the stage. Yet God appears speaking in the
+Book of Job, not bodily, but ideally, and herein is all difference. This
+drama addresses the imagination, not the eye. The Greeks brought their
+divinities into sight, stood them on the stage,--or clothed a man with
+an enormous mask, and raised him on a pedestal, giving him also
+corresponding apparel, to represent their god. The Hebrew stage, if we
+may share the ordinary indulgence of language in using that term, with
+an awe and delicacy suitable to the dignity of the subject, permits the
+Divinity to speak, but does not presume to employ his person; the
+majesty of Infinitude utters itself, but no robe-maker undertakes to
+dress it for the occasion. In the present instance, how exalted, how
+inspiring, is the appearance of God! how free from offensive diminution
+and costumal familiarity! "Then the Lord answered Job out of the
+whirlwind, and said." Dim indeed is the representation, but very
+distinct is the impression. The phenomenon conforms to the purity of
+feeling, not to the grossness of sense. Devotion is kindled by the
+sublime impalpableness; no applause is enforced by appropriate acting.
+The Greeks, would have played the Book of Job,--the Jews were contented
+to read it.
+
+And here we might remark a distinction between dramatic reading and
+dramatic seeing; and in support of our theory we can call to aid so good
+an authority as Charles Lamb. "I cannot help being of opinion," says
+this essayist, "that the plays of Shakspeare are less calculated for
+performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist
+whatever."
+
+How are the love dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, by the inherent fault of
+stage representation, sullied and turned from their very nature by being
+exposed to a large assembly! How can the profound sorrows of Hamlet be
+depicted by a gesticulating actor? So, to see Lear acted, to see an old
+man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors
+by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful
+and disgusting. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm
+in which he goes out is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of
+the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. In the acted
+Othello, the black visage of the Moor is obtruded upon you; in the
+written Othello, his color disappears in his mind. When Hamlet compares
+the two pictures of Gertrude's first and second husband, who wants to
+see the pictures? But in the acting, a miniature must be lugged out. "The
+truth is," he adds, "the characters of Shakspeare are more the objects
+of meditation than of interest or curiosity as to their actions."
+
+All this applies with force to what we have been saying. The Jews, in
+respect of their dramatic culture, seem more like one who enjoys
+Shakspeare in the closet; the Greeks, like those who are tolled off to
+the theatre to see him acted. The Greeks would have contrived a pair of
+bellows to represent the whirlwind; mystic, vast, inaudible, it passes
+before the imagination of the Jew, and its office is done. The Jew would
+be shocked to see his God in a human form; such a thing pleased the
+Greek. The source of the difference is to be sought in the theology of
+the two nations. The theological development of the Jews was very
+complete,--that of the Greeks unfinished.
+
+Yet the Jews were very deficient in art, and the Greeks perfect; both
+failed in humanity. The Greeks had more ideality than the Jews; but
+their ideality was very intense; it was continually, so to speak,
+running aground; it must see its conceptions embodied; and more,--when
+they were embodied, Pygmalion-like, it must seek to imbue them with
+motion and sensibility. The conception of the Jews was more vague,
+perhaps, but equally affecting; they were satisfied with carrying in
+their minds the faint outline of the sublime, without seeking to chisel
+it into dimension and tangibility. They cherished in their bosoms their
+sacred ideal, and worshipped from far the greatness of the majesty that
+shaded their imaginations. Hence we look to Athens for art, to Palestine
+for ethics; the one produces rhetoricians,--the other, prophets.
+
+So, we see, the theologico-dramatic forms of the two nations--and there
+were no other--are different. The one pleases the prurient eye,--the
+other gratifies the longing soul; the one amuses,--the other inspires;
+the one is a hollow pageant of divine things,--the other is a glad,
+solemn intimation from the unutterable heart of the universe.
+
+The Song of Solomon, that stumbling-block of criticism and pill of
+faith, a recent writer regards as a parable in the form of a drama, in
+which the bride is considered as representing true religion, the royal
+lover as the Jewish people, and the younger sister as the Gospel
+dispensation. But it is evidently conceived in a very different spirit
+from the Book of Job or the Psalms of David, and its theological
+character is so obscured by other associations as to lead many to
+inquire whether an enlightened religious sensibility dictated it.
+
+We cannot dismiss this part of our subject without allusion to a species
+of drama that prevailed in the Middle Ages, called Mysteries, or
+Moralities. These were a sort of scenical illustration of the Sacred
+Scripture, and the subjects were events taken sometimes from the New
+Testament and sometimes from the Old. It is said they were designed to
+supply the place of the Greek and Roman theatre, which had been banished
+from the Church. The plays were written and performed by the clergy.
+They seem to have first been employed to wile away the dulness of the
+cloister, but were very soon introduced to the public. Adam and Eve in
+Paradise, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection were theatrized. The effect
+could hardly be salutary. The different persons of the Trinity appeared
+on the stage; on one side of the scene stretched the yawning throat of
+an immense wooden dragon; masked devils ran howling in and out.
+
+"In the year 1437,"--we follow the literal history, as we find it quoted
+in D'Israeli,--"when the Bishop of Metz caused the Mystery of the
+Passion to be represented near that city, God was an old gentleman, a
+curate of the place, and who was very near expiring on the cross, had he
+not been timely assisted. He was so enfeebled that another priest
+finished his part. At the same time this curate undertook to perform the
+Resurrection, which being a less difficult task, he did it admirably
+well. Another priest, personating Judas, had like to have been stifled
+while he hung on the tree, for his neck slipped. This being at length
+luckily perceived, he was cut down, and recovered." In another instance,
+a man who assumed the Supreme Being becoming nearly suffocated by the
+paint applied to his face, it was wisely announced that for the future
+the Deity should be covered by a cloud. These plays, carried about the
+country, taken up by the baser sort of people, descended through all
+degrees of farce to obscenity, and, in England, becoming entangled in
+politics, at length disappeared. It is said they linger in Italy, and
+are annually reproduced in Spain.
+
+The Bible is incapable of representation. For a man to act the Supreme
+Being would be as revolting in idea as profane in practice. One may in
+words portray the divine character, give utterance to the divine will.
+This every preacher does. But to what is the effect owing? Not to
+proprieties of attitude or arrangement of muscle, but to the spirit of
+the man magnified and flooding with the great theme, and to the thought
+of God that surrounds and subdues all; in other words, the imagination
+is addressed, not the sight,--the sentiments and affections are engaged,
+not the senses. As Lamb says of the Lear of Shakspeare, it cannot be
+acted; so, with greater force, we may say of the Bible, it cannot be
+acted. When we read or hear of the Passion of the Saviour, it is the
+thought, the emotion, burning and seething within it, at which by
+invisible contact our own thought and emotion catch fire; and the
+capabilities of impersonation and manufacture are mocked by such a
+subject.
+
+But the Bible abounds in dramatic situation, action, and feeling. This
+has already been intimated; it only remains that we indicate some
+examples. The history of David fulfils all the demands of dramatic
+composition. It has the severe grandeur of Aeschylus, the moving
+tenderness of Euripides, and the individual fidelity of Shakspeare.
+Could this last-named writer, who, while he counterfeited Nature with
+such success, was equally commended for his historical integrity,--could
+Shakspeare have performed that service on this history, which Milton,
+More, and others have undertaken on other portions of the sacred
+volume,--could he have digested it into a regular dramatic form,--he
+would have accomplished a work of rare interest. It would include the
+characters of Samuel and Saul; it would describe the magnanimous
+Jonathan and the rebellious Absalom; Nathan, Nabal, Goliah, Shimei,
+would impart their respective features; it would be enriched with all
+that is beautiful in woman's love or enduring in parental affection. It
+is full of incident, and full of pathos. It verges towards the terrible,
+it is shaken with the passionate, it rises into the heroic. Pursued in
+the true spirit of Jewish theology, the awful presence of God would
+overhang and pervade it, while the agency of his providence should
+attend on the evolutions of events.
+
+There is one effect which, in the present arrangement of the canon, is
+entirely lost to view, and which could be revived only by the
+synchronizing of the Psalms with their proper epochs. For instance, the
+eighth Psalm is referable to the youth of David, when he was yet leading
+a shepherd life. The dramatic form of his history would detach this from
+its present place, and insert it amid the occasions and in the years to
+which it belongs. What a scene we should then have! The youthful David,
+ruddy he was, and, withal, of a beautiful countenance, (marginal
+reading, fair of eyes,) and goodly to look to; and he was a cunning
+player on the harp. There is the glow of poetic enthusiasm in his eyes,
+and the fervor of religious feeling in all his moods; as he tends his
+flock amid the quietness and beauty of his native hills, he joins to the
+aspirations of his soul the melodies of music. So the night overtakes
+him, the labors of the day are past, his meditations withdraw him from
+the society of men, he is alone with Nature and with God;--at such a
+moment the spirit of composition and utterance is upon him, and he hymns
+himself in those lofty and touching stanzas,--
+
+  "O Jehovah, our Lord,
+  How excellent is thy name in all the earth!
+  When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
+  The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
+  What is man that thou art mindful of him,
+  And the son of man that thou carest for him?
+  Yet thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
+  Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor;
+  Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hand,
+  Thou hast put all things under his feet,--
+  All sheep and oxen,
+  Yea, and the beasts of the forest,
+  The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea,
+  And whatsoever passes through the deep.
+  O Jehovah, our Lord,
+  How excellent is thy name in all the earth!"
+
+Again, the fifty-seventh Psalm is assigned, in respect of place, to the
+cave of En-gedi, into which David fled from the vengeance of Saul. Here,
+surrounded by lofty rocks, whose promontories screen a wide extent of
+vale, he breaks forth,--
+
+  "Have pity upon me, O God, have pity upon me,
+  For in thee doth my soul seek refuge!
+  Yea, in the shadow of thy wings do I take shelter,
+  Until these calamities be overpast!"
+
+Dramatically touched, and disposed according to the natural unities of
+the subject, these sublime and affecting songs would appear on their
+motive occasions, and be surrounded by their actual accompaniments.
+
+The present effect may be compared to that which would be felt, if we
+should detach the songs of the artificial drama from their original
+impulse and feeling, (for instance, the willow dirge of Desdemona, and
+the fantastic moans of Ophelia,) and produce them in a parlor. Not but
+that these lyrics have a universal fitness, and a value which no time
+can change or circumstance diminish; but as we are looking at them
+simply in a dramatic view, we claim the right to suggest their dramatic
+force and pertinency. This effect, we might remark, is particularly and
+most truthfully regarded in the Lament of David over Saul and Jonathan.
+That monody would be shorn of its interest, if it were inserted anywhere
+else. The Psalms are more impersonal and more strictly religious than
+that, and hence their universal application; only we say, we can easily
+conceive that the revival of them in the order of their history, and in
+all the purity of their native pathos, would render them more
+attractive.
+
+In connection with what we would further observe of the Psalms of David,
+let us again call attention to the ancient chorus,--how it was a species
+of melodrama, how it sang its parts, and comprised distinct vocalists
+and musicians, who pursued the piece in alternate rejoinder. What we
+would observe is, that many of the Psalms were written for the chorus,
+and, so to speak, were performed by it. There are some of them which it
+is impossible to understand without attention to this dramatic method of
+rehearsal. Psalm cxviii., for instance, includes several speakers. Psalm
+xxiv. was composed on the occasion of the transfer of the ark to the
+tabernacle on Mount Zion. And David, we read, and all the house of
+Israel, brought up the ark with shouting and with the sound of the
+trumpet. In the midst of the congregated nation, supported by a varied
+instrumental accompaniment, with the smoke of the well-fed altar surging
+into the skies, the chorus took up the song which had been prepared to
+their hand,--one group calling out, "Who shall ascend into the hill of
+the Lord?"--the other pealing their answer, "He that hath clean hands
+and a pure heart." Meanwhile, they dance before the Lord,--that is, we
+suppose, preserving with their feet the unities of the music.
+
+It was during a melodrama like this, in the midst of its exciting
+grandeur and all-pervading transport, executed at the Feast of
+Tabernacles, in the open area of the Temple, when the Jews were wont to
+pour upon the altar water taken from the pool of Siloam, chanting at the
+same time the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, and one division of the chorus
+had just sung the words,--
+
+  "With joy we draw water from the wells of salvation,"
+
+and before the other had replied,--it was at this moment, that Christ,
+as Dr. Furness very reasonably conjectures, took up the response in his
+own person, and overwhelmed attention by that memorable declaration, "If
+any man thirst, let him come to me and drink; and from within him shall
+flow rivers of living water."
+
+It is what we may term the dramatic proprieties that give to many of the
+Psalms, in the language of a recent commentator, "a greater degree of
+fitness, spirit, and grandeur"; and they impart to the history of David
+a certain decorousness of illustration and perspicuity of feature which
+it would not otherwise possess. They would produce upon it the same
+result as is achieved by the sister arts on this and other portions of
+the sacred volume, without marring the text or doing violence to truth.
+Not, let us repeat, that the Bible can be theatrized. Neither church nor
+playhouse can revive the forms of Judaism, without recalling its lost
+spirit. And that must be a bold hand, indeed, that shall undertake to
+mend again the shivered vail of the Temple, or collect from its ruins a
+ritual which He that was greater than Solomon typically denounced in
+foretelling the overthrow of that gorgeous pile. The Bible, as to its
+important verities and solemn doctrine, is transparent to the
+imagination and affections, and does not require the mediation of dumb
+show or scenic travesty.
+
+It is not difficult to trace many familiar dramatic resemblances in the
+Old Testament. Shakspeare, who was certainly well read in the Bible and
+frequently quotes it, in the composition of Lear may have had David and
+Absalom in mind; the feigned madness of Hamlet has its prototype in that
+of David; Macbeth and the Weird Sisters have many traits in common with
+Saul and the Witch of Endor. Jezebel is certainly a suggestive study for
+Lady Macbeth. The whole story has its key in that verse where we read,
+"There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work
+wickedness in the sight of the Lord, _whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred
+up_." As in the play, so in this Scripture, we have the unrestrained and
+ferocious ambition of the wife conspiring with the equally cruel, but
+less hardy ambition of the husband. When Macbeth had murdered sleep,
+when he could not screw his courage to the sticking-point, when his
+purpose looked green and pale, his wife stings him with taunts, scathes
+him with sarcasm, and by her own energy of intellect and storm of will
+arouses him to action. So Ahab came in heavy and displeased, and laid
+him down on his bed, and turned away his face, and so his wife inflames
+him with the sharpness of her rebuke. "Why art thou sad?" she asks.
+"Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, eat bread, and be
+merry!" The lust of regal and conjugal pride, intermixed, works in both.
+Jezebel, whose husband was a king, would crown him with kingly deeds.
+Lady Macbeth, whose husband was a prince, would see him crowned a king.
+Jezebel would aggrandize empire, which her unlawful marriage thereto had
+jeoparded. Lady Macbeth will run the risk of an unlawful marriage with
+empire, if she may thereby aggrandize it. Jezebel is insensible to
+patriotic feelings,--Lady Macbeth to civil and hospitable duties. The
+Zidonian woman braves the vengeance of Jehovah,--the Scotch woman dares
+the Powers of Darkness; the one is incited by the oracles of Baal,--the
+other by the predictions of witches. Lady Macbeth has more intellectual
+force,--Jezebel more moral decision; Lady Macbeth exhibits great
+imagination,--Jezebel a stronger will. As the character of Lady Macbeth
+is said to be relieved by the affection she shows for her husband, so is
+that of Jezebel by her tenderness for Ahab. The grandness of the
+audacity with which Jezebel sends after the prophet Elisha, saying, "So
+let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life
+of one of them by to-morrow about this time," has its counterpart in the
+lofty terror of the invocation which Lady Macbeth makes to the "spirits
+that wait on mortal thoughts,"--
+
+  "Fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
+  Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
+  Stop up the access and the passage of remorse!
+  . . . . Come to my woman's breasts,
+  And take my milk for gall, ye murdering ministers!"
+
+But the last moments of these excessive characters are singularly
+contrasted. Jezebel scoffs at approaching retribution, and, shining with
+paint and dripping with jewels, is pitched to the dogs; Lady Macbeth
+goes like a coward to her grave, and, curdled with remorse, receives the
+stroke of doom.
+
+If Shakspeare and the Old Testament are a just manifestation of human
+nature, the New is so different, its representation would seem to be
+almost fanciful or fallacious; or if the latter be accepted, the former
+would seem to be discarded. But both are faithful to the different ages
+and phases of man. The one is a dispensation of force,--the other of
+love; the one could make nothing perfect,--but the bringing in of a
+better covenant makes all things perfect. Through the tempest and storm,
+the brutality and lust of the Greek tragedians, and even of the
+barbarous times on which Shakspeare builds many of his plays, through
+the night of Judaical back-slidings, idolatry, and carnal commandments,
+we patiently wait, and gladly hail the morning of the Sun of
+Righteousness. The New Testament is a green, calm, island, in this
+heaving, fearful ocean of dramatic interest. How delightful is
+everything there, and how elevated! how glad, and how solemn! how
+energetic, and how tranquil! What characters, what incident, what
+feeling! Yet how different! So different, indeed, from what elsewhere
+appears, that we are compelled to ask, Can this be that same old
+humanity whose passions, they tell us, are alike in all ages, and the
+emphatic turbulence of which constitutes so large a portion of history?
+
+But how shall we describe what is before us? The events open, if we may
+draw a term from our subject, with a prologue spoken by angels,--
+
+  "Peace on earth, and good-will towards men."
+
+There had been Jezebels and Lady Macbeths enough; the memory of David
+still smelt of blood; the Roman eagles were gorging their beaks on human
+flesh; and the Samaritan everywhere felt the gnawing, shuddering sense
+of hatred and scorn. No chorus appears answering to chorus, praising the
+god of battles, or exulting in the achievements of arms; but the
+sympathies of Him who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities
+answer to the wants and woes of the race, and every thoughtful mind
+ecstatically encores. The inexorable Fate of the Greeks does not appear,
+but a good Providence interferes, and Heaven smiles graciously upon the
+scene. There is passion, indeed, grief and sorrow, sin and
+suffering,--but the tempest-stiller is here, who breathes tranquillity
+upon the waters, and pours serenity into the turbid deep. The Niobe of
+humanity, stiff and speechless, with her enmarbled children, that used
+sometimes to be introduced on the Athenian stage for purposes of terror
+or pity, is here restored to life, and she renders thanks for her
+deliverance and participates in the general joy to which the piece gives
+birth. No murderers of the prophets are hewn in pieces before the Lord;
+but from the agonies of the cross and the depths of a preternatural
+darkness, the tender cry is heard, on behalf of the murderers of the Son
+of God, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" No
+Alcestis is exhibited, doomed to destruction to save the life of her
+husband,--but One appears, moving cheerfully, voluntarily, forwards, to
+what may be termed the funeral pile of the world, from which,
+phoenix-like, he rises, and gloriously ascends, drawing after him the
+hearts, the love, the worship of millions of spectators. The key of the
+whole piece is Redemption, the spirit that actuates is Love. The chief
+actors, indeed, are Christ and Man; but innumerable subsidiary
+personages are the Charities. The elements of a spiritualized existence
+act their part. Humanity is not changed in its substance, but in its
+tendencies; the sensibilities exist, but under a divine culture. Stephen
+is as heroic as Agamemnon, Mary as energetic as Medea. Little children
+are no longer dashed in pieces,--they are embraced and blessed.
+
+But let us select for attention, and for a conclusion to these remarks,
+a particular scene. It shall be from Luke. This evangelist has been
+fabled a painter, and in the apotheosis of the old Church he was made
+the tutelar patron of that class of artists. If the individuality of his
+conceptions, the skill of his groupings, and the graphicness gave rise
+to such an idea, it would seem to have its foundation as well in Nature
+as in superstition. Matthew has more detail, more thought; Luke is more
+picturesque, more descriptive. John has more deep feeling; Luke more
+action, more life. The Annunciation, the Widow of Nain, the Prodigal Son,
+the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the incident to which
+we shall presently advert, are found in Luke alone.
+
+The incident in question is the dining of Christ at the house of Simon
+the Pharisee, and, while they were reclining at meat, the entrance of a
+woman which was a sinner, who bathes the feet of Jesus with tears, and
+wipes them with the hair of her head. The place is the city of Nain; the
+hour noon. The _dramatis personae_ are three,--Jesus, Simon, and the
+Woman,--and, if we choose to add them, the other guests, who are silent
+spectators of what transpires.
+
+Let, us consider, first, the Woman. She "was a sinner." This is all, in
+fact, that we know of her; but this is enough. The term "sinner," in
+this instance, as in many others, does not refer to the general apostasy
+in Adam; it is distinctive of race and habit. She was probably of
+heathen extraction, as she was certainly of a dissolute life. The poetry
+of sin and shame calls her the Magdalen, and there may be a convenience
+in permitting this name to stand. The depth of her depravity Christ
+clearly intimates in his allusion to the debtor who owed five hundred
+pence, and the language of Simon teaches that the infamy of her life was
+well understood among the inhabitants of the city. If a foreigner, she
+had probably been brought into the country by the Roman soldiers and
+deserted. If a native, she had fallen beneath the ban of respectability,
+and was an outcast alike from hope and from good society. She was
+condemned to wear a dress different from that of other people; she was
+liable at any moment to be stoned for her conduct; she was one whom it
+was a ritual impurity to touch. She was wretched beyond measure; but
+while so corrupt, she was not utterly hardened. Incapable of virtue, she
+was not incapable of gratitude. Weltering in grossness, she could still
+be touched by the sight of purity. Plunged into extremest vice, she
+retained the damning horror of her situation. If she had ever striven to
+recover her lost position, there were none to assist her; the bigotry of
+patriotism rejected her for her birth,--the scrupulousness of modesty,
+for her history. The night, that consecrated so many homes and gathered
+together so many families in innocence and repose, was to her blacker
+than its own blackness in misery and turpitude; the morning, that
+radiated gladness over the face of the world, revealed the extent and
+exaggerated the sense of her own degradation. But the vision of Jesus
+had alighted upon her; she had seen him speeding on his errands of
+mercy; she hung about the crowd that followed his steps; his tender look
+of pity may have sometimes gleamed into her soul. Stricken, smitten,
+confounded, her yearnings for peace gush forth afresh. It was as if
+Hell, moved by contrition, had given up its prey,--as if Remorse, tired
+of its gnawing, felt within itself the stimulus of hope. But how shall
+she see Jesus? Wherewithal shall she approach him? She has "nothing to
+pay." She has tears enough, and sorrows enough,--but these are derided
+by the vain, and suspected by the wise. She has an alabaster box of
+ointment, which, shut out as she is from honorable gain, must be the
+product and the concomitant of her guilt. But with these she must go. We
+see her threading her lonely way through the streets, learning by hints,
+since she would not dare to learn by questions, where Jesus is, and
+stops before the vestibule of the elegant mansion of Simon the Pharisee.
+
+Who is Simon the Pharisee? Not necessarily a bad man. We associate
+whatever is odious in hypocrisy or base in craft with the name Pharisee,
+while really it was the most distinguished title among the Jews. Many of
+the Pharisees were hypocrites; not all of them. The name is significant
+of profession, not of character. He could not have been an unprincipled,
+villanous man, or he would never have tendered to Jesus the
+hospitalities of his house. Indeed, Christ allows him, in the sense of
+moral indebtedness, to owe but fifty pence. He was probably a rich man,
+which might appear from the generous entertainment he made. He was a
+respectable man. The sect to which he belonged was the most celebrated
+and influential among the Jews; and when not debased by positive crime,
+a Pharisee was always esteemed for his learning and his piety. He had
+some interest in Christ, either in his mission or his character,--an
+interest beyond mere curiosity, or he would not have invited him to dine
+with him. He betrays a sincere friendliness, also, in his apprehension
+lest Christ should suffer any religious contamination.
+
+The third person in the scene is Christ, who, to speak of him not as
+theology has interpreted him to us, but as he appeared to the eyes of
+his contemporaries, was the reputed son of Joseph and Mary, the
+Bethlehemites; who by his words and deeds had attracted much attention
+and made some converts; now accused of breaking the Jewish Sabbath, now
+of plotting against the Roman sovereignty; one who in his own person had
+felt the full power of temptation, and who had been raised to the
+grandeur of a transfiguration; so tender he would not bruise the broken
+reed, so gentle his yoke was rest; raying out with compassion and love
+wherever he went; healing alike the pangs of grief and the languor of
+disease; whom some believed to be the Messiah, and others thought a
+prophet; whom the masses followed, and the priests feared;--this is the
+third member of the company.
+
+The two last, with the other guests, are engaged at their meal, and in
+conversation. The door is darkened by a strange figure; all eyes are
+riveted on the apparition; the Magdalen enters, faded, distressed, with
+long dishevelled hair. She has no introduction; she says nothing;
+indeed, in all this remarkable scene she never speaks; her silence is as
+significant as it is profound. She goes behind the couch where Jesus,
+according to Oriental custom, is reclined. She drops at his feet; there
+her tears stream; there the speechless agony of her soul bursts. Observe
+the workings of the moment. See how those people are affected. Surprise
+on the part of Simon and his friends turns to scorn, and this shades
+into indignation. Jesus is calm, collected, and intently thoughtful. The
+woman is overwhelmed by her situation. The lip of Simon curls, his eye
+flashes with fire of outraged virtue. Jesus meets his gaze with equal
+fire, but it is all of pure heavenly feeling. Simon moves to have the
+vagabond expelled; Christ interrupts the attempt. But the honor of the
+house is insulted. Yes, but the undying interests of the soul are at
+stake. But the breath of the woman is ritual poison, and her touch will
+bring down the curses of the law. But the look of Christ indicates that
+depth of spirituality before which the institutions of Moses flee away
+as chaff before the wind. Simon has some esteem for Jesus, and in this
+juncture his sensations take a turn of pity, spiced, perhaps, with a
+little contempt, and he says with himself,--"Surely, this man cannot be
+a prophet, as is pretended, or he would know who and what sort of woman
+it is that touches him; for she is a sinner; she is unclean and
+reprobate."
+
+"Simon!" says Jesus, with a tone that pierced to the worthy host's
+heart, and arrested the force of his pious alarm,--"Simon!"
+
+"Sir, say on," is the reply of the Pharisee, who is awed by this appeal
+into an humble listener.
+
+Whereupon Jesus relates the story of the two debtors, and, with
+irresistible strength of illustration and delicacy of application,
+breaks the prejudice and wins the composure of the Jew. "If, then," he
+continues, "he loves much to whom much is forgiven, what shall we say of
+one who loves so much?"
+
+"See," he goes on, pointing to the woman, "See this woman,--this wretch.
+I entered thy house; thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she has
+washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. She kisses
+my feet; she anoints them with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her
+sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."
+
+This scene, however inadequately it may be set forth, contains all that
+is sublime in tragedy, terrible in guilt, or intense in pathos. The
+woman represents humanity, or the soul of human nature; Simon, the
+world, or worldly wisdom; Christ, divinity, or the divine purposes of
+good to us ward. Simon is an incarnation of what St. Paul calls the
+beggarly elements; Christ, of spirituality; the woman, of sin. It is not
+the woman alone,--but in her there cluster upon the stage all want and
+woe, all calamity and disappointment, all shame and guilt. In Christ
+there come forward to meet her, love, hope, truth, light, salvation. In
+Simon are acted out doting conservatism, mean expediency, purblind
+calculation, carnal insensibility. Generosity in this scene is
+confronted with meanness, in the attempt to shelter misfortune. The
+woman is a tragedy herself, such as Aeschylus never dreamed of. The
+scourging Furies, dread Fate, and burning Hell unite in her, and, borne
+on by the new impulse of the new dispensation, they come towards the
+light, they ask for peace, they throng to the heaven that opens in
+Jesus. Simon embodies that vast array of influences that stand between
+humanity and its redemption. He is a very excellent, a very estimable
+man,--but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery
+disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what
+sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a
+contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such
+matters? Why is he not satisfied with a good dinner? "Simon!" "Simon!"
+
+The silence of the woman is wonderful, it is awful. What is most
+profound, most agitating, most intense cannot speak; words are too
+little for the greatness of feeling. So Job sat himself upon the ground
+seven days and seven nights, speechless. Not in this case, as is said of
+Schiller's Robbers, did the pent volcano find vent in power-words; not
+in strong and terrible accents was uttered the hoarded wrath of long
+centuries of misrule and oppression. The volcano, raging, aching, threw
+itself in silence into the arms of one who could soothe and allay it.
+The thunder is noisy and harmless. The lightning is silent,--and the
+lightning splits, kills, consumes. Humanity had muttered its thunder for
+ages. Its lightning, the condensed, fiery, fatal force of things, leaped
+from the blackness of sin, threaded with terrific glare the vision of
+man, and, in the person of the woman, fell hot and blasting at the feet
+of Jesus, who quenched its fire, and of that destructive bolt made a
+trophy of grace and a fair image of hope. She could not speak, and so
+she wept,--like the raw, chilling, hard atmosphere, which is relieved
+only by a shower of snow. How could she speak, guilty, remorseful
+wretch, without excuse, without extenuation? In the presence of divine
+virtue, at the tribunal of judgment, she could only weep, she could only
+love. But, blessed be Jesus, he could forgive her, he can forgive all.
+The woman departs in peace; Simon is satisfied; Jesus triumphs; we
+almost hear the applauses with which the ages and generations of earth
+greet the closing scene. From the serene celestial immensity that opens
+above the spot we can distinguish a voice, saying, "This is my beloved
+Son; hear ye him!"
+
+We speak of these things dramatically, but, after all, they are the only
+great realities. Everything else is mimetic, phantasmal, tinkling.
+Deeply do the masters of the drama move us; but the Gospel cleaves,
+inworks, regenerates. In the theatre, the leading characters go off in
+death and despair, or with empty conceits and a forced frivolity; in the
+Gospel, tranquilly, grandly, they are dismissed to a serener life and a
+nobler probation. Who has not pitied the ravings of Lear and the agonies
+of Othello? The Gospel pities, but, by a magnificence of plot altogether
+its own, by preserving, if we may so say, the unities of heaven and
+earth, it also saves.
+
+Of all common tragedy, we may exclaim, in the words of the old play,--
+
+  "How like a silent stream shaded with night,
+  And gliding softly, with our windy sighs,
+  Moves the whole frame of this solemnity!"
+
+The Gospel moves by, as a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,
+from the throne of God and the Lamb; on its surface play the sunbeams of
+hope; in its valleys rise the trees of life, beneath the shadows of
+which the weary years of human passion repose, and from the leaves of
+the branches of which is exhaled to the passing breeze healing for the
+nations.
+
+
+
+
+THE RING FETTER.
+
+
+A NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDY.
+
+
+There are long stretches in the course of the Connecticut River, where
+its tranquil current assumes the aspect of a lake, its sudden bends cut
+off the lovely reach of water, and its heavily wooded banks lie silent
+and green, undisturbed, except by the shriek of the passing steamer,
+casting golden-green reflections into the stream at twilight, and
+shadows of deepest blackness, star-pierced, at remoter depths of night.
+Here, now and then, a stray gull from the sea sends a flying throb of
+white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk
+paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of
+wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for these
+casual stirs of Nature, all is still, oppressive, and beautiful, as
+earth seems to the trance-sleeper on the brink of his grave.
+
+In one of these reaches, though on either side the heavy woods sweep
+down to the shore and hang over it as if deliberating whether to plunge
+in, on the eastern bank there is a tiny meadow just behind the
+tree-fringe of the river, completely hedged in by the deep woods, and
+altogether hidden from any inland road; nor would the traveller on the
+river discover it, except for the chimney of a house that peers above
+the yellow willows and seems in that desolate seclusion as startling as
+a daylight ghost. But this dwelling was built and deserted and
+weather-beaten long before the date of our story. It had been erected
+and inhabited during the Revolution, by an old Tory, who, foreseeing the
+result of the war better than some of his contemporaries, and being
+unwilling to expose his person to the chances of battle or his effects
+to confiscation, maintained a strict neutrality, and a secret trade with
+both parties; thereby welcoming peace and independence, fully stocked
+with the dislike and suspicion of his neighbors, and a large quantity of
+Continental "fairy-money." So, when Abner Dimock died, all he had to
+leave to his only son was the red house on "Dimock's Meadow," and a
+ten-acre lot of woodland behind and around the green plateau where the
+house stood. These possessions he strictly entailed on his heirs
+forever, and nobody being sufficiently interested in its alienation to
+inquire into the State laws concerning the validity of such an entail,
+the house remained in the possession of the direct line, and in the year
+18-- belonged to another Abner Dimock, who kept tavern in Greenfield, a
+town of Western Massachusetts, and, like his father and grandfather
+before him, had one only son. In the mean time, the old house in Haddam
+township had fallen into a ruinous condition, and, as the farm was very
+small, and unprofitable chestnut-woodland at that, the whole was leased
+to an old negro and his wife, who lived there in the most utter
+solitude, scratching the soil for a few beans and potatoes, and in the
+autumn gathering nuts, or in the spring roots for beer, with which Old
+Jake paddled up to Middletown, to bring home a return freight of salt
+pork and rum.
+
+The town of Greenfield, small though it was, and at the very top of a
+high hill, was yet the county town, subject to annual incursions of
+lawyers, and such "thrilling incidents" as arise from the location of a
+jail and a court-room within the limits of any village. The scenery had
+a certain summer charm of utter quiet that did it good service with some
+healthy people of well-regulated and insensitive tastes. From Greenfield
+Hill one looked away over a wide stretch of rolling country; low hills,
+in long, desolate waves of pasturage and grain, relieved here and there
+by a mass of black woodland, or a red farm-house and barns clustered
+against a hill-side, just over a wooden spire in the shallow valley,
+about which were gathered a few white houses, giving signs of life
+thrice a day in tiny threads of smoke rising from their prim chimneys;
+and over all, the pallid skies of New England, where the sun wheeled his
+shorn beams from east to west as coldly as if no tropic seas mirrored
+his more fervid glow thousands of miles away, and the chilly moon beamed
+with irreproachable whiteness across the round gray hills and the
+straggling pond, beloved of frogs and mud-turtles, that Greenfield held
+in honor under the name of Squam Lake.
+
+Perhaps it was the scenery, perhaps the air, possibly the cheapness of
+the place as far as all the necessaries of life went, that tempted Judge
+Hyde to pitch his tent there, in the house his fathers had built long
+ago, instead of wearing his judicial honors publicly, in the city where
+he attained them; but, whatever the motive might be, certain it is that
+at the age of forty he married a delicate beauty from Baltimore, and
+came to live on Greenfield Hill, in the great white house with a gambrel
+roof and dormer windows, standing behind certain huge maples, where
+Major Hyde and Parson Hyde and Deacon Hyde had all lived before him.
+
+A brief Northern summer bloomed gayly enough for Adelaide Howard Hyde
+when she made her bridal tour to her new home; and cold as she found the
+aspect of that house, with its formal mahogany chairs, high-backed, and
+carved in grim festoons and ovals of incessant repetition,--its
+penitential couch of a sofa, where only the iron spine of a
+Revolutionary heroine could have found rest,--its pinched, starved, and
+double-starched portraits of defunct Hydes, Puritanic to the very ends
+of toupet and periwig,--little Mrs. Hyde was deep enough in love with
+her tall and handsome husband to overlook the upholstery of a home he
+glorified, and to care little for comfort elsewhere, so long as she
+could nestle on his knee and rest her curly head against his shoulder.
+Besides, flowers grew, even in Greenfield; there were damask roses and
+old-fashioned lilies enough in the square garden to have furnished a
+whole century of poets with similes; and in the posy-bed under the front
+windows were tulips of Chinese awkwardness and splendor, beds of pinks
+spicy as all Arabia, blue hyacinths heavy with sweetness as well as
+bells, "pi'nies" rubicund and rank, hearts-ease clustered against the
+house, and sticky rose-acacias, pretty and impracticable, not to mention
+the grenadier files of hollyhocks that contended with fennel-bushes and
+scarlet-flowered beans for the precedence, and the hosts of wild flowers
+that bloomed by wood-edges and pond-shores wherever corn or potatoes
+spared a foot of soil for the lovely weeds. So in Judge Hyde's frequent
+absences, at court or conclave, hither and yon, (for the Judge was a
+political man,) it was his pretty wife's chief amusement, when her
+delicate fingers ached with embroidery, or her head spun with efforts to
+learn housekeeping from old Keery, the time-out-of-mind authority in the
+Hyde family, a bad-humored, good-tempered old maid,--it was, indeed, the
+little Southerner's only amusement,--to make the polish and mustiness of
+those dreary front-parlors gay and fragrant with flowers; and though
+Judge Hyde's sense of the ridiculous was not remarkably keen, it was too
+much to expect of him that he should do otherwise than laugh long and
+loud, when, suddenly returning from Taunton one summer day, he tracked
+his wife by snatches of song into the "company rooms," and found her on
+the floor, her hair about her ears, tying a thick garland of red
+peonies, intended to decorate the picture of the original Hyde, a dreary
+old fellow, in bands, and grasping a Bible in one wooden hand, while a
+distant view of Plymouth Bay and the Mayflower tried to convince the
+spectator that he was transported, among other antediluvians, by that
+Noah's ark, to the New World. On either hand hung the little Flora's
+great-grandmother-in-law, and her great-grandfather accordingly, Mrs.
+Mehitable and Parson Job Hyde, peering out, one from a bushy ornament of
+pink laurel-blossoms, and the other from an airy and delicate garland of
+the wanton sweet-pea, each stony pair of eyes seeming to glare with
+Medusan intent at this profaning of their state and dignity. "Isn't it
+charming, dear?" said the innocent little beauty, with a satisfaction
+half doubtful, as her husband's laugh went on.
+
+But for every butterfly there comes an end to summer. The flowers
+dropped from the frames and died in the garden; a pitiless winter set
+in; and day after day the mittened and mufflered schoolboy, dragging his
+sled through drifts of heavy snow to school, eyed curiously the wan,
+wistful face of Judge Hyde's wife pressed up to the pane of the south
+window, its great restless eyes and shadowy hair bringing to mind some
+captive bird that pines and beats against the cage. Her husband absent
+from home long and often, full of affairs of "court and state,"--her
+delicate organization, that lost its flickering vitality by every
+exposure to cold,--her lonely days and nights,--the interminable sewing,
+that now, for her own reasons, she would trust to no hands but her
+own,--conscious incapacity to be what all the women about her were,
+stirring, active, hardy housekeepers,--a vague sense of shame, and a
+great dread of the future,--her comfortless and motherless
+condition,--slowly, but surely, like frost, and wind, and rain, and
+snow, beat on this frail blossom, and it went with the rest. June roses
+were laid against her dark hair and in her fair hands, when she was
+carried to the lonely graveyard of Greenfield, where mulleins and
+asters, golden-rod, blackberry-vines, and stunted yellow-pines adorned
+the last sleep of the weary wife and mother; for she left behind her a
+week-old baby,--a girl,--wailing prophetically in the square bedroom
+where its mother died.
+
+Judge Hyde did not marry again, and he named his baby Mehitable. She
+grew up as a half-orphaned child with an elderly and undemonstrative
+father would naturally grow,--shy, sensitive, timid, and extremely
+grave. Her dress, thanks to Aunt Keery and the minister's wife, (who
+looked after her for her mother's sake,) was always well provided and
+neat, but no way calculated to cultivate her taste or to gratify the
+beholder. A district school provided her with such education as it could
+give; and the library, that was her resort at all hours of the day,
+furthered her knowledge in a singular and varied way, since its lightest
+contents were histories of all kinds and sorts, unless one may call the
+English Classics lighter reading than Hume or Gibbon.
+
+But at length the district-schoolma'am could teach Mehitable Hyde no
+more, and the Judge suddenly discovered that he had a pretty daughter of
+fourteen, ignorant enough to shock his sense of propriety, and delicate
+enough to make it useless to think of sending her away from home to be
+buffeted in a boarding-school. Nothing was left for him but to undertake
+her education himself; and having a theory that a thorough course of
+classics, both Greek and Latin, was the foundation of all knowledge,
+half a score of dusty grammars were brought from the garret, and for two
+hours every morning and afternoon little Miss Hitty worried her innocent
+soul over conjugations and declensions and particles, as perseveringly
+as any professor could have desired. But the dreadful part of the
+lessons to Hitty was the recitation after tea; no matter how well she
+knew every inflection of a verb, every termination of a noun, her
+father's cold, gray eye, fixed on her for an answer, dispelled all kinds
+of knowledge, and, for at least a week, every lesson ended in tears.
+However, there are alleviations to everything in life; and when the
+child was sent to the garret after her school-books, she discovered
+another set, more effectual teachers to her than Sallust or the "Graeca
+Minora," even the twelve volumes of "Sir Charles Grandison," and the
+fewer but no less absorbing tomes of "Clarissa Harlowe"; and every hour
+she could contrive not to be missed by Keery or her father was spent in
+that old garret, fragrant as it was with sheaves of all the herbs that
+grow in field or forest, poring over those old novels, that were her
+society, her friends, her world.
+
+So two years passed by. Mehitable grew tall and learned, but knew little
+more of the outside world than ever; her father had learned to love her,
+and taught her to adore him; still shy and timid, the village offered no
+temptation to her, so far as society went; and Judge Hyde was beginning
+to feel that for his child's mental health some freer atmosphere was
+fast becoming necessary, when a relentless writ was served upon the
+Judge himself, and one that no man could evade; paralysis smote him, and
+the strong man lay prostrate,--became bedridden.
+
+Now the question of life seemed settled for Hitty; her father admitted
+no nursing but hers. Month after month rolled away, and the numb grasp
+gradually loosed its hold on flesh and sense, but still Judge Hyde was
+bedridden. Year after year passed by, and no change for better or worse
+ensued. Hitty's life was spent between the two parlors and the kitchen;
+for the room her dead mother had so decorated was now furnished as a
+bedroom for her father's use; and her own possessions had been removed
+into the sitting-room next it, that, sleeping or waking, she might be
+within call. All the family portraits held a conclave in the other
+front-parlor, and its north and east windows were shut all the year,
+save on some sultry summer day when Keery flung them open to dispel damp
+and must, and the school-children stared in reverentially, and wondered
+why old Madam Hyde's eyes followed them as far as they could see.
+Visitors came now and then to the kitchen-door, and usurped Keery's
+flag-bottomed chair, while they gossiped with her about village affairs;
+now and then a friendly spinster with a budget of good advice called
+Hitty away from her post, and, after an hour's vain effort to get any
+news worth retailing about the Judge from those pale lips, retired full
+of disappointed curiosity to tell how stiff that Mehitable Hyde was, and
+how hard it was to make her speak a word to one! Friends were what Hitty
+read of in the "Spectator," and longed to have; but she knew none of the
+Greenfield girls since she left school, and the only companion she had
+was Keery, rough as the east wind, but genuine and kind-hearted,--better
+at counsel than consolation, and no way adapted to fill the vacant place
+in Hitty's heart.
+
+So the years wore away, and Miss Hyde's early beauty went with them. She
+had been a blooming, delicate girl,--the slight grace of a daisy in her
+figure, wild-rose tints on her fair cheek, and golden reflections in her
+light brown hair, that shone in its waves and curls like lost sunshine;
+but ten years of such service told their story plainly. When Hitty Hyde
+was twenty-six, her blue eyes were full of sorrow and patience, when the
+shy lids let their legend be read; the little mouth had become pale, and
+the corners drooped; her cheek, too, was tintless, though yet round;
+nothing but the beautiful hair lasted; even grace was gone, so long had
+she stooped over her father. Sometimes the unwakened heart within her
+dreamed, as a girl's heart will. Stately visions of Sir Charles
+Grandison bowing before her,--shuddering fascinations over the image of
+that dreadful Lovelace,--nothing more real haunted Hitty's imagination.
+She knew what she had to do in life,--that it was not to be a happy wife
+or mother, but to waste by a bedridden old man, the only creature on
+earth she loved as she could love. Light and air were denied the plant,
+but it grew in darkness,--blanched and unblooming, it is true, but still
+a growth upward, toward light.
+
+Ten years more of monotonous patience, and Miss Hyde was thirty-six. Her
+hair had thinned, and was full of silver threads; a wrinkle invaded
+either cheek, and she was angular and bony; but something painfully
+sweet lingered in her face, and a certain childlike innocence of
+expression gave her the air of a nun; the world had never touched nor
+taught her.
+
+But now Judge Hyde was dead; nineteen years of petulant, helpless,
+hopeless wretchedness were at last over, and all that his daughter cared
+to live for was gone; she was an orphan, without near relatives, without
+friends, old, and tired out. Do not despise me that I say "old," you
+plump and rosy ladies whose life is in its prime of joy and use at
+thirty-six. Age is not counted by years, nor calculated from one's
+birth; it is a fact of wear and work, altogether unconnected with the
+calendar. I have seen a girl of sixteen older than you are at forty. I
+have known others disgrace themselves at sixty-five by liking to play
+with children and eat sugar-plums!
+
+One kind of youth still remained to Hitty Hyde,--the freshness of
+inexperience. Her soul was as guileless and as ignorant as a child's;
+and she was stranded on life, with a large fortune, like a helmless
+ship, heavily loaded, that breaks from its anchor, and drives headlong
+upon a reef.
+
+Now it happened, that, within a year after Judge Hyde's death, Abner
+Dimock, the tavern-keeper's son, returned to Greenfield, after years of
+absence, a bold-faced, handsome man, well-dressed and "free-handed," as
+the Greenfield vernacular hath it. Nobody knew where Abner Dimock had
+spent the last fifteen years; neither did anybody know anything against
+him; yet he had no good reputation in Greenfield. Everybody looked wise
+and grave when his name was spoken, and no Greenfield girl cared to own
+him for an acquaintance. His father welcomed him home with more surprise
+than pleasure; and the whole household of the Greenfield Hotel, as
+Dimock's Inn was new-named, learned to get out of Abner Dimock's way,
+and obey his eye, as if he were more their master than his father.
+
+Left quite alone, without occupation or amusement, Miss Hyde naturally
+grasped at anything that came in her way to do or to see to; the lawyer
+who had been executor of her father's will had settled the estate and
+gone back to his home, and Miss Hyde went with him, the first journey of
+her life, that she might select a monument for her father's grave. It
+was now near a year since Judge Hyde's death, and the monument was on
+its way from Boston; the elder Dimock monopolized the cartage of freight
+as well as passengers to the next town, and to him Miss Hyde intrusted
+the care of the great granite pillar she had purchased; and it was for
+his father that Abner Dimock called on the young lady for directions as
+to the disposal of the tombstone just arrived. Hitty was in the garden;
+her white morning-dress shone among the roses, and the morning air had
+flushed her pale cheek; she looked fair and delicate and gracious; but
+her helpless ignorance of the world's ways and usages attracted the
+world-hardened man more than her face. He had not spent a _roue_ life in
+a great city for nothing; he had lived enough with gentlemen,
+broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their
+manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of
+Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first
+errand lead to another, and still another,--to make the solitary woman
+depend on his help, and expect his coming; fifty thousand dollars, with
+no more incumbrance than such a woman, was worth scheming for, and the
+prey was easily snared.
+
+It is not to be expected that any country village of two streets, much
+less Greenfield, could long remain ignorant of such a new and amazing
+phase as the devotion of any man to any woman therein; but, as nobody
+liked to interfere too soon in what might only be, after all, a mere
+business arrangement, Greenfield contented itself with using its eyes,
+its ears, and its tongues, with one exception to the latter organ's
+clatter, in favor of Hitty Hyde; _to_ her no one dared as yet approach
+with gossip or advice.
+
+In the mean time Hitty went on her way, all regardless of the seraphs at
+the gate. Abner Dimock was handsome, agreeable, gentlemanly to a certain
+lackered extent;--who had cared for Hitty, in all her life, enough to
+aid and counsel her as he had already done? At first she was half afraid
+of him; then she liked him; then he was "so good to me!" and then--she
+pitied him! for he told her, sitting on that hard old sofa, in the June
+twilight, how he had no mother, how he had been cast upon the charities
+of a cruel and evil world from his infancy; reminded her of the old red
+school-house where they had been to school together, and the tyranny of
+the big boys over him,--a little curly, motherless boy. So he enlarged
+upon his life; talked a mildly bitter misanthropy; informed Miss Hyde by
+gradual insinuations that she was an angel sent on earth to console and
+reform a poor sinner like him; and before the last September rose had
+droped, so far had Abner Dimock succeeded in his engineering, that his
+angel was astounded one night by the undeniably terrestrial visitation
+of an embrace and a respectfully fervid kiss.
+
+Perhaps it would have been funny, perhaps pathetic, to analyze the mixed
+consternation and delight of Mehitable Hyde at such _bona-fide_ evidence
+of a lover. Poor woman's heart!--altogether solitary and
+desolate,--starved of its youth and its joy,--given over to the chilly
+reign of patience and resignation,--afraid of life,--without strength,
+or hope, or pleasure,--and all at once Paradise dawns!--her cold,
+innocent life bursts into fiery and odorous bloom; she has found her
+fate, and its face is keen with splendor, like a young angel's. Poor,
+deluded, blessed, rapture-smitten woman!
+
+Blame her as you will, indignant maidens of Greenfield, Miss Flint, and
+Miss Sharp, and Miss Skinner! You may have had ten lovers and twenty
+flirtations apiece, and refused half-a-dozen good matches for the best
+of reasons; you, no doubt, would have known better than to marry a man
+who was a villain from his very physiognomy; but my heart must needs
+grow tender toward Miss Hyde; a great joy is as pathetic as a sorrow.
+Did you never cry over a doting old man?
+
+But when Mrs. Smith's son John, a youth of ten, saw, by the light of an
+incautious lamp that illuminated a part of the south parlor, a
+good-night kiss bestowed upon the departing Abner by Miss Hitty Hyde and
+absolutely returned by said Abner, and when John told his mother, and
+his mother revealed it to Miss Flint, Miss Flint to Miss Skinner, and so
+forth, and so on, till it reached the minister's wife, great was the
+uproar in Greenfield; and the Reverend Mrs. Perkins put on her gray
+bonnet and went over to remonstrate with Hitty on the spot.
+
+Whether people will ever learn the uselessness of such efforts is yet a
+matter for prophecy. Miss Hyde heard all that was said, and replied very
+quietly, "I don't believe it." And as Mrs. Perkins had no tangible
+proofs of Abner Dimock's unfitness to marry Judge Hyde's daughter, the
+lady in question got the better of her adviser, so far as any argument
+was concerned, and effectually put an end to remonstrance by declaring
+with extreme quiet and unblushing front,--
+
+"I am going to marry him next week. Will you be so good as to notify Mr.
+Perkins?"
+
+Mrs. Perkins held up both hands and cried. Words might have hardened
+Hitty; but what woman that was not half tigress ever withstood another
+woman's tears?
+
+Hitty's heart melted directly; she sat down by Mrs. Perkins, and cried,
+too.
+
+"Please, don't be vexed with me," sobbed she. "I love him, Mrs. Perkins,
+and I haven't got anybody else to love,--and--and--I never shall have.
+He's very good to love me,--I am so old and homely."
+
+"Very good!" exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, in great wrath, "_good_! to marry
+Judge Hyde's daughter, and--fifty thousand dollars," Mrs. Perkins bit
+off. She would not put such thoughts into Hitty's head, since her
+marriage was inevitable.
+
+"At any rate," sighed Hitty, on the breath of a long-drawn sob, "nobody
+else ever loved me, if I am Judge Hyde's daughter."
+
+So Mrs. Perkins went away, and declared that things had gone too far to
+be prevented; and Abner Dimock came on her retreating steps, and Hitty
+forgot everything but that he loved her; and the next week they were
+married.
+
+Here, by every law of custom, ought my weary pen to fall flat and refuse
+its office; for it is here that the fate of every heroine culminates.
+For what are women born but to be married? Old maids are excrescences in
+the social system,--disagreeable utilities,--persons who have failed to
+fulfil their destiny,--and of whom it should have been said, rather than
+of ghosts, that they are always in the wrong. But life, with
+pertinacious facts, is too apt to transcend custom and the usage of
+novel-writers; and though the one brings a woman's legal existence to an
+end when she merges her independence in that of a man, and the other
+curtails her historic existence at the same point, because the
+novelist's catechism hath for its preface this creed,--"The chief end of
+woman is to get married"; still, neither law nor novelists altogether
+displace this same persistent fact, and a woman lives, in all capacities
+of suffering and happiness, not only her wonted, but a double life, when
+legally and religiously she binds herself with bond and vow to another
+soul.
+
+Happy would it have been for Hitty Hyde, if with the legal fiction had
+chimed the actual existent fact!--happy indeed for Abner Dimock's wife
+to have laid her new joy down at the altar, and been carried to sleep by
+her mother under the mulleins and golden-rods on Greenfield Hill! Scarce
+was the allotted period of rapture past half its term, scarce had she
+learned to phrase the tender words aloud that her heart beat and choked
+with, before Abner Dimock began to tire of his incumbrance, and to
+invent plans and excuses for absence; for he dared not openly declare as
+yet that he left his patient, innocent wife for such scenes of vice and
+reckless dissipation as she had not even dreamed could exist.
+
+Yet for week after week he lingered away from Greenfield; even months
+rolled by, and, except for rare and brief visits home, Hitty saw no more
+of her husband than if he were not hers. She lapsed into her old
+solitude, varied only by the mutterings and grumblings of old Keery, who
+had lifted up her voice against Hitty's marriage with more noise and
+less effect than Mrs. Perkins, and, though she still staid by her old
+home and haunts, revenged herself on fate in general and her mistress in
+particular by a continual course of sulking, all the time hiding under
+this general quarrel with life a heart that ached with the purest
+tenderness and pity. So some people are made, like chestnuts; one gets
+so scratched and wounded in the mere attempt to get at the kernel
+within, that it becomes matter of question whether one does not suffer
+less from wanting their affection than from trying to obtain it. Yet
+Hitty Dimock had too little love given her to throw away even Keery's
+habit of kindness to her, and bore with her snaps and snarls as meekly
+as a saint,--sustained, it is true, by a hope that now began to solace
+and to occupy her, and to raise in her oppressed soul some glimmer of a
+bright possibility, a faint expectation that she might yet regain her
+husband's love, a passion which she began in her secret heart to fear
+had found its limit and died out. Still, Hitty, out of her meek,
+self-distrusting spirit, never blamed Abner Dimock for his absence or
+his coldness; rather, with the divine unselfishness that such women
+manifest, did she blame herself for having linked his handsome and
+athletic prime with her faded age, and struggle daily with the morbid
+conscience that accused her of having forgotten his best good in the
+indulgence of her own selfish ends of happiness. She still thought, "He
+is so good to me!" still idealized the villain to a hero, and, like her
+kind, predestined to be the prey and the accusing angel of such men,
+prayed for and adored her husband as if he had been the best and
+tenderest of gentlemen. Providence has its mysteries; but if there be
+one that taxes faith and staggers patience more than another, it is the
+long misery that makes a good woman cringe and writhe and agonize in
+silence under the utter rule and life-long sovereignty of a bad man.
+Perhaps such women do not suffer as we fancy; for after much trial every
+woman learns that it is possible to love where neither respect nor
+admiration can find foothold,--that it even becomes necessary to love
+some men, as the angels love us all, from an untroubled height of pity
+and tenderness, that, while it sees and condemns the sin and folly and
+uncleanness of its object, yet broods over it with an all-shielding
+devotion, laboring and beseeching and waiting for its regeneration,
+upheld above the depths of suffering and regret by the immortal power of
+a love so fervent, so pure, so self-forgetting, that it will be a
+millstone about the necks that disregard its tender clasping now, to
+sink them into a bottomless abyss in the day of the Lord.
+
+Now had one long and not unhappy autumn, a lingering winter, a desolate
+spring, a weary summer, passed away, and from an all-unconscious and
+protracted wrestling with death Hitty Dimock awoke to find her hope
+fulfilled,--a fair baby nestled on her arm, and her husband, not
+all-insensible, smiling beside her.
+
+It is true, that, had she died then, Abner Dimock would have regretted
+her death; for, by certain provisions of her father's will, in case of
+her death, the real estate, otherwise at her own disposal, became a
+trust for her child or children, and such a contingency ill suited Mr.
+Dimock's plans. So long as Hitty held a rood of land or a coin of silver
+at her own disposal, it was also at his; but trustees are not women,
+happily for the world at large, and the contemplation of that fact
+brought Hitty Hyde's husband into a state of mind well fitted to give
+him real joy at her recovery.
+
+So, for a little while, the sun shone on this bare New England
+hill-side, into this grim old house. Care and kindness were lavished on
+the delicate woman, who would scarce have needed either in her present
+delight; every luxury that could add to her slowly increasing strength,
+every attention that could quiet her fluttering and unstrung nerves, was
+showered on her, and for a time her brightest hopes seemed all to have
+found fruition.
+
+As she recovered and was restored to strength, of course these cares
+ceased. But now the new instincts of motherhood absorbed her, and,
+brooding over the rosy child that was her own, caressing its waking, or
+hanging above its sleep, she scarce noted that her husband's absences
+from home grew more and more frequent, that strange visitors asked for
+him, that he came home at midnight oftener than at dusk. Nor was it till
+her child was near a year old that Hitty discovered her husband's old
+and rewakened propensity,--that Abner Dimock came home drunk,--not drunk
+as many men are, foolish and helpless, mere beasts of the field, who
+know nothing and care for nothing but the filling of their insatiable
+appetite;--this man's nature was too hard, too iron in its moulding, to
+give way to temporary imbecility; liquor made him savage, fierce,
+brutal, excited his fiendish temper to its height, nerved his muscular
+system, inflamed his brain, and gave him the aspect of a devil; and in
+such guise he entered his wife's peaceful Eden, where she brooded and
+cooed over her child's slumbers, with one gripe of his hard hand lifted
+her from her chair, kicked the cradle before him, and, with an awful
+though muttered oath, thrust mother and child into the entry, locked the
+door upon them, and fell upon the bed to sleep away his carouse.
+
+Here was an undeniable fact before Hitty Dimock, one she could no way
+evade or gloss over; no gradual lesson, no shadow of foreboding,
+preluded the revelation; her husband was unmistakably, savagely drunk.
+She did not sit down and cry;--drearily she gathered her baby in her
+arms, hushed it to sleep with kisses, passed down into the kitchen, woke
+up the brands of the ash-hidden fire to a flame, laid on more wood, and,
+dragging old Keery's rush-bottomed chair in front of the blaze, held her
+baby in her arms till morning broke, careless of anything without or
+within but her child's sleep and her husband's drunkenness. Long and
+sadly in that desolate night did she revolve this new misery in her
+mind; the fact was face to face, and must be provided for,--but how to
+do it? What could she do, poor weak woman, even to conceal this
+disgrace, much more to check it? Long since she had discovered that
+between her and her husband there was no community of tastes or
+interests; he never talked to her, he never read to her, she did not
+know that he read at all; the garden he disliked as a useless trouble;
+he would not drive, except such a gay horse that Hitty dared not risk
+her neck behind it, and felt a shudder of fear assail her whenever his
+gig left the door; neither did he care for his child. Nothing at home
+could keep him from his pursuits; that she well knew; and, hopeful as
+she tried to be, the future spread out far away in misty horror and
+dread. What might not, become of her boy, with such a father's
+influence? was her first thought;--nay, who could tell but in some fury
+of drink he might kill or maim him? A chill of horror crept over Hitty
+at the thought,--and then, what had not she to dread? Oh, for some
+loophole of escape, some way to fly, some refuge for her baby's innocent
+life! No,--no,--no! She was his wife; she had married him; she had vowed
+to love and honor and obey,--vow of fearful import now, though uttered
+in all pureness and truth, as to a man who owned her whole heart! Love
+him!--that was not the dread; love was as much her life as her breath
+was; she knew no interval of loving for the brute fiend who mocked her
+with the name of husband; no change or chance could alienate her divine
+tenderness,--even as the pitiful blue sky above hangs stainless over
+reeking battle-fields and pest-smitten cities, piercing with its sad and
+holy star-eyes down into the hellish orgies of men, untouched and
+unchanged by just or unjust, forever shining and forever pure. But honor
+him! could that be done? What respect or trust was it possible to keep
+for a self-degraded man like that? And where honor goes down, obedience
+is sucked into the vortex, and the wreck flies far over the lonely sea,
+historic and prophetic to ship and shore.
+
+No! there was nothing to do! her vow was taken, past the power of man to
+break; nothing now remained but endurance. Perhaps another woman, with a
+strong will and vivid intellect, might have set herself to work, backed
+by that very vow that defied poor Hitty, and, by sheer resolution, have
+dragged her husband up from the gulf and saved him, though as by fire;
+or a more buoyant and younger wife might have passed it by as a first
+offence, hopeful of its being also the only one. But an instinctive
+knowledge of the man bereft Hitty of any such hope; she knew it was not
+the first time; from his own revelations and penitent confessions while
+she was yet free, she knew he had sinned as well as suffered, and the
+past augured the future. Nothing was left her, she could not escape, she
+must shut her eyes and her mouth, and only keep out of his way as far as
+she could. So she clasped her child more tightly, and, closing her heavy
+eyes, rocked back and forth till the half-waked boy slept again; and
+there old Keery found her mistress, in the morning, white as the cold
+drifts without, and a depth of settled agony in her quiet eyes that
+dimmed the old woman's only to look at.
+
+Neither spoke; nor when her husband strode into the breakfast-room and
+took his usual place, sober enough, but scarcely regretful of the
+over-night development, did any word of reproach or allusion pass the
+wife's white lips. A stranger would have thought her careless and cold.
+Abner Dimock knew that she was heartbroken; but what was that to him?
+Women live for years without that organ; and while she lived, so long as
+a cent remained of the Hyde estate, what was it to him if she pined
+away? She could not leave him; she was utterly in his power; she was
+his,--like his boots, his gun, his dog; and till he should tire of her
+and fling her into some lonely chamber to waste and die, she was bound
+to serve him; he was safe.
+
+And she offered no sort of barrier to his full indulgence of his will to
+drink. Had she lifted one of her slender fingers in warning, or given
+him a look of reproachful meaning, or uttered one cry of entreaty, at
+least the conscience within him might have visited him with a temporary
+shame, and restrained the raging propensity for a longer interval; but
+seeing her apparent apathy, knowing how timid and unresisting was her
+nature,--that nothing on earth will lie still and be trodden on but a
+woman,--Abner Dimock rioted and revelled to his full pleasure, while all
+his pale and speechless wife could do was to watch with fearful eyes and
+straining ears for his coming, and slink out of the way with her child,
+lest both should be beaten as well as cursed; for faithful old Keery,
+once daring to face him with a volley of reproaches from her shrill
+tongue, was levelled to the floor by a blow from his rapid hand, and
+bore bruises for weeks that warned her from interference. Not long,
+however, was there danger of her meddling. When the baby was a year and
+a half old. Keery, in her out-door labors,--now grown burdensome enough,
+since Mr. Dimock neither worked himself nor allowed a man on the
+premises,--Keery took a heavy cold, and, worn out with a life of hard
+work, sank into rest quickly, her last act of life being to draw Hitty's
+face down to her own, wrinkled and wan as it was, scarce so old in
+expression as her mistress's, and with one long kiss and sob speak the
+foreboding and anxious farewell she could not utter.
+
+"Only you now!" whispered Hitty to her child, as Keery's peaceful,
+shrouded face was hidden under the coffin-lid and carried away to
+Greenfield Hill. Pitiful whisper! happily all-unmeaning to the child,
+but full of desolation to the mother, floating with but one tiny plank
+amid the wild wrecks of a midnight ocean, and clinging as only the
+desperate can cling to this vague chance of life.
+
+A rough, half-crazed girl, brought from the alms-house, now did the
+drudgery of the family. Abner Dimock had grown penurious, and not one
+cent of money was given for comfort in that house, scarce for need. The
+girl was stupid and rude, but she worked for her board,--recommendation
+enough in Mr. Dimock's eyes; and so hard work was added to the other
+burdens loaded upon his silent wife. And soon came another,
+all-mysterious, but from its very mystery a deeper fear. Abner Dimock
+began to stay at home, to be visited at late hours by one or two men
+whose faces were full of evil and daring; and when, in the dead of the
+long nights, Hitty woke from her broken and feverish sleep, it was to
+hear muffled sounds from the cellar below, never heard there before; and
+once, wrapping a shawl about her, she stole down the stairways with bare
+feet, and saw streams of red light through the chinks of the
+cellar-door, and heard the ring of metal, and muttered oaths, all
+carefully dulled by such devices as kept the sounds from chance passers
+in the street, though vain as far as the inhabitants of the house itself
+were concerned. Trembling and cold, she stole back to her bed, full of
+doubts and fears, neither of which she dared whisper to any one, or
+would have dared, had she possessed a single friend to whom she could
+speak. Troubles thickened fast over Hitty; her husband was always at
+home now, and rarely sober; the relief his absences had been was denied
+her entirely; and in some sunny corner of the uninhabited rooms
+up-stairs she spent her days, toiling at such sewing as was needful, and
+silent as the dead, save as her life appealed to God from the ground,
+and called down the curse of Cain upon a head she would have shielded
+from evil with her own life.
+
+Keen human legislation! sightless justice of men!--one drunken wretch
+smites another in a midnight brawl, and sends a soul to its account with
+one sharp shudder of passion and despair, and the maddened creature that
+remains on earth suffers the penalty of the law. Every sense sobered
+from its reeling fury, weeks of terribly expectation heaped upon the
+cringing soul, and, in full consciousness, that murderer is strangled
+before men and angels, because he was drunk!--necessary enough, one
+perceives, to the good of society, which thereby loses two worse than
+useless members; but what, in the name of God's justice, should His
+vicegerent, law, visit upon the man who wrings another life away by slow
+tortures, and torments heart and soul and flesh for lingering years,
+where the victim is passive and tenacious, and dies only after
+long-drawn anguish that might fill the cup of a hundred sudden deaths?
+Yet what escapes the vicegerent shall the King himself visit and judge.
+"For He cometh! He cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness shall
+he judge the world, and the people with equity."
+
+Six months passed after Keery's death, and now from the heights of
+Greenfield and her sunny window Hitty Dimock's white face looked out
+upon a landscape of sudden glory; for October, the gold-bringer, had
+come, pouring splendor over the earth, and far and wide the forests
+blazed; scarlet and green maples, with erect heads, sentinelled the
+street, gay lifeguards of autumn; through dark green cedars the crimson
+creeper threaded its sprays of blood-red; birches, gilded to their tops,
+swayed to every wind, and drooped their graceful boughs earthward to
+shower the mossy sward with glittering leaves; heavy oaks turned
+purple-crimson through their wide-spread boughs; and the stately
+chestnuts, with foliage of tawny yellow, opened wide their stinging
+husks to let the nuts fall for squirrel and blue-jay. Splendid sadness
+clothed all the world, opal-hued mists wandered up and down the valleys
+or lingered about the undefined horizon, and the leaf-scented south wind
+sighed in the still noon with foreboding gentleness.
+
+One day, Abner Dimock was gone, and Hitty stole down to the garden-door
+with her little child, now just trying to walk, that he might have a
+little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the
+air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and
+springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air,
+the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature,
+stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the
+budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her
+child might yet atone for the agony of the past;--a time might come when
+she should sit in that door, white-haired and trembling with age, but as
+peaceful as the autumn day, watching the sports of his children, while
+his strong arm sustained her into the valley of shadow, and his tender
+eyes lit the way.
+
+As she sat dreaming, suddenly a figure intercepted the sunshine, and,
+looking up, she saw Abner Dimock's father, the elder Abner, entering the
+little wicket-gate of the garden. A strange, tottering old figure, his
+nose and chin grimacing at each other, his bleared eyes telling
+unmistakable truths of cider-brandy and New England rum, his scant locks
+of white lying in confusion over his wrinkled forehead and cheeks, his
+whole air squalid, hopeless, and degraded,--not so much by the poverty
+of vice as by its demoralizing stamp penetrating from the inner to the
+outer man, and levelling it even below the plane of brutes that perish.
+
+"Good-day! good-day!" said he to his son's wife, in a squeaking,
+tremulous tone, that drove the child to his mother's arms,--"Abner to
+home?"
+
+"No, Sir," said Hitty, with an involuntary shudder, that did not escape
+the bleared blue eye that fixed its watery gaze upon her.
+
+"Cold, a'n't ye? Better go in, better go in! Come, come along! How d'e
+do, little feller? don't know yer grandper, hey?"
+
+The child met his advances with an ominous scream, and Hitty hurried
+into the house to give him to the servant's charge, while she returned
+to the sitting-room, where the old man had seated himself in the
+rocking-chair, and was taking a mental inventory of the goods and
+chattels with a momentary keenness in his look that no way reassured
+Hitty's apprehensive heart.
+
+"So, Abner a'n't to home?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Don't know where he's gone, do ye?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Don't never know where he goes, I expect?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Well, when he comes home,--know when he's a-comin' home?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Well, when he doos, you tell him 't some folks come to the tavern last
+night, 'n' talked pretty loud, 'n' I heerd--Guess 'ta'n't best, though,
+to tell what I heerd. Only you tell Abner 't I come here, and I said
+he'd better be a-joggin'. He'll know, he'll know,--h'm, yes," said the
+old man, passing his hand across his thin blue lips, as if to drive away
+other words better left unsaid,--and then rising from his seat, by the
+aid of either arm, gained his balance, and went on, while he fumbled for
+his stick:--
+
+"I'd ha' writ, but black and white's a hangin' matter sometimes, 'n'
+words a'n't; 'n' I hadn't nobody to send, so I crawled along. Don't ye
+forget now! don't ye! It's a pretty consider'ble piece o' business; 'n'
+you'll be dreffully on't, ef you do forget. Now _don't_ ye forget!"
+
+"No, I won't," said Hitty, trembling as she spoke; for the old man's
+words had showed her a depth of dreadful possibility, and an old
+acquaintance with crime and its manoeuvres, that chilled the blood in
+her veins. She watched him out of the gate with a sickening sense of
+terror at her heart, and turned slowly into the house, revolving all
+kinds of plans in her head for her husband's escape, should her fears
+prove true. Of herself she did not think; no law could harm her child;
+but, even after years of brutality and neglect, her faithful affection
+turned with all its provident thoughtfulness and care at once to her
+husband; all her wrongs were forgotten, all her sorrows obliterated by
+this one fear. Well did St. Augustine say, "God is patient because He is
+eternal": but better and truer would the saying have been, had it run,
+"God is patient because He is love": a gospel that He publishes in the
+lives of saints on earth, in their daily and hourly "anguish of
+patience," preaching to the fearful souls that dare not trust His
+long-suffering by the tenacious love of those who bear His image,
+saying, in resistless human tones, "Shall one creature endure and love
+and continually forgive another, and shall I, who am not loving, but
+Love, be weary of thy transgressions, O sinner?" And so does the silent
+and despairing life of many a woman weave unconsciously its golden
+garland of reward in the heavens above, and do the Lord's work in a
+strange land where it cannot sing His songs.
+
+The day crept toward sunset, and Hitty sat with her wan face pressed to
+the window-pane, hushing her child in his cradle with one of those low,
+monotoned murmurs that mothers know; but still her husband did not come.
+The level sun-rays pierced the woods into more vivid splendor, burnished
+gold fringed the heavy purple clouds in the west, and warm crimson
+lights turned the purple into more triumphant glory; the sun set,
+unstained with mist or tempest, behind those blue and lonely hills that
+guard old Berkshire with their rolling summits, and night came fast,
+steel-blue and thick with stars; but yet he did not come, the untouched
+meal on the table was untouched still. Hour after hour of starry
+darkness crept by, and she sat watching at the window-pane; overhead,
+constellations marched across the heavens in relentless splendor,
+careless of man or sorrow; Orion glittered in the east, and climbed
+toward the zenith; the Pleiades clustered and sparkled as if they missed
+their lost sister no more; the Hyades marked the celestial pastures of
+Taurus, and Lyra strung her chords with fire. Hitty rested her weary
+head against the window-frame and sent her wearier thoughts upward to
+the stars; there were the points of light that the Chaldeans watched
+upon their plains by night, and named with mystic syllables of their
+weird Oriental tongue,--names that in her girlhood she had delighted to
+learn, charmed by that nameless spell that language holds, wherewith it
+plants itself ineradicably in the human mind, and binds it with fetters
+of vague association that time and chance are all-powerless to
+break,--Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgunebi, Bellatrix and Betelguese,
+sonorous of Rome and Asia both, full of old echoes and the dry resonant
+air of Eastern plains,--names wherein sounded the clash of Bellona's
+armor, and the harsh stir of palm-boughs rustled by a hot wind of the
+desert, and vibrant with the dying clangor of gongs, and shouts of
+worshipping crowds reverberating through horrid temples of grinning and
+ghastly idols, wet with children's blood.
+
+Far, far away, the heavenly procession and their well-remembered names
+had led poor Hitty's thoughts; worn out with anxiety, and faint for want
+of the food she had forgotten to take, sleep crept upon her, and her
+first consciousness of its presence was the awakening grasp of a rough
+hand and the hoarse whisper of her husband.
+
+"Get up!" said he. "Pick up your brat, get your shawl, and come!"
+
+Hitty rose quickly to her feet. One faculty wretchedness gives, the
+power of sudden self-possession,--and Hitty was broad awake in the very
+instant she was called. Her husband stood beside her, holding a lantern;
+her boy slept in the cradle at her feet.
+
+"Have you seen your father?" said she, with quick instinct.
+
+"Yes, d--n you, be quick! do you want to hang me?"
+
+Quick as a spirit Hitty snatched her child, and wrapped him in the
+blanket where he lay; her shawl was on the chair she had slept in, her
+hood upon a nail by the door, and flinging both on, with the child in
+her arms, she followed her husband down-stairs, across the back-yard,
+hitting her feet against stones and logs in the darkness, stumbling
+often, but never falling, till the shadow of the trees was past, and the
+starlight showed her that they were traversing the open fields, now
+crisp with frost, but even to the tread,--over two or three of these,
+through a pine-wood that was a landmark to Hitty, for she well knew that
+it lay between the turnpike-road and another, less frequented, that by
+various windings went toward the Connecticut Hue,--then over a tiny
+brook on its unsteady bridge of logs, and out into a lane, where a
+rough-spoken man was waiting for them, at the head of a strong horse
+harnessed to one of those wagons without springs that New-Englanders
+like to make themselves uncomfortable in. Her husband turned to her
+abruptly.
+
+"Get in," said he; "get in behind; there's hay enough; and don't breathe
+loud, or I'll murder you!"
+
+She clambered into the wagon and seated herself on the hay, hushing her
+child, who nestled and moaned in her arms, though she had carried him
+with all possible care. A sharp cut of the whip sent the powerful horse
+off at full speed, and soon this ill-matched party were fast traversing
+the narrow road that wound about the country for the use of every farm
+within a mile of its necessary course, a course tending toward the
+Connecticut.
+
+Hour after hour crept by. Worn out with fatigue, poor Hitty dozed and
+fell back on the soft hay; her child slept, too, and all her troubles
+faded away in heavy unconsciousness, till she was again awakened by her
+husband's grasp, to find that dawn was gathering its light roseate
+fleeces in the east, and that their flight was for the present stayed at
+the door of a tavern, lonely and rude enough, but welcome to Hitty as a
+place of rest, if only for a moment. The sullen mistress of the house
+asked no questions and offered no courtesy, but, after her guests had
+eaten their breakfast, rapidly prepared, she led the way to a bedroom in
+the loft, where Abner Dimock flung himself down upon the straw bed and
+fell sound asleep, leaving Hitty to the undisturbed care of her child.
+And occupation enough that proved; for the little fellow was fretful and
+excited, so that no hour for thought was left to his anxious and timid
+mother till the dinner-bell awoke her husband and took him downstairs.
+She could not eat, but, begging some milk for her boy, tended, and fed,
+and sung to him, till he slept; and then all the horrors of the present
+and future thronged upon her, till her heart seemed to die in her
+breast, and her limbs failed to support her when she would have dragged
+herself out of doors for one breath of fresh air, one refreshing look at
+a world untroubled and serene.
+
+So the afternoon crept away, and as soon as night drew on the journey
+was resumed. But this night was chill with the breath of a sobbing east
+wind, and the dim stars foreboded rain. Hitty shivered with bitter cold,
+and the boy began to cry. With a fierce curse Abner bade her stop his
+disturbance, and again the poor mother had hands and heart full to
+silence the still recurring sobs of the child. At last, after the
+midnight cocks had ceased to send their challenges from farm to farm,
+after some remote church-clocks had clanged one stroke on the damp wind,
+they began to pass through a large village; no lights burned in the
+windows, but white fences gleamed through the darkness, and sharp gable
+ends loomed up against the dull sky, one after another, and the horse's
+hoofs flashed sparks from the paved street before the church, that
+showed its white spire, spectre-like, directly in their path. Here, by
+some evil chance, the child awoke, and, between cold and hunger and
+fear, began one of those long and loud shrieks that no power can stop
+this side of strangulation. In vain Hitty kissed, and coaxed, and
+half-choked her boy, in hope to stop the uproar; still he screamed more
+and more loudly. Abner turned round on his seat with an oath, snatched
+the child from its mother's arms, and rolled it closely in the blanket.
+
+"Hold on a minute, Ben!" said he to his companion; "this yelp must be
+stopped"; and stepping over to the back of the wagon, he grasped his
+wife tightly with one arm, and with the other dropped his child into the
+street. "Now drive, Ben," said he, in the same hoarse whisper,--"drive
+like the Devil!"--for, as her child fell, Hitty shrieked with such a cry
+as only the heart of a mother could send out over a newly-murdered
+infant. Shriek on shriek, fast and loud and long, broke the slumbers of
+the village; nothing Abner could do, neither threat nor force, short of
+absolute murder, would avail,--and there was too much real estate
+remaining of the Hyde property for Abner Dimock to spare his wife yet.
+Ben drove fiend-fashion; but before they passed the last house in the
+village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened.
+Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past
+sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it
+could give the right clue to its explanation, and it dried into a
+legend.
+
+Now Hitty Dimock became careless of good or evil, except one absorbing
+desire to get away from her husband,--to search for her child, to know
+if it had lived or died. For four nights more that journey was pursued
+at the height of their horse's speed; every day they stopped to rest,
+and every day Hitty's half-delirious brain laid plans of escape, only to
+be balked by Abner Dimock's vigilance; for if he slept, it was with both
+arms round her, and the slightest stir awoke him,--and while he woke,
+not one propitious moment freed her from his watch. Her brain began to
+reel with disappointment and anguish; she began to hate her husband; a
+band of iron seemed strained about her forehead, and a ringing sound
+filled her ears; her lips grew parched, and her eye glittered; the last
+night of their journey Abner Dimock lifted her into the wagon, and she
+fainted on the hay.
+
+"What in hell did you bring her for, Dimock?" growled his companion;
+"women are d----d plagues always."
+
+"She'll get up in a minute," coolly returned the husband; "can't afford
+to leave a goose that lays golden eggs behind; hold on till I lift her
+up. Here, Hitty! drink, I tell you! drink!"
+
+A swallow of raw spirit certainly drove away the faintness, but it
+brought fresh fire to the fever that burned in her veins, and she was
+muttering in delirium before the end of that night's journey brought
+them to a small village just above the old house on the river that
+figured in the beginning of this history, and which we trust the patient
+reader has not forgotten. Abner Dimock left his wife in charge of the
+old woman who kept the hovel of a tavern where they stopped, and, giving
+Ben the horse to dispose of to some safe purchaser, after he had driven
+him down to the old house, returned at night in the boat that belonged
+to his negro tenant, and, taking his unconscious wife from her bed,
+rowed down the river and landed her safely, to be carried from the skiff
+into an upper chamber of the old house, where Jake's wife, Aunt Judy, as
+Mr. Dimock styled her, nursed the wretched woman through three weeks of
+fever, and "doctored" her with herbs and roots.
+
+The tenacious Hyde constitution, that was a proverb in Greenfield,
+conquered at last, and Hitty became conscious, to find herself in a
+chamber whose plastered walls were crumbling away with dampness and
+festooned with cobwebs, while the uncarpeted floor was checkered with
+green stains of mildew, and the very old four-post bedstead on which she
+lay was fringed around the rickety tester with rags of green moreen,
+mould-rotted.
+
+Hitty sank back on her pillow with a sigh; she did not even question the
+old negress who sat crooning over the fire, as to where she was, or what
+had befallen her; but accepted this new place as only another misty
+delirium, and in her secret heart prayed, for the hundredth time, to
+die.
+
+Slowly she recovered; for prayers to die are the last prayers ever
+answered; we live against our will, and tempt living deaths year after
+year, when soul and body cry out for the grave's repose, and beat
+themselves against the inscrutable will of God only to fall down before
+it in bruised and bleeding acquiescence. So she lived to find herself
+immured in this damp and crumbling house, with no society but a drinking
+and crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served
+him,--society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in
+speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking
+chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping
+fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now but a visionary
+paradise.
+
+For now it was winter, and the heavy drifts of snow that lay on Dimock's
+meadow forbade any explorations which the one idea of finding her child
+might have driven her to make; and the frozen surface of the river no
+white-sailed ship could traverse now, nor the hissing paddle-wheels of a
+steamer break the silence with intimations of life, active and salient,
+far beyond the lonely precinct of Abner Dimock's home.
+
+So the winter passed by. The noises and lights that had awoke Hitty at
+midnight in the house at Greenfield had become so far an institution in
+this lonely dwelling that now they disturbed her sleep no more; for it
+was a received custom, that, whenever Abner Dimock's two visitors should
+appear, the cellar should resound all night with heavy blows and
+clinking of metal, and red light as from a forge streamed up through the
+doorway; but it disturbed Hitty no more; apathy settled down in black
+mist on her soul, and she seemed to think, to care, for nothing.
+
+But spring awoke the dead earth, and sleeping roots aroused with fresh
+forces from their torpor, and sent up green signals to the birds above.
+A spark of light awoke in Hitty's eye; she planned to get away, to steal
+the boat from its hidden cove in the bushes and push off down the
+friendly current of the river,--anywhere away from him! anywhere! though
+it should be to wreck on the great ocean, but still away from him! Night
+after night she rose from her bed to hazard the attempt, but her heart
+failed, and her trembling limbs refused their aid. At length moonlight
+came to her aid, and when all the house slept she stole downstairs with
+bare, noiseless feet, and sped like a ghost across the meadow to the
+river-bank. Poor weak hands! vainly they fumbled with the knotted rope
+that bound the skiff to a crooked elm over-hanging the water,--all in
+vain for many lingering minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave
+way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so
+close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband,
+clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his face, and the lurid glow of
+drunkenness, that made a savage brute of a bad man, gleaming in his
+deep-set eyes. Hitty neither shrieked nor ran; despair nerved
+her,--despair turned her rigid before his face.
+
+"Well," said he, "where are you going?"
+
+"I am going away,--away from you,--anywhere in the world away from you!"
+answered she, with the boldness of desperation.
+
+"Ha, ha! going away from me!--that's a d--d good joke, a'n't it? Away
+from your husband! You fool! you can't get away from me! you're mine,
+soul and body,--this world and the next! Don't you know that? Where's
+your promise, eh?--'for better, for worse!'--and a'n't I worse, you
+cursed fool, you? You didn't put on the handcuffs for nothing; heaven
+and hell can't get you away from me as long as you've got on that little
+shiny fetter on your finger,--don't you know that?"
+
+The maddened woman made a quick wrench to pull away from him her left
+hand, which he held in his, taunting her with the ring that symbolized
+their eternal bonds; but he was too quick for her.
+
+"Hollo!" laughed he; "want to get rid of it, don't you? No, no! that
+won't do,--that won't do! I'll make it safe!"
+
+And lifting her like a child in his arms, he carried her across the
+meadow, back to the house, and down a flight of crazy steps into the
+cellar, where a little forge was all ablaze with white-hot coal, and the
+two ill-visaged men she well knew by sight were busy with sets of odd
+tools and fragments of metal, while on a bench near by, and in the seat
+of an old chair, lay piles of fresh coin. They were a gang of
+counterfeiters.
+
+Abner Dimock thrust his wife into the chair, sweeping the gilt eagles to
+the floor as one of the men angrily started up, demanding, with an oath,
+what he brought that woman there for to hang them all.
+
+"Be quiet, Bill, can't you?" interposed the other man. "Don't you see
+he's drunk? you'll have the Devil to pay, if you cross a drunk Dimock!"
+
+But Abner had not heard the first speaker; he was too much occupied with
+tying his wife's arms to the chair,--a proceeding she could nowise
+interfere with, since his heavy foot was set upon her dress so as to
+hold her own feet in helpless fixedness. He proceeded to take the ring
+from her finger, and, searching through a box of various contents that
+stood in one corner, extracted from it a delicate steel chain, finely
+wrought, but strong as steel can be; then, at the forge, with sundry
+tools, carefully chosen and skilfully used, he soldered one end of the
+chain to the ring, and, returning to his wife, placed it again upon her
+finger.
+
+"Here, Bill," growled he, "where's that padlock off the tool-chest, eh?
+give it here! This woman's a fool,--ha, ha, ha!--she wanted to get away
+from me, and she's my wife!"
+
+Another peal of dissonant laughter interrupted the words.
+
+"What a d----d good joke! I swear I haven't laughed before, this dog's
+age! And then she was goin' to rid herself of the ring! as if that would
+help it! Why, there's the promise in black and white,--'love, honor, and
+obey,'--'I take thee, Abner,'--ha, ha! that's good! But fast bind, fast
+find; she a'n't going to get rid of the ring. I'll make it as tight as
+the promise; both of 'em 'll last to doomsday. Give me the padlock, you
+scoundrel!"
+
+Bill, the man he addressed, knew too much to hesitate after the savage
+look that sent home the last words,--and, drawing from a bag of tools
+and dies a tiny padlock and key, he handed them to Dimock, who passed
+the chain about Hitty's thin white wrist, and, fastening it with the
+padlock, turned the key, and, withdrawing it from the lock, dropped it
+into the silvery heat of the forge, and burst into a fit of laughter, so
+savage and so inhuman that the bearded lips of his two comrades grew
+white with horror to hear the devil within so exult in his possession of
+a man.
+
+Hitty sat, statue-like, in her chair; stooping, the man unbound her, and
+she rose slowly and steadily to her feet, looking him in the face.
+
+"Look!" said she, raising her shackled arm high in air,--"I shall carry
+it to God!"--and so fled, up the broken stairway, out into the
+moonlight, across the meadow,--the three men following fast,--over the
+fallen boughs that winter had strewn along the shore, out under the
+crooked elm, swift as light, poising on the stern of the boat, that had
+swung out toward the channel,--and once more lifting her hand high into
+the white light, with one spring she dropped into the river, and its
+black waters rolled down to the sea.
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF ALL.
+
+
+  Wandering along a waste
+  Where once a city stood,
+  I saw a ruined tomb,
+  And in that tomb an urn,--
+
+  A sacred funeral-urn,
+  Without a name or date,
+  And in its hollow depths
+  A little human dust!
+
+  Whose dust is this, I asked,
+  In this forgotten urn?
+  And where this waste now lies
+  What city rose of old?
+
+  None knows; its name is lost;
+  It was, and is no more:
+  Gone like a wind that blew
+  A thousand years ago!
+
+  Its melancholy end
+  Will be the end of all;
+  For, as it passed away,
+  The universe will pass!
+
+  Its sole memorial
+  Some ruined world, like ours;
+  A solitary urn,
+  Full of the dust of men!
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS OF THE NIGHT.
+
+
+There are numerous swarms of insects and many small quadrupeds,
+requiring partial darkness for their security, that come abroad only
+during the night or twilight. These would multiply almost without check,
+but that certain birds are formed with the power of seeing in the dark,
+and, on account of their partial blindness in the daytime, are forced by
+necessity to seek their food by night. Many species of insects are most
+active after dewfall,--such, especially, as spend a great portion of
+their lifetime in the air. Hence the very late hour at which Swallows
+retire to rest, the hour succeeding sunset providing them with a fuller
+repast than any other part of the day. No sooner has the Swallow
+disappeared, than the Whippoorwill and the Night-Jar come forth, to prey
+upon the larger kinds of aerial insects. The Bat, an animal of an
+antediluvian type, comes out at the same time, and assists in lessening
+these multitudinous swarms. The little Owls, though they pursue the
+larger beetles and moths, direct their efforts chiefly at the small
+quadrupeds that steal out in the early evening to nibble the tender
+herbs and grasses. Thus the night, except the hours of total darkness,
+is with many species of animals, though they pursue their objects with
+comparative stillness and silence, a period of general activity.
+
+In this sketch, I shall treat of the Birds of the Night under two heads,
+including, beside the true nocturnal birds that go abroad in the night
+to seek their subsistence, those diurnal birds that continue their songs
+during a considerable portion of the night. Some species of birds are
+partly nocturnal in their habits. Such is the Chimney Swallow. This bird
+is seldom out at noonday, which it employs in sleep, after excessive
+activity from the earliest morning dawn. It is seen afterwards circling
+about in the decline of day, and is sometimes abroad in fine weather the
+greater part of the night, when the young broods require almost
+unremitted exertions, on the part of the old birds, to procure their
+subsistence.
+
+The true nocturnal birds, of which the Owl and the Whippoorwill are
+conspicuous examples, are distinguished by a peculiar sensibility of the
+eye, that enables them to see clearly by twilight and in cloudy weather,
+while they are dazzled by the broad light of day. Their organs of
+hearing are proportionally delicate and acute. Their wing-feathers also
+have a peculiar downy softness, so that they fly without the usual
+fluttering sounds that attend the flight of other birds, and are able to
+steal unawares upon their prey, and make their predal excursions without
+disturbing the general silence of the hour. This noiseless flight is
+very remarkable in the Owl, as may be observed, if a tame one be allowed
+to fly about a room, when we can perceive his motions only by our sight.
+It is a fact worthy of our attention, that this peculiar structure of
+the wing-feathers does not exist in the Woodcock. Nature makes no
+useless provisions for her creatures; and hence this nocturnal bird,
+which obtains his food by digging into the soil, and gets no part of it
+while on the wing, has no need of this contrivance. Neither stillness
+nor stealth would assist him in securing his helpless prey.
+
+Among the nocturnal birds, the most notorious is the Owl, of which there
+are many species, varying from the size of an Eagle down to the little
+Acadian, which is no larger than a Robin. The resemblance of the Owl to
+the feline quadrupeds has been a frequent subject of remark. Like the
+cat, he sees most clearly by twilight or the light of the moon, seeks
+his prey in the night, and spends the principal part of the day in
+sleep. The likeness is made stronger by his tufts of feathers, that
+correspond to the ears of the quadruped,--by his large head,--his round,
+full, and glaring eyes, set widely apart,--by the extreme contractility
+of the pupil,--and in his manners, by his lurking and stealthy habit of
+surprising his victims. His eyes are partially encircled by a disk of
+feathers that yields a peculiarly significant expression to his face.
+His hooked bill turned downwards, so as to resemble the nose in a human
+countenance, the general flatness of his features, and his upright
+position, give him a grave and intelligent look; and it was this
+expression that caused him to be selected by the ancients as the emblem
+of wisdom, and consecrated to Minerva.
+
+The Owl is remarkable also for the acuteness of his hearing, having a
+large ear-drum, and being provided with an apparatus by which he can
+exalt this faculty, when under the necessity of listening with greater
+attention. Hence, while he is silent in his own motions, he is able to
+perceive the least sound from the motion of any other object, and
+overtakes his prey by coming upon it in silence and darkness. The
+stillness of his flight is one of the circumstances that add mystery to
+his character, and which have assisted in rendering him an object of
+superstitious dread.
+
+Aware of his defenceless condition in the bright daylight, when his
+purblindness would prevent him from evading the attacks of his enemies,
+he seeks some obscure retreat where he may pass the day without exposing
+himself to observation. It is this necessity which has caused him to
+make his abode in desolate and ruined buildings, in old towers and
+belfries, and in the crevices of dilapidated walls. In these places he
+hides himself from the sight of other birds, who regard him as their
+common enemy, and who show him no mercy when he is discovered. Here also
+he rears his offspring, and with these solitary haunts his image is
+closely associated. In thinly settled and wooded countries, he selects
+the hollows of old trees and the clefts of rocks for his retreats. All
+the smaller Owls, however, seem to multiply with the increase of human
+population, subsisting upon the minute animals that accumulate in
+outhouses, orchards, and fallows.
+
+When the Owl is discovered in his hiding-place, the alarm is given, and
+there is a general excitement among the small birds. They assemble in
+great numbers, and with loud chattering commence assailing and annoying
+him in various ways, and soon drive him out of his retreat. The Jay,
+usually his first assailant, like a thief employed as a thief-taker,
+attacks him with great zeal and animation; the Chickadee, the Nuthatch,
+and the small Thrushes peck at his head and eyes; while other birds,
+less bold, fly round him, and by their vociferation encourage his
+assailants and help to terrify their victim.
+
+It is while sitting on the branch of a tree or on a fence, after his
+misfortune and his escape, that he is most frequently seen in the
+daytime; and here he has formed a subject for painters, who have
+commonly introduced him into their pictures as he appears in one of
+these open situations. He is likewise represented ensconced in his own
+select retreats, apparently peeping out of his hiding-place while
+half-concealed; and the fact of his being seen in these lonely places
+has caused many superstitions to be attached to his image. His voice is
+supposed to bode misfortune, and his spectral visits are regarded as the
+forewarnings of death. His connection with deserted houses and ruins has
+invested him with a peculiarly romantic character; while the poets, by
+introducing him to deepen the force of their gloomy and pathetic
+descriptions, have enlivened these associations; and he deserves,
+therefore, in a special degree, to be named among those animals which we
+call picturesque.
+
+The gravity of the Owl's general appearance, combined with a sort of
+human expression in his countenance, undoubtedly caused him to be
+selected by the ancients as the emblem of wisdom. The moderns have
+practically renounced this idea, which had no foundation in the real
+character of the bird, who possesses only the sly and sinister traits
+that mark the feline race. A very different train of associations and a
+new series of picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the
+Owl, who has been portrayed more correctly by modern poetry than by
+ancient mythology. He is now universally regarded as the emblem of ruin
+and desolation, true to his character and habits, which are intimately
+allied to this description of scenery.
+
+I will not enter into a speculation concerning the nature and origin of
+those agreeable emotions which are so generally produced by the sight of
+objects that suggest the ideas of decay and desolation. It is happy for
+us, that, by the alchemy of poetry, we are able to turn some of our
+misfortunes into sources of melancholy pleasure, after the poignancy of
+grief has been assuaged by time. Nature has beneficently provided, also,
+that many an object, which is capable of communicating no direct
+pleasure to our senses, shall affect us agreeably through the medium of
+sentiment. The image of the Owl is calculated to awaken the sentiment of
+ruin, and to this feeling of the human soul we may trace the pleasure we
+derive from the sight of this bird in his appropriate scenery. Two Doves
+upon the mossy branch of a tree in a wild and beautiful sylvan retreat
+are the pleasing emblems of innocent love and constancy; but they are
+not more suggestive of poetic fancies than an Owl sitting upon an old
+gate-post near a deserted house.
+
+I have alluded, in another page, to the faint sounds we hear when the
+Night Birds, on a still summer evening, are flying over short distances
+in a neighboring wood. There is a feeling of mystery excited by these
+sounds, that exalts the pleasure we derive from the delightful influence
+of the hour and the season. But the emotions thus produced are of a
+cheerful kind, and not equal in intensity to the effects of the scarcely
+perceptible sound occasioned by the flight of the Owl, as he glides by
+in the dusk of the evening or in the dim light of the moon. Similar in
+its influence is the dismal voice of this bird, which is harmonized with
+darkness, and, though in some cases not unmusical, is tuned, as it were,
+to the terrors of that hour when he makes secret warfare upon the
+sleeping inhabitants of the wood.
+
+One of the most interesting of this tribe of birds is the little Acadian
+Owl, (_Strix Acadica_,) whose note has formerly excited a great deal of
+curiosity. In "The Canadian Naturalist," an account is given of a rural
+excursion in April, in the course of which the attention of one of the
+party is called by his companion, just after sunset, to a peculiar sound
+proceeding from a cedar swamp. It was compared to the measured tinkling
+of a cow-bell, or regular strokes upon a piece of iron, quickly
+repeated. The one appealed to is able to give no satisfactory
+information about it, but remarks, that, "during the months of April and
+May, and in the former part of June, we frequently hear, after
+nightfall, the sound just described. From its regularity, it is thought
+to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the bird from which it
+proceeds is called the Saw-Whetter." The author could not identify the
+bird that uttered this note, but conjectured that it might be a Heron or
+a Bittern. It has since been ascertained that this singular note
+proceeds from the Acadian Owl. It is like the sound produced by the
+filing of a mill-saw, and is said to be the amatory note of the male,
+being heard only during the season of incubation.
+
+Mr. S.P. Fowler, of Danvers, informs me that "the Acadian Owl has
+another note, which we frequently hear in the autumn, after the breeding
+season is over. The parent birds, then accompanied by their young, while
+hunting their prey during a bright moonlight night, utter a peculiar
+note, resembling a suppressed moan or a low whistle. The little Acadian,
+to avoid the annoyance of the birds he would meet by day, and the
+blinding light of the sun, retires in the morning, his feathers wet with
+dew and rumpled by the hard struggles he has encountered in seizing his
+prey, to the gloom of the forest or the thick swamp, where, perched on a
+bough, near the trunk of the tree, he sleeps through a summer's day, the
+perfect picture of a _used-up_ little fellow, suffering from the sad
+effects of a night's carouse. But he is an honest bird, notwithstanding
+his late hours and his idle sleeping days; he is also domestic in his
+habits, and the father of an interesting family, close at hand, in a
+hollow white-birch, and he is ever ready to give them his support and
+protection."
+
+The Mottled Owl, (_Strix Asio_) or Screech Owl, is somewhat larger than
+the Acadian or Whetsaw, and not so familiar as the Barn Owl of Europe,
+though resembling it in general habits. He commonly builds in the hollow
+of an old tree, also in deserted buildings, whither he resorts in the
+daytime to find repose and to escape annoyance. His voice is heard most
+frequently in the latter part of summer, when the young Owlets are
+abroad, and use their cries for purposes of mutual salutation and
+recognition. This wailing note is singularly wild, and not unmusical. It
+is not properly a screech or a scream, like that of the Hawk or the
+Peacock, but rather a sort of moaning melody, half music and half
+bewailment. This wailing song is far from disagreeable, though it has a
+cadence which is expressive of dreariness and melancholy. It might be
+performed on a small flute, by commencing with D octave and running down
+by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently repeating the notes, for
+the space of a minute, with occasional pauses and slight variations,
+sometimes ascending as well as descending the scale. The bird does not
+slur the passages, but utters them with a sort of trembling _staccato_.
+The separate notes may be distinctly perceived, with intervals of about
+a semitone.
+
+The Owl is not properly regarded as a useful bird. The generality of the
+tribe deserve to be considered only as mischievous birds of prey, and no
+more entitled to mercy and protection than the Falcons, to which they
+are allied. All the little Owls, however, though guilty of destroying
+small birds, are very serviceable in ridding our fields and premises of
+mischievous animals. They likewise destroy multitudes of large nocturnal
+insects, flying above the summits of the trees in pursuit of them, while
+at other times their flight is low, when watching for the small animals
+that run upon the ground. It is probably on account of its low flight
+that the Owl is seldom seen on the wing. Bats, which are employed by
+Nature for the same kind of services, fall victims in large numbers to
+the Owls of different species, who are the principal means of preventing
+their multiplication.
+
+I should wander from my present purpose, were I to attempt a sketch of
+the large Owls, as I design only to treat of those birds which
+contribute, either as poetic or picturesque objects, to improve the
+charms of Nature. I shall say but a passing word, therefore, of the
+Great Snowy Owl, almost exclusively an inhabitant of the Arctic regions,
+where he frightens both man and beast with his dismal hootings,--or of
+the Cat Owl, the prince of these monsters, who should be consecrated to
+Pluto,--or of his brother monster, the Gray Owl, that will carry off a
+full-grown rabbit. There are several other species, more or less
+interesting, ridiculous, or frightful. I will leave them, to speak of
+birds of more pleasing habits and a more innocent character.
+
+The next remarkable family of nocturnal birds comprises the
+_Moth-Hunters_, including, in New England, only two species,--the
+Whippoorwill and the Night-Hawk, or Piramidig. These birds resemble the
+Owls in some of their habits; but in their structure, in their mode of
+subsistence, and in their general traits of character, they are like
+Swallows. They are shy and solitary, take their food while on the wing,
+abide chiefly in deep woods, and come abroad only at twilight or in
+cloudy weather. They remain, like the Dove, permanently paired, lay
+their eggs on the bare ground, and, when perched upon the branch of a
+tree, sit upon it lengthwise, unlike other birds. They are remarkable
+for their singular voices, of which that of only one species, the
+Whippoorwill, can be considered musical. They are known in all parts of
+the world, but are particularly numerous in the warmer parts of America.
+
+The Whippoorwill (_Caprimulgus vociferus_) is well known to the
+inhabitants of this part of the world, on account of his nocturnal song.
+This is heard only in densely wooded and retired situations, and is
+associated with the solitude of the forest, as well as the silence of
+night. The Whippoorwill is, therefore, emblematic of the rudeness of
+primitive Nature, and his voice always reminds us of seclusion and
+retirement. Sometimes he wanders away from the wood into the precincts
+of the town, and sings near some dwelling-house. Such an incident was
+formerly the occasion of superstitious alarm, being regarded as an omen
+of some evil to the inmates of the dwelling. The true cause of these
+irregular visits is probably the accidental abundance of a particular
+kind of insects, which the bird has followed from his retirement.
+
+I believe the Whippoorwill, in this part of the country, is first heard
+in May, and continues vocal until the middle of July. He begins to sing
+at dusk, and we usually hear his note soon after the Veery, the Philomel
+of our summer evenings, has become silent. His song consists of three
+notes, in a sort of triple or waltz time, with a slight pause after the
+first note in the bar, as given below:--
+
+[Illustration: SONG OF THE WHIPPOORWILL. Whip-poor-Will Whip-p'r-Will
+Whip-p'r-Will Whip-]
+
+I should remark, that the bird usually commences his song with the
+second syllable of his name, or the second note in the bar. Some birds
+fall short of these intervals; but there seems to be an endeavor, on the
+part of each individual, to reach the notes as they are written on the
+scale. A few sliding notes are occasionally introduced, and an
+occasional preluding cluck is heard when we are near the singer.
+
+The note of the Quail so closely resembles that of the Whippoorwill,
+that I have thought it might be interesting to compare the two.
+
+[Illustration: NOTE OF THE QUAIL. Bob White. More Wet.]
+
+So great is the general similarity of the notes of these two birds, that
+those of the Quail need only to be repeated several times in succession,
+without pause, to be mistaken for those of the Whippoorwill. They are
+uttered with similar intonations; but the voice of the nocturnal bird is
+more harsh, and his song consists of three notes instead of two.
+
+The song of the Whippoorwill, though wanting in mellowness of tone, as
+may be perceived when he is only a short distance from us, is to most
+people very agreeable, notwithstanding the superstitions associated with
+it. Some persons are not disposed to rank the Whippoorwill among
+singing-birds, regarding him as more vociferous than musical. But it
+would be difficult to determine in what respect his notes differ from
+the songs of other birds, except that they approach more nearly to the
+precision of artificial music. Yet it will be admitted that considerable
+distance is required to "lend enchantment" to the sound of his voice. In
+some retired and solitary districts, the Whippoorwills are often so
+numerous as to be annoying by their vociferations; but in those places
+where only two or three individuals are heard during the season, their
+music is the source of a great deal of pleasure, and is a kind of
+recommendation to the place.
+
+I was witness of this, some time since, in one of my botanical rambles
+in the town of Beverly, which is, for the most part, too densely
+populated to suit the habits of these solitary birds. On one of these
+excursions, after walking several hours over a rather unattractive
+region, I arrived at a very romantic spot, known by the unpoetical name
+of Black Swamp. Nature uses her most ordinary materials to form her most
+delightful landscapes, and often keeps in reserve prospects of
+enchanting beauty, and causes them to rise up, as it were, by magic,
+where we should least expect them. Here I suddenly found myself
+encompassed by a charming amphitheatre of hills and woods, and in a
+valley so beautiful that I could not have imagined anything equal to it.
+A neat cottage stood alone in this spot, without a single architectural
+decoration, which I am confident would have dissolved the spell that
+made the whole scene so attractive. It was occupied by a shoemaker, whom
+I recognized as an old acquaintance and a worthy man, who resided here
+with his wife and children. I asked them if they could live contented so
+far from other families. The wife of the cottager replied, that they
+suffered in the winter from their solitude, but in the spring and summer
+they preferred it to the town,--"for in this place we hear all the
+singing-birds, early and late, and the Whippoorwill sings here every
+night during May and June." It was the usual practice of these birds,
+they told me, to sing both in the morning and the evening twilight; but
+if the moon rose late in the evening, after they had become silent, they
+would begin to sing anew, as if to welcome her rising. May the birds
+continue to sing to this happy family, and may the voice of the
+Whippoorwill never bode them any misfortune!
+
+The Night-Hawk, or Piramidig, (_Caprimulgus Americanus_,) is similar in
+many points to the Whippoorwill, and the two species were formerly
+considered identical. The former, however, is a smaller bird; he has no
+song, and exhibits more of the ways of the Swallow. He is marked by a
+white spot on his wings, which is very apparent during his flight. He
+takes his prey in a higher part of the atmosphere,--being frequently
+seen, at twilight and in cloudy weather, soaring above the house-tops in
+quest of insects. The Whippoorwill finds his subsistence chiefly in the
+woods, and takes a part of it from the branches of trees, while poising
+himself on the wing, like a Humming-Bird. I believe he is never seen
+circling aloft like the Night-Hawk.
+
+The movements of the Night-Hawk, during this flight, are performed, for
+the most part, in circles, and are very picturesque. The birds are
+usually seen in pairs, at such times, but occasionally there are numbers
+assembled together; and one might suppose they were engaged in a sort of
+aerial dance, or that they were emulating each other in their attempts
+at soaring to a great height. It is evident that these evolutions
+proceed in part from the pleasure of motion; but they are also connected
+with their courtship. While they are soaring and circling in the air,
+they occasionally utter the shrill and broken note which has been
+supposed to resemble the word Piramidig, whence the name is
+derived,--and now and then they dart suddenly aside, to seize a passing
+insect.
+
+While performing these circumvolutions, the male frequently dives almost
+perpendicularly downwards, a distance of forty feet or more, uttering,
+when he turns at the bottom of his descent, a singular note, resembling
+the twang of a viol-string. This sound has been supposed to proceed from
+the action of the air, as the bird dives swiftly through it with open
+mouth; but this supposition is rendered improbable by the fact that the
+European species makes a similar sound while sitting on its perch. It
+has also been alleged that the diving motion of this bird is an act
+designed to intimidate those who seem to be approaching his nest; but
+this cannot be true, because the bird performs the manoeuvre when he has
+no nest to defend. This habit is peculiar to the male, and it is
+probably one of those fantastic motions which are noticeable among the
+males of the gallinaceous birds, and are evidently their artifices to
+attract the attention of the female; very many of these motions may be
+observed in the manners of tame Pigeons.
+
+The twanging note produced during the precipitate descent of the
+Night-Hawk is one of the picturesque sounds of Nature, and is heard most
+frequently in the morning twilight, when the birds are busy collecting
+their repast of insects. During an early morning walk, while they are
+circling about, we may hear their cry frequently repeated, and
+occasionally the booming sound, which, if one is not accustomed to it,
+and is not acquainted with this habit of the bird, affects him with a
+sensation of mystery, and excites his curiosity in an extraordinary
+degree.
+
+The sound produced by the European species is a sort of drumming or
+whizzing note, like the hum of a spinning-wheel. The male commences this
+performance about dusk, and continues it at intervals during a great
+part of the night. It is effected while the breast is inflated with air,
+like that of a cooing Dove. The Piramidig has the power of inflating
+himself in the same manner, and he utters this whizzing note when one
+approaches his nest.
+
+The American Woodcock (_Scolopax minor_) is a more interesting bird than
+we should infer from his general appearance and physiognomy. He is
+mainly nocturnal in his habits, and his ways are worthy of study and
+observation. He obtains his food by scratching up the leaves and rubbish
+that lie upon the surface of the ground in damp and wooded places, and
+by boring into the earth for worms. He remains concealed in the wood
+during the day, and comes out to feed at twilight, choosing the open
+ploughed lands where worms are abundant; though it is probable that in
+the shade of the wood he is more or less busy in scratching among the
+leaves in the daytime.
+
+The Woodcock does not commonly venture abroad in the open day, unless he
+be disturbed and driven from his retreats. He makes his first appearance
+here in the latter part of April, and at this season we may observe that
+soaring habit which renders him one of the picturesque objects of
+Nature. This soaring takes place soon after sunset, continues during
+twilight, and is repeated at the corresponding hour in the morning. If
+you listen at this time near the places of his resort, he will soon
+reveal himself by a lively peep, frequently uttered, from the ground.
+While repeating this note, he may be seen strutting about, like a
+turkey-cock, with fantastic jerkings of the tail and a frequent bowing
+of the head; and his mate, I believe, is at this time not far off.
+Suddenly he springs upward, and with a wide circular sweep, uttering at
+the same time a rapid whistling note, he rises in a spiral course to a
+great height in the air. At the summit of his ascent, he hovers about
+with irregular motions, chirping a medley of broken notes, like
+imperfect warbling. This continues about ten or fifteen seconds, when it
+ceases, and he descends rapidly to the ground. We seldom hear him while
+in his descent, but receive the first intimation of it by hearing a
+repetition of his peep, resembling the sound produced by those minute
+wooden trumpets sold at the German toy-shops.
+
+No person could watch this playful flight of the Woodcock without
+interest; and it is remarkable that a bird with short wings and
+difficult flight should be capable of mounting to so great an altitude.
+It affords me a vivid conception of the pleasure with which I should
+witness the soaring and singing of the Skylark, known to me only by
+description. I have but to imagine the chirruping of the Woodcock to be
+a melodious series of notes, to feel that I am listening to that bird,
+which is so familiarized to our imaginations by English poetry that in
+our early days we always expect his greetings with a summer sunrise. It
+is with sadness that we first learn in our youth that the Skylark is not
+an inhabitant of the New World; and our mornings seem divested of a
+great portion of their charms, for the want of this poetical
+accompaniment.
+
+There is another circumstance connected with the habits of the Woodcock
+which increases his importance as an actor in the melodrame of Nature.
+When we stroll away from the noise and din of the town, where the
+stillness permits us to hear distinctly all those faint sounds which are
+turned by the silence of night into music, we may hear at frequent
+intervals the hum produced by the irregular flights of the Woodcock, as
+he passes over short distances in the wood, where he is collecting his
+repast. It resembles the sound of the wings of Doves, rendered distinct
+by the stillness of all other things, and melodious by the distance.
+There is a feeling of mystery attached to these musical nights that
+yields a savor of romance to the quiet voluptuousness of a summer
+evening.
+
+It is on such occasions, if we are in a moralizing mood, that we may be
+keenly impressed with the truth of the saying, that the secret of
+happiness consists in keeping alive our susceptibilities by frugal
+indulgences, rather than by seeking a multitude of pleasures, that pall
+in exact proportion to their abundance. The stillness and darkness of a
+quiet night produce this enlivening effect upon our minds. Our
+susceptibility is then awakened to such a degree, that slight sounds and
+feeble sparks of light convey to our souls an amount of pleasure which
+we seldom experience in the daytime from sights and sounds of the most
+pleasing description. Thus the player in an orchestra can enjoy such
+music only as would deafen common ears by its crash of sounds, in which
+they perceive no connection or harmony; while the simple rustic listens
+to the rude notes of a flageolet in the hands of a clown with feelings
+of ineffable delight. Nature, if the seekers after luxurious and
+exciting pleasures could but understand her language, would say to them,
+"Except ye become as this simple rustic, ye cannot enter into my
+paradise."
+
+The American Snipe has some of the nocturnal habits of the Woodcock, and
+the same habit of soaring at twilight, when he performs a sort of
+musical medley, which Audubon has very graphically described in the
+following passage:--"The birds are met with in meadows and low grounds,
+and, by being on the spot before sunrise, you may see both (male and
+female) mount high, in a spiral manner, now with continuous beats of the
+wings, now in short sailings, until more than a hundred yards high, when
+they whirl round each other with extreme velocity, and dance, as it
+were, to their own music; for, at this juncture, and during the space of
+five or six minutes, you hear rolling notes mingled together, each more
+or less distinct, perhaps, according to the state of the atmosphere. The
+sounds produced are extremely pleasing, though they fall faintly on the
+ear. I know not how to describe them; but I am well assured that they
+are not produced simply by the beatings of their wings, as at this time
+the wings are not flapped, but are used in sailing swiftly in a circle,
+not many feet in diameter. A person might cause a sound somewhat similar
+by blowing rapidly and alternately, from one end to another, across a
+set of small pipes, consisting of two or three modulations. This
+performance is kept up till incubation terminates; but I have never
+observed it at any other period."
+
+Among the Heron family we discover a few nocturnal birds, which, though
+not very well known, have some ways that are singular and interesting.
+Goldsmith considered one of these birds worthy of introduction into his
+"Deserted Village," as contributing to the poetic conception of
+desolation. Thus, in his description of the grounds which were the
+ancient site of the village, we read,--
+
+  "Along its glades, a solitary guest,
+  The hollow-sounding Bittern guards its nest."
+
+"The Bittern is a shy and solitary bird; it is never seen on the wing in
+the daytime, but sits, generally with the head erect, hid among the
+reeds and rushes of extensive marshes, from whence it will not stir,
+unless disturbed by the sportsman. When it changes its haunts, it
+removes in the dusk of the evening, and then, rising in a spiral
+direction, soars to a vast height. It flies in the same heavy manner as
+the Heron, and might be mistaken for that bird, were it not for the
+singularly resounding cry which it utters, from time to time, while on
+the wing: but this cry is feeble when compared with the hollow booming
+noise which it makes during the night, in the breeding season, from its
+swampy retreats. From the loudness and solemnity of its note, an
+erroneous notion prevails with the vulgar, that it either thrusts its
+head into a reed, which serves as a pipe for swelling its note beyond
+its natural pitch, or that it immerges its head in water, and then
+produces its boomings by blowing with all its might."
+
+The American Bittern is a smaller bird, but is probably a variety of the
+European species. It exhibits the same nocturnal habits, and has
+received at the South the name of _Dunkadoo_, from the resemblance of
+its common note to these syllables. This is a hollow-sounding noise, but
+not so loud as the voice of the Bittern to which Goldsmith alludes. I
+have heard it by day proceeding from the wooded swamps, and am at a loss
+to explain how so small a bird can produce so low and hollow a note.
+Among this family of birds are one or two other nocturnal species,
+including the Qua-Bird, which is common to both continents; but there is
+little to be said of it that would be interesting in this connection.
+The Herons, however, and their allied species, are birds of remarkable
+habits, the enumeration and account of which would occupy a considerable
+space. In an essay on the flight of birds in particular, the Herons
+would furnish a multitude of very interesting facts.
+
+
+Let us now turn our attention to those diurnal birds that sing in the
+night as well as in the day, and which might be comprehended under the
+general appellation of Nightingales. These birds do not confine their
+singing to the night, like the true nocturnal birds, and are most vocal
+when inspired by the light of the moon. Europe has several of these
+minstrels of the night. Beside the true Philomel of poetry and romance,
+the Reed-Thrush and the Woodcock are of this character. In the United
+States, the Mocking-Bird enjoys the greatest reputation; the
+Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the New York Thrush are also nocturnal
+songsters.
+
+The Mocking-Bird (_Turdus polyglottus_) is well known in the Middle and
+Southern States, but seldom passes a season in New England, except in
+the southern part of Rhode Island and Connecticut, which seem to be the
+northern limit of its migrations. Probably, like the Rose-breasted
+Grosbeak, which is constantly extending its limits in an eastern
+direction, the Mocking-Bird may be gradually making progress
+northwardly, so that fifty years hence both of these birds may be common
+in Massachusetts. The Mocking-Bird is familiar in his habits,
+frequenting gardens and orchards, and perching on the roofs of houses
+when singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at
+all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and
+seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners,
+however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being
+distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the
+attacks of his enemies.
+
+The Mocking-Bird is celebrated throughout the world for his musical
+powers; but it is difficult to ascertain precisely the character and
+quality of his original notes. Hence some naturalists have contended
+that he has no song of his own, but confines himself to imitations. That
+this is an error, all persons who have listened to him in his native
+wild-wood can testify. I should say, from my own observations, not only
+that he has a distinct song, peculiarly his own, but that his imitations
+are far from being equal to his original notes. Yet it is seldom we hear
+him except when he is engaged in mimicry. In his native woods, and
+especially at an early hour in the morning, when he is not provoked to
+imitation by the voices of other birds and animals, he sometimes pours
+forth his own wild notes with full fervor. Yet I have often listened
+vainly for hours to hear him utter anything but a few idle repetitions
+of monotonous sounds, interspersed with some ludicrous varieties. Why he
+should neglect his own pleasing notes, to tease the listener with his
+imitations of all imaginable discords, is not easily explained.
+
+Though his imitations are the cause of his notoriety, they are not the
+utterances upon which his true merit is based. He would be infinitely
+more valuable as a songster, if he were incapable of imitating a single
+sound. I would add, that as an imitator of the songs of other birds he
+is very imperfect, and in this respect has been greatly overrated by our
+ornithologists, who seem to vie with one another in their exaggerations
+of his powers. He cannot utter the notes of the rapid singers; he is
+successful only in his imitations of those birds whose notes are simple
+and moderately delivered. He is, indeed, more remarkable for his
+indefatigable propensity than for his powers. Single sounds, from
+whatever source they may come, from birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, or
+machines, he gives very accurately; but I have heard numbers of
+Mocking-Birds in confinement attempt to imitate the Canary, and always
+without success. There is a common saying, that the Mocking-Bird will
+die of chagrin, if placed in a cage by the side of a caged Bobolink,
+mortified because he cannot give utterance to his rapid notes. If this
+were the cause of his death, he would also die when caged in a room with
+a Canary, a Goldfinch, or any of the rapidly singing Finches. It is also
+an error to say of his imitations, as the generality of writers assert,
+that they are improvements upon the originals. When he utters the notes
+of the Red-Bird, the Golden Robin, or the Common Robin, he does not
+improve them; and when he gives us the screaming of the Jay or the
+mewing of the Cat, he does not change them into music.
+
+As an original songster, judging him by what he is capable of
+performing, however unfrequently he may exercise his powers to the best
+advantage, the Mocking-Bird is probably equalled only by two or three of
+our singing-birds. His notes are loud, varied, melodious, and of great
+compass. They may be compared to those of the Red Thrush, more rapidly
+delivered, and having more flute notes and fewer guttural notes and
+sudden transitions. He also sings on the wing and with fervor, like the
+Linnet, while the other Thrushes sing only from their perch. But his
+song has less variety than that of the Red Thrush, and falls short of it
+in as many respects as it surpasses it. For the greater part of the
+time, the only notes of the Mocking-Bird, when he is not engaged in
+mimicry, are a sort of melodious whistle, consisting of two notes about
+a fourth apart, uttered in quick, but not rapid, succession, and hardly
+to be distinguished from those of the Red-Bird of Virginia.
+
+I heard the notes of the Mocking-Bird the first time in his native
+wilds, during a railroad journey by night, through the Pine Barrens of
+North Carolina, in the month of June. The journey was very tiresome and
+unpleasant, nothing being seen, when looking out upon the landscape, but
+a gloomy stretch of level forest, consisting of tall pines, thinly
+scattered, without any branches, except at their tops. The dusky forms
+of these trees, pictured against the half-luminous sky, seemed like so
+many giant spectres watching the progress of our journey, and increased
+the loneliness of the hour. Before daylight, when the sky was faintly
+crimsoned around the place where the sun was to come forth, the train
+made a pause of half an hour, at one of the stations, and the passengers
+alighted. While I was looking at the dreary prospect of desert, tired of
+my journey and longing for day, suddenly the notes of the Mocking-Bird
+came to my ear, and changed all my gloomy feelings into delight.
+
+It is seldom I have felt so vividly the power of one little incident to
+change the tone of one's feelings and the humor of the occasion. As a
+few drops of oil, cast upon the surface of the waters, will quiet the
+troubled waves, so did the glad voice of this merry bird suddenly dispel
+all those sombre feelings which had been fostered by dismal scenes and a
+lonely journey. Nature never seemed so lovely as when the rising dawn,
+with its tearful beams and purple radiance, was greeted by this warbling
+salutation, as from some messenger of light, who came to announce that
+Morning was soon to step forth from her throne, and extend over all
+things her smiles and her beneficence.
+
+Of the other American birds that sing in the night I can say nothing
+from my own observation. The most important of these is the New York
+Thrush, (_Turdus aquaticus_,) which is said to resemble the River
+Nightingale of Europe. This bird, which is common in the Western States,
+is said to sing melodiously night and day. Wilson remarks of this
+species, "They are eminently distinguished by the loudness, sweetness,
+and expressive vivacity of their notes, which begin very high and clear,
+falling with an almost imperceptible gradation, till they are scarcely
+articulated. At these times the musician is perched on the middle
+branches of a tree, over a brook or river-bank, pouring out his charming
+melody, that may be distinctly heard for nearly half a mile. The voice
+of this little bird appeared to me so exquisitely sweet and expressive,
+that I was never tired listening to it." This description is exactly
+applicable to the song of the Veery, supposed to be silent by Wilson,
+who could not have fallen into such an error, except by having confined
+his researches chiefly to the Middle and Southern States.
+
+The Rose-breasted Grosbeak (_Loxia rosea_) is said to be an excellent
+songster, passing the greater part of the night in singing, and
+continuing vocal in confinement. This bird is common in the Western
+States, but until lately has seldom been seen in New England. I learn,
+however, from Mr. Fowler, that "the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is found in
+Essex County, and, though formerly seldom seen, is becoming every year
+more common. Like the Wood Thrush and Scarlet Tanager, it is retiring in
+its habits, and is usually found in the most sheltered part of the wood,
+where, perched about midway on a tree, in fancied concealment, it
+warbles its soft, clear, and melodious notes." He thinks this bird is
+not heard so frequently by night as by day, though it often sings in the
+light of the moon.
+
+In connection with this theme, we cannot help feeling a sense of regret,
+almost like melancholy, when we reflect that the true Nightingale and
+the Skylark, the classical birds of European literature, are strangers
+to our fields and woods. In May and June there is no want of sylvan
+minstrels to wake the morn and to sing the vespers of a sweet summer
+evening. A flood of song wakes us at the earliest daylight; and the shy
+and solitary Veery, after the Vesper-Bird has concluded his evening
+hymn, pours his few pensive notes into the very bosom of twilight, and
+makes the hour sacred by his melody. But after twilight is sped, and the
+moon rises to shed her meek radiance over the sleeping earth, the
+Nightingale is not here to greet her rising, and to turn her melancholy
+beams into the cheerfulness of daylight. And when the Queen Moon is on
+her throne,
+
+  "Clustered around by all her starry Fays,"
+
+the Whippoorwill alone brings her the tribute of his monotonous song,
+and soothes the dull ear of Night with sounds which, however delightful,
+are not of heaven. We have become so familiar with the Lark and the
+Nightingale, by the perusal of the romance of rural life, that "neither
+breath of Morn, when she ascends" without the charm of this her earliest
+harbinger, "nor silent Night" without her "solemn bird," seems holy, as
+when we contemplate them in the works of pastoral song. Poetry has
+hallowed to our minds the pleasing objects of the Old World; those of
+the New have to be cherished in song yet many more years, before they
+will be equally sacred to our imaginations.
+
+By some of our writers the Mocking-Bird is put forward as equal in song
+to the Nightingale. This assumption might be worthy of consideration, if
+the American bird were not a mimic. But his mocking habits almost
+annihilate his value as a songster,--as the effect of a good concert
+would be spoiled, if the players were constantly introducing, in the
+midst of their serious performances, snatches of ridiculous tunes and
+uncouth sounds. I have never heard the Nightingale; but if I may judge
+from descriptions of its song, and from the notes of those Canaries
+which are said to give us perfect imitations of it, we have no bird in
+America that equals this classical songster. The following description,
+by Pliny, which is said to be superior to any other, may afford us some
+idea of the extent of its powers:--"The Nightingale, that for fifteen
+days and nights, hid in the thickest shades, continues her note without
+intermission, deserves our attention and wonder. How surprising that so
+great a voice can reside in so small a body! Such perseverance in so
+minute an animal! With what musical propriety are the sounds it produces
+modulated! The note at one time drawn out with a long breath, now
+stealing off into a different cadence, now interrupted by a break, then
+changing into a new note by an unexpected transition, now seeming to
+renew the same strain, then deceiving expectation. She sometimes seems
+to murmur within herself; full, deep, sharp, swift, drawling, trembling;
+now at the top, the middle, and the bottom of the scale. In short, in
+that little bill seems to reside all the melody which man has vainly
+labored to bring from a variety of musical instruments. Some even seem
+to be possessed of a different note from the rest, and contend with each
+other with great ardor. The bird, overcome, is then seen to discontinue
+its song only with its life."
+
+The cause of the nocturnal singing of birds that do not go abroad during
+the night and are strictly diurnal in all their other habits has never
+been satisfactorily explained. It is natural that the Whippoorwill,
+which is a nocturnal bird, should sing during his hours of wakefulness
+and activity. There is also no difficulty in explaining why Ducks and
+Geese, and some other social birds, should utter their loud alarm-notes,
+when they meet with any midnight disturbance. These birds usually have a
+sentinel who keeps awake; and if he give an alarm, the others reply to
+it. The crowing of the Cock bears more analogy to the song of a bird,
+for it does not seem to be an alarm-note. This domestic bird may be
+considered, therefore, a nocturnal songster, if his crowing can be
+called a song; though it is remarkable that we seldom hear it during
+evening twilight. The Cock sings his matins, but not his vespers; he
+crows at the earliest dawn of day, and at midnight upon the rising of
+the moon, and whenever he is awakened by artificial light. Many
+singing-birds are accustomed to prolong their notes after sunset to a
+late hour, and become silent only to commence again at the earliest
+daybreak. But the habit of singing in the night is peculiar to a small
+number of birds, and the cause of it forms a curious subject of inquiry.
+
+By what means are they enabled to sustain such constant watchfulness,
+singing and providing subsistence for their offspring during the day,
+and still continuing wakeful and musical while it is night? Why do they
+take pleasure in singing, when no one will come in answer to their call?
+Have they their worship, like religious beings, and are their midnight
+lays but the outpouring of the fervency of their spirits? Do they
+rejoice, like the clouds, in the presence of the moon, hailing her beams
+as a pleasant relief from the darkness that has surrounded them? Or in
+the silence of night, are their songs but responses to the sounds of the
+trees, when they bow their heads and shake their rustling leaves in the
+wind? When they listen to the streamlet, that makes audible melody only
+in the hush of night, do they not answer to it from their leafy perch?
+And when the moth flies hummingly through the recesses of the wood, and
+the beetle sounds his horn, what are their notes but cheerful responses
+to these sounds, that break sweetly upon the quiet of their slumbers?
+
+Wilson remarks, that the hunters in the Southern States, when setting
+out on an excursion by night, as soon as they hear the Mocking-Bird
+sing, know that the moon is rising. He quotes a writer who supposes that
+it may be fear that operates upon the birds when they perceive the Owls
+flitting among the trees, and that they sing, as a timid person whistles
+in a lonely place, to quiet their fears. But the musical notes of birds
+are never used by them to express their fears; they are the language of
+love, sometimes animated by jealousy. It must be admitted that the
+moonlight awakes these birds, and may be the most frequent exciting
+cause of their nocturnal singing; but it is not true that they always
+wait for the rising of the moon; and if this were the fact, the question
+may still be asked, why these few species alone should be thus affected.
+
+Since Philosophy can give no explanation of this instinct, let Fancy
+come to her aid, and assist us in our dilemma,--as when we have vainly
+sought from Reason an explanation of the mysteries of Religion, we
+humbly submit to the guidance of Faith. With Fancy for our interpreter,
+we may suppose that Nature has adapted the works of creation to our
+moral as well as our physical wants; and while she has instituted the
+night as a time for general rest, she has provided means that shall
+soften the gloomy effects of darkness. The birds, which are the
+harbingers of all rural delights, are hence made to sing during
+twilight; and when they cease, the nocturnal songsters become vocal,
+bearing pleasant sensations to the sleepless, and by their lulling
+melodies preparing us to be keenly susceptible of all agreeable
+emotions.
+
+
+TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.
+
+
+  Carolling bird, that merrily, night and day,
+  Tellest thy raptures from the rustling spray,
+  And wakest the morning with thy varied lay,
+          Singing thy matins,--
+  When we have come to hear thy sweet oblation
+  Of love and joyance from thy sylvan station,
+  Why, in the place of musical cantation,
+          Balk us with pratings?
+
+  We stroll by moonlight in the dusky forest,
+  Where the tall cypress shields thee, fervent chorist!
+  And sit in haunts of Echoes, when thou pourest
+          Thy woodland solo.
+  Hark! from the next green tree thy song commences:
+  Music and discord join to mock the senses,
+  Repeated from the tree-tops and the fences,
+          From hill and hollow.
+
+  A hundred voices mingle with thy clamor;
+  Bird, beast, and reptile take part in thy drama;
+  Out-speak they all in turn without a stammer,--
+          Brisk Polyglot!
+  Voices of Killdeer, Plover, Duck, and Dotterel;
+  Notes bubbling, hissing, mellow, sharp, and guttural;
+  Of Cat-Bird, Cat, or Cart-Wheel, thou canst utter all,
+          And all-untaught.
+
+  The Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow,
+  The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow,
+  And hoot of Owls,--all join the soul to harrow,
+          And grate the ear.
+  We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing,
+  As if all creatures thou wert catechizing,
+  Tuning their voices, and their notes revising,
+          From far and near.
+
+  Sweet bird! that surely lovest the noise of folly;
+  Most musical, but never melancholy;
+  Disturber of the hour that should be holy,
+          With sound prodigious!
+  Fie on thee, O thou feathered Paganini!
+  To use thy little pipes to squawk and whinny,
+  And emulate the hinge and spinning-jenny,
+          Making night hideous!
+
+  Provoking melodist! why canst thou breathe us
+  No thrilling harmony, no charming pathos,
+  No cheerful song of love without its bathos?
+          The Furies take thee,--
+  Blast thy obstreperous mirth, thy foolish chatter,--
+  Gag thee, exhaust thy breath, and stop thy clatter,
+  And change thee to a beast, thou senseless prater!--
+          Nought else can check thee!
+
+  A lengthened pause ensues:--but hark again!
+  From the new woodland, stealing o'er the plain,
+  Comes forth a sweeter and a holier strain!--
+          Listening delighted,
+  The gales breathe softly, as they bear along
+  The warbled treasure,--the delicious throng
+  Of notes that swell accordant in the song,
+          As love is plighted.
+
+  The Echoes, joyful from their vocal cell,
+  Leap with the winged sounds o'er hill and dell,
+  With kindling fervor, as the chimes they tell
+          To wakeful Even:--
+  They melt upon the ear; they float away;
+  They rise, they sink, they hasten, they delay,
+  And hold the listener with bewitching sway,
+          Like sounds from heaven!
+
+
+
+
+A TRIP TO CUBA.
+
+
+HAVANA--THE JESUIT COLLEGE.
+
+
+The gentlemen of our party go one day to visit the Jesuit College in
+Havana, yclept "Universidad de Belen." The ladies, weary of dry goods,
+manifest some disposition to accompany them. This is at once frowned
+down by the unfairer sex, and Can Grande, appealed to by the other side,
+shakes his shoulders, and replies, "No, you are only miserable women,
+and cannot be admitted into any Jesuit establishment whatever." And so
+the male deputation departs with elation, and returns with airs of
+superior opportunity, and is more insufferable than ever at dinner, and
+thereafter.
+
+They of the feminine faction, on the other hand, consult with more
+direct authorities, and discover that the doors of Belen are in no wise
+closed to them, and that everything within those doors is quite at their
+disposition, saving and excepting the sleeping-apartments of the Jesuit
+fathers,--to which, even in thought, they would on no account draw near.
+And so they went and saw Belen, whereof one of them relates as follows.
+
+The building is spacious, inclosing a hollow square, and with numerous
+galleries, like European cloisters, where the youth walk, study, and
+play. We were shown up-stairs, into a pleasant reception-room, where two
+priests soon waited on us. One of these, Padre Doyaguez, seemed to be
+the decoy-duck of the establishment, and soon fastened upon one of our
+party, whose Protestant tone of countenance had probably caught his
+attention. Was she a Protestant? Oh, no!--not with that intelligent,
+physiognomy!--not with that talent! What was her name? Julia (pronounced
+_H_ulia). Hulia was a Roman name, a Catholic name; he had never heard of
+a Hulia who was a Protestant;--very strange, it seemed to him, that a
+Hulia could hold to such unreasonable ideas. The other priest, Padre
+Lluc, meanwhile followed with sweet, quiet eyes, whose silent looks had
+more persuasion in them than all the innocent cajoleries of the elder
+man. Padre Doyaguez was a man eminently qualified to deal with the sex
+in general,--a coaxing voice, a pair of vivacious eyes, whose cunning
+was not unpleasing, tireless good-humor and perseverance, and a savor of
+sincerity. Padre Lluc was the sort of man that one recalls in quiet
+moments with a throb of sympathy,--the earnest eyes, the clear brow, the
+sonorous voice. One thinks of him, and hopes that he is satisfied,--that
+cruel longing and more cruel doubt shall never spring up in that
+capacious heart, divorcing his affections and convictions from the
+system to which his life is irrevocably wedded. No, keep still, Padre
+Lluc I think ever as you think now, lest the faith that seems a fortress
+should prove a prison, the mother a step-dame,--lest the high,
+chivalrous spirit, incapable of a safe desertion, should immolate truth
+or itself on the altar of consistency.
+
+Between those two advocates of Catholicity, Hulia Protestante walks
+slowly through the halls of the University. She sees first a Cabinet of
+Natural History, including minerals, shells, fossils, and insects, all
+well-arranged, and constituting a very respectable beginning. Padre Lluc
+says some good words on the importance of scientific education. Padre
+Doyaguez laughs at the ladies' hoops, which he calls Malakoffs, as they
+crowd through the doorways and among the glass cases; he repeats
+occasionally, "_Hulia Protestante_?" in a tone of mock astonishment, and
+receives for answer, "_Si, Hulia Protestante_." Then comes a very
+creditable array of scientific apparatus,--not of the order employed by
+the judges of Galileo,--electric and galvanic batteries, an orrery, and
+many things beside. The library interests us more, with some luxurious
+classics, a superb Dante, and a prison-cage of forbidden works, of which
+Padre Lluc certainly has the key. Among these were fine editions of
+Rousseau and Voltaire, which appeared to be intended for use; and we
+could imagine a solitary student, dark-eyed and pale, exploring their
+depths at midnight with a stolen candle, and endeavoring, with
+self-torment, to reconcile the intolerance of his doctrine with the
+charities of his heart. We imagine such a one lost in the philosophy and
+sentiment of the "Nouvelle Heloise," and suddenly summoned by the
+convent-bell to the droning of the Mass, the mockery of Holy Water, the
+fable of the Real Presence. Such contrasts might be strange and
+dangerous. No, no, Padre Lluc! keep these unknown spells from your
+heart,--let the forbidden books alone. Instead of the Confessions of
+Jean Jacques, read the Confessions of St. Augustine,--read the new book,
+in three volumes, on the Immaculate Conception, which you show me with
+such ardor, telling me that Can Grande, which, in the vernacular, is
+Parker, has spoken of it with respect. Beyond the Fathers you must not
+get, for you have vowed to be a child all your life. Those clear eyes of
+yours are never to look up into the face of the Eternal Father; the
+show-box of the Church must content them, with Mary and the saints seen
+through its dusty glass,--the august figure of the Son, who sometimes
+reproved his mother, crowded quite out of sight behind the woman, whom
+it is so much easier to dress up and exhibit. What is this other book
+which Parker has read? Padre Doyaguez says, "Hulia, if you read this,
+you must become a Catholic." Padre Lluc says, "If Parker has read this
+book, I cannot conceive that he is not a Catholic." The quick Doyaguez
+then remarks, "Parker is going to Rome to join the Romish Church." Padre
+Lluc rejoins, "They say so." Hulia Protestante is inclined to cry out,
+"The day that Parker becomes a Catholic, I, too, will become one"; but,
+remembering the rashness of vows and the fallibility of men, she does
+not adopt that form of expressing _Never_. Parker might, if it pleased
+God, become a Catholic, and then the world would have two Popes instead
+of one.
+
+We leave at last the disputed ground of the library and ascend to the
+observatory, which commands a fine view of the city, and a good sweep of
+the heavens for the telescope, in which Padre Lluc seemed especially to
+delight. The observatory is commodious, and is chiefly directed by an
+attenuated young priest, with a keen eye and hectic cheek; another was
+occupied in working out mathematical tables;--for these Fathers observe
+the stars, and are in scientific correspondence with astronomers in
+Europe. This circumstance gave us real pleasure on their account,--for
+science, in all its degrees, is a positive good, and a mental tonic of
+the first importance. Earnestly did we, in thought, commend it to those
+wearied minds which have undergone the dialectic dislocations, the
+denaturalizations of truth and of thought, which enable rational men to
+become first Catholics and then Jesuits. For let there be no illusions
+about strength of mind, and so on,--this is effected by means of a vast
+machinery. As, in the old story, the calves were put in at one end of
+the cylinder and taken out leather breeches at the other, or as glass is
+cut and wood carved, so does the raw human material, put into the
+machine of the Catholic Church, become fashioned according to the will
+of those who guide it. Hulia Protestante! you have a free step and a
+clear head; but once go into the machine, and you will come out carved
+and embossed according to the old traditional pattern,--you as well as
+another. Where the material is hard, they put on more power,--where it
+is soft, more care; wherefore I caution you here, as I would in a mill
+at Lowell or Lawrence,--Don't meddle with the shafts,--don't go too near
+the wheel,--in short, keep clear of the machinery. And Hulia does so;
+for, at the last attack of Padre Doyaguez, she suddenly turns upon him
+and says, "Sir, you are a Doctrinary and a Propagandist." And the good
+Father suffers her to depart in peace. But first there is the chapel to
+be seen, with its tawdry and poor ornamentation,--and the dormitories of
+the scholars, with long double rows of beds and mosquito-nettings. There
+are two of these, and each of them has at one end a raised platform,
+with curtains and a bed, where rests and watches the shepherd of the
+little sheep. Lastly, we have a view of the whole flock, assembled in
+their play-ground, and one of them, looking up, sees his mother, who has
+kindly accompanied our visit to the institution. Across the distance
+that separates us, we see his blue eyes brighten, and, as soon as
+permission is given, he bounds like a young roe to her arms, shy and
+tender, his English blood showing through his Spanish skin,--for he is a
+child of mixed race. We are all pleased and touched, and Padre Lluc
+presently brings us a daguerreotype, and says, "It is my mother." To us
+it is an indifferent portrait of an elderly Spanish woman,--but to him,
+how much! With kindest mutual regard we take leave,--a little surprised,
+perhaps, to see that Jesuit priests have mothers, and remember them.
+
+
+
+
+SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BANOS.
+
+
+  "Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone!"
+
+However enchanting Havana may prove, when seen through the moonlight of
+memory, it seems as good a place to go away from as any other, after a
+stifling night in a net, the wooden shutters left open in the remote
+hope of air, and admitting the music of a whole opera-troupe of dogs,
+including bass, tenor, soprano, and chorus. Instead of bouquets, you
+throw stones, if you are so fortunate as to have them,--if not,
+boot-jacks, oranges, your only umbrella. You are last seen thrusting
+frantic hands and feet through the iron bars, your wife holding you back
+by the flannel night-gown which you will persist in wearing in this
+doubtful climate. At last it is over,--the fifth act ends with a howl
+which makes you hope that some one of the performers has come to grief.
+But, alas! it is only a stage _denouement_, whose hero will die again
+every night while the season lasts. You fall asleep, but the welcome
+cordial has scarcely been tasted when you are aroused by a knock at the
+door. It is the night-porter, who wakes you at five by appointment, that
+you may enjoy your early coffee, tumble into a hired _volante_, and
+reach, half dead with sleep, the station in time for the train that goes
+to San Antonio.
+
+Now, whether you are a partisan of early rising or not, you must allow
+that sunrise and the hour after is the golden time of the day in Cuba.
+So this hour of starting,--six o'clock,--so distasteful in our
+latitudes, is a matter of course in tropical climates. Arriving at the
+station, you encounter new tribulations in the registering and payment
+of luggage, the transportation of which is not included in the charge
+for your ticket. Your trunks are recorded in a book, and, having paid a
+_real_ apiece for them, you receive a paper which entitles you to demand
+them again at your journey's end. The Cuban railways are good, but
+dear,--the charge being ten cents a mile; whereas in our more favored
+land one goes for three cents, and has the chance of a collision and
+surgeon's services without any extra payment. The cars have windows
+which are always open, and blinds which are always closed, or nearly so.
+The seats and backs of seats are of cane, for coolness,--hardness being
+secured at the same time. One reaches San Antonio in an hour and a half,
+and finds a pleasant village, with a river running through it, several
+streets of good houses, several more of bad ones, a cathedral, a
+cockpit, a _volante_, four soldiers on horseback, two on foot, a market,
+dogs, a bad smell, and, lastly, the American Hotel,--a house built in a
+hollow square, as usual,--kept by a strong-minded woman from the States,
+whose Yankee thrift is unmistakable, though she has been long absent
+from the great centres of domestic economy.
+
+Mrs. L----, always on the watch for arrivals, comes out to receive us.
+We are very welcome, she hints, as far as we go; but why are there not
+more of us? The smallest favors should be thankfully received, but she
+hears that Havana is full of strangers, and she wonders, for her part,
+why people will stay in that hot place, and roast, and stew, and have
+the yellow fever, when she could make them so comfortable in San
+Antonio. This want of custom she continues, during our whole visit, to
+complain of. Would it be uncharitable for us to aver that we found other
+wants in her establishment which caused us more astonishment, and which
+went some way towards accounting for the deficiency complained of? wants
+of breakfast, wants of dinner, wants of something good for tea, wants of
+towels, wants of candles, wants of ice, or, at least, of the cooling
+jars used in the country. Charges exorbitant,--the same as in Havana,
+where rents are an ounce a week, and upwards; _volantes_
+difficult,--Mrs. L. having made an agreement with the one livery-stable
+that they shall always be furnished at most unreasonable prices, of
+which she, supposably, pockets half. On the other hand, the village is
+really cool, healthy, and pretty; there are pleasant drives over
+dreadful roads, if one makes up one's mind to the _volante_, and
+delightful river-baths, shaded by roofs of palm-tree thatch. One of the
+best of these is at the foot of Mrs. L.'s inclosure, and its use is
+included in the privileges of the house. The water is nearly tepid,
+clear, and green, and the little fish float hither and thither in
+it,--though men of active minds are sometimes reduced to angle for them,
+with crooked pins, for amusement. At the hour of one, daily, the ladies
+of the house betake themselves to this refreshment; and there is
+laughing, and splashing, and holding of hands, and simulation of all the
+Venuses that ever were, from the crouching one of the bath, to the
+triumphant Cytherea, springing for the first time from the wave.
+
+Such are the resources of the house. Those of the neighborhood are
+various. Foremost among them is the _cafetal_, or coffee-plantation, of
+Don Juan Torres, distant a league from the village, over which league of
+stone, sand, and rut you rumble in a _volante_ dragged by three horses.
+You know that the _volante_ cannot upset; nevertheless you experience
+some anxious moments when it leans at an obtuse angle, one wheel in air,
+one sticking in a hole, the horses balking and kicking, and the
+postilion swearing his best. But it is written, the _volante_ shall not
+upset,--and so it does not. Long before you see the entrance to the
+plantation, you watch the tall palms, planted in a line, that shield,
+its borders. An avenue of like growth leads you to the house, where
+barking dogs announce you, and Don Juan, an elderly gentleman in
+slippers and a Panama hat, his hair, face, and eyes all faded to one hue
+of grayness, comes out to accost us. Here, again, Hulia Protestante
+becomes the subject of a series of attacks, in a new kind. Don Juan
+first exhausts his flower-garden upon her, and explains all that is new
+to her. Then she must see his blind Chino, a sightless Samson of a
+Cooly, who is working resolutely in a mill. "_Canta!_" says the master,
+and the poor slave gives tongue like a hound on the scent. "_Baila!_"
+and, a stick being handed him, he performs the gymnastics of his
+country, a sort of war-dance without accompaniment. "_El can!_" and,
+giving him a broom, they loose the dog upon him. A curious tussle then
+ensues,--the dog attacking furiously, and the blind man, guided by his
+barking, defending himself lustily. The Chino laughs, the master laughs,
+but the visitor feels more inclined to cry, having been bred in those
+Northern habits which respect infirmity. A _real_ dismisses the poor
+soul with a smile, and then begins the journey round the _cafetal_. The
+coffee-blossom is just in its perfection, and whole acres in sight are
+white with its flower, which nearly resembles that of the small white
+jasmine. Its fragrance is said to be delicious after a rain; but, the
+season being dry, it is scarcely discernible. As shade is a great
+object in growing coffee, the grounds are laid out in lines of fruit-
+trees, and these are the ministers of Hulia's tribulation; for Don
+Juan, whether in kindness or in mischief, insists that she shall taste
+every unknown fruit,--and as he cuts them and hands them to her, she
+is forced to obey. First, a little negro shins up a cocoa-nut-tree,
+and flings down the nut, whose water she must drink. One cocoa-nut she
+endures,--two,--but three? no, she must rebel, and cry out,--"_No mi
+gusta!_" Then she must try a bitter orange, then a sour bitter one, then
+a sweet lemon, then a huge fruit of triple verjuice flavor. "What is it
+good for?" she asks, after a shuddering plunge into its acrid depths.
+"Oh," says the Don, "they eat it in the castors instead of vinegar."
+Then come _sapotas, mamey_, Otaheite gooseberries. "Does she like
+bananas?" he cuts a tree down with his own hand, and sends the bunch of
+fruit to her _volante_;--"Sugar-cane?" he bestows a huge bundle of
+sticks for her leisurely rodentation;--he fills her pocket with coral
+beans for her children. Having, at last, exhausted every polite
+attention, and vainly offered gin, rum, and coffee, as a parting
+demonstration, Hulia and her partner escape, bearing with them many
+strange flavors, and an agonizing headache, the combined result of sun
+and acids. Really, if there exist anywhere on earth a society for the
+promotion and encouragement of good manners, it should send a diploma to
+Don Juan, admonishing him only to omit the vinegar-fruit in his further
+walks of hospitality.
+
+We take the Sunday to visit the nearest sugar-plantation, belonging to
+Don Jacinto Gonzales. Sun, not shade, being the desideratum in
+sugar-planting, there are few trees or shrubs bordering the
+sugar-fields, which resemble at a distance our own fields of Indian
+corn, the green of the leaves being lighter, and a pale blue blossom
+appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery,
+the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the
+_maquinista_ (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery,
+aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who
+begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence
+on those who refused him. The _maquinista_ was a fine-looking man, from
+the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told us that Don Jacinto was
+very old, and came rarely to the plantation. We asked him how the
+extreme heat of his occupation suited him, and for an answer he opened
+the bosom of his shirt, and showed us the marks of innumerable leeches.
+The machinery is not very complicated. It consists of a wheel and band,
+to throw the canes under the powerful rollers which crush them, and
+these rollers, three in number, all moved by the steam-engine. The juice
+flows into large copper caldrons, where it is boiled and skimmed. As
+they were not at work, we did not see the actual process. Leaving the
+sugar-house, we went in pursuit of the _mayoral_, or overseer, who
+seemed to inhabit comfortable quarters, in a long, low house, shielded
+from the sun by a thick screen of matting. We found him a powerful,
+thick-set man, of surly and uncivil manners, girded with a sword, and
+further armed with a pistol, a dagger, and a stout whip. He was much too
+important a person to waste his words upon us, but signified that the
+major-domo would wait on us, which he presently did. We now entered the
+negro quarter, a solid range of low buildings, formed around a hollow
+square, whose strong entrance is closed at nightfall, and its inmates
+kept in strict confinement till the morning hour of work comes round.
+Just within the doorway we encountered the trader, who visits the
+plantations every Sunday, to tempt the stray cash of the negroes by
+various commodities, of which the chief seemed to be white bread,
+calicoes, muslins, and bright cotton handkerchiefs. He told us that
+their usual weekly expenditure amounted to about twenty-five dollars.
+Bargaining with him stood the negro-driver, a tattooed African, armed
+with a whip. All within the court swarmed the black bees of the
+hive,--the men with little clothing, the small children naked, the women
+decent. All had their little charcoal fires, with pots boiling over
+them; the rooms within looked dismally dark, close, and dirty; there are
+no windows, no air and light save through the ever-open door. The beds
+are sometimes partitioned off by a screen of dried palm-leaf, but I saw
+no better sleeping-privilege than a board with a blanket or coverlet.
+From this we turned to the nursery, where all the children incapable of
+work are kept; the babies are quite naked, and sometimes very handsome
+in their way, black and shining, with bright eyes and well-formed limbs.
+No great provision is made for their amusement, but the little girls
+nurse them tenderly enough, and now and then the elders fling them a bit
+of orange or _chaimito_, for which they scramble like so many monkeys.
+Appeals are constantly made to the pockets of visitors, by open hands
+stretched out in all directions. To these "_Nada_"--"Nothing"--is the
+safe reply; for, if you give to one, the others close about you with
+frantic gesticulation, and you have to break your way through them with
+some violence, which hurts your own feelings more than it does theirs.
+On _strict_ plantations this is not allowed; but Don Jacinto, like Lord
+Ashburton at the time of the Maine treaty, is an old man,--a very old
+man; and where discipline cannot be maintained, peace must be secured on
+any terms. We visit next the sugar-house, where we find the desired
+condiment in various stages of color and refinement. It is whitened with
+clay, in large funnel-shaped vessels, open at the bottom, to allow the
+molasses to run off. Above are hogsheads of coarse, dark sugar; below is
+a huge pit of fermenting molasses, in which rats and small negroes
+occasionally commit involuntary suicide, and from which rum is made.--N.
+B. Rum is not a wicked word in Cuba; in Boston everybody is shocked when
+it is named, and in Cuba nobody is shocked when it is drunk.
+
+And here endeth the description of our visit to the sugar-plantation of
+Don Jacinto, and in good time, too,--for by this it had grown so hot,
+that we made a feeble rush for the _volante_, and lay back in it,
+panting for breath. Encountering a negress with a load of oranges on her
+head, we bought and ate the fruit with eagerness, though the oranges
+were bitter. The jolting over three miles of stone and rut did not
+improve the condition of our aching heads. Arriving at San Antonio, we
+thankfully went to bed for the rest of the morning, and dreamed, only
+dreamed, that the saucy black boy in the boiling-house had run after us,
+had lifted the curtain of the _volante_, screeched a last impertinence
+after us, and kissed his hand for a good-bye, which, luckily for him, is
+likely to prove eternal.
+
+
+
+
+THE MORRO FORTRESS--THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA--THE BENEFICENZA.
+
+
+The Spanish government experiences an unwillingness to admit foreigners
+into the Morro, their great stronghold, the causes of which may not be
+altogether mysterious. Americans have been of late especially excluded
+from it, and it was only by a fortunate chance that we were allowed to
+visit it. A friend of a friend of ours happened to have a friend in the
+garrison, and, after some delays and negotiations, an early morning hour
+was fixed upon for the expedition.
+
+The fort is finely placed at the entrance of the harbor, and is in
+itself a picturesque object. It is built of a light, yellowish stone,
+which is seen, as you draw near, in strong contrast with the vivid green
+of the tropical waters. We approached it by water, taking a rowboat from
+the Alameda. As we passed, we had a good view of a daily Havana
+spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and
+most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to
+the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they
+disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun.
+Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely
+back to the shore.
+
+But for the Morro. We entered without difficulty, and began at once a
+somewhat steep ascent, which the heat, even at that early hour, made
+laborious. After some climbing, we reached the top of the parapet, and
+looked out from the back of the fortress. On this side, if ever on any,
+it will be taken,--for, standing with one's back to the harbor, one
+sees, nearly on the right hand, a point where trenches could be opened
+with advantage. The fort is heavily gunned and garrisoned, and seems to
+be in fighting order. The outer wall is separated from the inner by a
+paved space some forty feet in width. The height of both walls makes
+this point a formidable one; but scaling-ladders could be thrown across,
+if one had possession of the outer wall. The material is the coralline
+rock common in this part of the island. It is a soft stone, and would
+prove, it is feared, something like the cotton-bag defence of New
+Orleans memory,--as the balls thrown from without would sink in, and not
+splinter the stone, which for the murderous work were to be wished. A
+little perseverance, with much perspiration, brought us to a high point,
+called the Lantern, which is merely a small room, where the telescope,
+signal-books, and signals are kept. Here we were received by an official
+in blue spectacles and with a hole in his boot, but still with that air
+of being the chiefest thing on God's earth common to all Spaniards. The
+best of all was that we brought a sack of oranges with us, and that the
+time was now come for their employment. With no other artillery than
+these did we take the very heart of the Morro citadel,--for, on offering
+them to the official with the hole, he surrendered at once, smiled, gave
+us seats, and sitting down with us, indeed, was soon in the midst of his
+half-dozenth orange. Having refreshed ourselves, examined the flags of
+all nations, and made all the remarks which our limited Spanish allowed,
+we took leave, redescended, and reembarked. One of our party, an old
+soldier, had meanwhile been busily scanning the points and angles of the
+fortress, pacing off distances, etc., etc. The result of his
+observations would, no doubt, be valuable to men of military minds. But
+the writer of this, to be candid, was especially engaged with the heat,
+the prospect, the oranges, and the soldiers' wives and children, who
+peeped out from windows here and there. Such trifling creatures do come
+into such massive surroundings, and trifle still!
+
+Our ladies, being still in a furious mood of sight-seeing, desired to
+visit the University of Havana, and, having made appointment with an
+accomplished Cuban, betook themselves to the College buildings with all
+proper escort. Their arrival in the peristyle occasioned some
+excitement. One of the students came up, and said, in good English,
+"What do you want?" Others, not so polite, stared and whispered in
+corners. A message to one of the professors was attended with some
+delay, and our Cuban friend, having gone to consult with him, returned
+to say, with some embarrassment, that the professor would be happy to
+show the establishment to the ladies on Sunday, at two, P.M., when every
+male creature but himself would be out of it; but as for their going
+through the rooms while the undergraduates were about, that was not to
+be thought of. "Why not?" asked the ladies. "For your own sake," said
+the messenger, and proceeded to explain that the appearance of the
+_skirted_ in these halls of learning would be followed by such
+ill-conduct and indignity of impertinence on the part of the _shirted_
+as might be intolerable to the one and disadvantageous to the other. Now
+there be women, we know, whose horrid fronts could have awed these saucy
+little Cubans into decency and good behavior, and some that we know,
+whether possessing that power or not, would have delighted in the
+fancied exercise of it. What strong-minded company, under these
+circumstances, would have turned back? What bolting, tramping, and
+rushing would they not have made through the ranks of the astonished
+professors and students? The Anniversary set, for example, who sweep the
+pews of men, or, coming upon one forlorn, crush him as a boa does a
+sheep. Our silly little flock only laughed, colored, and retreated to
+the _volantes_, where they held a council of war, and decided to go
+visit some establishment where possibly better manners might prevail.
+
+Returning on the Sunday, at the hour appointed, they walked through the
+deserted building, and found spacious rooms, the pulpits of the
+professors, the benches of the students, the Queen's portrait, a very
+limited library, and, for all consolation, some pleasant Latin sentences
+over the doors of the various departments, celebrating the solace and
+delights of learning. This was seeing the College, literally; but it was
+a good deal like seeing the lion's den, the lion himself being absent on
+leave,--or like visiting the hippopotamus in Regent's Park on those days
+in which he remains steadfastly buried in his tank, and will show only
+the tip of a nostril for your entrance-fee. Still, it was a pleasure to
+know that learning was so handsomely housed; and as for the little
+rabble who could not be trusted in the presence of the sex, we forgave
+them heartily, knowing that soberer manners would one day come upon
+them, as inevitably as baldness and paternity.
+
+Let me here say, that a few days in Havana make clear to one the
+seclusion of women in the East, and its causes. Wherever the animal
+vigor of men is so large in proportion to their moral power, as in those
+countries, women must be glad to forego their liberties for the
+protection of the strong arm. One master is better for them than many.
+Whatever tyranny may grow out of such barbarous manners, the institution
+springs from a veritable necessity and an original good intention. The
+Christian religion should change this, which is justifiable only in a
+Mohammedan country. But where that religion is so loosely administered
+as in Cuba, where its teachers themselves frequent the cock-pit and the
+gaming-table, one must not look for too much of its power in the manners
+and morals of men.
+
+The Beneficenza was our next station. It is, as its name signifies, an
+institution with a benevolent purpose, an orphan asylum and foundling
+hospital in one. The State here charitably considers that infants who
+are abandoned by their parents are as much orphaned as they can become
+by the interposition of death,--nay, more. The death of parents oftenest
+leaves a child with some friend or relative; but the foundling is cut
+off from all human relationship,--he belongs only to the hand that takes
+him up, when he has been left to die. Despite the kind cruelty of modern
+theories, which will not allow of suitable provision for the sufferer,
+for fear of increasing the frequency of the crime by which he suffers,
+our hearts revolt at the miserable condition of those little creatures
+in our great cities, confounded with hopeless pauperism in its desolate
+asylums, or farmed out to starve and die. They belong to the State, and
+the State should nobly retrieve the world's offence against them. Their
+broken galaxy shows many a bright star here and there. Such a little
+wailing creature has been found who has commanded great actions and done
+good service among men. Let us, then, cherish the race of foundlings, of
+whom Moses was the first and the greatest. The princess who reared him
+saw not the glorious destiny which lay hid, as a birth-jewel, in his
+little basket of reeds. She saw only, as some of us have seen, a
+helpless, friendless babe. When he dedicated to her his first edition of
+the Pentateuch--But, nay, he did not; for neither gratitude nor
+dedications were in fashion among the Jews.
+
+We found the Beneficenza spacious, well-ventilated, and administered
+with great order. It stands near the sea, with a fine prospect in view,
+and must command a cool breeze, if there be any. The children enjoy
+sea-bathing in summer. The superintendent received us most kindly, and
+presented us to the sisters who have charge of the children, who were
+good specimens of their class. We walked with them through the neat
+dormitories, and observed that they were much more airy than those of
+the Jesuit College, lately described. They all slept on the sackings of
+the cots, beds being provided only in the infirmary. In the latter place
+we found but two inmates,--one suffering from ordinary Cuban fever, the
+other with ophthalmia.--N.B. Disease of the eyes does not seem to be
+common in Cuba, in spite of the tropical glare of the sun; nor do people
+nurse and complain of their eyes there, as with us. We found a separate
+small kitchen for the sick, which was neat and convenient. The larger
+kitchen, too, was handsomely endowed with apparatus, and the
+superintendent told us, with a twinkle in his eye, that the children
+lived well. Coffee at six, a good breakfast at nine, dinner at the usual
+hour, bread and coffee before bed-time;--this seemed very suitable as to
+quantity, though differing from our ideas of children's food; but it
+must be remembered that the nervous stimulus of coffee is not found to
+be excessive in hot climates; it seems to be only what Nature
+demands,--no more. The kind nun who accompanied us now showed us, with
+some pride, various large presses, set in the wall, and piled to the top
+with clean and comfortable children's clothing. We came presently to
+where the boys were reciting their catechism. An ecclesiastic was
+hearing them;--they seemed ready enough with their answers, but were
+allowed to gabble off the holy words in a manner almost unintelligible,
+and quite indecorous. They were bright, healthy-looking little fellows,
+ranging apparently from eight to twelve in age. They had good
+play-ground set off for them, and shady galleries to walk up and down
+in. Coming from their quarter, the girls' department seemed quiet
+enough. Here was going on the eternal task of needlework, to which the
+sex has been condemned ever since Adam's discovery of his want of
+wardrobe. Oh, ye wretched, foolish women! why will ye forever sew? "We
+must not only sew, but be thankful to sew; that little needle being, as
+the sentimental Curtis has said, the only thing between us and the worst
+that may befall."
+
+These incipient women were engaged in various forms of sewing,--the most
+skilful in a sort of embroidery, like that which forms the border of
+_pina_ handkerchiefs. A few were reading and spelling. One poor blind
+girl sat amongst them, with melancholy arms folded, and learned
+nothing,--they told us, nothing; for the instruction of the blind is not
+thought of in these parts. This seemed piteous to us, and made us
+reflect how happy are _our_ blinds, to say nothing of our deafs and
+dumbs. Idiocy is not uncommon here, and is the result of continual
+intermarriage between near relations; but it will be long before they
+will provide it with a separate asylum and suitable instruction.
+
+But now came the saddest part of the whole exhibition,--a sight common
+enough in Europe, but, by some accident, hitherto unseen by us. Here is
+a sort of receptacle, with three or four compartments, which turns on a
+pivot. One side of it is open to the street, and in it the wretched
+parent lays the more wretched baby,--ringing a small bell, at the same
+time, for the new admittance; the parent vanishes, the receptacle turns
+on its pivot,--the baby is within, and, we are willing to believe, in
+merciful hands.
+
+The sight of this made, for the first time, the crime real to me. I saw,
+at a flash, the whole tragedy of desertion,--the cautious approach, the
+frightened countenance, the furtive act, and the great avenging pang of
+Nature after its consummation. What was Hester Prynne's pillory,
+compared to the heart of any of those mothers? I thought, too, of
+Rousseau, bringing to such a place as this children who had the right to
+inherit divine genius, and deserting them for the sordid reason that he
+did not choose to earn their bread,--the helpless mother weeping at
+home, and begging, through long years, to be allowed to seek and reclaim
+them.
+
+Well, here were the little creatures kindly cared for; yet what a
+piteous place was their nursery! Some of the recent arrivals looked as
+if ill-usage had been exhausted upon them before they were brought
+hither. Blows and drugs and starvation had been tried upon them, but,
+with the tenacity of infancy, they clung to life. They would not
+die;--well, then, they should live to regret it. Some of them lay on the
+floor, deformed and helpless; the older ones formed a little class, and
+were going through some elementary exercise when we passed. The babies
+had a large room allotted to them, and I found the wet-nurses
+apportioned one to each child. This appeared a very generous provision,
+as, in such establishments elsewhere, three and even four children are
+given to one nurse. They had comfortable cribs, on each of which was
+pinned the name of its little inmate, and the date of its
+entrance;--generally, the name and age of the child are found written on
+a slip of paper attached to its clothing, when it is left in the
+receptacle. I saw on one, "Cecilio, three weeks old." He had been but a
+few days in the establishment.
+
+Of course, I lingered longest in the babies' room, and longest of all
+near the crib of the little Cecilio. He was a pretty baby, and seemed to
+me the most ill-used of all, because the youngest. "Could they not bear
+with you three weeks, little fellow?" I said. "I know those at whose
+firesides such as you would have been welcome guests. That New York
+woman whom I met lately, young, rich, and childless,--I could commend
+you to her in place of the snarling little spaniel fiend who was her
+constant care and companion."
+
+But here the superintendent made a polite bow, saying,--"And now your
+Worships have seen all; for the chapel is undergoing repairs, and cannot
+be visited." And so we thanked, and departed.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL GRAY.
+
+
+  If I shall ever win the home in heaven
+    For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray,
+  In the great company of the forgiven
+    I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.
+
+  I knew him well; in fact, few knew him better;
+    For my young eyes oft read for him the Word,
+  And saw how meekly from the crystal letter
+    He drank the life of his beloved Lord.
+
+  Old Daniel Gray was not a man who lifted
+    On ready words his freight of gratitude,
+  And was not called upon among the gifted,
+    In the prayer-meetings of his neighborhood.
+
+  He had a few old-fashioned words and phrases,
+    Linked in with sacred texts and Sunday rhymes;
+  And I suppose, that, in his prayers and graces,
+    I've heard them all at least a thousand times.
+
+  I see him now,--his form, and face, and motions,
+    His homespun habit, and his silver hair,--
+  And hear the language of his trite devotions
+    Rising behind the straight-backed kitchen-chair.
+
+  I can remember how the sentence sounded,--
+    "Help us, O Lord, to pray, and not to faint!"
+  And how the "conquering-and-to-conquer" rounded
+    The loftier aspirations of the saint.
+
+  He had some notions that did not improve him:
+    He never kissed his children,--so they say;
+  And finest scenes and fairest flowers would move him
+    Less than a horseshoe picked up in the way.
+
+  He could see nought but vanity in beauty,
+    And nought but weakness in a fond caress,
+  And pitied men whose views of Christian duty
+    Allowed indulgence in such foolishness.
+
+  Yet there were love and tenderness within him;
+    And I am told, that, when his Charley died,
+  Nor Nature's need nor gentle words could win him
+    From his fond vigils at the sleeper's side.
+
+  And when they came to bury little Charley,
+    They found fresh dew-drops sprinkled in his hair,
+  And on his breast a rose-bud, gathered early,--
+    And guessed, but did not know, who placed it there.
+
+  My good old friend was very hard on fashion,
+    And held its votaries in lofty scorn,
+  And often burst into a holy passion
+    While the gay crowds went by, on Sunday morn.
+
+  Yet he was vain, old Gray, and did not know it!
+    He wore his hair unparted, long, and plain,
+  To hide the handsome brow that slept below it,
+    For fear the world would think that he was vain!
+
+  He had a hearty hatred of oppression,
+    And righteous words for sin of every kind;
+  Alas, that the transgressor and transgression
+    Were linked so closely in his honest mind!
+
+  Yet that sweet tale of gift without repentance,
+    Told of the Master, touched him to the core,
+  And tearless he could never read the sentence:
+    "Neither do I condemn thee: sin no more."
+
+  Honest and faithful, constant in his calling,
+    Strictly attendant on the means of grace,
+  Instant in prayer, and fearful most of falling,
+    Old Daniel Gray was always in his place.
+
+  A practical old man, and yet a dreamer,
+    He thought that in some strange, unlooked-for way,
+  His mighty Friend in heaven, the great Redeemer,
+    Would honor him with wealth some golden day.
+
+  This dream he carried in a hopeful spirit
+    Until in death his patient eye grew dim,
+  And his Redeemer called him to inherit
+    The heaven of wealth long garnered up for him.
+
+  So, if I ever win the home in heaven
+    For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray
+  In the great company of the forgiven
+    I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING.
+
+
+[Continued.]
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+The Doctor sat at his study-table. It was evening, and the slant beams
+of the setting sun shot their golden arrows through the healthy purple
+clusters of lilacs that veiled the windows. There had been a shower that
+filled them with drops of rain, which every now and then tattooed, with
+a slender rat-tat, on the window-sill, as a breeze would shake the
+leaves and bear in perfume on its wings. Sweet, fragrance-laden airs
+tripped stirringly to and fro about the study-table, making gentle
+confusions, fluttering papers on moral ability, agitating treatises on
+the great end of creation, mixing up subtile distinctions between
+amiable instincts and true holiness, and, in short, conducting
+themselves like very unappreciative and unphilosophical little breezes.
+
+The Doctor patiently smoothed back and rearranged, while opposite to him
+sat Mary, bending over some copying she was doing for him. One stray
+sunbeam fell on her light brown hair, tinging it to gold; her long,
+drooping lashes lay over the wax-like pink of her cheeks, as she wrote
+on.
+
+"Mary," said the Doctor, pushing the papers from him.
+
+"Sir," she answered, looking up, the blood just perceptibly rising in
+her cheeks.
+
+"Do you ever have any periods in which your evidences seem not
+altogether clear?"
+
+Nothing could show more forcibly the grave, earnest character of thought
+in New England at this time than the fact that this use of the term
+"evidences" had become universally significant and understood as
+relating to one's right of citizenship in a celestial, invisible
+commonwealth.
+
+So Mary understood it, and it was with a deepening flush she answered
+gently, "No, Sir."
+
+"What! never any doubts?" said the Doctor.
+
+"I am sorry," said Mary, apologetically; "but I do not see how I _can_
+have; I never could."
+
+"Ah!" said the Doctor, musingly, "would I could say so! There are times,
+indeed, when I hope I have an interest in the precious Redeemer, and
+behold an infinite loveliness and beauty in Him, apart from anything I
+expect or hope. But even then how deceitful is the human heart! how
+insensibly might a mere selfish love take the place of that
+disinterested complacency which regards Him for what He is in Himself,
+apart from what He is to us! Say, my dear friend, does not this thought
+sometimes make you tremble?"
+
+Poor Mary was truth itself, and this question distressed her; she must
+answer the truth. The fact was, that it had never come into her blessed
+little heart to tremble, for she was one of those children of the
+bride-chamber who cannot mourn, because the bridegroom is ever with
+them; but then, when she saw the man for whom her reverence was almost
+like that for her God thus distrustful, thus lowly, she could not but
+feel that her too calm repose might, after all, be the shallow,
+treacherous calm of an ignorant, ill-grounded spirit, and therefore,
+with a deep blush and a faltering voice, she said,--
+
+"Indeed, I am afraid something must be wrong with me. I _cannot_ have
+any fears,--I never could; I try sometimes, but the thought of God's
+goodness comes all around me, and I am so happy before I think of it!"
+
+"Such exercises, my dear friend, I have also had," said the Doctor; "but
+before I rest on them as evidences, I feel constrained to make the
+following inquiries:--Is this gratitude that swells my bosom the result
+of a mere natural sensibility? Does it arise in a particular manner
+because God has done me good? or do I love God for what He is, as well
+as for what He has done? and for what He has done for others, as well as
+for what He has done for me? Love to God which is built on nothing but
+good received is not incompatible with a disposition so horrid as even
+to curse God to His face. If God is not to be loved except when He does
+good, then in affliction we are free. If doing _us_ good is all that
+renders God lovely to us, then not doing us good divests Him of His
+glory, and dispenses us from obligation to love Him. But there must be,
+undoubtedly, some permanent reason why God is to be loved by all; and if
+not doing us good divests Him of His glory so as to free _us_ from our
+obligation to love, it equally frees the universe; so that, in fact, the
+universe of happiness, if ours be not included, reflects no glory on its
+Author."
+
+The Doctor had practised his subtile mental analysis till his
+instruments were so fine-pointed and keen-edged that he scarce ever
+allowed a flower of sacred emotion to spring in his soul without picking
+it to pieces to see if its genera and species were correct. Love,
+gratitude, reverence, benevolence,--which all moved in mighty tides in
+his soul,--were all compelled to pause midway while he rubbed up his
+optical instruments to see whether they were rising in right order.
+Mary, on the contrary, had the blessed gift of womanhood,--that vivid
+life in the soul and sentiment which resists the chills of analysis, as
+a healthful human heart resists cold; yet still, all humbly, she thought
+this perhaps was a defect in herself, and therefore, having confessed,
+in a depreciating tone, her habits of unanalyzed faith and love, she
+added,--
+
+"But, my dear Sir, you are my best friend. I trust you will be faithful
+to me. If I am deceiving myself, undeceive me; you cannot be too severe
+with me."
+
+"Alas!" said the Doctor, "I fear that I may be only a blind leader of
+the blind. What, after all, if I be only a miserable self-deceiver? What
+if some thought of self has come in to poison all my prayers and
+strivings? It is true, I think,--yes, I _think_," said the Doctor,
+speaking very slowly and with intense earnestness,--"I think, that, if I
+knew at this moment that my name never would be written among those of
+the elect, I could still see God to be infinitely amiable and glorious,
+and could feel sure that He _could_ not do me wrong, and that it was
+infinitely becoming and right that He should dispose of me according to
+His sovereign pleasure. I _think_ so;--but still my deceitful
+heart!--after all, I might find it rising in rebellion. Say, my dear
+friend, are you sure, that, should you discover yourself to be forever
+condemned by His justice, you would not find your heart rising up
+against Him?"
+
+"Against _Him_?" said Mary, with a tremulous, sorrowful expression on
+her face,--"against my Heavenly Father?"
+
+Her face flushed, and faded; her eyes kindled eagerly, as if she had
+something to say, and then grew misty with tears. At last she said,--
+
+"Thank you, my dear, faithful friend! I will think about this; _perhaps_
+I may have been deceived. How very difficult it must be to know one's
+self perfectly!"
+
+Mary went into her own little room, and sat leaning for a long time with
+her elbow on the window-seat, watching the pale shells of the
+apple-blossoms as they sailed and fluttered downward into the grass, and
+listened to a chippering conversation in which the birds in the nest
+above were settling up their small housekeeping accounts for the day.
+
+After a while, she took her pen and wrote the following, which the
+Doctor found the next morning lying on his study-table:--
+
+"MY DEAR, HONORED FRIEND,--How can I sufficiently thank you for your
+faithfulness with me? All you say to me seems true and excellent; and
+yet, my dear Sir, permit me to try to express to you some of the many
+thoughts to which our conversation this evening has given rise. To love
+God because He is good to me you seem to think is not a right kind of
+love; and yet every moment of my life I have experienced His goodness.
+When recollection brings back the past, where can I look that I see not
+His goodness? What moment of my life presents not instances of merciful
+kindness to me, as well as to every creature, more and greater than I
+can express, than my mind is able to take in? How, then, can I help
+loving God because He is good to me? Were I not an object of God's mercy
+and goodness, I cannot have any conception what would be my feeling.
+Imagination never yet placed me in a situation not to experience the
+goodness of God in some way or other; and if I do love Him, how can it
+be but because He is good, and to me good? Do not God's children love
+Him because He first loved them?
+
+"If I called nothing goodness which did not happen to suit my
+inclination, and could not believe the Deity to be gracious and merciful
+except when the course of events was so ordered as to agree with my
+humor, so far from imagining that I had any love to God, I must conclude
+myself wholly destitute of anything good. A love founded on nothing but
+good received is not, you say, incompatible with a disposition so horrid
+as even to curse God. I am not sensible that I ever in my life imagined
+anything _but_ good could come from the hand of God. From a Being
+infinite in goodness everything _must_ be good, though we do not always
+comprehend how it is so. Are not afflictions good? Does He not even in
+judgment remember mercy? Sensible that 'afflictions are but blessings in
+disguise,' I would bless the hand that, with infinite kindness, wounds
+only to heal, and love and adore the goodness of God equally in
+suffering as in rejoicing.
+
+"The disinterested love to God, which you think is alone the genuine
+love, I see not how we can be certain we possess, when our love of
+happiness and our love of God are so inseparably connected. The joys
+arising from a consciousness that God is a benefactor to me and my
+friends, (and when I think of God, every creature is my friend,) if
+arising from a selfish motive, it does not seem to me possible could be
+changed into hate, even supposing God my enemy, whilst I regarded Him as
+a Being infinitely just as well as good. If God is my enemy, it must be
+because I deserve He should be such; and it does not seem to me
+_possible_ that I should hate Him, even if I knew He would always be so.
+
+"In what you say of willingness to suffer eternal punishment, I don't
+know that I understand what the feeling is. Is it wickedness in me that
+I do not feel a willingness to be left to eternal sin? Can any one
+joyfully acquiesce in being thus left? When I pray for a new heart and a
+right spirit, must I be willing to be denied, and rejoice that my prayer
+is not heard? Could any real Christian rejoice in this? But he fears it
+not,--he knows it will never be,--he therefore can cheerfully leave it
+with God; and so can I.
+
+"Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts, poor and unworthy; yet they seem
+to me as certain as my life, or as anything I see. Am I unduly
+confident? I ask your prayers that I may be guided aright.
+
+"Your affectionate friend,
+
+"MARY."
+
+There are in this world two kinds of natures,--those that have wings,
+and those that have feet,--the winged and the walking spirits. The
+walking are the logicians: the winged are the instinctive and poetic.
+Natures that must always walk find many a bog, many a thicket, many a
+tangled brake, which God's happy little winged birds flit over by one
+noiseless flight. Nay, when a man has toiled till his feet weigh too
+heavily with the mud of earth to enable him to walk another step, these
+little birds will often cleave the air in a right line towards the bosom
+of God, and show the way where he could never have found it.
+
+The Doctor paused in his ponderous and heavy reasonings to read this
+real woman's letter; and being a loving man, he felt as if he could have
+kissed the hem of her garment who wrote it. He recorded it in his
+journal, and after it this significant passage from Canticles:--
+
+"I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the
+hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake this lovely one till
+she please."
+
+Mrs. Scudder's motherly eye noticed, with satisfaction, these quiet
+communings. "Let it alone," she said to herself; "before she knows it,
+she will find herself wholly under his influence." Mrs. Scudder was a
+wise woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+In the course of a day or two, a handsome carriage drew up in front of
+Mrs. Scudder's cottage, and a brilliant party alighted. They were
+Colonel and Madame de Frontignac, the Abbe Lefon, and Colonel Burr. Mrs.
+Scudder and her daughter, being prepared for the call, sat in afternoon
+dignity and tranquillity, in the best room, with their knitting-work.
+
+Madame de Frontignac had divined, with the lightning-like tact which
+belongs to women in the positive, and to French women in the superlative
+degree, that there was something in the cottage-girl, whom she had
+passingly seen at the party, which powerfully affected the man whom she
+loved with all the jealous intensity of a strong nature, and hence she
+embraced eagerly the opportunity to see her,--yes, to see her, to study
+her, to dart her keen French wit through her, and detect the secret of
+her charm, that she, too, might practise it.
+
+Madame de Frontignac was one of those women whose beauty is so striking
+and imposing, that they seem to kindle up, even in the most prosaic
+apartment, an atmosphere of enchantment. All the pomp and splendor of
+high life, the wit, the refinements, the nameless graces and luxuries of
+courts, seemed to breathe in invisible airs around her, and she made a
+Faubourg St. Germain of the darkest room into which she entered. Mary
+thought, when she came in, that she had never seen anything so splendid.
+She was dressed in a black velvet riding-habit, buttoned to the throat
+with coral; her riding-hat drooped with its long plumes so as to cast a
+shadow over her animated face, out of which her dark eyes shone like
+jewels, and her pomegranate cheeks glowed with the rich shaded radiance
+of one of Rembrandt's pictures. Something quaint and foreign, something
+poetic and strange, marked each turn of her figure, each article of her
+dress, down to the sculptured hand on which glittered singular and
+costly rings,--and the riding-glove, embroidered with seed-pearls, that
+fell carelessly beside her on the floor.
+
+In Antwerp one sees a picture in which Rubens, who felt more than any
+other artist the glory of the physical life, has embodied his conception
+of the Madonna, in opposition to the faded, cold ideals of the Middle
+Ages, from which he revolted with such a bound. _His_ Mary is a superb
+Oriental sultana, with lustrous dark eyes, redundant form, jewelled
+turban, standing leaning on the balustrade of a princely terrace, and
+bearing on her hand, _not_ the silver dove, but a gorgeous paroquet. The
+two styles, in this instance, were both in the same room; and as Burr
+sat looking from one to the other, he felt, for a moment, as one would
+who should put a sketch of Overbeck's beside a splendid painting of
+Titian's.
+
+For a few moments, everything in the room seemed faded and cold, in
+contrast with the tropical atmosphere of this regal beauty. Burr watched
+Mary with a keen eye, to see if she were dazzled and overawed. He saw
+nothing but the most innocent surprise and delight. All the slumbering
+poetry within her seemed to awaken at the presence of her beautiful
+neighbor,--as when one, for the first time, stands before the great
+revelations of Art. Mary's cheek glowed, her eyes seemed to grow deep
+with the enthusiasm of admiration, and, after a few moments, it seemed
+as if her delicate face and figure reflected the glowing loveliness of
+her visitor, just as the virgin snows of the Alps become incarnadine as
+they stand opposite the glorious radiance of a sunset sky.
+
+Madame de Frontignac was accustomed to the effect of her charms; but
+there was so much love in the admiration now directed towards her, that
+her own warm, nature was touched, and she threw out the glow of her
+feelings with a magnetic power. Mary never felt the cold, habitual
+reserve of her education so suddenly melt, never felt herself so
+naturally falling into language of confidence and endearment with a
+stranger; and as her face, so delicate and spiritual, grew bright with
+love, Madame de Frontignac thought she had never seen anything so
+beautiful, and, stretching out her hands towards her, she exclaimed, in
+her own language,--
+
+"_Mais, mon Dieu! mon enfant, que tu es belle_!"
+
+Mary's deep blush, at her ignorance of the language in which her visitor
+spoke, recalled her to herself;--she laughed a clear, silvery laugh, and
+laid her jewelled little hand on Mary's with a caressing movement.
+
+"_He_ shall not teach you French, _ma toute belle_" she said, indicating
+the Abbe, by a pretty, wilful gesture; "_I_ will teach you;--and you
+shall teach me English. Oh, I shall try _so_ hard to learn!" she said.
+
+There was something inexpressibly pretty and quaint in the childish lisp
+with which she pronounced English. Mary was completely won over. She
+could have fallen into the arms of this wondrously beautiful fairy
+princess, expecting to be carried away by her to Dream-land.
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Scudder was gravely discoursing with Colonel Burr and M.
+de Frontignac; and the Abbe, a small and gentlemanly personage, with
+clear black eye, delicately-cut features, and powdered hair, appeared to
+be absorbed in his efforts to follow the current of a conversation
+imperfectly understood. Burr, the while, though seeming to be entirely
+and politely absorbed in the conversation he was conducting, lost not a
+glimpse of the picturesque aside which was being enacted between the two
+fair ones whom he had thus brought together. He smiled quietly when he
+saw the effect Madame de Frontignac produced on Mary.
+
+"After all, the child has flesh and blood!" he thought, "and may feel
+that there are more things in heaven and earth than she has dreamed of
+yet. A few French ideas won't hurt her."
+
+The arrangements about lessons being completed, the party returned to
+the carriage. Madame de Frontignac was enthusiastic in Mary's praise.
+
+"_Cependant_" she said, leaning back, thoughtfully, after having
+exhausted herself in superlatives,--"_cependant elle est devote,--et a
+dix-neuf comment cela se peut il_?"
+
+"It is the effect of her austere education," said Burr. "It is not
+possible for you to conceive how young people are trained in the
+religious families of this country."
+
+"But yet," said Madame, "it gives her a grace altogether peculiar;
+something in her looks went to my heart. I could find it very easy to
+love her, because she is really good."
+
+"The Queen of Hearts should know all that is possible in loving," said
+Burr.
+
+Somehow, of late, the compliments which fell so readily from those
+graceful lips had brought with them an unsatisfying pain. Until a woman
+really _loves_, flattery and compliment are often like her native air;
+but when that deeper feeling has once awakened in her, her instincts
+become marvellously acute to detect the false from the true. Madame de
+Frontignac longed for one strong, unguarded, real, earnest word from the
+man who had stolen from her her whole being. She was beginning to feel
+in some dim wise what an untold treasure she was daily giving for tinsel
+and dross. She leaned back in the carriage, with a restless, burning
+cheek, and wondered why she was born to be so miserable. The thought of
+Mary's saintly face and tender eyes rose before her as the moon rises on
+the eyes of some hot and fevered invalid, inspiring vague yearnings
+after an unknown, unattainable peace.
+
+Could some friendly power once have made her at that time clairvoyant
+and shown her the _reality_ of the man whom she was seeing through the
+prismatic glass of her own enkindled ideality! Could she have seen the
+calculating quietness in which, during the intervals of a restless and
+sleepless ambition, he played upon her heart-strings, as one uses a
+musical instrument to beguile a passing hour,--how his only
+embarrassment was the fear that the feelings he was pleased to excite
+might become too warm and too strong, while as yet his relations to her
+husband were such as to make it dangerous to arouse his jealousy! And if
+he could have seen that pure ideal conception of himself which alone
+gave him power in the heart of this woman,--that spotless, glorified
+image of a hero without fear, without reproach,--would he have felt a
+moment's shame and abasement at its utter falsehood?
+
+The poet says that the Evil Spirit stood abashed when he saw virtue in
+an angel form! How would a man, then, stand, who meets face to face his
+own glorified, spotless ideal, made living by the boundless faith of
+some believing heart? The best must needs lay his hand on his mouth at
+this apparition; but woe to him who feels no redeeming power in the
+sacredness of this believing dream,--who with calculating shrewdness
+_uses_ this most touching miracle of love only to corrupt and destroy
+the loving! For him there is no sacrifice for sin, no place for
+repentance. His very mother might shrink in her grave to have him laid
+beside her.
+
+Madame de Frontignac had the high, honorable nature of the old blood of
+France, and a touch of its romance. She was strung heroically, and
+educated according to the notions of her caste and church, purely and
+religiously. True it is, that one can scarcely call _that_ education
+which teaches woman everything except herself,--_except_ the things that
+relate to her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness
+of ignorance, sends her without one word of just counsel into the
+temptations of life. Incredible as it may seem, Virginie de Frontignac
+had never read a romance or work of fiction of which love was the
+staple; the _regime_ of the convent in this regard was inexorable; at
+eighteen she was more thoroughly a child than most American girls at
+thirteen. On entrance into life, she was at first so dazzled and
+bewildered by the mere contrast of fashionable excitement with the
+quietness of the scenes in which she had hitherto grown up, that she had
+no time for reading or thought,--all was one intoxicating frolic of
+existence, one dazzling, bewildering dream.
+
+He whose eye had measured her for his victim verified, if ever man did,
+the proverbial expression of the iron hand under the velvet glove. Under
+all his gentle suavities there was a fixed, inflexible will, a calm
+self-restraint, and a composed philosophical measurement of others, that
+fitted him to bear despotic rule over an impulsive, unguarded nature.
+The position, at once accorded to him, of her instructor in the English
+language and literature, gave him a thousand daily opportunities to
+touch and stimulate all that class of finer faculties, so restless and
+so perilous, and which a good man approaches always with certain awe. It
+is said that he once asserted that he never beguiled a woman who did not
+come half-way to meet him,--an observation much the same as a serpent
+might make in regard to his birds.
+
+The visit of the morning was followed by several others. Madame de
+Frontignac seemed to conceive for Mary one of those passionate
+attachments which women often conceive for anything fair and
+sympathizing, at those periods when their whole inner being is made
+vital by the approaches of a grand passion. It took only a few visits to
+make her as familiar as a child at the cottage; and the whole air of the
+Faubourg St. Germain seemed to melt away from her, as, with the
+pliability peculiar to her nation, she blended herself with the quiet
+pursuits of the family. Sometimes, in simple straw hat and white
+wrapper, she would lie down in the grass under the apple-trees, or join
+Mary in an expedition to the barn for hen's eggs, or a run along the
+sea-beach for shells; and her childish eagerness and delight on these
+occasions used to arouse the unqualified astonishment of Mrs. Katy
+Scudder.
+
+The Doctor she regarded with a _naive_ astonishment, slightly tinctured
+with apprehension. She knew he was very religious, and stretched her
+comprehension to imagine what he might be like. She thought of Bossuet's
+sermons walking about under a Protestant coat, and felt vaguely alarmed
+and sinful in his presence, as she used to when entering under the
+shadows of a cathedral. In her the religious sentiment, though vague,
+was strong. Nothing in the character of Burr had ever awakened so much
+disapprobation as his occasional sneers at religion. On such occasions
+she always reproved him with warmth, but excused him in her heart,
+because he was brought up a heretic. She held a special theological
+conversation with the Abbe, whether salvation were possible to one
+outside of the True Church,--and had added to her daily prayer a
+particular invocation to the Virgin for him.
+
+The French lessons, with her assistance, proceeded prosperously. She
+became an inmate in Mrs. Marvyn's family also. The brown-eyed, sensitive
+woman loved her as a new poem; she felt enchanted by her; and the
+prosaic details of her household seemed touched to poetic life by her
+innocent interest and admiration. The young Madame insisted on being
+taught to spin at the great wheel; and a very pretty picture she made of
+it, too, with her earnest gravity of endeavor, her deepening cheek, her
+graceful form, with some strange foreign scarf or jewelry waving and
+flashing in odd contrast with her work.
+
+"Do you know," she said, one day, while thus employed in the north room
+at Mrs. Marvyn's,--"do you know Burr told me that princesses used to
+spin? He read me a beautiful story from the 'Odyssey,' about how
+Penelope cheated her lovers with her spinning, while she was waiting for
+her husband to come home;--_he_ was gone to sea, Mary,--her _true_
+love,--you understand."
+
+She turned on Mary a wicked glance, so full of intelligence that the
+snowdrop grew red as the inside of a sea-shell.
+
+"_Mon enfant_! thou hast a thought _deep in here_!" she said to Mary,
+one day, as they sat together in the grass under the apple-trees.
+
+"Why, what?" said Mary, with a startled and guilty look.
+
+"Why, what? _petite_!" said the fairy princess, whimsically mimicking
+her accent. "_Ah! ah! ma belle_! you think I have no eyes;--Virginie
+sees deep in here!" she said, laying her hand playfully on Mary's heart.
+"_Ah, petite_!" she said, gravely, and almost sorrowfully, "if you love
+him, wait for him,--_don't marry another_. It is dreadful not to have
+one's heart go with one's duty."
+
+"I shall never marry anybody," said Mary.
+
+"Nevare marrie anybodie!" said the lady, imitating her accents in tones
+much like those of a bobolink. "Ah! ah! my little saint, you cannot
+always live on nothing but the prayers, though prayers are verie good.
+But, _ma chere_," she added, in a low tone, "don't you ever marry that
+good man in there; priests should not marry."
+
+"Ours are not priests,--they are ministers," said Mary. "But why do you
+speak of him?--he is like my father."
+
+"Virginie sees something!" said the lady, shaking her head gravely; "she
+sees he loves little Mary."
+
+"Of course he does!"
+
+"Of-course-he-does?--ah, yes; and by-and-by comes the mamma, and she
+takes this little hand, and she says, 'Come, Mary!' and then she gives
+it to him; and then the poor _jeune homme_, when he comes back, finds
+not a bird in his poor little nest. _Oh, c'est ennuyeux cela_!" she
+said, throwing herself back in the grass till the clover-heads and
+buttercups closed over her.
+
+"I do assure you, dear Madame!"--
+
+"I do assure you, dear Mary, _Virginie knows_. So lock up her words in
+your little heart; you will want them some day."
+
+There was a pause of some moments, while the lady was watching the
+course of a cricket through the clover. At last, lifting her head, she
+spoke very gravely,--
+
+"My little cat! it is _dreadful_ to be married to a good man, and want
+to be good, and want to love him, and yet never like to have him take
+your hand, and be more glad when he is away than when he is at home; and
+then to think how different it would all be, if it was only somebody
+else. That will be the way with you, if you let them lead you into this;
+so don't you do it, _mon enfant_."
+
+A thought seemed to cross Mary's mind, as she turned to Madame de
+Frontignac, and said, earnestly,--
+
+"If a good man were my husband, I would never think of another,--I
+wouldn't let myself."
+
+"How could you help it, _mignonne_? Can you stop your thinking?"
+
+Mary said, after a moment's blush,--
+
+"I can _try_!"
+
+"Ah, yes! But to try all one's life,--oh, Mary, that is too hard! Never
+do it, darling!"
+
+And then Madame de Frontignac broke out into a carolling little French
+song, which started all the birds around into a general orchestral
+accompaniment.
+
+This conversation occurred just before Madame de Frontignac started for
+Philadelphia, whither her husband had been summoned as an agent in some
+of the ambitious intrigues of Burr.
+
+It was with a sigh of regret that she parted from her friends at the
+cottage. She made them a hasty good-bye call,--alighting from a splendid
+barouche with two white horses, and filling their simple best-room with
+the light of her presence for a last half-hour. When she bade good-bye
+to Mary, she folded her warmly to her heart, and her long lashes drooped
+heavily with tears.
+
+After her absence, the lessons were still pursued with the gentle, quiet
+little Abbe, who seemed the most patient and assiduous of teachers; but,
+in both houses, there was that vague _ennui_, that sense of want, which
+follows the fading of one of life's beautiful dreams! We bid her adieu
+for a season;--we may see her again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The summer passed over the cottage, noiselessly, as our summers pass.
+There were white clouds walking in saintly troops over blue mirrors of
+sea,--there were purple mornings, choral with bird-singing,--there were
+golden evenings, with long, eastward shadows. Apple-blossoms died
+quietly in the deep orchard grass, and tiny apples waxed and rounded and
+ripened and gained stripes of gold and carmine; and the blue eggs broke
+into young robins, that grew from gaping, yellow-mouthed youth to
+fledged and outflying maturity. Came autumn, with its long Indian
+summer, and winter, with its flinty, sparkling snows, under which all
+Nature lay a sealed and beautiful corpse. Came once more the spring
+winds, the lengthening days, the opening flowers, and the ever-renewing
+miracle of buds and blossoms on the apple-trees around the cottage. A
+year had passed since the June afternoon when first we showed you Mary
+standing under the spotty shadows of the tree, with the white dove on
+her hand--a year in which not many outward changes have been made in the
+relations of the actors of our story.
+
+Mary calmly spun and read and thought; now and then composing with care
+very English-French letters, to be sent to Philadelphia to Madame de
+Frontignac, and receiving short missives of very French-English in
+return.
+
+The cautions of Madame, in regard to the Doctor, had not rippled the
+current of their calm, confiding intercourse; and the Doctor, so very
+satisfied and happy in her constant society and affection, scarcely as
+yet meditated distinctly that he needed to draw her more closely to
+himself. If he had a passage to read, a page to be copied, a thought to
+express, was she not ever there, gentle, patient, unselfish? and scarce
+by the absence of a day did she let him perceive that his need of her
+was becoming so absolute that his hold on her must needs be made
+permanent.
+
+As to his salary and temporal concerns, they had suffered somewhat for
+his unpopular warfare with reigning sins,--a fact which had rather
+reconciled Mrs. Scudder to the dilatory movement of her cherished hopes.
+Since James was gone, what need to press imprudently to new
+arrangements? Better give the little heart time to grow over before
+starting a subject which a certain womanly instinct told her might be
+met with a struggle. Somehow she never thought without a certain
+heart-sinking of Mary's look and tone the night she spoke with her about
+James; she had an awful presentiment that that tone of voice belonged to
+the things that cannot be shaken. But yet, Mary seemed so even, so
+quiet, her delicate form filled out and rounded so beautifully, and she
+sang so cheerfully at her work, and, above all, she was so entirely
+silent about James, that Mrs. Scudder had hope.
+
+Ah, that silence! Do not listen to hear whom a woman praises, to know
+where her heart is! do not ask for whom she expresses the most earnest
+enthusiasm! but if there be one she once knew well, whose name she never
+speaks,--if she seem to have an instinct to avoid every occasion of its
+mention,--if, when you speak, she drops into silence and changes the
+subject,--why, look there for something! just as, when going through
+deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may
+know her nest is not there, but far off, under distant tufts of fern and
+buttercup, through which she has crept with a silent flutter in her
+spotted breast, to act her pretty little falsehood before you.
+
+Poor Mary's little nest was along the sedgy margin of the sea-shore,
+where grow the tufts of golden-rod, where wave the reeds, where crimson,
+green, and purple sea-weeds float up, like torn fringes of Nereid
+vestures, and gold and silver shells lie on the wet wrinkles of the
+sands.
+
+The sea had become to her like a friend, with its ever-varying monotony.
+Somehow she loved this old, fresh, blue, babbling, restless giant, who
+had carried away her heart's love to hide him in some far-off palmy
+island, such as she had often heard him tell of in his sea-romances.
+Sometimes she would wander out for an afternoon's stroll on the rocks,
+and pause by the great spouting cave, now famous to Newport
+_dilettanti_, but then a sacred and impressive solitude. There the
+rising tide bursts with deafening strokes through a narrow opening into
+some inner cavern, which, with a deep thunder-boom, like the voice of an
+angry lion, casts it back in a high jet of foam into the sea.
+
+Mary often sat and listened to this hollow noise, and watched the
+ever-rising columns of spray as they reddened with the transpiercing
+beams of the afternoon sun; and thence her eye travelled far, far off
+over the shimmering starry blue, where sails looked no bigger than
+miller's wings; and it seemed sometimes as if a door were opening by
+which her soul might go out into some eternity,--some abyss, so wide and
+deep, that fathomless lines of thought could not sound it. She was no
+longer a girl in a mortal body, but an infinite spirit, the adoring
+companion of Infinite Beauty and Infinite Love.
+
+As there was an hour when the fishermen of Galilee saw their Master
+transfigured, his raiment white and glistening, and his face like the
+light, so are there hours when our whole mortal life stands forth in a
+celestial radiance. From our daily lot falls off every weed of
+care,--from our heart-friends every speck and stain of earthly
+infirmity. Our horizon widens, and blue, and amethyst, and gold touch
+every object. Absent friends and friends gone on the last long journey
+stand once more together, bright with an immortal glow, and, like the
+disciples who saw their Master floating in the clouds above them, we
+say, "Lord, it is good to be here!" How fair the wife, the husband, the
+absent mother, the gray-haired father, the manly son, the bright-eyed
+daughter! Seen in the actual present, all have some fault, some flaw;
+but absent, we see them in their permanent and better selves. Of our
+distant home we remember not one dark day, not one servile care, nothing
+but the echo of its holy hymns and the radiance of its brightest
+days,--of our father, not one hasty word, but only the fulness of his
+manly vigor and noble tenderness,--of our mother, nothing of mortal
+weakness, but a glorified form of love,--of our brother, not one
+teasing, provoking word of brotherly freedom, but the proud beauty of
+his noblest hours,--of our sister, our child, only what is fairest and
+sweetest.
+
+This is to life the true ideal, the calm glass, wherein looking, we
+shall see, that, whatever defects cling to us, they are not, after all,
+permanent, and that we are tending to something nobler than we yet
+are;--it is "the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the
+purchased possession." In the resurrection we shall see our friends
+forever as we see them in these clairvoyant hours.
+
+We are writing thus on and on, linking image and thought and feeling,
+and lingering over every flower, and listening to every bird, because
+just before us there lies a dark valley, and we shrink and tremble to
+enter it.
+
+But it _must_ come, and why do we delay?
+
+
+Towards evening, one afternoon in the latter part of June, Mary returned
+from one of these lonely walks by the sea, and entered the kitchen. It
+was still in its calm and sober cleanness;--the tall clock ticked with a
+startling distinctness. From the half-closed door of her mother's
+bedroom, which stood ajar, she heard the chipper of Miss Prissy's voice.
+She stayed her light footsteps, and the words that fell on her ear were
+these:--
+
+"Miss Marvyn fainted dead away;--she stood it till he came to _that_;
+but then she just clapped both hands together, as if she'd been shot,
+and fell right forward on the floor in a faint!"
+
+What could this be? There was a quick, intense whirl of thoughts in
+Mary's mind, and then came one of those awful moments when the powers of
+life seem to make a dead pause and all things stand still; and then all
+seemed to fail under her, and the life to sink down, down, down, till
+nothing was but one dim, vague, miserable consciousness.
+
+Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy were sitting, talking earnestly, on the
+foot of the bed, when the door opened noiselessly, and Mary glided to
+them like a spirit,--no color in check or lip,--her blue eyes wide with
+calm horror; and laying her little hand, with a nervous grasp, on Miss
+Prissy's arm, she said,--
+
+"Tell me,--what is it?--is it?--is he--dead?"
+
+The two women looked at each other, and then Mrs. Scudder opened her
+arms.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+"Oh! mother! mother!"
+
+Then fell that long, hopeless silence, broken only by hysteric sobs from
+Miss Prissy, and answering ones from the mother; but _she_ lay still and
+quiet, her blue eyes wide and clear, making an inarticulate moan.
+
+"Oh! are they _sure_?--_can_ it be?--_is_ he dead?" at last she gasped.
+
+"My child, it is too true; all we can say is, 'Be still, and know that I
+am God!'"
+
+"I shall _try_ to be still, mother," said Mary, with a piteous, hopeless
+voice, like the bleat of a dying lamb; "but I did not think he _could_
+die! I never thought of that!--I never _thought_ of it!--Oh! mother!
+mother! mother! oh! what shall I do?"
+
+They laid her on her mother's bed,--the first and last resting-place of
+broken hearts,--and the mother sat down by her in silence. Miss Prissy
+stole away into the Doctor's study, and told him all that had happened.
+
+"It's the same to her," said Miss Prissy, with womanly reserve, "as if
+he'd been an own brother."
+
+"What was his spiritual state?" said the Doctor, musingly.
+
+Miss Prissy looked blank, and answered mournfully,--
+
+"I don't know."
+
+The Doctor entered the room where Mary was lying with closed eyes. Those
+few moments seemed to have done the work of years,--so pale, and faded,
+and sunken she looked; nothing but the painful flutter of the eyelids
+and lips showed that she yet breathed. At a sign from Mrs. Scudder, he
+kneeled by the bed, and began to pray,--"Lord, thou hast been our
+dwelling-place in all generations,"--prayer deep, mournful, upheaving
+like the swell of the ocean, surging upward, under the pressure of
+mighty sorrows, towards an Almighty heart.
+
+The truly good are of one language in prayer. Whatever lines or angles
+of thought may separate them in other hours, _when they pray in
+extremity_, all good men pray alike. The Emperor Charles V. and Martin
+Luther, two great generals of opposite faiths, breathed out their dying
+struggle in the self-same words.
+
+There be many tongues and many languages of men,--but the language of
+prayer is one by itself, _in_ all and _above_ all. It is the inspiration
+of that Spirit that is ever working with our spirit, and constantly
+lifting us higher than we know, and, by our wants, by our woes, by our
+tears, by our yearnings, by our poverty, urging us, with mightier and
+mightier force, against those chains of sin which keep us from our God.
+We speak not of _things_ conventionally called prayers,--vain mutterings
+of unawakened spirits talking drowsily in sleep,--but of such prayers as
+come when flesh and heart fail, in mighty straits;--_then_ he who prays
+is a prophet, and a Mightier than he speaks in him; for the "_Spirit_
+helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we
+ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings
+which cannot be uttered."
+
+So the voice of supplication, upheaving from that great heart, so
+childlike in its humility, rose with a wisdom and a pathos beyond what
+he dreamed in his intellectual hours; it uprose even as a strong angel,
+whose brow is solemnly calm, and whose wings shed healing dews of
+paradise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The next day broke calm and fair. The robins sang remorselessly in the
+apple-tree, and were answered by bobolink, oriole, and a whole tribe of
+ignorant little bits of feathered happiness that danced among the
+leaves. Golden and glorious unclosed those purple eyelids of the East,
+and regally came up the sun; and the treacherous sea broke into ten
+thousand smiles, laughing and dancing with every ripple, as
+unconsciously as if no form dear to human hearts had gone down beneath
+it. Oh! treacherous, deceiving beauty of outward things! beauty, wherein
+throbs not one answering nerve to human pain!
+
+Mary rose early and was about her morning work. Her education was that
+of the soldier, who must know himself no more, whom no personal pain
+must swerve from the slightest minutiae of duty. So she was there, at
+her usual hour, dressed with the same cool neatness, her brown hair
+parted in satin bands, and only the colorless cheek and lip differing
+from the Mary of yesterday.
+
+How strange this external habit of living! One thinks how to stick in a
+pin, and how to tie a string,--one busies one's self with folding robes,
+and putting away napkins, the day after some stroke that has cut the
+inner life in two, with the heart's blood dropping quietly at every
+step.
+
+Yet it is better so! Happy those whom stern principle or long habit or
+hard necessity calls from the darkened room, the languid trance of pain,
+in which the wearied heart longs to indulge, and gives this trite prose
+of common life, at which our weak and wearied appetites so revolt! Mary
+never thought of such a thing as self-indulgence;--this daughter of the
+Puritans had her seed within her. Aerial in her delicacy, as the
+blue-eyed flax-flower with which they sowed their fields, she had yet
+its strong fibre, which no stroke of the flail could break; bruising and
+hackling only made it fitter for uses of homely utility. Mary,
+therefore, opened the kitchen-door at dawn, and, after standing one
+moment to breathe the freshness, began spreading the cloth for an early
+breakfast. Mrs. Scudder, the mean while, was kneading the bread that had
+been set to rise over-night; and the oven was crackling and roaring with
+a large-throated, honest garrulousness.
+
+But, ever and anon, as the mother worked, she followed the motions of
+her child anxiously.
+
+"Mary, my dear," she said, "the eggs are giving out; hadn't you better
+run to the barn and get a few?"
+
+Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. No treatise on the laws of
+nervous fluids could have taught Mrs. Scudder a better _role_ for this
+morning, than her tender gravity, and her constant expedients to break
+and ripple, by changing employments, that deep, deadly under-current of
+thoughts which she feared might undermine her child's life.
+
+Mary went into the barn, stopped a moment, and took out a handful of
+corn to throw to her hens, who had a habit of running towards her and
+cocking an expectant eye to her little hand, whenever she appeared. All
+came at once flying towards her,--speckled, white, and gleamy with hues
+between of tawny orange-gold,--the cocks, magnificent with the bladelike
+waving of their tails,--and, as they chattered and cackled and pressed
+and crowded about her, pecking the corn, even where it lodged in the
+edge of her little shoes, she said, "Poor things, I am glad they enjoy
+it!"--and even this one little act of love to the ignorant fellowship
+below her carried away some of the choking pain which seemed all the
+while suffocating her heart. Then, climbing into the hay, she sought the
+nest and filled her little basket with eggs, warm, translucent,
+pinky-white in their freshness. She felt, for a moment, the customary
+animation in surveying her new treasures; but suddenly, like a vision
+rising before her, came a remembrance of once when she and James were
+children together and had been seeking eggs just there. He flashed
+before her eyes, the bright boy with the long black lashes, the dimpled
+cheeks, the merry eyes, just as he stood and threw the hay over her when
+they tumbled and laughed together,--and she sat down with a sick
+faintness, and then turned and walked wearily in.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+ROBA DI ROMA.
+
+
+[Continued.]
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+BEGGARS IN ROME.
+
+
+Directly above the Piazza di Spagna and opposite to the Via di Condotti,
+rise the double towers of the Trinita de' Monti. The ascent to them is
+over one hundred and thirty-five steps, planned with considerable skill,
+so as to mask the steepness of the Pincian, and forming the chief
+feature of the Piazza. Various landings and dividing walls break up
+their monotony; and a red granite obelisk, found in the gardens of
+Sallust, crowns the upper terrace in front of the church. All day long,
+these steps are flooded with sunshine, in which, stretched at length, or
+gathered in picturesque groups, models of every age and both sexes bask
+away the hours when they are free from employment in the studios. Here,
+in a rusty old coat and long white beard and hair, is the _Padre
+Eterno_, so called from his constantly standing as model for the First
+Person of the Trinity in religious pictures. Here is the ferocious
+bandit, with his thick black beard and conical hat, now off duty, and
+sitting with his legs wide apart, munching in alternate bites an onion,
+which he holds in one hand, and a lump of bread, which he holds in the
+other. Here is the _contadina_, who is always praying at a shrine with
+upcast eyes, or lifting to the Virgin the little child, among whose dark
+curls, now lying tangled in her lap, she is on a vigorous hunt for the
+animal whose name denotes love. Here is the invariable pilgrim, with his
+scallop-shell, who has been journeying to St. Peter's and reposing by
+the way near aqueducts or broken columns so long that the memory of man
+runneth not to the contrary, and who is now fast asleep on his back,
+with his hat pulled over his eyes. When the _forestieri_ come along, the
+little ones run up and thrust out their hands for _baiocchi_; and so
+pretty are they, with their large, black, lustrous eyes, and their
+quaint, gay dresses, that new comers always find something in their
+pockets for them. Sometimes a group of artists, passing by, will pause
+and steadily examine one of these models, turn him about, pose him,
+point out his defects and excellences, give him a _baiocco_, and pass
+on. It is, in fact, the model's exchange. [Footnote: During this last
+winter, the government have prohibited the models, for I know not what
+reason, from gathering upon these steps; and they now congregate at the
+corner of the Via Sistina and Capo le Case, near the Pizzicheria, from
+which they supply themselves with groceries.]
+
+All this is on the lower steps, close to the Piazza di Spagna; but as
+one ascends to the last platform, before reaching the upper piazza in
+front of the Trinita de' Monti, a curious squat figure, with two
+withered and crumpled legs, spread out at right angles and clothed in
+long stockings, comes shuffling along on his knees and hands, which are
+protected by clogs. As it approaches, it turns suddenly up from its
+quadrupedal position, takes off its hat, shows a broad, stout, legless
+_torso_, with a vigorous chest and a ruddy face, as of a person who has
+come half-way up from below the steps through a trap-door, and with a
+smile whose breadth is equalled only by the cunning which lurks round
+the corners of the eyes, says, in the blandest and most patronizing
+tones, with a rising inflection, "_Buon giorno, Signore! Oggi fa bel
+tempo_," or "_fa cattivo tempo_," as the case may be. This is no less a
+person than Beppo, King of the Beggars, and permanent bore of the Scale
+di Spagna. He is better known to travellers than the Belvedere Torso of
+Hercules at the Vatican, and has all the advantage over that wonderful
+work, of having an admirable head and a good digestion. Hans Christian
+Andersen has celebrated him in "The Improvvisatore," and unfairly
+attributed to him an infamous character and life; but this account is
+purely fictitious, and is neither _vero_ nor _ben trovato_. Beppo, like
+other distinguished personages, is not without a history. The Romans say
+of him, "_Era un Signore in paese suo_"--"He was a gentleman in his own
+country,"--and this belief is borne out by a certain courtesy and style
+in his bearing which would not shame the first gentleman in the land. He
+was undoubtedly of a good family in the provinces, and came to Rome,
+while yet young, to seek his fortune. His crippled condition cut him off
+from any active employment, and he adopted the profession of a
+mendicant, as being the most lucrative and requiring the least exertion.
+Remembering Belisarius, he probably thought it not beneath his own
+dignity to ask for an _obolus_. Should he be above doing what a general
+had done? However this may be, he certainly became a mendicant, after
+changing his name,--and, steadily pursuing this profession for more than
+a quarter of a century, by dint of his fair words, his bland smiles, and
+his constant "_Fa buon tempo_" and "_Fa cattivo tempo_," which, together
+with his withered legs, were his sole stock in starting, he has finally
+amassed a very respectable little fortune. He is now about fifty-five
+years of age, has a wife and several children; and a few years ago, on
+the marriage of a daughter to a very respectable tradesman, he was able
+to give her what was considered in Rome a more than respectable dowry.
+The other day, a friend of mine met a tradesman of his acquaintance
+running up the Spanish steps.
+
+"_Dove andate in una tanta affretta?_" he inquired.
+
+"_Al Banchiere mio._"
+
+"_Al Banchiere? Ma quale Banchiere sta in su le scale?_"
+
+"_Ma Beppo_," was the grave answer. "_Ho bisogna di sessanta scudi, e
+lui mele prestera senza difficolta._"
+
+"_Da vero?_" said my friend.
+
+"_Eh sicuro, come gli pare_," said the other, as he went on to his
+banker. [Footnote: "Where are you going in such haste?"]
+
+"To my banker."
+
+"To your banker? But what banker is there above the steps?"
+
+"Only Beppo. I want sixty _scudi_, and he can lend them to ma without
+difficulty."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Beppo hires his bank--which is the upper platform of the steps--of the
+government, at a small rent _per annum_; and woe to any poor devil of
+his profession who dares to invade his premises! Hither, every fair day,
+at about noon, he comes mounted on his donkey and accompanied by his
+valet, a little boy, who, though not lame exactly, wears a couple of
+crutches as a sort of livery,--and as soon as twilight begins to thicken
+and the sun is gone, he closes his bank, (it is purely a bank of
+deposit,) crawls up the steps, mounts a stone post, and there
+majestically waits for his valet to bring the donkey. But he no more
+solicits deposits. His day is done; his bank is closed; and from his
+post he looks around, with a patronizing superiority, upon the poorer
+members of his profession, who are soliciting, with small success, the
+various passers by, as a king smiles down upon his subjects. The donkey
+being brought, he shuffles on to its crupper and makes a joyous and
+triumphant passage down through the streets of the city to his home. The
+bland business smile is gone. The wheedling subserviency of the day is
+over. The cunning eye opens largely. He is calm, dignified, and
+self-possessed. He mentions no more the state of the weather. What's
+Hecuba to him, at this free moment of his return? It is the large style
+in which all this is done that convinces me that Beppo was a "_Signore
+in paese suo_." He has a bank, and so has Sir Francis Baring. What of
+that? He is a gentleman still. The robber knights and barons demanded
+toll of those who passed their castles, with violence and threats, and
+at the bloody point of their swords. Whoso passes Beppo's castle is
+prayed in courtesy to leave a remembrance, and receives the blandest bow
+and thanks in return. Shall we, then, say, the former are nobles and
+gentlemen,--the other is a miserable beggar? Is it worse to ask than to
+seize? Is it meaner to thank than to threaten? If he who is supported by
+the public is a beggar, our kings are beggars, our pensions are charity.
+Did not the Princess Royal hold out her hand, the other day, to the
+House of Commons? and does any one think the worse of her for it? We are
+all, in measure, beggars; but Beppo, in the large style of kings and
+robber-barons, asks for his _baiocco_, and, like the merchant-princes,
+keeps his bank. I see dukes and _guardie nobili_, in shining helmets,
+spurs, and gigantic boots, ride daily through the streets on horseback,
+and hurry to their palaces; but Beppo, erectly mounted on his donkey in
+his short-jacket, (for he disdains the tailored skirts of a fashionable
+coat, though at times over his broad shoulders a great blue cloak is
+grandly thrown, after the manner of the ancient emperors,) is far more
+impressive, far more princely, as he slowly and majestically moves at
+nightfall towards his august abode. The shadows close around him as he
+passes along; salutations greet him from the damp shops; and darkness at
+last swallows up for a time the great square _torso_ of the "King of the
+Beggars."
+
+Begging, in Rome, is as much a profession as praying and shop-keeping.
+Happy is he who is born _stroppiato_, with a withered limb, or to whom
+Fortune sends the present of a hideous accident or malady; it is a stock
+to set up trade upon. St. Vitus's dance is worth its hundreds of _scudi_
+annually; epileptic fits are also a prize; and a distorted leg and
+hare-lip have a considerable market value. Thenceforth the creature who
+has the luck to have them is absolved from labor. He stands or lies in
+the sun, or wanders through the Piazza, and sings his whining,
+lamentable strophe of, "_Signore, povero stroppiato, datemi qualche cosa
+per amor di Dio!_"--and when the _baiocco_ falls into his hat, like ripe
+fruit from the tree of the stranger, he chants the antistrophe, "_Dio la
+benedica, la Madonna e tutti santi!_" [Footnote: Signore, a poor
+cripple; "give me something, for the love of God!--May God bless you,
+the Madonna, and all the saints!"] No refusal but one does he recognize
+as final,--and that is given, not by word of mouth, but by elevating the
+fore-finger of the right hand, and slowly wagging it to and fro. When
+this finger goes up he resigns all hope, as those who pass the gate of
+the Inferno, replaces his hat and lapses into silence, or turns away to
+some new group of sunny-haired foreigners. The recipe to avoid beggars
+is, to be black-haired, to wear a full beard, to smoke in the streets,
+speak only Italian, and shake the fore-finger of the right hand when
+besieged for charity. Let it not be supposed from this that the Romans
+give nothing to the beggars, but pass them by on the other side. This is
+quite a mistake. On the contrary, they give more than the foreigners;
+and the poorest class, out of their little, will always find something
+to drop into their hats for charity.
+
+The ingenuity which the beggars sometimes display in asking for alms is
+often humoristic and satirical. Many a woman on the cold side of thirty
+is wheedled out of a _baiocco_ by being addressed as _Signorina._ Many a
+half-suppressed exclamation of admiration, or a prefix of _Bella_,
+softens the hearts of those to whom compliments on their beauty come
+rarely. The other day, as I came out of the city gate of Siena, a ragged
+wretch, sitting, with one stump of a leg thrust obtrusively forward, in
+the dust of the road, called out, "_Una buona passeggiata, Signorino
+mio!_" (and this although my little girl, of thirteen years, accompanied
+me.) Seeing, however, that I was too old a bird for that chaff, he
+immediately added, "_Ma prima pensi alia conservazione dell' anima
+sua._" [Footnote: "A pleasant walk, young gentleman!"--"But first pay
+heed to the salvation of your soul."] A great many _baiocchi_ are also
+caught, from green travellers of the middle class, by the titles which
+are lavishly squandered by these poor fellows. _Illustrissimo,
+Eccellenza, Altezza_, will sometimes open the purse, when plain
+"_Mosshoe_" will not.
+
+The profession of a beggar is by no means an unprofitable one. A great
+many drops finally make a stream. The cost of living is almost nothing
+to them, and they frequently lay up money enough to make themselves very
+comfortable in their old age. A Roman friend of mine, Conte C., speaking
+of them one day, told me this illustrative anecdote:--
+
+"I had occasion," he said, "a few years ago, to reduce my family," (the
+servants are called, in Rome, the family,) "and having no need of the
+services of one under-servant, named Pietro, I dismissed him. About a
+year after, as I was returning to my house, after nightfall, I was
+solicited by a beggar, who whiningly asked me for charity. There was
+something in the voice which struck me as familiar, and, turning round
+to examine the man more closely, I found it was my old servant, Pietro.
+'Is that you, Pietro?' I said; 'you begging here in the streets! what
+has brought you to this wretched trade?' He gave me, however, no very
+clear account of himself, but evidently desired to avoid me when he
+recognized who I was. But, shocked to find him in so pitiable a
+condition, I pressed my questions, and finally told him I could not bear
+to see any one who had been in my service reduced to beggary; and though
+I had no actual need of his services, yet, rather than see him thus, he
+might return to his old position as servant in my house, and be paid the
+same wages as he had before. He hesitated, was much embarrassed, and,
+after a pause, said,--'A thousand thanks, your Excellency, for your
+kindness; but I cannot accept your proposal, because, to tell you the
+truth, I make more money by this trade of begging.'"
+
+But though the beggars often lay by considerable sums of money, so that
+they might, if they chose, live with a certain degree of comfort, yet
+they cannot leave off the habit of begging after having indulged it for
+many years. They get to be avaricious, and cannot bring their minds to
+spend the money they have. The other day, an old beggar, who used to
+frequent the steps of the Gesu, when about to die, ordered the hem of
+her garment to be ripped up, saying that there was money in it. In fact,
+about a thousand _scudi_ were found there, three hundred of which she
+ordered to be laid out upon her funeral, and the remainder to be
+appropriated to masses for her soul. This was accordingly done, and her
+squalid life ended in a pompous procession to the grave.
+
+The great holidays of the beggars are the country _festas_. Thronging
+out of the city, they spread along the highways, and drag, drive, roll,
+shuffle, hobble, as they can, towards the festive little town.
+Everywhere along the road they are to be met,--perched on a rock, seated
+on a bank, squatted beneath a wall or hedge, and screaming, with
+outstretched hand, from the moment a carriage comes in sight until it is
+utterly passed by. As one approaches the town where the _festa_ is held,
+they grow thicker and thicker. They crop up along the road like
+toadstools. They hold up every hideous kind of withered arm, distorted
+leg, and unsightly stump. They glare at you out of horrible eyes, that
+look like cranberries. You are requested to look at horrors, all without
+a name, and too terrible to be seen. All their accomplishments are also
+brought out. They fall into improvised fits; they shake with sudden
+palsies; and all the while keep up a chorus, half whine, half scream,
+which suffers you to listen to nothing else. It is hopeless to attempt
+to buy them all off, for they are legion in number, and to pay one
+doubles the chorus of the others. The clever scamps, too, show the
+utmost skill in selecting their places of attack. Wherever there is a
+sudden rise in the road, or any obstacle which will reduce the gait of
+the horses to a walk, there is sure to be a beggar. But do not imagine
+that he relies on his own powers of scream and hideousness alone,--not
+he! He has a friend, an ambassador, to recommend him to your notice, and
+to expatiate on his misfortunes. Though he himself can scarcely move,
+his friend, who is often a little ragged boy or girl, light of weight
+and made for a chase, pursues the carriage and prolongs the whine,
+repeating, with a mechanical iteration, "_Signore! Signore! datemi
+qualche cosa, Signore!_" until his legs, breath, and resolution give out
+at last; or, what is still commoner, your patience is wearied out or
+your sympathy touched, and you are glad to purchase the blessing of
+silence for the small sum of a _baiocco_. When his whining fails, he
+tries to amuse you; and often resorts to the oddest freaks to attract
+your notice. Sometimes the little rascal flings himself heels over head
+into the dust, and executes somersets without number, as if they had
+some hidden influence on the sentiment of compassion. Then, running by
+the side of the carriage, he will play upon his lips with both hands,
+making a rattling noise, to excite your curiosity. If you laugh, you are
+lost, and he knows it.
+
+As you reach the gates of the town, the row becomes furious. There are
+scores of beggars on either side the road, screaming in chorus. No
+matter how far the town be from the city, there is not a wretched,
+maimed cripple of your acquaintance, not one of the old stumps who have
+dodged you round a Roman corner, not a ragged baron who has levied toll
+for passage through the public squares, a privileged robber who has shut
+up for you a pleasant street or waylaid you at an interesting church,
+but he is sure to be there. How they got there is as inexplicable as how
+the apples got into the dumplings in Peter Pindar's poem. But at the
+first ring of a _festa_-bell, they start up from under ground, (those
+who are legless getting only half-way up,) like Roderick Dhu's men, and
+level their crutches at you as the others did their arrows. An English
+lady, a short time since, after wintering at Rome, went to take the
+baths at Siena in the summer. On going out for a walk, on the first
+morning after her arrival, whom should she meet but King Beppo, whom she
+had just left in Rome! He had come with the rest of the nobility for
+recreation and bathing, and of course had brought his profession with
+him.
+
+Owing to a great variety of causes, the number of beggars in Rome is
+very large. They grow here as noxious weeds in a hot-bed. The government
+neither favors commerce nor stimulates industry. Its policy is averse to
+change of any kind, even though it be for the development of its own
+resources or of the energies of the people. The Church is Brahmanic,
+contemplating only its own navel. Its influence is specially restrictive
+in Rome, because it is also the State there. It restrains not only
+trade, but education; it conserves exploded ideas and usages; it prefers
+not to grow, and looks with abhorrence upon change.
+
+Literature may be said to be dead in Rome. There is not only no free
+press there, but no press at all. The "Diario Romano" contains about as
+much news as the "Acta Diurna" of the ancient Romans, and perhaps less.
+I doubt whether at present such facts as those given by Petronius, in an
+extract from the latter, would now be permitted to be published.
+However, we know that Augustus prohibited the "Acta Diurna,"--and the
+"Diario Romano" exists still; so that some progress has been made. And
+it must be confessed that Tuscany is scarcely in advance of Rome in this
+respect; and Naples is behind both. Even the introduction of foreign
+works is so strictly watched and the censorship so severe, that few
+liberal books pass the cordon. The arguments in favor of a censorship
+are very plain, but not very conclusive. The more compressed the
+energies and desires of a people, the more danger of their bursting into
+revolution. There is no safety-valve to passions and desires like the
+utterance of them,--no better corrective to false ideas than the free
+expression of them. Freedom of thought can never be suppressed, and
+ideas kept too long pent up in the bosom, when heated by some sudden
+crisis of passion, will explode into license and fury. Let me put a
+column from Milton here into my own weak plaster; the words are well
+known, but cannot be too well known. "Though all the winds of doctrine,"
+he says, "were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the
+field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her
+strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the
+worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest
+suppressing." Here in Rome genius rots. The saddest words I almost ever
+heard were from a young Italian of ability and _esprit_.
+
+"Why," said I, in conversation with him, one day, "do you not devote
+your talents to some worthy object, instead of frittering them away in
+dancing, chatting, fencing, and morning-calls?"
+
+"What would you have me do?" he answered.
+
+"Devote yourself to some course of study. Write something."
+
+"_Mio caro_" was his reply, "it is useless. How can I write what I
+think? How can I publish what I write? I have now manuscript works begun
+in my desk, which it would be better to burn. Our only way to be happy
+is to be idle and ignorant. The more we know, the unhappier we must be.
+There is but one avenue for ambition,--the Church. I was not made for
+that."
+
+This restrictive policy of the Church makes itself felt everywhere, high
+and low; and by long habit the people have become indolent and supine.
+The splendid robes of ecclesiastical Rome have a draggled fringe of
+beggary and vice. What a change there might be, if the energies of the
+Italians, instead of rotting in idleness, could have a free scope!
+Industry is the only purification of a nation; and as the fertile and
+luxuriant Campagna stagnates into malaria, because of its want of
+ventilation and movement, so does this grand and noble people. The
+government makes what use it can, however, of the classes it exploits by
+its system; but things go in a vicious circle. The people, kept at a
+stand-still, become idle and poor; idleness and poverty engender vice
+and crime; crime fills the prisons; and the prisons afford a body of
+cheap slaves to the government.
+
+To-day, as I am writing, some hundreds of _forcats_, in their striped
+brown uniforms, are tugging at their winches and ropes to drag the
+column of the Immaculate Virgin to its pedestal on the Piazza di Spagna.
+By the same system of compulsory labor, the government, despite its
+limited financial resources, is enabled to carry out public projects
+which, with well-paid workmen, would be too expensive to be feasible. In
+this manner, for instance, for an incredibly small sum, was built the
+magnificent viaduct which spans with its triple tier of arches the
+beautiful Val di L'Arriccia. But, for my own part, I cannot look upon
+this system as being other than very bad, in every respect. And when,
+examining into the prisons themselves, I find that the support of these
+poor criminal slaves is farmed out by the government to some responsible
+person at the lowest rate that is offered, generally for five or six
+_baiocchi_ apiece _per diem_, and often refarmed by him at a still lower
+rate, until the poor wretches are reduced to the very minimum of
+necessary food as to quantity and quality, I confess that I cannot look
+with pleasure on the noble viaduct at L'Arriccia, or the rich column to
+the Immaculate Virgin, erected by the labor of their hands.
+
+Within a few years the government seemed to become conscious of the
+great number of beggars in Rome, and of the reproach they offered to the
+wise and paternal regulations of the priestcraft. Accordingly, for a
+short time, they carried on a move in the right direction, which had
+been begun by the Triumvirate of 1849, during their short career. Some
+hundreds of the beggars were hired at the rate of a few _baiocchi_ a day
+to carry on excavations in the Forum and in the Baths of Caracalla. The
+selection was most appropriate. Only the old, decrepit, and broken-down
+were taken,--the younger and sturdier were left. Ruined men were in
+harmony with the ruined temples. Such a set of laborers was never before
+seen. Falstaff's ragged regiment was a joke to them. Each had a
+wheelbarrow, a spade, or pick, and a cloak; but the last was the most
+important part of their equipment. Some of them picked at the earth with
+a gravity that was equalled only by the feebleness of the effort and the
+poverty of the result. Three strokes so wearied them that they were
+forced to pause and gather strength, while others carried away the
+ant-hills which the first dug up. It seemed an endless task to fill the
+wheelbarrows. Fill, did I say? They were never filled. After a bucketful
+of earth had been slowly shovelled in, the laborer paused, laid down his
+spade carefully on the little heap, sighed profoundly, looked as if to
+receive congratulations on his enormous success, then, flinging, with a
+grand sweep, the tattered old cloak over his left shoulder, lifted his
+wheelbarrow-shafts with dignity, and marched slowly and measuredly
+forward towards the heap of deposit, as Belisarius might have moved at a
+funeral in the intervals of asking for _oboli_. But reduced gentlemen,
+who have been accustomed to carry round the hat as an occupation, always
+have a certain air of condescension when they work for pay, and, by
+their dignity of deportment, make you sensible of their former superior
+state. Occasionally, in case a _forestiere_ was near, the older, idler,
+and more gentlemanlike profession would be resumed for a moment, (as by
+parenthesis,) and if without success, a sadder dignity would be seen in
+the subsequent march. Very properly for persons who had been reduced
+from beggary to work, they seemed to be anxious both for their health
+and their appearance in public, and accordingly a vast deal more time
+was spent in the arrangement of the cloak than in any other part of the
+business. It was grand in effect, to see these figures, incumbered in
+their heavy draperies, guiding their wheelbarrows through the great
+arches of Caracalla's Baths or along the Via Sacra. It often reminded me
+of modern _bassi-rilievi_ and portrait statues, in which gentlemen
+looking sideways with very modern faces, and both hands full of swords,
+pens, or books, stand impotently swaddled up in ancient togas or the
+folds of similar enormous cloaks. The antique treatment with the modern
+subject was evident in both. If sometimes, with a foolish spirit of
+innovation, one felt inclined to ask what purpose in either case these
+heroic mantles subserved, and whether, in fact, they could not be
+dispensed with to advantage, he was soon made to know that his inquiry
+indicated ignorance, and a desire to debase in the one case Man, in the
+other Art.
+
+It would, however, be a grievous mistake to suppose that all the beggars
+in the streets of Rome are Romans. In point of fact, the greater number
+are strangers, who congregate in Rome during the winter from every
+quarter. Naples and Tuscany send them by thousands. Every little country
+town of the Abruzzi Mountains yields its contribution. From north,
+south, east, and west they flock here as to a centre where good pickings
+may be had of the crumbs that fall from the rich men's tables. In the
+summer season they return to their homes with their earnings, and not
+one in five of those who haunted the churches and streets in the winter
+is to be seen.
+
+It is but justice to the Roman government to say that its charities are
+very large. If, on the one hand, it does not encourage commerce and
+industry, on the other, it liberally provides for the poor. In
+proportion to its means, no government does more, if so much. Every
+church has its _Cassa dei Poveri_. Numerous societies, such as the
+_Sacconi_, and other confraternities, employ themselves in accumulating
+contributions for the relief of the poor and wretched. Well-endowed
+hospitals exist for the care of the sick and unfortunate; and there are
+various establishments for the charge and education of poor orphans. A
+few figures will show how ample are these charities. The revenue of
+these institutions is no less than eight hundred and forty thousand
+_scudi_ annually, of which three hundred thousand are contributed by the
+Papal treasury, forty thousand of which are a tax upon the Lottery. The
+hospitals, altogether, accommodate about four thousand patients, the
+average number annually received amounting to about twelve thousand; and
+the foundling hospitals alone are capable of receiving upwards of three
+thousand children annually. Besides the hospitals for the sick, there is
+also a hospital for poor convalescents at Sta Trinita dei Pellegrini, a
+lunatic asylum containing about four hundred patients, one for
+incurables at San Giacomo, a lying-in hospital at San Rocco, and a
+hospital of education and industry at San Michele. There are also
+thirteen societies for bestowing dowries on poor young girls on their
+marriage; and from the public purse, for the same object, are expended
+every year no less than thirty-two thousand _scudi_. In addition to
+these charities, are the sums collected and administered by the various
+confraternities, as well as the sum of one hundred and seventy-two
+thousand _scudi_ distributed to the poor by the commission of subsidies.
+But though so much money is thus expended, it cannot be said that it is
+well administered. The proportion of deaths at the hospitals is very
+large; and among the foundlings, it amounted, between the years 1829 and
+1833, to no less than seventy-two _per cent_.
+
+The arrangements at these institutions were very much improved during
+the career of the Triumvirate, and, under the auspices of the Princess
+Belgiojoso, cleanliness, order, and system were introduced. The heroism
+of this noble-hearted woman during the trying days of the Roman siege
+deserves a better record than I can give. She gave her whole heart and
+body to the regeneration of the hospitals, and the personal care of the
+sick and wounded. Her head-quarters were at the Hospital _dei
+Pellegrini_. Day after day and night after night she was at her post,
+never moving from her chair, except to visit the various wards, and to
+comfort with tender words the sufferers in their beds. Their faces,
+contorted with pain, smoothed at her approach; and her hand and voice
+carried consolation wherever she went. Many a scene have I witnessed
+there more affecting than any tragedy, in which I knew not which most to
+admire, the heroism of the sufferers or the tender humanity of the
+consoler and nurse. In all her arrangements she showed that masterly
+administrative faculty in which women are far superior to men. When she
+came to the Pellegrini, all was in disorder; but a few days sufficed to
+reduce a chaotic confusion to exact and admirable system. Hers was the
+brain that regulated all the hospitals. Always calm, she distributed her
+orders with perfect tact and precision, and with a determination of
+purpose and clearness of perception which commanded the minds of all
+about her. The care, fatigue, and labor which she underwent would have
+broken down a less determined spirit. Nothing moved except from her
+touch. In a little damp cell, a pallet of straw was laid on the brick
+floor, and there, when utterly overcome, she threw herself down to sleep
+for a couple of hours,--no more; all the rest of the time she sat at her
+desk, writing orders, giving directions, and supervising the new
+machinery which owed its existence to her.
+
+With the return of the Papal government came the old system. Certain it
+is that _that_ system does not work well. Despite the enormous sums
+expended in charity, the people are poor, the mortality in the hospitals
+is very large. "Something is rotten in the state of" Rome.
+
+There is one noble exception not to be forgotten. To the Hospital of San
+Michele Cardinal Tosti has given a new life and vigor, and set an
+example worthy of his elevated position in the Church. This foundation
+was formerly an asylum for poor children and infirm and aged persons;
+but of late years an industrial and educational system has been
+ingrafted upon it, until it has become one of the most enlarged and
+liberal institutions that can anywhere be found. It now embraces not
+only an asylum for the aged, a house of correction for juvenile
+offenders and women, and a house of industry for children of both sexes,
+but also a school of arts, in which music, painting, drawing,
+architecture, and sculpture are taught gratuitously to the poor, and a
+considerable number of looms, at which from eight hundred to one
+thousand persons are employed for the weaving of woollen fabrics for the
+government. A stimulus has thus been given to education and to industry,
+and particularly to improvements in machinery and manufacture. Once a
+year, during the holy week, religious dramas and operas, founded on some
+Biblical subject, are creditably performed by the pupils in a private
+theatre connected with the establishment. I was never present but at one
+of these representations, when the tragical story of Shadrach, Meshach,
+and Ahednego was performed. Honor to Cardinal Tosti for his successful
+efforts in this liberal direction!
+
+At many of the convents in Rome, it is the custom at noon to distribute,
+gratis, at the door, a quantity of soup, and any poor person may receive
+a bowlful on demand. Many of the beggars thus become pensioners of the
+convents, and may be seen daily at the appointed hour gathering round
+the door with their bowl and wooden spoon, in expectation of the _Frate_
+with the soup. This is generally made so thick with cabbage that it
+might be called a cabbage-stew; but Soyer himself never made a dish more
+acceptable to the palate of the guests than this. No nightingales'
+tongues at a banquet of Tiberius, no edible birds-nests at a Chinese
+feast, were ever relished with more gusto. The figures and actions of
+these poor wretches, after they have obtained their soup, make one sigh
+for human nature. Each, grasping his portion as if it were a treasure,
+separates himself immediately from his brothers, flees selfishly to a
+corner, if he can find one empty, or, if not, goes to a distance, turns
+his back on his friends, and, glancing anxiously at intervals all
+around, as if in fear of a surprise, gobbles up his cabbage, wipes out
+his bowl, and then returns to companionship or disappears. The idea of
+sharing his portion with those who are portionless occurs to him only as
+the idea of a robber to the mind of a miser.
+
+Any account of the beggars of Rome without mention of the Capuchins and
+Franciscans would be like performing the "Merchant of Venice" with no
+Shylock; for these orders are founded in beggary and supported by
+charity. The priests do not beg; but their ambassadors, the
+lay-brothers, clad in their long, brown serge, a cord around their
+waist, and a basket on their arm, may be seen shuffling along at any
+hour and in every street, in dirty sandalled feet, to levy contributions
+from shops and houses. Here they get a loaf of bread, there a pound of
+flour or rice, in one place fruit or cheese, in another a bit of meat,
+until their basket is filled. Sometimes money is given, but generally
+they are paid in articles of food. There is another set of these
+brothers who enter your studio or ring at your bell and present a little
+tin box with a slit in it, into which you are requested to drop any sum
+you please, for the holidays, for masses, for wax candles, etc. As a big
+piece of copper makes more ring than gold, it is generally given, and
+always gratefully received. Sometimes they will enter into conversation,
+and are always pleased to have a little chat about the weather. They are
+very poor, very good-natured, and very dirty. It is a pity they do not
+baptize themselves a little more with the material water of this world.
+But they seem to have a hydrophobia. Whatever the inside of the platter
+may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day and they sleep
+by night in the same old snuffy robe, which is not kept from contact
+with the skin by any luxury of linen, until it is worn out. Dirt and
+piety seem to them synonymous. Sometimes I have deemed, foolishly
+perhaps, but after the manner of my nation, that their goodness would
+not wash off with the soil of the skin,--that it was more than
+skin-deep; but as this matter is above reason, in better moods I have
+faith that it would. Still, in disbelieving moments, I cannot help
+applying to them Charles Lamb's famous speech,--"If dirt were trumps,
+what a hand they would have of it!" Yet, beggars as they are, they have
+the reputation at Rome of being the most inoffensive of all the
+conventual orders, and are looked upon by the common people with
+kindliness, as being thoroughly sincere in their religious professions.
+They are, at least, consistent in many respects in their professions and
+practice. They really mortify the flesh by penance, fasting, and
+wretched fare, as well as by dirt. They do not proclaim the virtues and
+charms of poverty, while they roll about in gilded coaches dressed in
+"purple and fine linen," or gloat over the luxuries of the table. Their
+vices are not the cardinal ones, whatever their virtues may be. The
+"Miracles of St. Peter," as the common people call the palaces of Rome,
+are not wrought for them. Their table is mean and scantily provided with
+the most ordinary food. Three days in the week they eat no meat; and
+during the year they keep three _Quaresime_. But, good as they are,
+their sour, thin wine, on empty, craving stomachs, sometimes does a mad
+work; and these brothers in dirt and piety have occasionally violent
+rows and disputes in their refectories over their earthen bottles. It is
+only a short time since that my old friends the Capuchins got furious
+together over their wine, and ended by knocking each other about the
+ears with their earthen jars, after they had emptied them. Several were
+wounded, and had time to repent and wash in their cells. But one should
+not be too hard on them. The temper will not withstand too much fasting.
+A good dinner puts one at peace with the world, but an empty stomach is
+the habitation often of the Devil, who amuses himself there with pulling
+all the nerve-wires that reach up into the brain. I doubt whether even
+St. Simeon Stylites always kept his temper as well as he did his fast.
+
+As I see them walking up and down the alleys of their vegetable garden,
+and under the sunny wall where oranges glow and roses bloom, without the
+least asceticism, during the whole winter, I do not believe in their
+doctrine, nor envy them their life. And I cannot but think that the one
+hundred and fifty thousand _Frati_ who are in the Roman States would do
+quite as good service to God and man, if they were an army of laborers
+on the Campagna, or elsewhere, as in their present life of beggary and
+self-contemplation. I often wonder, as I look at them, hearty and stout
+as they are, despite their mode of life, what brought them to this pass,
+what induced them to enter this order,--and recall, in this connection,
+a little anecdote current here in Rome, to the following effect:--A
+young fellow, from whom Fortune had withheld her gifts, having become
+desperate, at last declared to a friend that he meant to throw himself
+into the Tiber, and end a life which was worse than useless. "No, no,"
+said his friend, "don't do that. If your affairs are so desperate,
+retire into a convent, become a Capuchin." _"Ah, non!_" was the
+indignant answer; "I am desperate; but I have not yet arrived at such a
+pitch of desperation."
+
+Though the Franciscans live upon charity, they have almost always a
+garden connected with their convent, where they raise multitudes of
+cabbages, cauliflowers, _finocchi_, peas, beans, artichokes, and
+lettuce. Indeed, there is one kind of the latter which is named after
+them,--_capuccini_. But their gardens they do not till themselves; they
+hire gardeners, who work for them. Now I cannot but think that working
+in a garden is just as pious an employment as begging about the streets,
+though perhaps scarcely as profitable. The opinion, that, in some
+respects, it would be better for them to attend to this work themselves,
+was forced upon my mind by a little farce I happened to see enacted
+among their cabbages, the other day, as I was looking down out of my
+window. My attention was first attracted by hearing a window open from a
+little three-story-high _loggia_, opposite, hanging over their garden. A
+woman came forth, and, from amid the flower-pots which half-concealed
+her, she dropped a long cord to the ground. "_Pst, Pst_," she cried to
+the gardener at work below. He looked up, executed a curious pantomime,
+shrugged his shoulders, shook his fore-finger, and motioned with his
+head and elbow sideways to a figure, visible to me, but not to her, of a
+brown Franciscan, who was amusing himself in gathering some _finocchi_,
+just round the corner of the wall. The woman, who was fishing for the
+cabbages, immediately understood the predicament, drew up her cord,
+disappeared from the _loggia_, and the curtain fell upon the little
+farce. The gardener, however, evidently had a little soliloquy after she
+had gone. He ceased working, and gazed at the unconscious Franciscan for
+some time, with a curious grimace, as if he were not quite satisfied at
+thus losing his little perquisite.
+
+These brown-cowled gentlemen are not the only ones who carry the tin
+box. Along the curbstones of the public walks, and on the steps of the
+churches, sit blind old creatures, and shake at you a tin box, outside
+of which is a figure of the Madonna, and inside of which are two or
+three _baiocchi_, as a rattling accompaniment to an unending invocation
+of aid. Their dismal chant is protracted for hours and hours, increasing
+in loudness whenever the steps of a passer-by are heard. It is the old
+strophe and antistrophe of begging and blessing, and the singers are so
+wretched that one is often softened into charity. Those who are not
+blind have often a new _Diario_ or _Lunario_ to sell towards the end of
+the year, and at other times they vary the occupation of shaking the box
+by selling lives of the saints, which are sometimes wonderful enough.
+One sad old woman, who sits near the Quattro Fontane, and says her
+prayers and rattles her box, always touches my heart, there is such an
+air of forlornness and sweetness about her. As I was returning, last
+night, from a mass at San Giovanni in Laterano, an old man glared at us
+through great green goggles,--to which Jealousy's would have yielded in
+size and color,--and shook his box for a _baiocco_. "And where does this
+money go?" I asked. "To say masses for the souls of those who die over
+opposite," said he, pointing to the Hospital of San Giovanni, through
+the open doors of which we could see the patients lying in their beds.
+
+Nor are these the only friends of the box. Often in walking the streets
+one is suddenly shaken in your ear, and, turning round, you are startled
+to see a figure entirely clothed in white from head to foot, a rope
+round his waist, and a white _capuccio_ drawn over his head and face,
+and showing, through two round holes, a pair of sharp black eyes behind
+them. He says nothing, but shakes his box at you, often threateningly,
+and always with an air of mystery. This is a penitent _Saccone_; and as
+this _confraternita_ is composed solely of noblemen, he may be one of
+the first princes or cardinals in Rome, performing penance in expiation
+of his sins; or, for all you can see, it may be one of your intimate
+friends. The money thus collected goes to various charities. They always
+go in couples,--one taking one side of the street, the other the
+opposite,--never losing sight of each other, and never speaking. Clothed
+thus in secresy, these _Sacconi_ can test the generosity of any one they
+please with complete impunity, and they often amuse themselves with
+startling foreigners. Many a group of English girls, convoyed by their
+mother, and staring into some mosaic or cameo shop, is scared into a
+scream by the sudden jingle of the box, and the apparition of the
+spectre in white who shakes it. And many a simple old lady retains to
+the end of her life a confused impression, derived therefrom, of
+Inquisitions, stilettos, tortures, and banditti, from which it is vain
+to attempt to dispossess her mind. The stout old gentleman, with a bald
+forehead and an irascibly rosy face, takes it often in another
+way,--confounds the fellows for their impertinence, has serious notions,
+first, of knocking them down on the spot, and then of calling the
+police, but finally concludes to take no notice of them, as they are
+nothing but _Eye_-talians, who cannot be expected to know how to behave
+themselves in a rational manner. Sometimes a _santa elemosina_ is
+demanded after the oddest fashion. It was only yesterday that I met one
+of the _confraternita_, dressed in a shabby red suit, coming up the
+street, with the invariable oblong tin begging-box in his hand,--a
+picture of Christ on one side, and of the Madonna on the other. He went
+straight to a door, opening into a large, dark room, where there was a
+full cistern of running water, at which several poor women were washing
+clothes, and singing and chatting as they worked. My red acquaintance
+suddenly opens the door, letting in a stream of light upon this
+Rembrandtish interior, and, lifting his box with the most wheedling of
+smiles, he says, with a rising inflection of voice, as if asking a
+question,--"_Prezioso sangue di Gesu Christo?_"--( Precious blood of
+Jesus Christ?)
+
+The last, but by no means the meanest, of the tribe of pensioners whom I
+shall mention, is my old friend, "Beefsteak,"--now, alas! gone to the
+shades of his fathers. He was a good dog,--a mongrel, a Pole by
+birth,--who accompanied his master on a visit to Rome, where he became
+so enamored of the place that he could not be persuaded to return to his
+native home. Bravely he cast himself on the world, determined to live,
+like many of his two-legged countrymen, upon his wits. He was a dog of
+genius, and his confidence in the world was rewarded by its
+appreciation. He had a sympathy for the arts. The crowd of artists who
+daily and nightly flocked to the Lepre and the Caffe Greco attracted his
+notice. He introduced himself to them, and visited them at their studios
+and rooms. A friendship was struck between them and him, and he became
+their constant visitor and their most attached ally. Every day, at the
+hour of lunch, or at the more serious hour of dinner, he lounged into
+the Lepre, seated himself in a chair, and awaited his friends, confident
+of his reception. His presence was always hailed with a welcome, and to
+every new comer he was formally presented. His bearing became, at last,
+not only assured, but patronizing. He received the gift of a
+chicken-bone or a delicate titbit as if he conferred a favor. He became
+an epicure, a _gourmet_. He did not eat much; he ate well. With what a
+calm superiority and gentle contempt he declined the refuse bits a
+stranger offered from his plate! His glance, and upturned nose, and
+quiet refusal, seemed to say,--"Ignoramus! know you not I am Beefsteak?"
+His dinner finished, he descended gravely, and proceeded to the Caffe
+Greco, there to listen to the discussions of the artists, and to partake
+of a little coffee and sugar, of which he was very fond. At night, he
+accompanied some one or other of his friends to his room, and slept upon
+the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most
+remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favors with an
+even hand. He had few favorites, and called no man master. He never
+outstayed his welcome "and told the jest without the smile," never
+remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A
+calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more
+admirable self-respect,--in a word, a profounder sense of what belongs
+to a gentleman, was never known in any dog. But Beefsteak is now no
+more. Just after the agitations of the Revolution of '48, with which he
+had little sympathy,--he was a conservative by disposition,--he
+disappeared. He had always been accustomed to make a _villegratura_ at
+L'Arriccia during a portion of the summer months, returning only now and
+then to look after his affairs in Rome. On such visits he would often
+arrive towards midnight, and rap at the door of a friend to claim his
+hospitality, barking a most intelligible answer to the universal Roman
+inquiry of "_Chi e_?" "One morn we missed him at the accustomed" place,
+and thenceforth he was never seen. Whether a sudden homesickness for his
+native land overcame him, or a fatal accident befell him, is not known.
+Peace to his manes! There "rests his head upon the lap of earth" no
+better dog.
+
+In the Roman studio of one of his friends and admirers, Mr. Mason, I had
+the pleasure, a few days since, to see, among several admirable and very
+spirited pictures of Campagna life and incidents, a very striking
+portrait of Beefsteak. He was sitting in a straw-bottomed chair, as we
+have so often seen him in the Lepre, calm, dignified in his deportment,
+and somewhat obese. The full brain, the narrow, fastidious nose, the
+sagacious eye, were so perfectly given, that I seemed to feel the actual
+presence of my old friend. So admirable a portrait of so distinguished a
+person should not be lost to the world. It should be engraved, or at
+least photographed.
+
+
+
+
+ENCELADUS.
+
+
+  Under Mount Etna he lies;
+      It is slumber, it is not death;
+  For he struggles at times to arise,
+  And above him the lurid skies
+      Are hot with his fiery breath.
+
+  The crags are piled on his breast,
+      The earth is heaped on his head;
+  But the groans of his wild unrest,
+  Though smothered and half suppressed,
+      Are heard, and he is not dead.
+
+  And the nations far away
+      Are watching with eager eyes;
+  They talk together and say,
+  "To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
+      Enceladus will arise!"
+
+  And the old gods, the austere
+      Oppressors in their strength,
+  Stand aghast and white with fear,
+  At the ominous sounds they hear,
+      And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"
+
+  Ah, me! for the land that is sown
+      With the harvest of despair!
+  Where the burning cinders, blown
+  From the lips of the overthrown
+      Enceladus, fill the air!
+
+  Where ashes are heaped in drifts
+      Over vineyard and field and town,
+  Whenever he starts and lifts
+  His head through the blackened rifts
+      Of the crags that keep him down!
+
+  See, see! the red light shines!
+      'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
+  And the storm-wind shouts through the pines
+  Of Alps and of Apennines,
+      "Enceladus, arise!"
+
+
+
+
+THE ZOUAVES.
+
+
+The decree of October 1, 1830, approved by a royal ordinance, March 21,
+1831, created two battalions of Zouaves. To perceive the necessity for
+this body of troops, to understand the nature of the service required of
+them, and to obtain a just notion of their important position in African
+affairs, it will be necessary to glance, for a moment, at the previous
+history of Algeria under the Deys, and especially at the history of that
+Turkish militia which they were to replace,--a body of irresponsible
+tyrants, which, since 1516, had exercised the greatest power in Africa,
+and had rendered their name hated and feared by the most distant tribes.
+
+Algeria was settled in 1492, by Moors driven from Spain. They recognized
+a kind of allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey, which was, however, only
+nominal; he appointed their Emirs, but further than this there was no
+restraint on their actions. Hard pressed by the Spaniards in 1509, the
+Emirs sent in haste to Turkey for aid; and Barbarossa, a noted pirate,
+sailed to their help, drove out the Christians, but fixed upon the Moors
+the yoke of Turkish sovereignty. In 1516, he declared himself Sultan, or
+Dey, of Algiers; and his brother succeeding him, the Ottoman power was
+firmly established in the Northwest of Africa. Hated by the people of
+this great territory, both Moors and Arabs, menaced not only by their
+dissensions, but frequently attacked by the Christians from the North,
+there was but one method by which the Dey could maintain his power. He
+formed a large body of mercenary soldiers, drawn entirely from Turkey,
+united with himself and each other by a feeling of mutual dependence and
+common danger, and bound by no feeling of interest or affection to the
+inhabitants of the soil. Brave they were, as they proved in 1541,
+against Charles the Fifth, whose forces they defeated and nearly
+destroyed at Haratsch,--in 1565, at the siege of Malta,--in 1572, in the
+seafight of Lepanto,--in many smaller combats at different times,
+defending their land triumphantly in 1775 against the Spaniards under
+O'Reilly and Castejon. Hardy and ready they were, from the very
+necessity of the case; for they were hated and dreaded beyond measure by
+the Arabs, and theirs was a life of constant exertion. Other than united
+they could not be; for they were in continual warfare of offence or of
+defence; they suppressed rebellion and anarchy,--for without a leader
+and union they had been cut off by the restless foe, whose piercing eyes
+watched, and whose daggers waited only _for the time_. In constant
+danger, they could not sink into that sloth that eats out the heart of
+Eastern and Southern nations; for it was only in unrest that safety
+lay;--he who slumbered on those burning plains, no less than the sleeper
+on Siberian ice, was lost utterly and without remedy.
+
+This body of troops, called the _Odjack_, elected or deposed Deys at
+pleasure; the Dey, nominally their ruler, was in reality their tool. In
+one period of twenty years there were six Deys, of whom four were
+decapitated, one abdicated through fear, and one died peacefully in the
+exercise of his governing functions. [Footnote: _Voyage pour la
+Redemption des Captifs aux Royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis, fait en 1720._
+Paris, 1721.] In 1629, they declared the kingdom free from the
+domination of Turkey; soon after, they expelled the Koulouglis, or
+half-breed Turks, and enslaved the Moors. Admitting some of the latter
+to service in the militia, they never allowed them to hope for
+advancement in the State, or, what was the same thing, the army. Only
+Turks, or in some instances renegade Christians, could lead the
+soldiers, whom thus no feeling of local patriotism mollified in their
+course of savage cruelty, grinding the face of the poor natives till
+spirit and hope were lost and resistance ceased to be a settled idea in
+their minds.
+
+Now when the French navy came up to the port of Algiers, June 12, 1830,
+the unity between the soldiers and their master, Hussein Pacha, was
+tottering on the verge of dissolution; a plot against his life had just
+been discovered, he had punished the ringleaders with death, and many
+who had been concerned in the conspiracy felt that there was no safety
+for them with him. Beaten constantly in every skirmish or battle, they
+conceived a high respect for the military genius of the invaders, and,
+ere the close of the summer campaign, offered their services in a body
+to General Clausel; this offer he promptly declined, and they thereupon
+withdrew, carrying their swords to the aid of other powers less
+scrupulous.
+
+The news, however, that the terrible Odjack had offered themselves to
+serve under the French spread a lively terror through the Arab tribes,
+who, believing themselves about to suffer an aggravation of their
+already intolerable oppression, experienced a sensation of relief and an
+elevation of spirit no less marked, on hearing that the newly formed
+government had rejected their services. Perceiving the fear in which
+these Algerine Praetorians were held by the tribes, Marshal Clausel
+conceived the plan of replacing them by a corps of light infantry,
+consisting of two battalions, to perform the services of household
+troops, and to receive some name as significant as that held by their
+predecessors under the old _regime_. Consequently, after some
+consideration, the newly constituted body was called by the name of
+_Zouaves_, from the Arabic word _Zouaoua_.
+
+The Zouaoua are a tribe, or rather a confederation of tribes, of the
+Kabyles, who inhabit the gorges of the Jurjura Mountains, the boundary
+of Algeria on the east, separating it from the province of Constantine.
+They are a brave, fierce, laborious people, whose submission to the
+Turks was never more than nominal; yet they were well known in the city
+of Algiers, whither they came frequently to exchange the products of
+their industry for the luxuries of comparative civilization. As they had
+the reputation of being the best soldiers in the Regency, and had
+occasionally lent their services to the Algerine princes, their name was
+given to the new military force; while, to give it the character of a
+French corps, the number of native soldiers received into its ranks was
+limited, and all its officers, from the highest to the lowest grade,
+were required to be native-born Frenchmen. The service in this corps was
+altogether voluntary, none being appointed to the Zouaves who did not
+seek the place; but there were found enough young and daring spirits who
+embraced with enthusiasm this life, so harassing, so full of privation,
+of rude labor, of constant peril. The first battalion was commanded by
+Major Maumet; the second by Captain Duvivier, (since General,) who died
+in Paris, 1848, of wounds received in the African service. Levaillant,
+(since General of Division,) Verge, (now General of Brigade,) and
+Molliere, who died Colonel, of wounds received at the siege of Rome,
+were officers in these first two battalions.
+
+Scarcely six weeks had elapsed since their formation, when the Zouaves
+took the field under Marshal Clausel, marching against Medeah, an
+important station in the heart of Western Algeria. On the hill of
+Mouzaia they fought their first battle, in which they were completely
+successful. They remained two months as a garrison in Medeah. Here they
+showed proofs of a valor and patience most extraordinary. Left alone in
+a frontier post, constantly in the vicinity of a savage foe, watching
+and fighting night and day, leaving the gun only to take up the spade,
+compelled to create everything they needed, reduced to the last
+extremities for food, cut off from all communications,--it was a rough
+trial for this little handful of new soldiers. The place was often
+attacked; they were always at their posts; till in the last days of
+April they were recalled, and the fortress yielded up to the feeble Bey
+whom the French had decided to establish there. In June, troubles having
+again arisen, General Berthezene conducted some troops of the regular
+army to Medeah, to which was added the second battalion of Zouaves,
+under its gallant captain, Duvivier. On his return, the troops were
+attacked with fury on the hill of Mouzaia, the spot where the Zouaves
+had in February of the same year received their baptism of fire. Wearied
+with the long night-march, borne down by insupportable heat, stretched
+in a long straggling line through mountain-passes, the commander of the
+van severely wounded at the first discharge, they themselves separated,
+without chiefs, and surrounded by enemies, the French troops recoiled;
+when Duvivier, seeing the peril that menaced the army, advanced with his
+battalion. Shouting their war-cry, they rushed on the Kabyles, supported
+by the Volunteers of the Chart, or French Zouaves, thundering forth the
+Marseillaise; turning the pursuers into pursued, they covered the
+retreat of their associates to the farm of Mouzaia, where the army
+rallied and proceeded without further loss to Algiers. This retreat, and
+its attendant circumstances, made the Zouaves, before regarded, if not
+with contempt, at least with dislike, _free of the camp_.
+
+But now the losses sustained by the two battalions began to be seriously
+felt,--for the growing hostility of the Arabs rendered it difficult to
+recruit from native sources; and an ordinance of the king, dated March
+7,1833, united the two battalions into one, consisting of ten companies,
+eight of which were to be exclusively European, and two to be _not_
+exclusively Algerine,--it being required that in each native company
+there should be at least twelve Frenchmen. Duvivier was called to
+Bougie; Maumet was compelled by his wounds to return to Paris; Captain
+Lamoriciere was, therefore, appointed chief of the united battalion,
+having given proof of his capacity in every way,--whether as soldier,
+linguist, or negotiator,--being a wise and prudent man. It is to the
+training the Zouaves received under this remarkable man that much of
+their subsequent success must be ascribed. In his dealings with the
+Arabs he had shown himself the first who could treat with them by other
+means than the rifle or bayonet. [Footnote: _Annales Algeriennes_, Tom.
+ii. p. 72.] In his capacity of Lieutenant-Colonel of Zouaves he showed
+talents of a high order. He infused into them the spirit, the activity,
+the boldness and impetuosity which he himself so remarkably possessed,
+with a certain independence of character which demanded from those who
+commanded them a resolute firmness on essential, and a dignified
+indulgence on unessential points. [Footnote: _Conquete d'Alger_. Par A.
+Nettement. p. 546.] To the course of discipline used by him, and still
+maintained in this arm of the service, are due their tremendous working
+power, their tirelessness, their self-dependence, and all their
+qualities differing from those of other soldiers; so that by his means
+one of the most irregular species of warfare has produced a body of
+irresistible regular soldiers, and border combats have given rise to the
+most rigid discipline in the world.
+
+The post of Dely Ibrahim was assigned to the Zouaves. At this place they
+were obliged to work laboriously, making for themselves whatever was
+needed; whether as masons, ditchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, or
+farmers,--whatever business was to be performed, they were, or learned
+to be, sufficient for it. No idlers in that camp,--each must earn his
+daily bread. What time was not devoted to labor was given to the
+practice of arms and the acquisition of instruction in all departments
+of military science; so that many a soldier was there fitted for the
+position he afterwards acquired, of officer, colonel, or general. To
+fence with the mounted bayonet, to wrestle, to leap, to climb, to run
+for miles, to swim, to make and to destroy temporary bridges, to throw
+up earth-walls, to carry great weights, to do, in short, what Indians
+learn to do, and much that they do not learn,--these served as the
+relaxations of the unwearied Zouaves. To vary the monotony of such a
+life, there was enough adventure to be found for the seeking,--now an
+incursion into the Sahel, or into the plains of Mitidja, or a wild foray
+through the northern gorges of the Atlas. Day by day progress appeared;
+they learned to march rapidly and long, to sustain the extremes of
+hunger, thirst, and weather, and to manoeuvre with intelligent
+precision; diligently fitting themselves, in industry, discipline, and
+warlike education, for the position they had to fill. Their costume and
+equipment were brought near perfection; they wore the Turkish dress,
+slightly modified,--a dress perfectly suited to the changes of that
+climate, and without which their movements would have been cramped and
+constrained. Only the officers retained the uniform of the hussars,
+which is rich and easy to wear. The cost of a suitable Turkish uniform
+would have been too heavy for them, besides that the dress of a Turk of
+rank is somewhat ridiculous. Certain officers on the march used,
+however, to wear the _fez_, or, as the Arabs called it, the _chechia_.
+Lamoriciere was known in Algeria as _Bou Chechia_, or _Papa with the
+Cap_,--as he was known later in Oran as _Bou Araoua, Papa with the
+Stick_. One finds, however, nothing of Orientalism in the regulations of
+this body of troops; not the least negligence or slovenliness is allowed
+in the most trifling detail. In fine, the care, and that descending to
+note the smallest minutiae, which brought this race of soldiers to such
+a pitch of perfection, leaving them their gayety and sprightliness, and,
+notwithstanding the rigidness of the discipline, giving solidity and
+precision to irregular troops, was rewarded by success unparalleled in
+history. It was the best practical school for soldiers and officers; and
+many of the best generals in the French army began their military career
+in the wild guerrilla combats or the patient camp-life of this band of
+heroes.
+
+Nearly two years had passed away in this training, when Marshal Clausel
+returned to Africa, and led the Zouaves, whose fitness for the service
+he well knew, into Oran. Here they added fresh laurels to those already
+acquired. In the expedition of Mascara, where they fought under the eye
+of the Duke of Orleans, they covered themselves with glory; insomuch
+that on his return to Paris he procured a decree, 1835, constituting the
+First Regiment of Zouaves, of two battalions, of six companies each,
+and, should occasion justify the measure, of ten companies. Lamoriciere
+continued in command.
+
+In 1836 the Zouaves again took the hill of Mouzaia. This time they razed
+its fortifications even with the ground, and returned to Algiers, where
+they remained during General Clausel's first and unfortunate expedition
+into Constantine, the eastern province of French Africa. In 1837 the
+second expedition was made, and in this the Zouaves took part. One of
+the divisions of the army was under the command of the Duke of Nemours.
+In this division were the Zouaves under Lamoriciere, who here showed
+themselves worthy of their renown. Fighting by the side of the most
+excellent soldiers in the regular army, they proved themselves bravest
+where all were brave. They were placed at the head of the first column
+of attack. Lamoriciere was the first officer on the breach, and carried
+all before him. The soldiers whom he had trained supported him nobly;
+but when they had won the day, they found that many companies were
+decimated, some nearly annihilated; numbers of their officers were dead
+in the breach, "Those who are not mortally wounded rejoice at this great
+success," said an officer to the Duke; and it was a significant
+sentence. [Footnote: Verbal report of Colonel Combes to the Duke of
+Nemours,--conclusion.]
+
+To form some notion of those troops, among whom the Zouaves showed
+themselves like the gods in the war of Troy, one anecdote will suffice,
+chosen from many which prove the valor of the army my generally. The
+rear-guard at Mansourah was under the command of Changarnier; it was
+reduced to three hundred men; he halted this little troop and said,
+"Come, my men, look these fellows in the face; they are six thousand,
+you are three hundred; surely the match is even." This speech was
+sufficient. The Frenchmen awaited the onset till the enemy was within
+pistol-shot; then, after a murderous volley, they charged on the Arabs,
+who broke and fled in dismay. During the remainder of the day they would
+not approach this band nearer than long rifle range. [Footnote:
+_Moniteur_, December 16, 1833; report of Marshal Clausel.]
+
+The siege of Constantine may properly be said to have ended the war of
+occupation in Africa. Hitherto we have seen the Zouaves only in time of
+active war, or in the defence of hill-forts, obliged to unity through
+fear of an ever-menacing foe, and laboring for their own preservation or
+comfort only; but now commenced a new training for them, no less severe
+and dangerous, in which they showed themselves equally willing and
+competent,--a war against stubborn Nature in all her most forbidding
+aspects. Under the blazing suns of that tropical climate they
+recommenced at Coleah the work already begun at Dely Ibrahim; ditches
+were to be dug, works thrown up, roads made, draining accomplished,
+farms tended, all that was necessary for the establishment of those
+permanent colonies which France was so anxious to settle in Algeria was
+to be done by the Zouaves; yet, despite that terrible labor, the danger
+and hardship, the sickness and death, the ranks of the regiment filled
+up rapidly; and, joined by the wrecks of the battalion of Mechouar, they
+were kept full to overflowing. This battalion of Mechouar was a troop
+left by Clausel in the _mechouar_, or citadel, of Tlemcen, in the West
+of Oran, under the command of Captain Cavaignac; on the conclusion of
+the war, in 1837, they, of course, returned to their regiment at Coleah.
+
+This deceitful peace lasted only till 1839. In this year the vigilant
+colonel of Zouaves perceived in his native troops alarming symptoms of
+mutiny, and learned, to his surprise, that they were in a ripe condition
+for revolt. Wild Santons of the desert, emissaries, doubtless, of
+Abd-el-Kader, held secret meetings near the camp; many soldiers attended
+them, and were seduced by artfully prepared inflammatory harangues and
+prophecies. In the month of December, 1839, at the raising of the
+standard of Islam, the natives flocked in vast numbers to rid the land
+of the Christians; and most of the native Zouaves deserted to join the
+fortunes of the prince whom they reverenced as a prophet. Old soldiers,
+trained in the French service to a thorough acquaintance with European
+tactics, and gray with battling long for Lamoriciere, suddenly left him,
+and by their knowledge of the art of war gave great advantage to the
+Arab force. In their combats with the Sultan, the Zouaves not
+infrequently found that a sharp resistance or a masterly retreat on the
+part of the enemy was executed under the direction of one of their
+former comrades in arms. It was a critical moment for the Zouaves; but
+at the announcement of the renewal of hostilities volunteers flowed in
+on all sides, whether of young men full of ardor and excitement, or, as
+in many instances, of old soldiers who had already served their time.
+After a winter of petty skirmishing and reestablishing in Algeria the
+semblance of security, the Duke of Orleans led the army, considerably
+reinforced, in a raid against the Arabs under Abd-el-Kader in their own
+territory. The Zouaves accompanied this expedition, and whether in their
+charges against the mountaineers, who, with the aid of the Arab
+regulars, defended each pass, or sustaining the shock of the provincial
+cavalry, or even standing unmoved before the attack of Abd-el-Kader's
+terrible "Reds," [Footnote: The mounted body-guard of Abd-el-Kader, so
+called by the French from their complete red uniform.] they maintained
+their character of rapid, intrepid, and successful soldiers. What names
+we find in this regiment! Lamoriciere, Regnault, Renault, (now General
+of Division,) Cavaignac, Leflo, (now General of Brigade,) and St.
+Arnaud, who died Marshal of France two days after the victory of the
+Alma.
+
+A singular instance of the _handiness_ of the Zouaves is found in the
+notice of their forced march on this campaign, undertaken May 20th, to
+support the retreating Seventeenth Light Infantry. Their cartridges were
+fired away, the regulars of Abd-el-Kader were upon them, and nothing
+seemed to remain but an heroic death, when, "Comrades," cried one, "see,
+here are stones!" Not a word more; each caught the hint, and, with
+simultaneous volleys of stones, drove off the charging enemy, and broke
+their way to where the remains of the Seventeenth rallied under Colonel
+Bedeau, after a retreat more properly to be called a continual attack!
+
+Hard at work during the winter of 1840-41, General Bugeaud found these
+indefatigable soldiers in perfect condition to take the field again,
+when he landed in April. There had been sharp fighting during the past
+year at Mouzaia, in which the Zouaves always led the van, and were, as
+in every engagement they ever fought, covered with honor. "The Second,
+electrified by the example of its officers, and led by Colonel
+Changarnier, flung itself on the intrenchments; the redoubts were
+carried, etc. At the same time, in the other column, Lamoriciere led the
+way with his Zouaves, followed by the other troops. The Zouaves
+surmounted the almost impassable cliffs, attacked and carried two lines
+of intrenchment, and, in the teeth of a murderous fire, forced a third;
+a few moments later the two columns joined, and, rushing up the
+acclivity, planted the flag of France on the highest peak of the Atlas."
+[Footnote: Report of Marshal Valee: _Moniteur_.] Little variation is
+found in the reports of generals concerning the Zouaves at this time;
+they say of these troops always, "The First," or "The Second, was
+covered with glory."
+
+But now, with the arrival of Bugeaud, the war in Africa was changed;
+hitherto it had been a mere war of occupation,--a holding of the ground
+already French against the attacking Arabs; now it was to be a duel, a
+war of devastation; thus only could France hope to tame the
+indefatigable Abd-el-Kader, and permanently hold her own. The trouble
+was not so much to fight him as to get near enough to fight him; for he
+pursued a truly Fabian policy, and being lighter armed, was consequently
+swifter than the invaders. Under Marshal Clausel, the French, drawing
+with them the heavy wagons and munitions of European warfare, were
+obliged to follow the high-roads, and the Arabs could never be taken by
+surprise; scouts gave information of their numbers, and after harassing
+marches they would find that the foe had either retreated to unknown
+fastnesses or assembled on the spot in prodigious force. Now Lamoriciere
+proposed a plan, in the execution of which he was eminently successful.
+Bugeaud's design was, to follow the Arabs into the desert, to climb the
+steep mountains, to plunge into their chasms, to storm every hill-fort,
+and to drive, step by step, the swift Abd-el-Kader far from the land
+which his presence so troubled; but how? for swift troops are
+light-armed, carry no luggage, and but little provision; and to follow
+without food the Arabs who concealed food in _silos_, _caches_ in the
+ground, seemed hopeless. Lamoriciere required but his Zouaves, who
+carried only four days' provisions, and no baggage of any sort; when
+they drew near any of these _silos_, which were always, of course, in
+the vicinity of the deserted villages, he spread out his troops in a
+long crescent, and they advanced slowly, rooting up the ground with
+their bayonets till some one struck on the stone or pebbles covering the
+precious deposit. Thus, without wagons, trained to tireless activity,
+they could follow the Arabs from _douar_ to _douar_ with little delay,
+and with fatal effect.
+
+Great reinforcements were sent to Africa, and the Zouaves were not
+forgotten; for, in the royal ordinance of September 8th, 1841, the
+regiment was raised to three battalions of nine companies; only one of
+the nine, however, could receive natives, so that but three native
+companies now existed, and few Algerines were found even in these. The
+reasons seem to have been threefold: first, the danger from mutiny;
+second, the evils arising from the mixture of the two races, which had
+augmented their vices, without a corresponding improvement in their good
+qualities; third, and perhaps most important of all, the discontent very
+properly felt by the French Zouaves, who were compelled to work at the
+trenches, to dig, to plant, etc., while the Mussulmans utterly refused
+to take part in this, to their mind, degrading toil. The Gordian knot
+was cut, and all difficulty done away, by making the regiment, in
+effect, exclusively European. Thus reorganized and reinforced, the
+regiment, on receiving the standard sent it by the king, immediately
+separated,--one battalion marching for Oran, one for Constantine, while
+the other remained at Blidah, in Algeria.
+
+The year 1842 was full of great results; the new system worked well,
+great numbers of tribes laid down their arms and swore fealty to France,
+and the provinces were more than nominally in the hands of the French.
+Still many of the more distant and powerful tribes held to their
+allegiance to the Prophet Sultan. The war gradually took on itself the
+form of a civil contest, and mutual animosities gave rise to many
+occasions for sanguinary combats; one of these, in the valley of the
+Cheliff, September, 1842, lasted unintermittingly for thirty-six hours!
+In this battle, and that of Oued Foddah, and, in fact, in almost every
+battle of those years, the Zouaves took an honorable part. In mountain
+fights, long marches over burning sands, repulses of cavalry, at
+Jurjura, Ouarsanis, among the Beni Menasser, at the Smalah, in the
+struggles of Bedeau with the Moroccan cavalry, and in the memorable
+battle of Isly, they did good service; their history was but a narrative
+of brilliant exploits. In many of their hill fights, the deserters of
+1839 gave much trouble. In a skirmish, 1844, on the south side of the
+Aures, in which Captain Espinasse (died General of Division, Magenta,
+June 6th, 1859) was concerned, and wounded four times, an old native
+Zouave commanded the Kabyles, and defended their principal position with
+much skill.
+
+In fine, to recount the hundredth part of their deeds,--to make out a
+list of their soldiers, sub-officers, or officers who have been since
+promoted to high honors,--to trace minutely each step by which they
+mounted to their present position, would be to write, not an article,
+but a book. In 1842 the natives disappeared finally from their ranks;
+the best and bravest soldiers of the African army eagerly sought their
+places, attracted by the uniform, the manner of life, the constant
+danger and no less constant excitement, the liberty allowed, the glory
+ever open to all. As their numbers were decimated by the continual
+warfare, the ranks were immediately filled by the descendants of those
+brave Gauls who once said, "If the heavens fall, what care we? We will
+support them on the points of our lances!" In 1848, the Zouaves received
+a large accession from Paris; the _gamins_ of the Revolution were sent
+to them in great numbers; out of this unpromising, rebellious material,
+some of the finest of these admirable troops have been made. And now,
+when the entry into this regiment was longed for by so many, as a
+species of promotion, on the 13th of February, 1852, Louis Napoleon,
+then President of the Republic, decreed that three regiments of Zouaves
+be formed, each on one of the three battalions as a nucleus, taking the
+number of the battalion as its own. Thus the first regiment was formed
+at Blidah, in Algiers; the second at Oran, in Oran; the third at
+Constantine, in the province of Constantine. Officers of the corps of
+infantry were eligible to the new regiments, holding the same grade; the
+men were to be drawn from any infantry corps in the army, on their own
+application, if the Minister of War saw proper. None were accepted but
+men physically and morally in excellent condition; the officers had, for
+the most part, already served with credit; the under-officers and
+soldiers had been many years in the service; and even many corporals,
+and not a few ensigns and lieutenants, voluntarily relinquished their
+positions to serve in the rank-and-file of the new corps. So, occupied
+in pacificating and securing the three provinces, the regiments lost
+nothing of their former renown; obedient to orders, and fearless of
+danger, it was no idle compliment paid them by Louis Napoleon, when, in
+the winter of 1853-4, be said, "If the war break out, we must show our
+Zouaves to the Russians." They were a body trained in the school of a
+terrible experience of twenty-four years; they had learned, like the
+lion-hunter, Gerard, to take death by the mane, and look into his fiery
+eyes without blenching; they were fit for this service, which demanded
+the best nerve of the two most powerful nations of the world. What they
+did there is known to all; at the battle of the Alma, Marshal St. Arnaud
+was unable to repress his admiration, calling them "the bravest soldiers
+in the world." All Europe, at first wondering at these strange troops,
+with their wild dress, their half-savage manners, and strange method of
+warfare, found speedy cause to admire their courage and success; France
+was proud of their renown, and they became immensely popular in Paris,
+sure proof of their remarkable qualities. Their oddities, their courage,
+their imperfect knowledge of the distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_,
+their wondering, childlike simplicity, furnished themes for endless
+songs and caricatures; the comedy of "Les Zouaves" met with great
+success; and the cant name for them, "Zouzou," is to be heard at any
+time in the streets. In 1855, the Fourth Zouaves was created, consisting
+of but two battalions, and enrolled in the Imperial Guard; they are
+distinguished from the others by wearing a white turban, while that of
+the other regiments is green; since the formation of this regiment, no
+new corps have been added. The peace with Russia, in 1856, was not peace
+for the Zouaves, who returned, desiring nothing better, to Africa,
+where, in the continued war, they found congenial employment till the
+final submission of the last tribes, July 15, 1857, dissolved the army
+of Kabylia, and made them, perforce, peaceful, till the 26th of April of
+this year brought them to win fresh laurels on a new field.
+
+Vague reports, assertions without proof, have been not infrequently
+made, to the effect that the Zouaves are in character cruel, dissolute,
+and excessively given to hard drinking. That they are absolutely free
+from the first charge I shall not attempt to deny; that they are more so
+than other men, in like circumstances, there is no proof; there is even
+good reason to state the contrary, if we may judge by instances, of
+which, for want of space, one shall suffice here. The Zouaves were in
+the van of the army, on their march toward the Tell; in their charge was
+a large body of prisoners, wounded, and helpless women, old men, and
+children, whom they were conducting to the Tell, to restore them to
+their homes. The weather was intensely hot, even for Africa; the nearest
+well was eleven leagues distant; and the sufferings of the poor people
+must have been dreadful indeed. Mothers flung down their infants on the
+burning sand, and pressed madly on to save themselves from the most
+horrible of deaths; old men and boys sunk exhausted, panting, declaring
+they could go no farther. "Then it was," says an eyewitness, "that the
+Zouaves behaved like very Sisters of Charity, rather than rough bearded
+soldiers; they divided their last morsel with these unfortunates, gave
+them drink from their own scanty stores, and, putting their canteens to
+the mouths of the dying, revived them with the precious draught. They
+raised the screaming infants, overturned and held ewes, that they might
+suckle the poor creatures, abandoned in despair by their mothers, and,
+in many instances, carried them the whole distance in their arms. At
+night they ate nothing, giving their food to the helpless prisoners,
+whose lives they thus saved at the risk of their own." If in war they
+"imitate the action of the tiger," we have every reason to believe that
+in peace they are, to say the least, not less humane than others.
+
+The author of "Recollections of an Officer" [Footnote: _Souvenirs d'un
+Officier du 2me de Zouaves_. Paris, 1859.] sums up the character of the
+Zouaves in a few words which clear them from the other two charges,
+those of dissoluteness and drunkenness. He says,--"Beside the condition
+of success resulting from the first organization, it must be said, that,
+somewhat later, the happy idea came to be adopted, of giving to the
+Zouaves destined to fight in the light-armed troops the costume of
+_Chasseurs-a-pied_. The recruitment added also not a little to the
+reputation which the Zouaves so rapidly acquired; the soldiers are all
+drawn, not from conscripts, but from applicants for the service. Many
+are Parisians, or, at all events, inhabitants of the other great French
+cities; most have already served,--are therefore inured to the
+work,--accustomed to privations, which they undergo gayly,--to fatigues,
+at which they joke,--to dangers in battle, which they treat as mere
+play. They are proud of their uniform, which does not resemble that of
+any other corps,--proud of that name, _Zouave_, of mysterious
+origin,--proud of the splendid actions with which each succeeding day
+enriches the history of their troops,--happy in the liberty they
+experience, both in garrison and on expeditions. It is said that the
+Zouaves love wine; it is true; but they are rarely seen intoxicated;
+they seek the pleasures of conviviality, not the imbrutement of
+drunkenness. These regiments count in their ranks officers, who,
+_ennuied_ by a lazy life, have taken up the musket and the
+_chechia_,--under-officers, who, having already served, brave, even
+rash, seek to win their epaulettes anew in this hard service, and gain
+either a glorious position or a glorious death,--old officers of the
+_garde mobile_,--broad-shouldered marines, who have served their time on
+shipboard, accustomed to cannon and the thunderings of the
+tempest,--young men of family, desirous to replace with the red ribbon
+of the Legion of Honor, bought and colored with their blood, the
+dishonor of a life gaped wearily away on the pavements of Paris.
+
+"Composed of such elements, one can scarcely imagine the body of Zouaves
+other than brilliant in the field of battle. The officers are generally
+chosen from the regiments of the line, men remarkable for strength,
+courage, and prudence; full of energy, pushing the love of their colors
+to its last limit, always ready to confront death and to run up to meet
+danger, they seek glory rather than promotion. To train up their
+soldiers, to give them an example, in their own persons, of all the
+military virtues,--such are their only cares. Our ancestors said,
+'_Noblesse, oblige_'; these choose the same motto. _Their_ nobility is
+not that of old family-titles, but the uniform in which they are
+clothed, the title of officer of Zouaves. _Esprit de corps_, that
+religion of the soldier, is carried by the Zouaves to its highest pitch;
+the common soldiers would not consent to change their turban for the
+epaulettes of an ensign in the other service; and many an ensign, and
+not a few captains, have preferred to await their advancement in the
+Zouaves rather than immediately obtain it by entering other regiments.
+There exists, moreover, between the soldiers and officers, a military
+fraternity, which, far from destroying discipline, tends rather to draw
+more closely its bonds. The officer sees in his men rather companions in
+danger and in glory than inferiors; he willingly attends to their
+complaints, and strives to spare them all unnecessary privations. Where
+they are exposed to difficulties, he does not hesitate to employ all the
+means in his power to aid them. In return, the soldier professes for his
+officer an affection, a devotion, a sort of filial respect. Discipline,
+he knows, must be severe, and he does not grumble at its penalties. In
+battle, he does not abandon his chief; he watches over him, will die for
+his safety, will not let him fall into the hands of the enemy if
+wounded. At the bivouac he makes the officer's fire, though his own
+should die for want of fuel; cares for his horse, arranges his
+furniture; if any delicacy in the way of food can be procured, he brings
+it to the chief. Convinced of the desire of their master that the
+soldiers shall be well fed, the Zouaves often insist that a part of
+their pay be expended for procuring the provisions of the tribe.
+[Footnote: In accordance with Arab customs, the Zouaves, who (to use the
+ordinary expression) "live in common," compose a circle to which they
+give the name of _tribe_. In the tribe, each one has his allotted task:
+one attends to making the fires and procuring wood; another draws water
+and does the cooking; another makes the coffee and arranges the camp,
+etc.] The colonel is the man most venerated by these soldiers, who look
+upon him as the father of the family. They are proud of the colonel's
+success, and happy to have contributed to his honor or advancement. When
+an order comes directly from him, be sure it will be religiously obeyed.
+'When _papa_ says anything,' they repeat, one to another, 'it must be
+done. Papa knows it is _already_ done; be wants us to be the best
+children possible.' In critical moments, the colonel can use the
+severest Draconian code, without having anything to fear from the
+disapprobation of his men."
+
+
+
+
+MY PSALM.
+
+
+  I mourn no more my vanished years:
+      Beneath a tender rain,
+  An April rain of smiles and tears,
+      My heart is young again.
+
+  The west winds blow, and, singing low,
+      I hear the glad streams run;
+  The windows of my soul I throw
+      Wide open to the sun.
+
+  No longer forward nor behind
+      I look in hope or fear;
+  But, grateful, take the good I find,
+      The best of now and here.
+
+  I plough no more a desert land,
+      To harvest weed and tare;
+  The manna dropping from God's hand
+      Rebukes my painful care.
+
+  I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
+    Aside the toiling oar;
+  The angel sought so far away
+    I welcome at my door.
+
+  The airs of Spring may never play
+      Among the ripening corn,
+  Nor freshness of the flowers of May
+      Blow through the Autumn morn;--
+
+  Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
+      Through fringed lids to heaven,
+  And the pale aster in the brook
+      Shall see its image given;--
+
+  The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
+      The south wind softly sigh,
+  And sweet, calm days in golden haze
+      Melt down the amber sky.
+
+  Not less shall manly deed and word
+      Rebuke an age of wrong;
+  The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
+      Make not the blade less strong.
+
+  But smiting hands shall learn to heal,
+      To build as to destroy;
+  Nor less my heart for others feel
+      That I the more enjoy.
+
+  All as God wills, who wisely heeds
+      To give or to withhold,
+  And knoweth more of all my needs
+      Than all my prayers have told!
+
+  Enough that blessings undeserved
+      Have marked my erring track,--
+  That, wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
+      His chastening turned me back,--
+
+  That more and more a Providence
+      Of love is understood,
+  Making the springs of time and sense
+      Sweet with eternal good,--
+
+  That death seems but a covered way
+      Which opens into light,
+  Wherein no blinded child can stray
+      Beyond the Father's sight,--
+
+  That care and trial seem at last,
+      Through Memory's sunset air,
+  Like mountain-ranges overpast,
+      In purple distance fair,--
+
+  That all the jarring notes of life
+      Seem blending in a psalm,
+  And all the angles of its strife
+      Slow rounding into calm.
+
+  And so the shadows fall apart,
+      And so the west winds play;
+  And all the windows of my heart
+      I open to the day!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.
+
+
+There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere of our
+boarding-house since my last record, as if something or other were going
+on. There is no particular change that I can think of in the aspect of
+things; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life were quietly
+playing and strange forces were at work, underneath this smooth surface
+of every-day boarding-house life, which would show themselves some fine
+morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have been
+watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may
+laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble
+myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours.
+Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,--a
+beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to
+Nature's women, turned loose among live men.
+
+--_Terrible_ fact?
+
+Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost heaven
+for the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who
+made mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? If
+jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies,--if pangs that
+waste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or moping
+melancholy,--if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities,
+then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman.--I
+love to look at this "Rainbow," as her father used sometimes to call
+her, of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and colors,--the
+very picture, as it seems to me, of that "golden blonde" my friend whose
+book you read last year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you
+remember, no doubt,)--handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, it
+is not her beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one
+of my fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort of
+fascination she has for me.
+
+It is in the hearts of many men and women--let me add children--that
+there is a _Great Secret_ waiting for them,--a secret of which they get
+hints now and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. These
+hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in sudden startling
+flashes,--second wakings, as it were,--a waking out of the waking state,
+which last is very apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped
+short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving my cheeks, in one
+of these sudden clairvoyant flashes. Of course I cannot tell what kind
+of a secret this is; but I think of it as a disclosure of certain
+relations of our personal being to time and space, to other
+intelligences, to the procession of events, and to their First Great
+Cause. This secret seems to be broken up, as it were, into fragments, so
+that we find here a word and there a syllable, and then again only a
+letter of it; but it never is written out for most of us as a complete
+sentence, in this life. I do not think it could be; for I am disposed to
+consider our beliefs about such a possible disclosure rather as a kind
+of premonition of an enlargement of our faculties in some future state
+than as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of us in this life.
+Persons, however, have fallen into trances,--as did the Reverend William
+Tennent, among many others,--and learned some things which they could
+not tell in our human words.
+
+Now among the visible objects which hint to us fragments of this
+infinite secret for--which our souls are waiting, the faces of women are
+those that carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery.
+There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain something
+in them that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct and
+palpable a revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remember
+two faces of women with wings, such as they call angels, of Fra
+Angelico,--and I just now came across a print of Raphael's Santa
+Apollina, with something of the same quality,--which I was sure had
+their prototypes in the world above ours. No wonder the Catholics pay
+their vows to the Queen of Heaven! The unpoetical side of Protestantism
+is, that it has no women to be worshipped.
+
+But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints the Great Secret
+to us, nor is it only in beautiful faces that we find traces of it.
+Sometimes it looks out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain
+countenance; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips of a woman,
+not otherwise fascinating, that we know they have a message for us, and
+wait almost with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl has at
+once the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Can
+she tell me anything? Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing
+element in it which I have been groping after through so many
+friendships that I have tired of, and through--Hush! Is the door fast?
+Talking loud is a bad trick in these curious boarding-houses.
+
+You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am going to remind you of
+and to use for a special illustration. Riding along over a rocky road,
+suddenly the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel changes to
+a deep heavy rumble. There is a great hollow under your feet,--a huge
+unsunned cavern. Deep, deep beneath you, in the core of the living rock,
+it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its winding
+galleries, their roofs dripping into streams where fishes have been
+swimming and spawning in the dark until their scales are white as milk
+and their eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless.
+
+So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the same faces, grinding
+over the same thoughts,--the gravel of the soul's highway,--now and then
+jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round
+as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment,
+but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and
+jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the
+smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground
+reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of
+thought or passion beneath us.----
+
+I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at her so much, and yet I
+cannot help it. Always that same expression of something that I ought to
+know,--something that she was made to tell and I to hear,--lying there
+ready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap out of her eyes and make
+a saint of me, or a devil or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the
+truth and be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon the
+dry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn over an age of lies in
+an hour of passion.
+
+It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you on the wrong track. The
+Great Secret that I refer to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set
+your mind at ease about that,--there are reasons I could give you which
+settle all that matter. I don't wonder, however, that you confounded the
+Great Secret with the Three Words.
+
+I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most women have to tell.
+When that is said, they are like China-crackers on the morning of the
+fifth of July. And just as that little patriotic implement is made with
+a slender train which leads to the magazine in its interior, so a sharp
+eye can almost always see the train leading from a young girl's eye or
+lip to the "I love you" in her heart. But the Three Words are not the
+Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces are only one of the tablets on
+which that is written in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies
+deeper than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. Some, I
+think,--Wordsworth might be one of them,--spell out a portion of it from
+certain beautiful natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. I
+can mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints which seem to
+me to come near the region where I think it lies. I have known two
+persons who pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists,--all
+wrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving up the daily search
+for it until they got tremulous and feeble, and their dreams changed to
+visions of things that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings,
+and so they died. The vulgar called them drunkards.
+
+I told you that I would let you know the mystery of the effect this
+young girl's face produces on me. It is akin to those influences a
+friend of mine has described, you may remember, as coming from certain
+voices. I cannot translate it into words,--only into feelings; and these
+I have attempted to shadow by showing that her face hinted that
+revelation of something we are close to knowing, which all imaginative
+persons are looking for either in this world or on the very threshold of
+the next.
+
+You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful incomprehensibleness
+of my description of the expression in a young girl's face. You forget
+what a miserable surface-matter this language is in which we try to
+reproduce our interior state of being. Articulation is a shallow trick.
+From the light Poh! which we toss off from our lips as we fling a
+nameless scribbler's impertinences into our waste-baskets, to the
+gravest utterance which comes from our throats in our moments of deepest
+need, is only a space of some three or four inches. Words, which are a
+set of clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little,
+compared to tones and expression of the features. I give it up; I
+thought I could shadow forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the
+effect this young girl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of
+no use. No doubt your head aches, trying to make something of my
+description. If there is here and there one that can make anything
+intelligible out of my talk about the Great Secret, and who has spelt
+out a syllable or two of it on some woman's face, dead or living, that
+is all I can expect. One should see the person with whom he converses
+about such matters. There are dreamy-eyed people to whom I should say
+all these things with a certainty of being understood;--
+
+  That moment that his face I see,
+  I know the man that must hear me:
+      To him my tale I teach.
+
+----I am afraid some of them have not got a spare quarter for this
+August number, so that they will never see it.
+
+----Let us start again, just as if we had not made this ambitious
+attempt, which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded,
+if you will make the change.
+
+This young girl, about whom I have talked so unintelligibly, is the
+unconscious centre of attraction to the whole solar system of our
+breakfast-table. The little gentleman, leans towards her, and she again
+seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force towards him. That
+slight inclination of two persons with a strong affinity towards each
+other, throwing them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side,
+is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is a tendency in all
+the men's eyes to converge on her; and I do firmly believe, that, if all
+their chairs were examined, they would be found a little obliquely
+placed, so as to favor the direction in which their occupants love to
+look.
+
+That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting
+opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some
+mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a
+sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another
+by the hand of Bridget to this old gentleman.
+
+----Sarvant, Ma'am! Much obleeged,--he said, and put it gallantly in his
+button-hole.--After breakfast he must see some of her drawings. Very
+fine performances,--very fine!--truly elegant productions,--truly
+elegant!--Had seen Miss Linley's needle-work in London, in the year
+(eighteen hundred and little or nothing, I think he said,)--patronized
+by the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty,--elegant, truly elegant
+productions, very fine performances; these drawings reminded him of
+them;--wonderful resemblance to Nature; an extraordinary art, painting;
+Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that he remembered seeing when
+he was a boy. Used to remember some lines about a portrait written by
+Mr. Cowper, beginning,--
+
+  "Oh that those lips had language! Life has past
+  With me but roughly since I saw thee last."
+
+And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking about a dead mother of
+his that he remembered ever so much younger than he now was, and
+looking, not as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The dead
+young mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to look
+at him so many, many years ago. He stood still as if cataleptic, his
+eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct and they
+ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out of the
+glimmering light through which he saw them.--What is there quite so
+profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother who died in his
+earlier years? Mother she remains till manhood, and by-and-by she grows,
+as it were, to be as a sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and
+broken, he looks back upon her in her fair youth, he sees in the sweet
+image he caresses, not his parent, but, as it were, his child.
+
+If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's face, the words with
+which he broke his silence would have betrayed his train of thought.
+
+----If they had only taken pictures then as they do now!--he said.--All
+gone! all gone! nothing but her face as she leaned on the arms of her
+great chair; and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest little
+picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling of anybody that you
+don't want to see.--The old gentleman put his hand to his forehead so as
+to shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of memory,
+and turned from him to Iris.
+
+How many drawing-books have you filled,--I said,--since you began to
+take lessons?--This was the first,--she answered,--since she was here;
+and it was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large size
+she had covered with drawings.
+
+I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies,
+principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so
+forth. Limbs from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a superb
+drawing of an arm! I don't remember it among the figures from Michel
+Angelo, which seem to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I
+think, or after a cast from Nature.--Oh!----
+
+----Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose,--I said, taking up the
+drawing-book with a lock on it.----Yes,--she said.--I should like to see
+her style of working on a small scale.--There was nothing in it worth
+showing,--she said; and presently I saw her try the lock, which proved
+to be fast. We are all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. I
+think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us what her
+fancies were about us boarders. Some of them act as if they were
+bewitched with her, but she does not seem to notice it much. Her
+thoughts seem to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else.
+The young fellow John appears to stand second in her good graces. I
+think he has once or twice sent her what the landlady's daughter calls
+bo-kays of flowers,--somebody has, at any rate.--I saw a book she had,
+which must have come from the divinity-student. It had a dreary
+title-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the
+author,--a face from memory, apparently,--one of those faces that small
+children loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inward
+disgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when they hear
+that these are "good men," and that heaven is full of such.--The
+gentleman with the "diamond"--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was not
+encouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He
+pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who never
+sees him, as it should seem. The young Marylander, who I thought would
+have been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from his
+corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, I wish
+you were up here by me, or I were down there by you,--which would,
+perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one. But nothing
+comes of all this,--and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of finding
+out the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book.
+
+Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I made an
+attempt also to work into the little gentleman's chamber. For this
+purpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was just
+ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followed
+him as he toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and faced
+round toward me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there!
+So we finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I mustered
+assurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready.--No
+answer.--Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly and
+locked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled,
+misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door were
+unfastened,--with unnecessary noise, I thought,--and he came into the
+passage. He pulled the inner door after him and opened the outer one at
+which I stood. He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as "Mr.
+Copley" used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes in; and a
+quaint-looking key in his hand. Our conversation was short, but long
+enough to convince me that the little gentleman did not want my company
+in his chamber, and did not mean to have it.
+
+I have been making a great fuss about what is no mystery at all,--a
+schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up
+such nonsense and mind my own business.--Hark! What the deuse is that
+odd noise in his chamber?
+
+----I think I am a little superstitious. There were two things, when I
+was a boy, that diabolized my imagination,--I mean, that gave me a
+distinct apprehension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled round
+the neighborhood where I was born and bred. The first was a series of
+marks called the "Devil's footsteps." These were patches of sand in the
+pastures, where no grass grew, where even the low-bush blackberry, the
+"dewberry," as our Southern neighbors call it, in prettier and more
+Shakspearian language, did not spread its clinging creepers,--where even
+the pale, dry, sadly-sweet "everlasting" could not grow, but all was
+bare and blasted. The second was a mark in one of the public buildings
+near my home,--the college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. I
+do not think many persons are aware of the existence of this
+mark,--little having been said about the story in print, as it was
+considered very desirable, for the sake of the institution, to hush it
+up. In the northwest corner, and on the level of the third or fourth
+story, there are signs of a breach in the walls, mended pretty well, but
+not to be mistaken. A considerable portion of that corner must have been
+carried away, from within outward. It was an unpleasant story; and I do
+not care to repeat the particulars; but some young men had been using
+sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which
+was variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the
+chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the
+building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the
+mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The
+queer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted
+attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had
+not existed previously, except that of the late Miss M., a "Goody," so
+called, or sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a strange
+horror of referring to an affair of which she was thought to know
+something.--I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy of
+impressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with
+untenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly garret,--with the
+"Devil's footsteps" in the fields behind the house, and in front of it
+the patched dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken place
+which startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so that one
+of them was an idiot from that day forward, and another, after a
+dreadful season of mental conflict, took holy orders and became renowned
+for his ascetic sanctity.
+
+There were other circumstances that kept up the impression produced by
+these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark
+storeroom, on looking through the keyhole of which, I could dimly see a
+heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed to
+me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have
+huddled together and climbed up on each other's backs,--as the people
+did in that awful crush where so many were killed, at the execution of
+Holloway and Haggerty. Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the
+sword-thrusts through it,--marks of the British officers' rapiers,--and
+the tall mirror in which they used to look at their red coats,--confound
+them for smashing its mate!--and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chair
+in which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing;--he was a
+gentleman, and always had it covered with a large _peignoir_, to save
+the silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room
+down-stairs, from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on
+the hill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk,--"the
+study," in my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of
+armed men,--sometimes filled with soldiers;--come with me, and I will
+show you the "dents" left by the butts of their muskets all over the
+floor.--With all these suggestive objects round me, aided by the wild
+stories those awful country-boys that came to live in our service
+brought with them,--of contracts written in blood and left out over
+night, not to be found the next morning,--removed by the Evil One, who
+takes his nightly round among our dwellings, and filed away for future
+use,--of dreams coming true,--of death-signs,--of apparitions,--no
+wonder that my imagination got excited, and I was liable to
+superstitious fancies.
+
+Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that he couldn't possibly see
+a ghost, is all very well--in the day-time. All the reason in the world
+will never get those impressions of childhood, created by just such
+circumstances as I have been telling, out of a man's head. That is the
+only excuse I have to give for the nervous kind of curiosity with which
+I watch my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie awake
+whenever I hear anything going on in his chamber after midnight.
+
+But whatever further observations I may have made must be deferred for
+the present. You will see in what way it happened that my thoughts were
+turned from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got my fancy
+full of material images,--faces, heads, figures, muscles, and so
+forth,--in such a way that I should have no chance in this number to
+gratify any curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing.
+
+Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my periodical record this time.
+It was all the work of a friend of mine, who would have it that I should
+sit to him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in the great
+lottery of life, where every one is sure of a prize, such as it is, the
+said soul inspects the said body with the same curious interest with
+which one who has ventured into a "gift enterprise" examines the
+"massive silver pencil-case" with the coppery smell and impressible
+tube, or the "splendid gold ring" with the questionable specific
+gravity, which it has been his fortune to obtain in addition to his
+purchase.
+
+The soul, having studied the article of which it finds itself
+proprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty well. But there is
+this difference between its view and that of a person looking at us:--we
+look from within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the elements
+in which we are incased; other observers look from without, and see us
+as living statues. To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few
+glimpses of our outside aspect; but this occasional impression is always
+modified by that look of the soul from within outward which none but
+ourselves can take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise to
+us. The artist looks only from without. He sees us, too, with a hundred
+aspects on our faces we are never likely to see. No genuine expression
+can be studied by the subject of it in the looking-glass.
+
+More than this; he sees us in a way in which many of our friends or
+acquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are conscious
+of, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place,
+each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle of
+assimilation referred to in my last record, if you happen to have read
+that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable of seeing
+just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in it the
+particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is truly an
+artist, does not take any one of these special views. Suppose he should
+copy you as you appear to the man who wants your name to a
+subscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend who entertains you
+to recognize the likeness to the smiling face which sheds its radiance
+at his board. Even within your own family, I am afraid there is a face
+which the rich uncle knows, that is not so familiar to the poor
+relation. The artist must take one or the other, or something compounded
+of the two, or something different from either. What the daguerreotype
+and photograph do is to give the features and one particular look, the
+very look which kills all expression, that of self-consciousness. The
+artist throws you off your guard, watches you in movement and in repose,
+puts your face through its exercises, observes its transitions, and so
+gets the whole range of its expression. Out of all this he forms an
+ideal portrait, which is not a copy of your exact look at any one time
+or to any particular person. Such a portrait cannot be to everybody what
+the ungloved call "as nat'ral as life." Every good picture, therefore,
+must be considered wanting in resemblance by many persons.
+
+There is one strange revelation which comes out, as the artist shapes
+your features from his outline. It is that you resemble so many
+relatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likeness
+in your countenance.
+
+He is at work at me now, when I catch some of these resemblances,
+thus:--
+
+There! that is just the look my father used to have sometimes; I never
+thought I had a sign of it. The mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye,
+those I knew I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile that
+faded away from my sister's lips--how many years ago! I thought it so
+pleasant in her, that I love myself better for having a trace of it.
+
+Are we not young? Are we not fresh and blooming? Wait a bit. The artist
+takes a mean little brush and draws three fine lines, diverging outwards
+from the eye over the temple. Five years.--The artist draws one
+tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between the
+eyebrows. Ten years.--The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth,
+so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and
+recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the
+same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.--Hold on! Stop
+that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of that
+interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., etc.,
+etc.?
+
+There now! That is ourself, as we look after finishing an article,
+getting a three-mile pull with the ten-foot sculls, redressing the
+wrongs of the toilet, and standing with the light of hope in our eye and
+the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a POET that
+painted us?
+
+  "Blest be the art that can immortalize!"
+
+COWPER
+
+----Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school with
+any given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation,
+and in his features as special and definite an expression of his sole
+individuality as if he were the first created of his race. As soon as we
+are old enough to get the range of three or four generations well in
+hand, and to take in large family histories, we never see an individual
+in a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, with
+fragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. The analysis of a face
+into its ancestral elements requires that it should be examined in the
+very earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn look
+it brings with it out of the past eternity; and again in that brief
+space when Life, the mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, his
+silent servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he
+has wrought so faithfully; and lastly, while a painter who can seize all
+the traits of a countenance is building it up, feature after feature,
+from the slight outline to the finished portrait.
+
+----I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to look upon our
+bodies more and more as a temporary possession, and less and less as
+identified with ourselves. In early years, while the child "feels its
+life in every limb," it lives in the body and for the body to a very
+great extent. It ought to be so. There have been many very interesting
+children who have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth
+and an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. There is a
+perfect literature of their biographies, all alike in their essentials;
+the same "disinclination to the usual amusements of childhood"; the same
+remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the same conscientiousness;
+in short, an almost uniform character, marked by beautiful traits, which
+we look at with a painful admiration. It will be found that most of
+these children are the subjects of some constitutional unfitness for
+living, the most frequent of which I need not mention. They are like the
+beautiful, blushing, half-grown fruit that falls before its time because
+its core is gnawed out. They have their meaning,--they do not live in
+vain,--but they are windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy children
+are injured morally by being forced to read too much about these little
+meek sufferers and their spiritual exercises. Here is a boy that loves
+to run, swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whittle, fish,
+tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash "tooters,"
+cut his name on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the
+Sailor, eat the widest-angled slices of pie and untold cakes and
+candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out the better part of
+another boy's apple with his front ones, turn up coppers, "stick"
+knives, call names, throw stones, knock off hats, set mousetraps, chalk
+doorsteps, "cut behind" anything on wheels or runners, whistle through
+his teeth, "holler" Fire! on slight evidence, run after soldiers,
+patronize an engine-company, or, in his own words, "blow for tub No.
+11," or whatever it may be;--isn't that a pretty nice sort of a boy,
+though he has not got anything the matter with him that takes the taste
+of this world out? Now, when you put into such a hot-blooded,
+hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand a sad-looking volume or
+pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-faced child, whose life is
+really as much a training for death as the last month of a condemned
+criminal's existence, what does he find in common between his own
+overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and the experiences of the
+doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time comes when we have learned
+to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of resigned suffering, the
+holy light that plays over the pillow of those who die before their
+time, in humble hope and trust. But it is not until he has worked his
+way through the period of honest, hearty animal existence, which every
+robust, child should make the most of,--not until he has learned the use
+of his various faculties, which is his first duty,--that a boy of
+courage and animal vigor is in a proper state to read these tearful
+records of premature decay. I have no doubt that disgust is implanted in
+the minds of many healthy children by early surfeits of pathological
+piety. I do verily believe that He who took children in His arms and
+blessed them loved the healthiest and most playful of them just as well
+as those who were richest in the tuberculous virtues. I know what I am
+talking about, and there are more parents in this country who will be
+willing to listen to what I say than there are fools to pick a quarrel
+with me. In the sensibility and the sanctity which often accompany
+premature decay I see one of the most beautiful instances of the
+principle of compensation which marks the Divine benevolence. But to get
+the spiritual hygiene of robust natures out of the exceptional regimen
+of invalids is just simply what we Professors call "bad practice"; and I
+know by experience that there are worthy people who not only try it on
+their own children, but actually force it on those of their neighbors.
+
+----Having been photographed, and stereographed, and chromatographed, or
+done in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite note from
+Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at their
+Physiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired to
+that scientific Golgotha.
+
+Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and the
+woman in the toy called a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm
+suspended on a pivot,--so that when one comes to the door, the other
+retires backwards, and _vice versa_. The more particular speciality of
+one is to lubricate your entrance and exit,--that of the other to polish
+you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose
+yourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counter-full of
+books with taking titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is there,
+"approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which was copied from _my_, the
+Professor's, folio plate in the work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra
+convolution, No. 9, _Destructiveness_, according to the list beneath,
+which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of Nature, was very
+liberally supplied by the artist, to meet the wants of the catalogue of
+"organs." Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of
+women,--horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range of
+life,--looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe
+Smith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on his
+cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" on a stripped twig of
+willow.
+
+The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as usual; let the
+horn-combers wait,--he shall be bumped without inspecting the
+antechamber.
+
+Tape round the head,--22 inches. (Come on, old 23 inches, if you think
+you are the better man!)
+
+Feels of thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid
+old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls
+at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other.
+_Victuality_, (organ at epigastrium,) some other number equally
+significant.
+
+Mild champooing of head now commences. Extraordinary revelations!
+Cupidipbilous, 6! Hymeniphilous, 6+! Paediphilous, 5! Deipniphilous, 6!
+Gelasmiphilous, 6! Muslkiphilous, 5! Uraniphilous, 5! Glossiphilous, 8!!
+and so on. Meant for a linguist.--Invaluable information. Will invest in
+grammars and dictionaries immediately.--I have nothing against the grand
+total of my phrenological endowments.
+
+I never set great store by my head, and did not think Messrs. Bumpus and
+Crane would give me so good a lot of organs as they did, especially
+considering that I was a _dead_-head on that occasion. Much obliged to
+them for their politeness. They have been useful in their way by calling
+attention to important physiological facts. (This concession is due to
+our immense bump of Candor.)
+
+_A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Boarders at our
+Breakfast-Table._
+
+I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a _Pseudo-science_. A
+Pseudo-science consists of _a nomenclature_, with a self-adjusting
+arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its
+doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells
+against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative
+practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually
+shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh
+a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women
+of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who
+always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on
+hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and
+there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician,
+and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.--I
+did not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences.
+
+A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may
+contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts
+with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the
+strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one.
+The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after
+they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest
+rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us,
+we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many
+persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The
+Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.--I did not say that it was so
+with Phrenology.
+
+I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was
+_something_ in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly
+agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villanous low" and has a huge
+hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely
+met an unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It
+is observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call
+"good heads" are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the
+doctrine.
+
+It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should assert that the
+moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of
+the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be
+puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call
+on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our satellite, before
+I purchase.
+
+It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement.
+It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot
+be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double,
+with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most
+closely crowded "organs." Can you tell how much money there is in a
+safe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your
+fingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the
+organs of _Individuality_, _Size_, etc., I trust him as much as I should
+if he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was a
+five-dollar- or a ten-dollar-bill under this or that particular rivet.
+Perhaps there is; _only he doesn't know anything about it_. But this is
+a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to,
+certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will all
+appreciate.
+
+I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of
+Phrenology, which is _very similar_ to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An
+example will show it most conveniently.
+
+A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a
+good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts
+and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump _does not lose_ in the
+act of copying.--I did not Hay it gained.--What do you look so for? (to
+the boarders.)
+
+Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all
+over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.--Not a bit
+of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? _That's_ the reason
+B. stole.
+
+And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,--used
+to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and
+put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing
+petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a _hollow_, instead of a bump, over
+Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of
+Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and ginger-bread, when a boy, with
+the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his
+example confirms our noble science.
+
+At last comes along a case which is apparently a _settler_, for there is
+a little brain with vast and varied powers,--a case like that of Byron,
+for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers
+everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a
+Phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the _quality_ of an organ,
+which determines its degree of power."
+
+Oh! oh! I see.--The argument may be briefly stated thus by the
+Phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient.
+
+It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the
+Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it was a Pseudo-science.
+
+I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed
+at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had
+read their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor
+acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and
+manipulations.--What are you laughing at? (to the boarders).--But let us
+just _suppose_, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did
+not know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and
+undertake to read off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar
+apiece. Let us see how well he could get along without the "organs."
+
+I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred
+dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other
+matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to
+begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor
+Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first
+customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,--ask
+him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang
+of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull,
+dictating as follows:--
+
+
+                            SCALE FROM I TO 10.
+
+  LIST OF FACULTIES FOR CUSTOMER.     PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL:
+                                   _Each to be accompanied with a wink._
+
+    _Amativeness_, 7.            Most men love the conflicting sex, and all
+                               men love to be told they do.
+
+    _Alimentiveness_, 8.         Don't you see that he has burst off his
+                               lowest waistcoat-button with feeding,--hay?
+
+    _Acquisitiveness_, 8.      Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
+
+    _Approbativeness_, 7+.       Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the
+                               effect of that _plus_ sign.
+
+    _Self-esteem_, 6.          His face shows that.
+
+    _Benevolence_, 9.          That'll please him
+
+    _Conscientiousness_, 8-1/2. That fraction looks first-rate.
+
+    _Mirthfulness_, 7.         Has laughed twice since he came in.
+
+    _Ideality_, 9.             That sounds well.
+
+    _Form, Size, Weight, Color, }
+    Locality, Eventuality, etc.,}   4 to 6. Average everything that
+    etc.,_                      }              can't be guessed.
+
+                                    And so of the other faculties.
+
+
+Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phrenologists do. They go
+only by the bumps.--What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders.)
+I only said that is the way _I_ should practise "Phrenology" for a
+living.
+
+_End of my Lecture._
+
+----The Reformers have good heads generally. Their faces are commonly
+serene enough, and they are lambs in private intercourse, even though
+their voices may be like
+
+  The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore,
+
+when heard from platform. Their greatest spiritual danger is from the
+perpetual _flattery of abuse_ to which they are exposed. These lines are
+meant to caution them.
+
+
+
+
+SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER.
+
+
+HIS TEMPTATION.
+
+
+  No fear lest praise should make us proud!
+    We know how cheaply that is won;
+  The idle homage of the crowd
+    Is proof of tasks as idly done.
+
+  A surface-smile may pay the toil
+    That follows still the conquering Right,
+  With soft, white hands to dress the spoil
+    That sunbrowned arms have clutched in fight.
+
+  Sing the sweet song of other days,
+    Serenely placid, safely true,
+  And o'er the present's parching ways
+    Thy verse distils like evening dew.
+
+  But speak in words of living power,--
+    They fall like drops of scalding rain
+  That plashed before the burning shower
+    swept o'er the cities of the plain!
+
+  Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,--
+    Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring,
+  And, smitten through their leprous mail,
+    Strike right and left in hope to sting.
+
+  If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath,
+    They feet on earth, they heart above,
+  Canst walk in peace they kingly path,
+    Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,--
+
+  Too kind for bitter words to grieve,
+    Too firm for clamor to dismay,
+  When Faith forbids thee to believe,
+    And Meekness calls to disobey,--
+
+  Ah, then beware of mortal pride!
+    The smiling pride that calmly scorns
+  Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed
+    In laboring on thy crown of thorns!
+
+
+
+
+THE ITALIAN WAR.
+
+
+War has been pronounced the condition of humanity; and it is certain
+that conflict of some kind rages everywhere and at all times. The most
+combative people on earth are the advocates of universal and perpetual
+peace. There is something essentially defiant in the action of men who
+avowedly seek the abolition of a custom that has existed since the days
+of Cain, and which was well known to those magnificent beasts that
+ranged over the earth's face long before man began to dream or was
+dreamed of. To fight seems a necessity of the animal nature, whether the
+animal be called tiger, bull, or man. Those who have fought assure us
+that there is a positive pleasure in battle. That clever young woman,
+Miss Flora Mac-Ivor, who passed most of her life in the very highest
+fighting society, assures us, that men, when confronted with each other,
+have a certain instinct for strife, as we see in other male animals,
+such as dogs, bulls, and so forth. It is even so; and, further, the
+fondness that men have for accounts and details of battles is another
+evidence of the popularity of war, and an absolute stumbling-block in
+the way of the Peace Society, which has the hardest of combats to fight.
+
+The journals of the world are at this time full of the details of a war
+such as that world has not witnessed since 1815, and in comparison with
+which even the Russian War was but a second-rate contest. The old
+quarrel between Austria and France, which has repeatedly caused the
+peace of Europe to be broken since the days of Frederick III. and Louis
+XI., has been renewed in our time with a fierceness and a vehemence and
+on a scale that would have astonished Francis I., Charles V., Richelieu,
+Turenne, Conde, Louis XIV., Eugene, and even Napoleon himself, the most
+mighty of whose contests with Austria alone cannot be compared with that
+which his nephew is now waging with the House of Lorraine. For, in 1805
+and in 1809, Napoleon was not merely the ruler of France, but had at his
+control the resources of many other countries. Belgium and Holland were
+then at the command of France, and now they are independent monarchies,
+holding strictly the position of neutrals. In 1809, Napoleon had those
+very German States for his active allies that now threaten Napoleon
+III.; and some of the hardest fighting on the French side, in the first
+days of the campaign, was the work of Bavarians and other German
+soldiers. That part of Poland which then constituted the Grand Duchy of
+Warsaw was among his dependent principalities; and Russia sent an army
+to his aid. In 1805, Napoleon I. had far more of Italian assistance than
+Napoleon III. has had at the time we write; and in 1809, the entire
+Peninsula obeyed his decrees as implicitly as they were obeyed by
+France. Napoleon III. entered upon the war with the hereditary rival of
+his country with no other ally than Sardinia, though it is now evident
+that there was an "understanding" between him and the Czar, not pointing
+to an attack on England, but to prevent the intervention of the Germans
+in behalf of Austria, by holding out the implied threat of an attack on
+Germany by Russia, should its rulers or people move against the allies.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the motives of the French Emperor, and
+however little most men may be disposed to believe in his generosity, it
+is impossible to refrain from admiring the promptness and skill with
+which he has acted, or to deny to him the merit of courage in daring to
+pronounce so decidedly against the Austrians at a time when he could not
+have reasonably reckoned upon a single ally beyond the limits of Italy,
+when England, under Tory rule, was more disposed to act against him than
+with him, and when the hostility of Germany, and its readiness to
+support the Slavonic empire of Austria, were unequivocally expressed. So
+great indeed, were the odds against him, that we find in that fact the
+chief reason for the indisposition of the world to believe in the
+possibility of war, and its extraordinary surprise when war actually
+broke out.
+
+To those who had closely scanned the affairs of Europe, and who observed
+them by the light of the history of nearly four centuries, the coming of
+war was no surprise. They foresaw it, and predicted its occurrence some
+time before that famous lecture which the Emperor of the French
+administered to the Emperor of Austria in the person of Baron Huebner.
+With them, the question was not, Shall there be a war?--but it was, When
+will the war break out? They reasoned from the _cause_ of the quarrel
+between the two empires; while those who so long clung to the belief
+that peace would be preserved, and who so plausibly argued in support of
+their theory as to impose upon wellnigh the whole world, concerned
+themselves only with its _occasion_. The former referred to things that
+lay beyond the range of temporary politics, and, while admitting that
+the shock of actual conflict might be postponed even for a few years,
+were certain that such conflict must come, even if in the interval there
+should happen an entire change of government in France. France might be
+imperial, or royal, or republican, she might be Bonapartean, or
+Henriquist, or Orleansist, or democratic,--tri-color, white, blue or
+red,--but the quarrel would come, and cause new campaigns. The latter
+thinking that the dispute was on the Italian question only, and knowing
+that that was susceptible of diplomatic settlement, and believing that
+there would be a union of European powers to accomplish such settlement,
+rather than allow peace to be disturbed, never could suppose that the
+balance of probabilities would be found on the side of war. It is due to
+them to say, that a variety of causes conduced not merely to make them
+firm in their faith, but to win for their views the general approbation
+on mankind. Prominent among these was the striking fact, that there had
+been no European was, strictly so called, with the single exception of
+the Russian contest,--and that was highly exceptional in its
+character,--for four-and-forty years. The generation that is passing
+away, and the generation that is most active in discharging the business
+of the world, never had seen a grand conflict between Christian states,
+in which mighty armies had operated on vast and various fields. Old men
+recollected the wars of Napoleon, but the number of such men is not
+large, and their influence on opinion is small. Of quarrels and threats
+of war all had seen enough; but this only tended to make them slow to
+believe that war was really at hand. If so many quarrels had taken
+place, and had been settled without resort to arms, assuredly the new
+quarrel might be settled, and Europe get on peaceably for a few years
+more without warfare. Neither the invasion of Spain in 1823, nor the
+revolution of 1830, nor the Eastern question of 1840, nor the universal
+outbreaks of 1848-9, nor the threats of Russia against Turkey when she
+sought to compel the Sultan to give up those who had eaten his salt to
+the gallows of Arad, nor the repeated discussions of the practicability
+of a French conquest of England had led to a general war. If so many and
+so black clouds had been dispersed without storms, it was not reasonable
+to believe that the cloud which rose in the beginning of 1859 might also
+break, and leave again a serene sky. It may be added that we have all of
+us come to the conclusion that this is the best age the world has ever
+known, as in most respects it is; and it seemed scarcely compatible with
+our estimate of the age's excellence to believe that it _could_ send a
+couple of million of men into the field for the purpose of cutting one
+another's throats, except clearly as an act of self-defence. Man is the
+same war-making animal now that he was in the days of Marathon, but he
+readily admits the evils of war, and is peremptory in demanding that
+they shall not be incurred save for good and valid reasons. He is as
+ready to fight as ever he was, but he must fight for some definite
+cause,--for a cause that will bear examination: and it did not seem
+possible that a mere dispute concerning the manner in which Austria
+governed her Italian dominions was of sufficient moment to light up the
+flames of war anew on a scale as gigantic as ever they were made to
+blaze during the days of Napoleon. Then, so far as the Russian War threw
+any light upon the policy of France, the fair inference was that she at
+least was not disposed to fight. France made the peace by which that war
+was brought to a sudden end. She dictated that peace, much to the
+disgust of the English, who had just become thoroughly roused, and who,
+little anticipating the Indian mutiny, were for carrying on the contest
+until Russia should be thoroughly humiliated. Considering all these
+things, it was not unreasonable to believe that peace could be
+maintained, and that Austria, far from taking the initiative in the war,
+would be found ready to make such concessions as should lead to the
+indefinite postponement of hostilities.
+
+Those who reasoned from the mere occasion of the war were perfectly
+right, from their point of view. Unfortunately for their reputation for
+sagacity, their premises were entirely wrong, and hence the viciousness
+of their conclusion. If we would know the cause of the war, we must
+banish from our minds all that is said about the desire of Napoleon III
+for vengeance on the conquerors of his uncle, all that we are told of
+his sentimental wish for the elevation of the Italian people to a
+national position, and all that is predicated of his ambitious longings
+for the reconstruction of the First Empire. We must regard Napoleon III
+in the light of what he really is, namely, one of the greatest statesmen
+that ever lived, or we shall never be able to understand what are his
+purposes. We have nothing to do with his morals, but have to regard him
+only as the chief of France, pursuing the policy he believes best
+calculated to advance that country's interests, and doing so in strict
+accordance with her historical traditions, and in the same manner in
+which it was pursued by the ablest of the Valois kings, by Henry IV. and
+Sully, by Richelieu and Mazarin, by Louis XIV., by the chiefs of the
+First Republic, and by Napoleon I. He may be a good man or a bad man,
+but his character is entirely aside from the question, the nature and
+merits of which have no necessary connection with the nature and merits
+of the men engaged in effecting its solution. Let us examine the
+subject, and see if we cannot find an intelligent, reasonable cause for
+Napoleon's course of action, that shall harmonize with the duties, we
+might almost say the instincts, of a great French statesman. The
+examination will embrace nothing recondite, but we are confident it will
+show that the French Emperor is no Quixote, and that he has been forced
+into the war by the necessities of his situation, and by the very
+natural desire he feels to prevent France from being compelled to
+descend to a secondary place in the scale of European nations.
+
+Modern Europe, in the sense in which we understand the term, dates from
+the last quarter of the Fifteenth Century. Then England ceased to
+attempt permanent conquests on the continent. Then Spain assumed
+European rank and definite position. But two powers then began
+especially to show themselves, and to play parts which both have
+maintained down to the present time. The one was France, which then
+ceased to dread English invasions, from the effects of which she was
+rapidly recovering, whereby she was left to employ her energies on
+foreign fields. The other was the _House of Austria_, which, by a series
+of fortunate marriages, became, in the short period of forty years, the
+most powerful family the modern world has ever known. On the day when
+Maximilian, son of Frederick III., Emperor of Germany, wedded Mary of
+Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, the rivalry between France and
+the Austrian family began. Philip, son of that marriage, married Juana,
+daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; and their son, Charles I. of the
+Spains, became Charles V. of Germany. Thus there centred in his person a
+degree of power such as no other sovereign could boast, and which alone
+would have sufficed to make him the rival of the King of France, Francis
+I., had no personal feeling entered into the relations between them. But
+such feeling existed, and grew out of their competition for the imperial
+crown. The previous ill-will between the Valois and the Hapsburg was
+greatly increased, and assumed such force as permanently to color the
+course of European history from that day to this. The rivalry of Charles
+and Francis was the cause of many contests, and the French monarch,
+though he was "The Most Christian King," in the opinion of some, more
+than once aided, or offered to aid, the German Protestants against the
+Emperor. To Philip II. and Henry II. the rivalry of their fathers
+descended as an inheritance. It was in their warfare that the Battle of
+St. Quentin was fought. The progress of the Reformation led monarchs in
+those days to take a view of affairs not much unlike that which monarchs
+of this century took in the days of the Holy Alliance, and after the
+revolution of 1830. The hatred of Protestantism led the two kings to
+draw together, though Henry II. had had no mean part in that work which
+had enabled the Protestant Maurice of Saxony to render abortive all the
+plans of Charles V. for the full restoration of Catholicism in Germany.
+During the thirty years that followed the death of Henry II., the
+dissensions of France had rendered her unable to contend with the House
+of Austria, then principally represented by the Spanish branch of that
+family; and Philip II. at one time thought of obtaining the crown of
+that country for a member of his own house. But no sooner had Henry IV.
+ascended the French throne, and established himself firmly thereon, than
+the rivalry of France and Austria became as clearly pronounced as it had
+been in the reign of Francis I.; and at the time of his death that most
+popular of the Bourbon kings was engaged on a plan having for its object
+the subversion of the Austrian power. His assassination changed the
+course of events for a few years; but Richelieu became the ally of the
+Swedes and Protestant Germans in the Thirty Years' War, though he was a
+Cardinal, had destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, and might
+have aspired to the Papacy. Mazarin, another Cardinal, followed
+Richelieu's policy. Louis XIV. was repeatedly at war with the House of
+Austria, though he was the son of an Austrian princess, and was married
+to another. His last war with that house was for the throne of Spain,
+when the elder branch of the Hapsburgs died out, in 1700. Louis XV. had
+two contests with Austria; but in 1756, under the lead of Count Kaunitz,
+France and Austria were united, and acted together in the Seven Years'
+War, the incidents and effects of which were by no means calculated to
+reconcile the French to the departure of their government from its
+ancient policy. One of the causes of the French Revolution was the
+Austrian alliance, and one of its effects was the complete rupture of
+that alliance. Austria was the most determined foe that the French
+Republic and Empire ever encountered. Including the war of 1815, there
+were six contests between Austria and republican and imperial France. In
+all these wars Austria was the aggressor, and showed herself to be the
+enemy of _France_ as well as of those _French principles_ which so
+frightened the conservatives of the world in those days. In the first
+war, she took possession of French places for herself, and not for the
+House of Bourbon; and in the last she purposed a partition of France,
+long after Louis XVIII. had been finally restored, and when Napoleon was
+at or near St. Helena. She demanded that Alsace and Lorraine should be
+made over to her, in the autumn of 1815. She sought to induce Prussia to
+unite with her by offering to support any demand that she might make for
+French territory; and, failing to move that power, endeavored to get the
+smaller German States to act with her,--the same States, indeed, that
+are now so hostile to France, and which talk of a march upon Paris, and
+of a reduction of French territorial strength. Nothing prevented the
+Austrian idea from being reduced to practice but the opposition of
+Russia and England, neither of which had any interest in the spoliation
+of France, while both had no desire to see Austria rendered stronger
+than she was. It was to England that Austria owed her Italian
+possessions, which, in 1814, she at first had the sense not to wish to
+be cumbered with; and to make her still more powerful north of the Alps
+was not to be thought of even by the Liverpools and Castlereaghs. The
+Czar, too, had in his thoughts a closer connection with France than it
+suited him then to avow, and for purposes of his own; and therefore he
+could not desire the sensible diminution of the power of a country the
+resources of which he expected to employ. Nicholas inherited his
+brother's ideas and designs, and we are to attribute much of the
+ill-feeling that he exhibited towards the Orleans dynasty to his
+disappointment; for the revolution that elevated that dynasty to the
+French throne destroyed the hope that he had entertained of having
+French aid to effect the conquest of Turkey. There never would have been
+a siege of Sebastopol, if the elder branch of the Bourbons had continued
+to rule in France. It required even a series of revolutions to bring
+France to that condition in which the Western Alliance was possible. But
+there would have been something more than "an understanding" between
+France and Russia concerning Austria, had the government of the
+Restoration endured a few years beyond 1830. It suited the Austrian
+government to show considerable coldness towards the Orleans dynasty;
+but assuredly so wise a man as Prince Metternich, and who had such
+excellent means of information, never could have believed otherwise than
+that the establishment of that dynasty saved Austria from being assailed
+by both Russia and France.
+
+The rivalry of France and Austria being understood, and that rivalry
+leading to war whenever occasion therefor chances to arise, it remains
+to inquire what is the occasion of the existing contest. When Napoleon
+III. became head of France, as Prince-President, at the close of 1848,
+Austria was the last power with which he could have engaged in war,
+supposing that he had then been strong enough to control the policy of
+France, and it had suited him to make an occasion for war. She was then
+engaged in her death-and-life struggles with Hungarians, Italians, and
+others of her subjects who that year threw off her yoke, while the
+Sardinians had endeavored to obtain possession of Lombardy and Venice.
+Francis Joseph became chief of the Austrian Empire at the same time that
+Louis Napoleon ascended to the same point in France. Certainly, if the
+object of France had been the mere weakening and spoliation of Austria,
+then was the time to assail her, when one half her subjects were
+fighting the other half, when the Germans outside of her empire were by
+no means her friends, and when it was far from clear that she could rely
+upon assistance from Russia. Austria was then in a condition of
+helplessness apparently so complete, that many thought her hour had
+come; but those who knew her history, and were aware how often she had
+recovered from just such crises, held no belief of the kind. Yet if
+France had assailed her at that time, Austria must have lost all her
+Italian provinces; and it is now generally admitted, that, if Cavaignac
+had sent a French army into Italy immediately after the victory won by
+Radetzky over Charles Albert at Somma Campagna, (July 26th, 1848,) the
+"Italian question" would then have been settled in a manner that would
+have been satisfactory to the greater part of Europe, and have rendered
+such a war as is now waging in Italy quite impossible. Russia could have
+done nothing to prevent the success of the French arms, and it is
+probable that Austria would have abandoned the contest without fighting
+a battle. At an earlier period she had signified her readiness to allow
+the incorporation of most of Lombardy with Sardinia, she to retain the
+country beyond the Mincio, and to hold the two great fortresses of
+Peschiera (at the southern extremity of the Lago di Garda, and at the
+point where the river issues from the lake) and Mantua. She even asked
+the aid of France and England to effect a peace on this basis, but
+unsuccessfully. Cavoignac's anomalous political position prevented him
+from aiding the Italians. He was a Liberal, but the actual head of the
+reactionists in France of all colors, of men who looked upon the
+Italians as ruffians wedded to disorder, while Austria, in their eyes,
+was the champion of order. France did nothing, and in December Louis
+Napoleon became President. An opportunity was soon afforded him to
+interfere in Italian affairs. The armistice that had existed between the
+Austrians and the Sardinians after the 9th of August, 1848, was
+denounced on the 12th of March, 1849, by the latter; and Radetzky closed
+the order of the day, issued immediately after this denunciation was
+made, with the words,--"Forward, soldiers, to Turin!" The intentions of
+the Sardinians must have been known to Louis Napoleon, but he took no
+measures to aid them. He saw Piedmont conquered in a campaign of
+"hours." He saw Brescia treated by Haynau as Tilly treated Magdeburg. He
+saw the long and heroical defence of Venice against the Austrians,
+during the dreary spring and summer of '49,--a defence as worthy of
+immortality as the War of Chiozza, and indicating the presence of the
+spirit of Zeno, and Contarini, and Pisani in the old home of those
+patriots. But nothing moved him. He would not even mediate in behalf of
+the Venetians; and it was by the advice of the French consul and the
+French admiral on the station that Venice finally surrendered, but not
+until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few
+men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President
+for his indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having
+been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to
+Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the
+wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to
+him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was not firm in his
+seat. He was but a temporary chief of the State. He was surrounded by
+enemies, political and personal, who were seeking his overthrow, without
+any regard for the tenure of his office. He knew not his power. His
+object was the restoration of internal peace to France, her recovery
+from the weakness info which she had fallen or had been precipitated. He
+dared not offend the Catholics, who saw then, as they see now, a
+champion in Austria. He was the victim of circumstances, and he had to
+bow before them, in order that he might finally become their master.
+Then he had no occasion for a quarrel with Austria. She was at the
+lowest ebb her fortunes had known since the day that the Turks appeared
+for the second time before Vienna. She could not have maintained herself
+in Italy, even after the successes of Radetzky, had not Nicholas sent
+one hundred and fifty thousand men to her assistance in Hungary. What
+had France to fear from her? No more than she had to fear from her on
+the day after Austerlitz.
+
+Years rolled on, and brought with them great changes; and the greatest
+of those changes was to be seen in Italy, in reference to the position
+of Austria there, and its effect upon France. Austria rapidly
+reestablished her power in Italy, not only over Lombardy and Venice, but
+over every part of the Peninsula, excepting Sardinia. Tuscany was
+connected with her by various ties, and was ruled as she wished it to be
+ruled. Parma and Modena were hers in every sense. She was the patron and
+protector of the abominable Bomba, and her support alone enabled him to
+defy the sentiment of the civilized world, and to indulge in cruelties
+such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld
+the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal
+of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the
+honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes,
+and were no more free to act without her consent than were the kings the
+Roman Republic and Empire allowed to exist within their dominions free
+to act without the consent of the proconsuls. What the proconsul of
+Syria was to the little potentates mentioned in the New Testament, the
+Austrian viceroy in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was to the nominal
+rulers of the various Italian States. It only remained to bring Sardinia
+within this ring-fence of sea and mountains to convert all Italy into an
+Austrian dependency. There is nothing like this in history, we verily
+believe. In the short period of ten years after the capture of Milan by
+Radetzky, (August 4, 1848,) the Austrians had established themselves
+completely in nearly every part of Italy. Of the twenty-seven millions
+of people that compose her population, twenty-two millions were as much
+at the command of Austria as were the Hungarians and Bohemians. Had she
+had the sense to use her power, not with mildness only, but beneficially
+to this great mass of men, and had nothing occurred to disturb her
+plans, she would have nearly doubled the number of her subjects, and
+have more than doubled her resources. She would have become a great
+maritime state, and have converted the Mediterranean into an Austrian
+lake. Had they been well governed, the Italians might, and most probably
+would, have accepted their condition, and have become loyal subjects of
+the House of Lorraine. Foreign rule is no new thing to them, nor have
+they ever been impatient under its existence, when it has existed for
+their good. The people rarely are hostile to any government that is
+conducted with ordinary fairness. There is no greater error than that
+involved in the idea that revolutions or changes of any kind originate
+from below, that they proceed from the people. Almost invariably they
+come from above, from governmental action; and it is ever in the power
+of a government to make itself perpetual. The term of its existence is
+in its own hands. At the very worst for Austria, she might have
+accomplished in Italy what was accomplished there three centuries ago by
+Spain, then ruled by the elder branch of the Hapsburgs. She might have
+commanded almost everything within its limits, with Sardinia to play
+some such part as was then played by Venice.
+
+This is said on the supposition, first, that her government should have
+been mild and conciliatory, active only for good, and that all her
+interference with local rule should have been on the side of humanity;
+and, second, that no foreign power should have interfered to prevent the
+full development of her policy. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately
+for other nations, and especially so for Italy, she not only did _not_
+govern well, but governed badly; and there was a great power which was
+deeply, vitally interested--moved by the all-controlling principle of
+self-preservation--in watching all her movements, and in finding
+occasion to drive her out of Italy. She was not content with upholding
+misgovernment in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and elsewhere,
+but she meant to subvert the constitutional polity established in the
+Sub-Alpine Kingdom of Sardinia. The enemy of constitutionalism and
+freedom everywhere, she was especially hostile to their existence in the
+little state that bordered on a portion of her Italian possessions,
+whence they always threatened Lombardy with a plague she detests far
+more heartily than she detests cholera. No natural boundary or _cordon
+militaire_ could suffice to stay the march of principles. Nothing would
+answer but the subversion of the Sardinian constitution and the bringing
+of that nation's government into harmony with the admirable rule that
+existed, under the double-headed eagle's protection, in Naples and
+Modena. Unless all Austrian history be false, Austria's object for years
+has been a revolution in Sardinia, and Rome has aided her. This is the
+necessity of her moral situation with reference to her little neighbor.
+The world has smiled at Austria's late complaint that Sardinia menaced
+her, it seemed so like the wolf's protestation that the lamb was doing
+him an injury; but it was really well founded, though not entitled to
+much respect. Sardinia _did_ menace Austria. She menaced her by the
+force of her example,--as the honest man menaces the rogue, as the
+peaceful man menaces the ruffian, as the charitable man menaces the
+miser, as the Good Samaritan menaced the priest and Levite. In the sense
+that virtue ever menaces vice, and right constantly menaces wrong,
+Sardinia was a menace to Austria;--and as we often find the wrongdoer
+denouncing the good as subverters of social order, we ought not to be
+astonished at the plaintive whine of the master of thrice forty legions
+at the conduct of the decorous, humane, and enlightened Victor Emanuel.
+
+The only foreign power that had a direct, immediate, positive interest
+in preventing the establishment of Austrian power over Italy was France.
+Several other powers had some interest adverse to the success of the
+Austrian scheme, but it was so far below that which France felt, that it
+is difficult to make any comparison between the several cases. England,
+speaking generally, might not like the idea of a new naval power coming
+into existence in the Mediterranean, which, with great fleets and
+greater armies, might come to have a controlling influence in the East,
+and prevent the establishment of her power in Egypt and Syria. She might
+see with some jealousy the further development of Austrian commerce,
+which has been so successfully pursued in the Mediterranean and the
+Levant since 1815. But then England is not very remarkable for
+forethought, and she has a just confidence in her own naval power.
+Besides, would not Austria, in the event of her adding Italy virtually
+to her dominions, become the ally of England in the business of
+supporting Turkey against Russia, and in preventing the further
+extension of Russian power to the South and the East? The old
+traditionary policy of England pointed to an Austrian alliance, and
+nations are tenacious of their traditions. The war in Italy was
+unquestionably precipitated by Austria's belief that in the last resort
+she could rely upon English support; and she made a fatal delay in her
+military movements in deference to English interposition. Prussia could
+not be expected to see the increase of the power of the House of Austria
+with pleasure; but it was possible that the extension of its dominions
+to the South, by giving it new objects of ambition, and forcing upon it
+a leading part in Eastern affairs, might cause that house to pay less
+regard to German matters, leaving them to be managed by the House of
+Hohenzollern. Russia, under the system that Nicholas pursued, could not
+have seen Austria absorb Italy without resisting the process at any
+cost; but Alexander IV., [Footnote: I call the present czar Alexander
+the _Fourth_, as there have been three other Alexanders _sovereigns_ of
+Russia; but he is generally styled Alexander the _Second_.] a wiser man
+than his father was, never would have gone to war to prevent it, his
+views being directed to those internal reforms the success of which is
+likely to create a _Russian People_, and to place his empire in a far
+higher position than it has ever yet occupied. Yet Russia could not have
+witnessed Austria's success with pleasure; and the readiness with which
+she has agreed to aid France, should the Germans aid Austria, is proof
+sufficient that she is desirous that Austria should not merely be
+prevented from extending her territory, but actually reduced in extent
+and in means. From no part of Europe have come more decided
+condemnations of the course of Austria than from the Russian capital.
+The language of the St. Petersburg journals touching the Treaties of
+Vienna has been absolutely contemptuous; and that language is all the
+more oracular and significant because we know that the editors of those
+journals must have been inspired by the government. It has been justly
+regarded as expressing the views of the Czar, and of the statesmen who
+compose his cabinet. Though not disposed for war, and probably sincerely
+desirous of the preservation of peace everywhere, the rulers of Russia
+are quite ready to support France in all proper measures that she may
+adopt to drive the Austrians from every part of the Italian Peninsula.
+They are too sagacious not to see that France cannot hold a league of
+Italian territory, and the reduction of Austrian power is just so much
+gained towards the ultimate realization of their Oriental policy.
+
+Of the other European powers, and of their opinions respecting the
+effect of Austrian supremacy, little need be said. Such countries as
+Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal have little weight in
+the European system, individually or collectively. Even Spain, though
+she is not the feeble nation many of our countrymen are pleased to
+represent her, when seeking to find a _reason_ for the seizure of
+Cuba,--even Spain, we say, could not be much moved by the prospect of
+Austria's reaching to that condition of vast strength which would
+necessarily follow from her undisputed ascendency in Italy. The lesser
+German States would probably have seen Austria's increase with pleasure,
+partly because it would have helped to remove their fears of France and
+Russia, and partly because it would have been flattering to their pride
+of race, the House of Austria being Germanic in its character, though
+ruling directly over but few Germans,--few, we mean, in comparison with
+the Slaves, Magyars, Italians, and other races that compose the bulk of
+its subjects. Turkey alone had a direct interest in Austria's success,
+as promising her protection against all the other great European powers;
+but Turkey is not, properly speaking, a member of the European
+Commonwealth.
+
+But the case was very different with France. She is the first nation of
+Continental Europe,--a position she has held for nearly four centuries,
+though sometimes her fortunes have been reduced very low, as during the
+closing days of the Valois dynasty, and in 1815; but even in 1815 she
+had the melancholy consolation of knowing that it required the combined
+exertions of all Europe to conquer her. Her wonderful elasticity in
+rising superior to the severest visitations has often surprised the
+world, and those who remember 1815 will be most astonished at her
+present position in Europe, or rather in Christendom. Her position,
+however, has always been the result of indefatigable exertions, and a
+variety of circumstances have made those exertions necessary on several
+occasions. Great as France is now, and great as she has been at several
+periods of her history since the death of Mazarin, it may be doubted if
+she is so great as she was at the date of the Treaty of Westphalia, the
+work of her arms and her diplomacy (1648). At that time, and for many
+years afterwards, several nations had no pronounced political existence
+that now are powers of the first class. Russia had no weight in Europe
+until the last years of Louis XIV., and her real importance commenced
+fifty years after that monarch was placed in his grave. Prussia, though
+she attained to a respectable position at the close of the seventeenth
+century, the date of the creation of her monarchy, did not become a
+first-class power until two generations later, and as the result of the
+Seven Years' War. The United States count but eighty-three years of
+national life; and they have had international influence less than half
+of that time. England, which the restoration of the Stuarts caused to
+sink so low in those very years during which Louis XIV. was at the
+zenith of his greatness, has been for one hundred and seventy years the
+equal of France. On the other hand, the two nations with which France
+was formerly much connected, Turkey and Sweden, have ceased to influence
+events. France allied herself with Turkey in the early years of her
+struggle with the House of Austria, to the offence of Christian peoples;
+and the relations between Paris and Constantinople were long maintained
+on the basis of common interest, the only tie that has ever sufficed to
+bind nations. Both countries were the enemies of Austria. The second
+half of the Thirty Years' War was maintained, on the part of the enemies
+of Austria, by the alliance of France and Sweden; and between these
+countries a good understanding frequently prevailed in after-times, the
+growth of Russia serving to force Sweden into the arms of France. Poland
+has disappeared from the list of nations, and her territory has
+augmented the resources of two countries that had no political weight in
+the first century of the Bourbon kings, and those of France's rival.
+Thus France has relatively fallen. That ancient international system of
+which she was the centre for nearly one hundred and fifty years--say
+from the middle of the reign of Henry IV. to the Peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle, (1599-1748)--has passed entirely away from the world,
+and never can be restored. France has seldom seriously thought of
+attempting its restoration, though some of her statesmen, and probably a
+large majority of the more intelligent of her people, have from time to
+time warmly favored the idea of the reconstruction of Poland; and of all
+the errors of Napoleon I., his failure to realize that idea was
+unquestionably the greatest. The turn that things took in the French
+Revolution enabled France to establish an hegemony in Europe, which
+might have been long preserved but for the disasters of 1812; but the
+empire of Napoleon I. was never a political empire, being only of a
+military character. France then led Europe, but she lost her ascendency
+on the first reverse, like Sparta after Leuctra. History has no parallel
+to the change that the France of 1814 presented to the France of 1812.
+On the 1st of October, 1812, the French were at Moscow; on the 1st of
+April, 1814, the allies were in Paris. Eighteen months had done work
+that no man living at the first date had expected to see accomplished.
+What happened in 1815 was but the complement of 1814. Then France was
+struck down, trampled upon, spoiled, insulted, and mulcted in immense
+sums of money; and finally forced to pay the cost of an armed police,
+headed by Wellington himself, which held her chief fortresses for three
+years, and saw that her chains were kept bright and strong. Never, since
+Lysander demolished the Long Walls of Athens to the music of the Spartan
+flute, had the world seen so bitter a spectacle of national humiliation,
+so absolute a reversal of fortune,--the long-conquering legions
+perishing by the sword, and him who had headed so many triumphal
+processions perishing as it were in the Mamertine dungeon.
+
+It was from the nadir to which she had thus fallen, that the rulers of
+France, acting as the agents of its people, have been laboring to raise
+her ever since 1815. They have had a twofold object in view. They have
+sought territory, in order that France might not be driven into the list
+of second-class nations,--and military glory, to make men forget
+Vittoria, and Leipzig, and Waterloo. All the governments of France have
+been alike in this respect, no matter how much they have differed in
+other respects. The legitimate Bourbons,--of whom an American is bound
+to speak well, for they were our friends, and often evinced a feeling
+towards us that exceeded largely anything that is required by the terms
+or the spirit of a political alliance,--the solitary Orleans King, the
+shadowy Republic of '48, and the imperial government, all have
+endeavored to do something to elevate France, to win for her new
+glories, and to regain for her her old position. The expedition into
+Spain, in 1823, ostensibly made in the interest of Absolutism, was
+really undertaken for the purpose of rebaptizing the white flag in fire.
+Charles X. and M. de Polignac were engaged in a great scheme of foreign
+policy when they fell, the chief object of which, on their side, was the
+restoration to France of the provinces of the Rhine,--and which Russia
+favored, because she knew, that, unless the Bourbons could do something
+to satisfy their people, they must remain powerless, and it did not
+answer her purpose that they should be otherwise than powerful. The
+conquest of Algiers was made for the purpose of gratifying the French
+people, and with the intention of spreading French dominion over
+Northern Africa. It was a step towards the acquisition of Egypt, for
+which land France has exhibited a strange longing. In this way the loss
+of French India and French America, things of the old monarchy, were to
+be compensated. The government of Louis Philippe expended mines of gold
+and seas of blood in Africa, much to the astonishment of prudent men,
+who had no idea of the end upon which its eyes were fixed. When the
+Republic of 1848 was improvised, even Lamartine, not an unjust man,
+could talk of the rights of France in Italy, and of her proper influence
+there; and the wicked attack on the Romans, in 1849, was prompted by a
+desire to make French influence felt in that country in a manner that
+should be clear to the sense of mankind.
+
+When Louis Napoleon became President of France, it was impossible for
+him to devote much attention to foreign affairs. His aim was to make
+himself Emperor, to restore the Napoleon dynasty. This, after a hard
+struggle, he effected in 1851-'52. It must be within the recollection of
+all that the French invasion question was never more vehemently
+discussed in England than during the ten or twelve months that followed
+the _coup d'etat_. This happened because it was assumed that the Emperor
+_must_ do something to revenge the injuries his house and France had
+suffered from that alliance of which England was the chief member and
+the purse-holder. Whether he ever thought of assailing England, no man
+can say; for he never yet communicated his thoughts on any important
+subject to any human being. We may assume, however, that he would not
+have attacked England without having made extensive preparations for
+that purpose; and long before such preparations could have been
+perfected, the Eastern question was forced upon the attention of Europe,
+and the two nations which were expected to engage in war as foes united
+their immense armaments to thwart the plans of Russia. Blinded by his
+feelings, and altogether mistaking the character of the English people,
+the Czar treated Napoleon III. contemptuously, and sought to bring about
+the partition of Turkey by the aid of England alone. It will always
+furnish material for the ingenious writers of the history of things that
+might have been, whether the French Emperor would have accepted the
+Czar's proposition, had it been made to him. Certainly it would have
+enabled him to do great things for France, while by the same course of
+action he could have struck heavy blows at both England and Austria. As
+it was, he joined England to oppose Russia, and the English have borne
+full and honorable testimony to his fidelity to his engagements. The war
+concluded, his attention was directed to Italy, and he sought to
+meliorate the condition of that country; but Austria would not hear even
+of the discussion of Italian affairs. The events that marked the course
+of things in Paris, in the spring of 1856, showed that nothing could be
+hoped for Italy from Austria. She spoke, through Count Buol, as if she
+regarded the whole Peninsula as peculiarly her property, meddling with
+which on the part of other powers was sheer impertinence, and not to be
+borne with good temper, or even the show of it.
+
+The twenty-second meeting of the Congress of Paris, held the 8th of
+April, was long, exciting, and important; for then several European
+questions were discussed, among them being the affairs of Italy. The
+protocol of that day proves the sensitiveness of the Austrian
+plenipotentiaries and the earnestness of those of Sardinia. Eight days
+later, the Sardinian plenipotentiaries, Cavour and De Villa Marina,
+addressed to the governments of France and England a Memorial relating
+to the affairs of Italy, in the course of which occur expressions that
+must have had a strong effect on the mind of Napoleon III. "Called by
+the sovereigns of the small states of Italy, who are powerless to
+repress the discontent of their subjects," says the Memorial, "Austria
+occupies militarily the greater part of the Valley of the Po and of
+Central Italy, and makes her influence felt in an irresistible manner,
+_even in the countries where she has no soldiers_. Resting on one side
+on Ferrara and Bologna, her troops extend themselves to Ancona, the
+length of the Adriatic, which has become in a manner an Austrian lake;
+on the other, mistress of Piacenza, which, contrary to the spirit, if
+not to the letter, of the Treaties of Vienna, she labors to transform
+into a first-class fortress, she has a garrison at Parma, and makes
+dispositions to deploy her forces all along the Sardinian frontier, from
+the Po to the summit of the Apennines. This permanent occupation by
+Austria of territories which do not belong to her _renders her absolute
+mistress of nearly all Italy_, destroys the equilibrium established by
+the Treaties of Vienna, and is a continual menace to Piedmont." In
+conclusion, the plenipotentiaries say,--"Sardinia is the only state in
+Italy that has been able to raise an impassable barrier to the
+revolutionary spirit, and at the same time remain independent of
+Austria. It is the counterpoise to her invading influence. If Sardinia
+succumbed, exhausted of power, abandoned by her allies,--if she also was
+obliged to submit to Austrian domination, _then the conquest of Italy by
+this power would be achieved_; and Austria, after having obtained,
+without its costing her the least sacrifice, the immense benefit of the
+free navigation of the Danube, and the neutralization of the Black Sea,
+_would acquire a preponderating influence in the West_. This is what
+France and England would never wish,--this they will never permit."
+
+These are grave and weighty words, and were well calculated to produce
+an effect on the mind of Napoleon III.; and we are convinced that they
+furnish a key to his conduct toward Austria, and set forth the occasion
+of the Italian War. The supremacy of Austria once completely asserted
+over Italy, France would necessarily sink in the European scale in
+precisely the same proportion in which Austria should rise in it. The
+subjects of Francis Joseph would number sixty millions, while those of
+Napoleon III. would remain at thirty-six millions. The sinews of war
+have never been much at the command of Austria, but possession of Italy
+would render her wealthy, and enable her to command that gold which
+moves armies and renders them effective. Her commerce would be increased
+to an incalculable extent, and she would have naval populations from
+which to conscribe the crews for fleets that she would be prompt to
+build. Her voice would be potential in the East, and that of France
+would there cease to be heard. She would become the first power of
+Europe, and would exercise an hegemony far more decided than that which
+Russia held for forty years after 1814. It was to be expected that the
+Italians would cease fruitlessly to oppose her, and, their submission
+leading to her abandonment of the repressive system, they might become a
+bold and an adventurous people, helping to increase and to consolidate
+her power. They might prove as useful to her as the Hungarians and
+Bohemians have been, whom she had conquered and misruled, but whose
+youth have filled her armies. All these things were not only possible,
+but they were highly probable; and once having become facts, what
+security would France have that she would not be attacked, conquered,
+and partitioned? With sixty millions of people, and supported by the
+sentiment and arms of Germany, Austria could seize upon Alsace and
+Lorraine, and other parts of France, and thus reduce her strength
+positively as well as relatively. All that was talked of in 1815, and
+more than all that, might be accomplished in sixty years from that date,
+and while Napoleon III. himself should still be on the throne he had so
+strangely won. That degradation of France which the uncle's ambition had
+brought about at the beginning of the century would be more than
+equalled at the century's close through the nephew's forbearance. The
+very names of Napoleon and Bonaparte would become odious in France, and
+contemptible everywhere. On the other hand, should he interfere
+successfully in behalf of Italian nationality, he would reduce the
+strength of Austria, and prevent her from becoming an overshadowing
+empire. Her population and her territory would be essentially lessened.
+She would be cut off from all hope of making Italy her own, would be
+compelled to abandon her plans of commercial and maritime greatness,
+would be disregarded in the East, would not be courted by England, would
+lose half her influence in Germany, and would not be in a condition to
+menace France in any quarter. The glory of the French arms would be
+increased, the weight of France would be doubled, new lustre would shine
+from the name of Napoleon, the Treaties of Vienna would be torn up by
+the nation against which they had been directed, the most determined foe
+of the Bonaparte family would be punished, and that family's power would
+be consolidated.
+
+Such, we verily believe, were the reasons that led Napoleon III. to plan
+an attack on Austria, that attack which has been so brilliantly
+commenced. That he has gone to war for the liberation of Italy, merely
+as such, we do not suppose; but that must follow front his policy,
+because in that way alone can his grand object be effected. The freedom
+of the Peninsula will be brought about, because it is necessary for the
+welfare of France, for the maintenance of her weight in Europe, that it
+should be brought about. That the Emperor is insensible of the glory
+that would come from the rehabilitation of Italy, we do not assert. We
+think he is very sensible of it, and that he enjoys the satisfaction
+that comes from the performance of a good deed as much as if he were not
+a usurper and never had overthrown a nominal republic. But we cannot
+agree with those who say that the liberation of Italy was the pure and
+simple purpose of the war. He means that Austria shall not have Italy,
+and his sobriety of judgment enables him to understand that France
+cannot have it. That country is to belong to the children of the soil,
+who, with ordinary wisdom and conduct, will be able to prevent it from
+again relapsing under foreign rule. The Emperor understands his epoch,
+and will attempt nothing that shall excite against himself and his
+dynasty the indignation of mankind. If not a saint, he is not a
+senseless sinner.
+
+Our article is so long, that we cannot discuss the questions, whether
+Napoleon III. is not animated by the desire of vengeance, and whether,
+having chastised Russia and Austria, he will not turn his arms against
+Prussia and England. Our opinion is that he will do nothing of the kind.
+Prussia is not likely to afford him any occasion for war; and if he
+should make one, he would have to fight all the other German powers at
+the same time, and perhaps Russia. The only chance that exists for a
+Prussian war is to be found in the wrath of the Germans, who, at the
+time we write, have assumed a very hostile attitude towards France, and
+wish to be led from Berlin; but the government of Prussia is discreet,
+and will not be easily induced to incur the positive loss and probable
+disgrace that would follow from a Russian invasion, like that which took
+place in 1759. As to England, the Emperor would be mad to attempt her
+conquest; and he knows too well what is due to his fame to engage in a
+piratical dash at London. An invasion of England can never be safely
+undertaken except by some power that is master of the seas; and England
+is not in the least disposed to abandon her maritime supremacy. There
+would have to be a Battle of Actium before her shores could be in
+danger, and she must have lost it; and no matter what is said concerning
+the excellence of the French navy, that of England is as much ahead of
+it in all the elements of real, enduring strength, as it has been at any
+other period of the history of the two countries.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_The Iron-Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges, and
+Rolling-Mills of the United States_. By J.P. LESLEY. New York: John
+Wiley. 1859.
+
+This valuable book is published by the Secretary of the American
+Iron-Association, and by authority of the same. This Association--now
+four years old--is not a common trades-union, nor any impotent
+combination to resist the law of supply and demand. Its general objects,
+as stated in the constitution, are "to procure regularly the statistics
+of the trade, both at home and abroad; to provide for the mutual
+interchange of information and experience, both scientific and
+practical; to collect and preserve all works relating to iron, and to
+form a complete cabinet of ores, limestones, and coals; to encourage the
+formation of such schools as are designed to give the young iron-master
+a proper and thorough scientific training, preparatory to engaging in
+practical operations." In pursuance of this wise and liberal policy, the
+Association has now published this "Iron-Manufacturer's Guide,"
+containing, first, a descriptive catalogue of all the furnaces, forges,
+and rolling-mills of the United States and Canada; secondly, a
+discussion of the physical and chemical properties of iron, and its
+combinations with other elements; thirdly, a complete survey of the
+geological position, chemical, physical, or mechanical properties, and
+geographical distribution of the ores of iron in the United States.
+
+The directory to the iron-works of the United States and Canada
+enumerates 1545 works of various kinds, of which 386 are now abandoned;
+560 blast-furnaces, 389 forges, and 210 rolling-mills are now in
+operation; and the directory states the position, capacity, and
+prominent characteristics of each furnace, forge, or mill, the names of
+the owners or agents, and, in many cases, the date of the construction
+of the works, and their annual production. The great importance of the
+iron-manufacture, as a branch of industry, in this country, is clearly
+demonstrated by this very complete catalogue. It shows that in the year
+1856 there were nearly twelve hundred active iron-factories in the
+United States, and that they produced about eight hundred and fifty
+thousand tons of iron, worth fifty millions of dollars. When we consider
+that the greater part of the iron thus produced is left in a rough and
+crude state, merely extracted from its ores and made ready for the use
+of the blacksmith, the machinist, and the engineer,--when we remember
+that human labor multiplies by hundreds and by thousands the value of
+the raw material, that a bar of iron which costs five dollars will make
+three thousand dollars' worth of penknife-blades and two hundred and
+fifty thousand dollars' worth of watch-springs, we begin to understand
+the importance of the iron-manufacture, as an element of national
+wealth, independence, and power.
+
+A fourth part of all the iron-works which have been constructed in this
+country have been abandoned by their projectors, in despair of competing
+with the cheap iron from abroad, which the low _ad-valorem_ tariffs have
+admitted to the American market. The story which these ruined works
+might tell, of hopes disappointed, capital sunk, and labor wasted, would
+be long and dreary. From an excellent diagram, appended to the "Guide,"
+illustrating the duties on iron, the importations, and the price of the
+metal, for each year since 1840, we learn that the average annual
+importation of iron under the specific tariff of 1842 was 77,328 tons,
+while under the _ad-valorem_ tariff of 1846 it was 373,864 tons. The
+increase in the importation of foreign iron under the tariff of 1846 was
+more than ten times the increase of the population, and more than
+thirty-eight times the increase in the domestic production. The
+iron-masters of this country have been compelled to struggle against a
+host of formidable difficulties,--adverse legislation, the ruinous
+competition of English iron, the dearness of labor, and the high rates
+of interest on borrowed capital. These have all been met and, let us hope,
+in good part overcome. Slowly, and with many hindrances and disasters,
+the iron-business is gaining strength, and achieving independence
+of foreign competition and the tender mercies of legislators.
+Very conclusive evidence of this gradual growth is presented
+in the unusually accurate statistics of the "Iron-Manufacturer's
+Guide." Of the 1,209,913 tons of iron consumed in the United States
+in the year 1856, 856,235 tons, or seventy-one per cent, of the whole,
+was of domestic manufacture. The catalogue of iron-works shows that
+the country now possesses many extensive and well-constructed works,
+of which some are still owned by the men who built them, but the
+larger part have descended, at great sacrifices, to the hands of
+more fortunate proprietors. Beside the accumulated stock of machinery,
+knowledge of the ores and fuel has been gained, experience has
+refuted many errors and pointed out the dangers and difficulties to
+he overcome, the natural channels of communication throughout the
+country have been opened, and a large body of skilled workmen has been
+trained for the business and seeks steady employment. Whenever a rise in
+the price of iron stimulates the manufacture, the domestic production of
+iron suddenly expands, and increases with a rapidity which gives
+evidence of wonderful elasticity and latent strength. Twice within
+twenty years the production of American iron has nearly doubled in a
+period of three years. Twelve years ago no railroad-iron was made in the
+United States. In 1853 we imported 300,000 tons of rails, and in 1854
+280,000 tons; but in 1855 only 130,000 tons were imported, while 135,000
+tons were made at home, and in 1856, again, nearly one half of the
+310,000 tons of rails consumed was of domestic production. The admitted
+superiority of the American rails has undoubtedly contributed to this
+result.
+
+In spite of these encouraging signs, these sure indications of the
+success which at no distant day will reward this branch of American
+industry, it must not be imagined that checks and reverses are hereafter
+to be escaped. The production of the year 1857 promised in the summer to
+be much larger than that of 1856; but the panic of September wrought the
+same effect in the iron-business as in all the other manufactures of the
+country, and in the spring of 1858 more than half of the iron-works of
+the United States were standing idle. Mr. Lesley states that the returns
+received in answer to the circular issued by the Iron-Association, July
+1, 1858, were, almost without exception, unfavorable, and that these
+replies are sufficient to prove a very serious diminution in the
+production of iron for the year 1858. When the manufacture of iron, in
+its various branches, has expanded to its true proportions, and has
+reached a magnitude and importance second only to the agricultural
+interest of the country, the iron-masters of that generation may read in
+this first publication of the Iron-Association the record of the
+struggles and trials of their more adventurous, but less fortunate
+predecessors.
+
+The construction of the directory which constitutes the first part of
+the "Guide" might be improved in several respects. An alphabetical
+arrangement of the furnaces, forges, and rolling-mills, in each State,
+would be much more convenient for reference than the obscure and
+uncertain system which has been followed. If a State can be divided,
+like Pennsylvania, into two or three sections, by strongly marked
+geological features, it would, perhaps, be well to subdivide the list of
+its iron-works into corresponding sections, and then to make the
+arrangement of each section alphabetical. But convenience of reference
+is the essential property of a directory; and to that convenience the
+natural desire to follow a geological or geographical arrangement should
+he sacrificed. Some important items of information, such as the means of
+transportation, and the distance of each furnace or forge from its
+market, are not given in all cases; the power by which the works are
+driven, whether steam or water, is not uniformly stated; and the
+pressure of the blast used, that very important condition of success in
+the management of a furnace, is stated in only a very few instances. A
+useful piece of information, seldom given in the descriptions of forges
+and rolling-mills, is the source from which the iron used in the works
+is obtained; and it is also desirable that the nature of the work done
+in each forge or mill should be invariably stated. It would he
+interesting to know the number of men employed in the iron-manufacture
+throughout the country, and it would not seem difficult for the
+Association to add this fact to the very valuable statistics which they
+have already collected. The descriptions of abandoned works are not all
+printed in small type. If this rule is adopted in the directory, it
+should be uniformly adhered to. The maps accompanying the directory,
+which were made by the photolithographic process, are all on too small a
+scale, and consequently lack clearness. The colored lithographs, which
+exhibit the anthracite furnaces of Pennsylvania and the iron works of
+the region east of the Hudson River, are altogether the best
+illustrations in the book.
+
+An elaborate discussion of iron as a chemical element occupies another
+division of the book. Its purpose is to instruct the iron master in the
+chemical properties and relations of the metal with which he deals; and
+to this end it should be clear, concise, and definite, and, leaving all
+disputed points, should explain the known and well-determined
+characteristics of iron and its compounds with other elements. Mr.
+Lesley, the compiler of the book, distinctly states in the Preface that
+he is no chemist, and we are therefore prepared to meet the occasional
+inaccuracies observable in this chemical portion of the "Guide." It
+lacks condensation and system; matters of very little moment receive
+disproportionate attention; and pages are filled with discussions of
+nice points of chemical science still in dispute among professed
+chemists, and wholly out of place in what should be a brief elementary
+treatise on the known properties of iron. If these questions in dispute
+were such as the practical experience of the iron-master might settle,
+or, indeed, throw any light upon, there would be an obvious propriety in
+stating the points at issue; but if the question concerns the best
+chemical name for iron-rust, or the largest possible per cent. of carbon
+in steel, the practical metallurgist should not be perplexed with
+problems in analytical chemistry which the best chemists have not yet
+solved.
+
+Valuable space is occasionally occupied by the too rhetorical statement
+of matters which would have been better presented in a simpler way;
+thus, the fervid description of oxygen, however appropriate in Faraday's
+admirable lectures before the Royal Institution, is out of place in the
+"Iron-Manufacturer's Guide." We must also enter an earnest protest
+against the importation, upon any terms, of such words as
+"ironoxydulcarbonate," "ironoxydhydrate," and the adjective "anhydrate."
+Some descriptions of considerable imaginative power have found place
+even in the directory of works. From the description of the Allentown
+furnaces we learn, with some surprise, that "no finer object of art
+invites the artist"; and again, "that the _repose_ of bygone _centuries_
+seems to sit upon its immense walls, while the roaring _energy_ of the
+present day fills it with a truer and better life than the revelry of
+Kenilworth or the chivalry of Heidelberg." The average age of the
+Allentown works subsequently appears to be nine years.
+
+Another principal division of Mr. Lesley's book treats of the ores of
+iron in the United States. This portion of the book contains much
+valuable and interesting information, which has never been published
+before in so complete and satisfactory a form. The geographical and
+geological position of every ore-bank in the country, which has been
+opened and worked, is fully described, with many details of the peculiar
+properties, mineralogical associations, and history of each bed or mine.
+The inexhaustible wealth of the country in ores of iron is clearly
+shown, and the superiority of the American ores to the English needs no
+other demonstration than can be found on the pages of this catalogue of
+our ore-beds. Two or three geological maps, to illustrate the
+distribution of the ores, would have been an instructive addition to the
+book. In this section, as in the preceding one on the chemistry of iron,
+much space is misapplied to the discussion of questions of structural
+geology, of opposing theories of the formation of veins, and other
+scientific problems with which the iron-master is not concerned, and
+which he cannot be expected to understand, much less to solve. We regret
+the more this unnecessary introduction of comparatively irrelevant
+matters, when we find, at the close of the volume, that the unexpected
+length of the discussion of the ores has prevented the publication of
+several chapters on the machinery now in use, the hot-blast and
+anthracite coal, the efforts to obtain malleable iron directly from the
+ore, and the history and present condition of the iron-manufacture in
+America.
+
+The American Iron-Association, by their Secretary, have accomplished a
+very laborious and valuable work, in accumulating and digesting the mass
+of facts and statistics embodied in this, the first "Iron-Manufacturer's
+Guide"; but the subject is as inexhaustible as the mineral wealth of the
+country, and we shall look for the future publications of the society
+with much interest.
+
+
+_An Essay on Intuitive Morals_. Being an Attempt to Popularize Ethical
+Science. Part I. Theory of Morals. First American Edition, with
+Additions and Corrections by the Author. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.
+1859. pp. 294.
+
+Four years ago last March this book appeared in England, published by
+Longman; a thin octavo, exciting little attention there, and scarcely
+more on this side the water, where the best English books have of late
+years found their first appreciation. The first notice of it printed in
+this country, so far as we know, appeared in the "Harvard Magazine" for
+June, 1855,--a publication so obscure, that, to most readers of the
+ATLANTIC, this will be their first knowledge of its existence. About two
+years later, Part II appeared in England, and then both books were
+reviewed in the "Christian Examiner"; yet, to all intents and purposes,
+this new edition is a new book, and we shall treat it as such. We have
+as yet a reprint of Part I. only, but we trust the publishers will soon
+give us the other,--"The Practice of Morals,"--which, if less valuable
+than this, is still so much better than most works of its kind as to
+demand a republication.
+
+The author--a woman--(for, to the shame of our _virile secus_ be it
+said, a woman has written the best popular treatise on Ethics in the
+language)--divides her First Part into four chapters:--
+
+    I. What Is the Moral Law?
+   II. Where the Moral Law is found.
+  III. That the Moral Law can be obeyed.
+   IV. Why the Moral Law should be obeyed.
+
+This, as will be seen, is an exhaustive analysis. To the great question
+of the first chapter, after a full discussion, she gives this answer:--
+
+"The Moral Law is the resumption of the eternal necessary Obligation of
+all Rational Free Agents to do and feel those Sentiments which are
+Right. The identification of this law with His will constitutes the
+Holiness of the Infinite God. Voluntary and disinterested obedience to
+this law constitutes the Virtue of all finite creatures. Virtue is
+capable of infinite growth, of endless approach to the Divine nature and
+to perfect conformity with the law. God has made all rational free
+agents for virtue, and all worlds for rational free agents. _The Moral
+Law, therefore, not only reigns throughout His creation_, (all its
+behests being enforced thereon by His omnipotence,) _but is itself the
+reason why that creation exists_."--pp. 62-63.
+
+This is certainly good defining, and the passage we have Italicized has
+the true Transcendental ring. Indeed, the book is a system of Kantian
+Ethics, as the author herself says in her Preface; and the tough old
+Koenigsberg professor has no reason to complain of his gentle expounder.
+Unlike most British writers,--with the grand exception of Sir William
+Hamilton, the greatest British metaphysician since Locke and Hume,--she
+_understands_ Kant, admires and loves him, and so is worthy to develop
+his knotty sublimities. This alone would be high praise; but we think
+she earns a more original and personal esteem.
+
+The question of the second chapter she thus answers:--
+
+"The Moral Law is found in the Intuitions of the Human Mind. These
+Intuitions are natural; but they are also revealed. Our Creator wrought
+them into the texture of our souls to form the groundwork of our
+thoughts, and made it our duty first to examine and then to erect upon
+them by reflection a Science of Morals. But He also continually aids us
+in such study, and He increases this aid in the ratio of our obedience.
+Thus Moral Intuitions are both Human and Divine, and the paradoxes in
+their nature are thereby solved."--p. 136.
+
+This statement may, perhaps, be received without cavil by most readers;
+but the reasoning on which it depends is the weakest part of the book,
+and we shall be surprised if some hard-headed divine, who fears that
+this doctrine of Intuition will pester his Church, does not find out the
+flaws in the argument. It will be urged, for instance, that, in
+confessing that the Science of Morals can never be as exact as that of
+Mathematics, because we have no terminology for Ethics so exact as for
+Geometry, she, in effect, yields the whole question, and leaves us in
+the old slough of doubt where Pyrrho and Pascal delighted to thrust us,
+and where the Church threatens to keep us, unless we will pay her tolls
+and pick our way along her turnpike. But though her major and minor
+premises may not be on the best terms with each other,--even though they
+may remind us of that preacher of whom Pierrepont Edwards said, "If his
+text had the smallpox, his sermon would not catch it,"--her conclusion
+is sound, and as inspiring now as when the poet said,--
+
+  "Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo,"--
+
+or when George Fox trudged hither and thither over Europe with the same
+noble tune sounding in his ears.
+
+In the third chapter the old topics are treated, which, according to
+Milton, the fallen angels discussed before Adam settled the debate by
+sinning,--
+
+  "Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,"--
+
+and it is concluded that the Moral Law can be obeyed:--
+
+"1st. Because the Human Will is free. 2d. Because this freedom, though
+involving present sin and suffering, is foreseen by God to result
+eventually in the Virtue of every creature endowed therewith."
+
+In this chapter the history of the common doctrine of Predestination is
+admirably sketched, (pp. 159-164, note.) and the grounds for our belief
+in Free Will more clearly stated than we remember to have seen
+elsewhere. Especially fine is her method of reducing Foreordination to
+simple Ordination, by directing attention to the fact that with God
+there is no Past and Future, but an Endless Now; as Tennyson sings in
+"In Memoriam,"--
+
+  "Oh, if indeed that eye foresee,
+  Or see, (in Him is no before.)"--
+
+and as Dante sang five centuries ago.
+
+But it is the last chapter which best shows the power of the author and
+the pure and generous spirit with which the whole book is filled. Here
+she shows why the Moral Law should be obeyed; and dividing the advocates
+of Happiness as a motive into three classes, Euthumists, Public
+Eudaimonists, and Private Eudaimonists, she refutes them all and
+establishes her simple scheme, which she states in these words:--
+
+"The law itself, the Eternal Right, for right's own sake, that alone
+must be our motive, the spring of our resolution, the ground of our
+obedience. Deep from our inmost souls comes forth the mandate, the bare
+and simple law claiming the command of our whole existence merely by its
+proper right, and disdaining alike to menace or to bribe."
+
+The terms _Euthumism_ and _Eudaimonism_ are, perhaps, peculiar to this
+essay, and may need some explanation. The Euthumist is one who assumes
+moral pleasure as a sufficient reason why virtue should be sought; the
+Eudaimonist believes we should be virtuous for the sake of affectional,
+intellectual, and sensual pleasure; if he means the pleasure of all
+mankind, he is a Public Eudaimonist; but if he means the pleasure of the
+individual, he is a Private Eudaimonist. Democritus is reckoned the
+first among Euthumists; and in England this school has been represented,
+among others, by Henry More and Cumberland, by Sharrock, [Footnote:
+Sharrock is a name unfamiliar to most readers. His [Greek: Hypothesis
+aethikae] published in 1660, contains the first clear statement of
+Euthumism made by any Englishman. See p.223.] Hutcheson, and Shaftesbury.
+Paley thrust himself among Public Eudaimonists, and our author well
+exposes his grovelling morals, aiming to produce the "greatest happiness
+of the greatest number," a system which has too long been taught among
+the students of our colleges and high schools. But he properly belongs
+to the Private Eudaimonists; for this interpreter of ethics to the
+ingenuous youth of England and America says, "Virtue is the doing good
+to mankind in obedience to the will of God, _and for the sake of
+everlasting happiness_. According to which definition, the good of
+mankind is the subject, the will of God the rule, _and everlasting
+happiness the motive of virtue_."
+
+It is such heresies as this, and the still grosser pravities into which
+the ethics of expediency run, that this book will do much to combat.
+Nothing is more needed in our schools for both sexes than the systematic
+teaching of the principles here set forth; and we have no doubt this
+volume could be used as a text-book, at least with some slight omissions
+and additions, such as a competent teacher could well furnish. Portions
+of it, indeed, were some years since read by Mrs. Lowell to her classes,
+and are now incorporated in her admirable book, "Seed Grain"; nor does
+there seem to be any good reason why it should not be introduced at
+Cambridge. With a short introduction containing the main principles of
+metaphysics, and with the omission of some rhetorical passages unsuited
+to a text-book, it might supplant the books of both intellectual and
+moral philosophy now in use in our higher schools.
+
+But it is not as a school-book that this essay is to be considered; it
+will find a large and increasing circle of readers among the mature and
+the cultivated, and these will perceive that few have thought so
+profoundly or written so clearly on these absorbing topics. Take, for
+example, the classification of _possible_ beings, made in the first
+chapter:--
+
+"Proceeding on our premises, that the omnipotence of God is not to be
+supposed to include self-contradictions, we observe at the outset, that
+(so far as we can understand subjects so transcendent) there were only,
+in a moral point of view, three orders of beings possible in the
+universe:--1st. One Infinite Being. A Rational Free Agent, raised by the
+infinitude of his nature above the possibility of temptation. He is the
+only _Holy_ Being. 2d. Finite creatures who are Rational Free Agents,
+but exposed by the finity of their natures to continual temptations.
+These beings are either _Virtuous_ or _Vicious_. 3d. Finite creatures
+who are not rational nor morally free. These beings are _Unmoral_, and
+neither virtuous nor vicious."--pp. 24-25.
+
+Nothing can be shorter or more thorough than this statement, and, if
+accepted, it settles many points in theology as well as in ethics.
+
+Then, too, the comparison, in the last chapter, of the Law of Honor,
+considered as a system of morals, with the systems of Paley and Bentham,
+shows a fine perception of the true relation of chivalry to ethics, and
+gives occasion for one of the most eloquent passages in the book:--
+
+"I envy not the moralist who could treat disdainfully of Chivalry. It
+was a marvellous principle, that which could make of plighted faith a
+law to the most lawless, of protection to weakness a pride to the most
+ferocious. While the Church taught that personal duty consisted in
+scourgings and fastings, and social duty in the slaughter of Moslems and
+burning of Jews, Chivalry roused up a man to reverence himself through
+his own courage and truth, and to treat the weakest of his
+fellow-creatures with generosity and courtesy.... Recurring to its true
+character, the Law of Honor, when duly enlarged and rectified, becomes
+highly valuable. We perceive, that, amid all its imperfections and
+aberrations, it has been the truest voice of intuition, amid the
+lamentations of the believer in 'total depravity,' and the bargaining of
+the expediency-seeking experimentalist. While the one represented Virtue
+as a Nun and the other as a Shop-woman, the Law of Honor drew her as a
+Queen,--faulty, perhaps, but free-born and royal. Much service has this
+law done to the world; it has made popular modes of thinking and acting
+far nobler than those inculcated from many a pulpit; and the result is
+patent, that many a 'publican and sinner,' many an opera-frequenting,
+betting, gambling man of the world, is a far safer person with whom to
+transact business than the Pharisee who talks most feelingly of the
+'frailties of our fallen nature.'"--pp. 267-270.
+
+The learning shown in the book, though not astonishing, like Sir William
+Hamilton's, is sufficient and always at the author's service. The text
+throughout, and especially the notes on Causation, Predestination,
+Original Sin, and Necessary Truths, will amply support our opinion. But
+better than either learning or logic is that noble and devout spirit
+pervading every page, and convincing the reader, that, whether the
+system advanced be true or false, it is the result of a genuine
+experience, and the guide of a pure and generous life.
+
+The volume is neatly printed, but lacks an index sadly, and shows some
+errors resulting from the distance between the author and the
+proof-reader. Such is the misuse of the words "woof" and "warp" on page
+56; evidently a slip of the pen, since the same terms are correctly used
+elsewhere in the volume.
+
+
+_Memoirs of the Empress Catharine II._ Written by herself. With a
+Preface by A. HERZEN. Translated from the French. New York: D. Appleton
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 309.
+
+It would seem, that, if any one of the women celebrated in history
+should, more than all the others, have shrunk from writing her own
+memoirs, that woman was the petty German princess whom opportunity and
+her own crafty ambition made absolutest monarch of all the Russias under
+the name of Catharine II. And of that abandoned and shameless personal
+career which has made her name a reproach to her sex, and covered her
+memory with an infamy that the administrative glories of her reign serve
+only to cast into a blacker shadow, even she has shrunk from committing
+the details to paper. Indeed, in these Memoirs, she alludes to but one
+of her amours,--that with Sergius Soltikoff, which was the first, (if we
+may be sure that she had a first,)--and which seems clearly to have been
+elevated, if not purified, by a true and deep affection. That it was so
+appears not by any protestation or even calm assertion of her own, which
+in an autobiography might be reasonably doubted, but from the unstudied
+tenderness of her allusions to him; from the fact, which indirectly
+appears, that he first cooled towards her, and the pang--not of wounded
+vanity--which this gave her; and yet more unmistakably from the
+forgiveness which she, imperious and relentless as she was, extended,
+manifestly, again and again, to her errant lover.
+
+The Memoirs are confined to events which occurred between 1744 and
+1760,--the period of Catharine's girlhood and youthful womanhood; but
+although she brings herself before us, a young creature of fifteen,
+"with her hair dressed _a la Moise_," (which, in the benightment of our
+bearded ignorance, we suppose to mean that astounding style in which the
+excellent Mistress Hannah More is represented in the frontispiece to her
+Memoirs, with each particular hair standing on end,--a crimped glory of
+radiating powder,) she appears no less ambitious, crafty, designing,
+selfish, and self-conscious then than when she drops her pen as she is
+deepening the traits of the matured woman of thirty. She went to Russia
+to be betrothed to the Grand Duke, afterwards Peter III., to whom she
+was at first utterly indifferent, and whom she soon began to despise and
+regard with personal aversion; and yet when there was a chance that she
+might be released from this union, she seems not to have known the
+slightest thrill of joy or felt the least sensation of relief, although
+she was then not sixteen years old,--so entirely was her mind bent upon
+the crown of Russia. Partly to attain her end, and partly because it
+suited her intriguing, managing nature, she set herself immediately to
+the acquirement of the favor of the Empress on the one hand, and
+popularity on the other. The first she sought by an absolute submission
+of her will to that of Elizabeth, giving her self-negation an air of
+grateful deference; the latter she obtained, as most very popular people
+obtain their popularity, by adroit flattery,--the subtlest form of which
+was, in her case, as it ever is, the manifestation of an interest in the
+affairs of persons utterly indifferent to the flatterer. This moral
+emollient she applied, as popular people usually do, without
+discrimination. She remarks that she was liked because she was "the same
+to everybody"; and it is noteworthy that the same is said almost
+invariably of very popular persons, and in way of eulogy, by the very
+people into whose favor they have licked their way; the latter always
+seeming to be blinded by the titillation of their own cuticles to the
+fact that the most worthless and disagreeable individuals--those with
+whom they would scorn to be put upon a level--have received the same
+coveted evidences of personal regard. When will the world learn that the
+man, of whom we sometimes hear and read, who is absolutely without an
+enemy, must either be very unscrupulous or very weak? Catharine's
+duplicity in this respect seems to have been as constant as it was
+artful, during the years in which it was necessary for her purpose to
+make friends; and it was rewarded, as it almost always is, when
+skilfully practised, with entire success.
+
+Catharine seems to have written these Memoirs partly for her own
+satisfaction and partly to justify her course to her son Paul and his
+successors. Therefore they record much that is of little value or
+interest to the general reader; and that, indeed, is unintelligible,
+except to those who are intimately acquainted with the Russian Court
+during the reign of Elizabeth. Such persons will find in these pages
+much authentic matter which will confirm or unsettle their previous
+belief as to the secret intrigues of that court, political and personal.
+To the great mass of readers, the revelations of the internal economy of
+the Court of Russia in the middle of the last century, and of the
+manners and morals of the persons who composed it, which are freely made
+by the author of these imperial confessions, will constitute their
+principal, if not their only interest. In this respect they will well
+repay the attentive perusal of every person who likes the study of human
+nature. The picture which they present is striking, and its various
+parts keep alive the attention which its first sight awakens. Yet it
+cannot be regarded with pleasure by any reader of undepraved taste; and
+a consideration of it is absolutely fatal to the faith which is
+cherished by many deluded minds in the social, if not in the ethical
+virtues of an ancient aristocracy. In this respect Catharine's "Memoirs"
+are not peculiar. For it is remarkable, that in all the published
+memoirs, journals, and confessions of members of royal households,
+(there may be an exception, but we do not remember it,) court-life
+within-doors has appeared devoid of every grace and beauty, and deformed
+by all that is coarse, brutal, sordid, and grovelling. Even that grace,
+almost a virtue, which has its name from courts, seems not to exist in
+them in a genuine form; and instead of it we find only a hollow,
+glittering sham, which has but an outward semblance to real courtesy,
+and which itself even is produced only on occasions more or less public
+and for purposes more or less selfish.
+
+Russia in its most civilized parts was half barbarous in the days of
+Catharine's youth, and society at the Court of St. Petersburg seems to
+have been distinguished from that in the other circles of the empire
+only by an addition of the vices of civilization to those of barbarism.
+The women blended the manners and tastes of Indian squaws and French
+_marquises_ of the period; the men modelled themselves on Peter the
+Great, and succeeded in imitating him in everything except his wisdom
+and patriotism. The business of life was, first, to avoid being sent to
+Siberia or Astracan,--next and last, to get other people sent thither;
+its pleasure, an alternation of gambling and orgies. Catharine makes
+some excuse for her unrestrained sexual license, which shows that she
+wrote for posterity. For what need of extenuation in this regard for a
+woman whose immediate predecessors were Catharine I., and. Anne and
+Elizabeth, and who lived in a court where, on the simultaneous marriage
+of three of its ladies, a bet was made between the Hetman Count
+Rasoumowsky and the Minister of Denmark,--not which of the brides would
+be false to her marriage vows,--that was taken for granted with regard
+to all,--but which would be so first! It turned out that he who bet on
+the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of the
+Empire, and bride to Count Strogonoff, who was the plainest of the three
+and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager. The bet
+was wisely laid; for she was likely to be soonest neglected by her
+husband.
+
+What semblance of courtesy these highborn gamblers, adulterers, and
+selfish intriguers showed in their daily life appears in their behavior
+to a M. Brockdorf, against whom Catharine had ill feelings, more or less
+justifiable. This M. Brockdorf, who was high in favor with the Grand
+Duke, was unfortunately ugly--having a long neck, a broad, flat head,
+red hair, small, dull, sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging
+down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M.
+Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him
+'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But
+what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be
+expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the
+tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded
+by Catharine in the following remarkable paragraph?--
+
+"A few days afterwards, the death of my father was announced to me. It
+greatly afflicted me. For a week I was allowed to weep as much as I
+pleased; but at the end of that time, Madame Tchoglokoff came to tell me
+that I had wept enough,--that the Empress ordered me to leave off,--that
+my father was not a king. I told her, I knew that he was not a king; and
+she replied, that it was not suitable for a Grand Duchess to mourn for a
+longer period a father who had not been a king. In fine, it was arranged
+that I should go out on the following Sunday, and wear mourning for six
+weeks."
+
+It is worthy of especial note that these people, though they led this
+sensual, selfish, heartless life, trampling on natural affection and
+doing as they would not be done by, prided themselves very much on the
+orthodoxy of their faith, were sorely afraid of going to hell, and were
+consequently very regular and rigid in the performance of their
+religious duties. Catharine was no whit behind the rest in this respect.
+Though bred a Lutheran, she was most exemplary in her observance of all
+the requirements of the Greek Church; and even carried her hypocrisy so
+far, that, when, on occasion of a dangerous and probably fatal illness,
+it was proposed that she should see a Lutheran clergyman, she replied by
+asking for Simon Theodorsky, a prelate of the Greek Church, who came and
+had an edifying interview with her. And all this was done, as she says,
+for effect, chiefly with the soldiers and common people, among whom it
+made a sensation and was much talked of. This, by the way, is the only
+reference which occurs in the Memoirs to any interest below that of the
+highest nobility. As for the people of Russia, the right to draw their
+blood with the knout and make them sweat roubles into the royal treasury
+was taken as much for granted as the light and the air, by those who,
+either through fraud or force, could sit in the seat of Peter the Great.
+They regarded it as no less an appanage or perquisite of that seat than
+the jewels in the imperial diadem, and would as soon have thought of
+defending a title to the one as to the other. And the possession of the
+throne, with the necessary consent of the dominant party of the high
+nobility, seems to have been, and still to be, the only requisite for
+the unquestioned exercise of this power; for, as to legitimacy and
+divine dynastic right, was not Catharine I. a Livoman peasant? Catharine
+II. a German princess, who dethroned and put to death the grandson of
+Peter the Great? and does she not confess in these Memoirs that her son,
+the Emperor Paul, was not the son of Peter's grandson, but of Sergius
+Soltikoff? so that in the reigning house of Russia there is not a drop
+of the blood of Romanoff. And Catharine's confession, which M. Herzen
+emphasizes so strongly, conveys to the Russian nobles no new knowledge
+on this subject; for an eminent Russian publicist being asked, on the
+appearance of this book, if it were generally known in Russia that Paul
+was the son of Soltikoff, replied,--"No one who knew anything ever
+doubted it." And perhaps the descendants of the Boiards are quite
+content that their sovereign should have illegally sprung from the loins
+of a member of one of the oldest and noblest of the purely Russian
+families, rather than from those of a prince of the petty house of
+Holstein Gottorp. But then what is this principle of Czarism, which is
+not a submission to divine right, but which causes one man to sustain,
+perhaps to place, another in a position which puts his own life at the
+mercy of the other's mere caprice?
+
+Catharine tells many trifling, but interesting incidents, of various
+nature, in these Memoirs: of how, after the birth of her first child,
+she was left utterly alone and neglected, so that she famished with
+thirst for the lack of some one to bring her water; how her child was
+taken from her at its birth, and kept from her, she hardly being allowed
+even to see it; how it was always wrapped in fox-skins and seal-skins,
+till it lay in a continual bath of perspiration; how the members of the
+royal family itself were so badly accommodated, that sometimes they were
+made ill by walking through passages open to wind and rain, and
+sometimes stifled by over-crowded rooms; how at the imperial
+masquerades, during one season, the men were ordered to appear in
+women's dresses, and the women in the _propria quae maribus,_--the
+former hideous in large whaleboned petticoats and high feathered
+head-dresses, the latter looking like scrubby little boys with very
+thick legs,--and all that the Empress Elizabeth might show her tall and
+graceful figure and what beautiful things she used to walk with, which
+Catharine says were the handsomest that she ever saw; how in this court,
+where marriage was the mere shadow of a bond, it was yet deemed a matter
+of the first nuptial importance that a lady of the court should have her
+head dressed for the wedding by the hands of the Empress herself, or, if
+she were too ill, by those of the Grand Duchess; how Catharine used, at
+Oranienbaum, to dress herself from head to foot in male attire, and go
+out in a skiff, accompanied only by an old huntsman, to shoot ducks and
+snipe, sometimes doubling the Cape of Oranienbaum, which extends two
+versts into the sea,--and how thus the fortunes of the Russian Empire,
+during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were at the mercy of a
+spring-tide, a gust of wind, or the tipping of a shallop. There is even
+a recipe for removing tan and sunburn, which the beautiful Grand Duchess
+used at the instance of the beautiful Empress; and, as both the imperial
+belles testify to its great efficacy, it would be cruel not to give all
+possible publicity to the fact that it was composed of white of egg,
+lemon juice, and French brandy; but, alas! the proportion in which these
+constituents are to be mixed is not recorded.
+
+Of the authenticity of these Memoirs there appears to be no reasonable
+doubt, and we believe that none has been expressed. They were found,
+after the death of Catharine, in a sealed envelope addressed to her son
+Paul, in whose lifetime no one saw them but the friend of his childhood,
+Prince Kourakine. He copied them; and, about twenty years after the
+death of Paul, three or four copies were made from the Kourakine copy.
+The Emperor Nicholas caused all these to be seized by the secret police,
+and it is only since his death that one or two copies have again made
+their appearance at Moscow (where the original is kept) and St.
+Petersburg. From one of these M. Herzen made his transcript. They fail
+to palliate any of Catharine's crimes, or in the least to brighten her
+reputation, and add nothing to our knowledge of her sagacity and her
+administrative talents; but they are yet not without very considerable
+personal interest and historical value.
+
+
+_Milch Cows and Dairy Farming_; comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and
+Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and other Stock; the
+Selection of Milch Cows, with a full Explanation of Guenon's Method; the
+Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and
+Cheese: embodying the most recent Improvements, and adapted to Farming
+in the United States and British Provinces, with a Treatise upon the
+Dairy Husbandry of Holland; to which is added Horsfall's System of Dairy
+Management. By CHARLES L. FLINT, Secretary of the Massachusetts State
+Board of Agriculture; Author of a Treatise on Grasses and Forage Plants.
+Liberally illustrated. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 416.
+
+This very useful treatise contains a full account of the best breeds of
+cattle and of the most approved methods of crossing so as to develop
+qualities particularly desirable; directions for choosing good milkers
+by means of certain natural signs; a description of the most useful
+grasses and other varieties of fodder; and very minute instructions for
+the making of good butter and the proper arrangement and care of
+dairies. The author has had the advantage of practical experience as a
+dairyman, while his position as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of
+Agriculture has afforded him more than common opportunity of learning
+the experience of others.
+
+A volume of this kind cannot fail to commend itself to farmers and
+graziers, and will be found valuable also by those who are lucky enough
+to own a single cow. The production of good milk, butter, and meat is a
+matter of interest to all classes in the community alike; and Mr.
+Flint's book, by pointing out frankly the mistakes and deficiencies in
+the present methods of our farmers and dairymen, and the best means of
+remedying them, will do a good and much-needed service to the public. He
+shows the folly of the false system of economy which thinks it good
+farming to get the greatest quantity of milk with the least expenditure
+of fodder, and which regards poor stock as cheaper because it costs less
+money in the original outlay.
+
+If Dean Swift was right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass
+grow where one grew before is of more service to mankind than he who
+takes a city, we should be inclined to rank him hardly second as a
+benefactor of his race who causes one pound of good butter to be made
+where two pounds of bad were made before. We believe that more unsavory
+and unwholesome grease is consumed in the United States under the
+_alias_ of butter than in any other civilized country, and we trust that
+a wide circulation of Mr. Flint's thoroughly executed treatise will tend
+to reform a great and growing evil. The tendency in America has always
+been to make a shift with what _will do_, rather than to insist on
+having what is best; and we welcome this book as likely to act as a
+corrective in one department, and that one of the most important. The
+value of the volume is increased by numerous illustrations and a good
+index.
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+_JUST PUBLISHED_,
+
+A New and Valuable Collection of Church Music, entitled
+
+THE CHORAL HARMONY,
+
+BY B. F. BAKER AND W. O. PERKINS.
+
+The introductory part of this work contains a full and carefully
+prepared treatise on the elementary principles of music, together with
+pleasing, appropriate, and progressive Exercises for Classes and
+Schools. The collection of Hymn Tunes comprises a judicious choice of
+the old and favorite pieces, together with original compositions of
+great variety, freshness, and beauty. The Anthems, Motets, and Sentences
+are designed to supply fully the varied wants of choirs.
+
+The characteristics which distinguish this book are: (1.) The
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+paid to the relations of _subject_ and _answer_,--a matter hitherto
+generally neglected, but which in the present advanced state of musical
+culture cannot fail to be appreciated.
+
+It is believed that the CHORAL HARMONY will be found one of the most
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+
+The long and successful experience of the chief editor is a guarantee
+that nothing will be wanting in the present work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE.
+
+A Series of Papers, Reprinted from the first Twelve Numbers of the
+Atlantic Monthly.
+
+The success of this series has been unexampled in Magazine literature;
+no articles in American periodicals, and it is believed, none from
+English pens, unless it may be the _The Nodes Ambrosianae_, have ever
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+
+For nice and almost affectionate appreciation of nature; for knowledge
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+that makes even satire amiable; and for poetry by turns witty, tender,
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+comparison in the whole field of literature.
+
+A NEW EDITION, WITH AMPLE MARGIN.
+
+_In 1 Vol. 12mo. About 350 pages. With Characteristic Illustrations by
+Hoppin, and a copious Index. Price $1.00._
+
+Also: A fine edition of the AUTOCRAT on tinted paper, in bevelled
+boards, gilt.
+
+_Price $3.00. In Full Calf, or Turkey antique, $5.00._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BRITISH ESSAYISTS.
+
+COMPRISING
+
+THE ESSAYS, REVIEWS AND MISCELLANIES
+
+OF
+
+MACAULAY             Price, in muslin, $2.00
+CARLYLE                                 1.75
+JEFFREY                                 2.00
+MACKINTOSH                              2.00
+PROF WILSON                             1.25
+TALFOURD AND STEPHEN                    1.25
+ALISON                                  1.25
+SYDNEY SMITH                            1.25
+
+_Price complete, $12.00._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BLUE AND GOLD EDITIONS OF THE
+
+BRITISH POETS!
+
+The Publishers desire to call particular attention to their BLUE AND
+GOLD EDITIONS OF THE BRITISH POETS, which, for beauty and cheapness,
+exceed anything of the kind ever before offered to the public. They are
+admirably adapted as presentations to scholars, or prizes in schools.
+
+The list comprises the following authors, each in one volume. Any of the
+volumes will be sent to any address in the United States, upon receipt
+of price.
+
+HOOD,        BURNS,        MOORE,
+BYRON,       MILTON,       HEMANS,
+POPE,        GOLDSMITH,    WORDSWORTH,
+CAMPBELL,    SCOTT,        COLERIDGE,
+OSSIAN,      CRABBE,       COWPER
+
+Price                              .75 per volume.
+
+The same in half Turkey morocco, $1.25    "
+
+The same in full Turkey morocco, $2.00    "
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WORKS OF R. W. EMERSON.
+
+ESSAYS, FIRST AND SECOND SERIES     2 vols.
+NATURE. ADDRESSES AND LECTURES      1 vol.
+REPRESENTATIVE MEN                  1 vol.
+ENGLISH TRAITS                      1 vol.
+POEMS                               1 vol.
+
+_Price in cloth $1.00 per vol. Sent post-paid on receipt of price._
+
+BOUND ALSO IN A VARIETY OF HANDSOME STYLES.
+
+It is too late to present any labored analysis of the writings of
+Emerson,--too late to set down any eulogy. Whoever loves to deal with
+first principles, and is not deterred from grappling with abstract
+truths, will find in these essays a rare pleasure in the exercise of his
+powers. These volumes are universally admitted to be among the most
+valuable contributions to the world's stock of ideas which our age has
+furnished. Every page bears the impress of thought, but it is thought
+subtilized, and redolent of poetry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PUBLISHERS OF THE ATLANTIC
+
+Desire to call attention to the following
+
+PREMIUMS OFFERED TO CLUBS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Five new Subscribers and Ten Dollars, they will send, in addition to
+the Magazines, any one of the following Books, to the person who gets up
+the Club:
+
+NEIGHBOR JACKWOOD, by Paul Creyton.
+ARTIC ADVENTURE, by Epes Sargent.
+AGNES, by the author of "Ida May."
+LIFE THOUGHTS, by Henry Ward Beecher.
+
+Or any two of the following popular books by Oliver Optic:--
+
+TRY AGAIN,        THE BOAT CLUB,
+POOR AND PROUD,   ALL ABOARD,
+         NOW OR NEVER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Eight Subscribes and Sixteen dollars, any one of the following
+British Poets, 12mo, bound in muslin, of which the retail price is
+$1.25.
+
+BURNS.                       MOORE.
+BYRON.                       MILTON.
+BYRON'S DON JUAN.            MILTON AND YOUNG.
+CRABBE.                      MONTGOMERY.
+COWPER.                      OSSIAN.
+COLERIDGE.                   POPE.
+CROLY'S SELECT POETS.        SCOTT.
+CAMPBELL                     SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS.
+COLLINS GRAY, AND BEATTIE.   BEAUTIES OF SHAKSPEARE.
+DAVIDSON.                    SHELLEY.
+GOLDSMITH                    TUPPER.
+HEMANS.                      THOMSON AND POLLOK.
+HOWITT, COOK AND LANDON.     TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE.
+KIRKE WHITE.                 WORDSWORTH.
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the person who sends us Ten Subscribers and Twenty Dollars, either
+one of the following, of which the retail price is $2.00 and $2.50.
+
+MACAULAY'S ENGLAND, in 4 vols.
+LAMARTINE'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION;
+
+Or either of the following octavo editions of the British Poets, well
+and beautifully bound in muslin, and elegantly illustrated:--
+
+SHAKESPEARE.       HEMANS.
+BYRON.             COWPER.
+SCOTT.             MILTON.
+BEN JONSON.        MOORE.
+MONTOGOMERY.       BURNS.
+LANDON.            ROGERS AND CAMPBELL.
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Fifteen Subscribers and Thirty Dollars, either of the following
+works, the retail price of which is $3.00.
+
+LIBRARY OF NATURAL HISTORY, 400 ENGRAVINGS, 8vo.
+DON QUIXOTE, profusely illustrated, 8vo.
+
+Or either of the following editions of the British Poets, substantially
+bound in sheep, library style, and elegantly illustrated, the best and
+only complete editions, in one volume, in the country. Retail Price,
+$3.00.
+
+SHAKESPEARE.       HEMANS.
+BYRON.             COWPER.
+SCOTT.             MILTON.
+BEN JONSON.        MOORE.
+MONTOGOMERY.       BURNS.
+LANDON.            ROGERS AND CAMPBELL.
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+For Twenty Subscribers and Forty Dollars, either of the following:--
+
+HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 6 vols., sheep, library style.
+GIBBON'S HISTORY OF ROME, 6 vols., library style.
+THE ROLLO BOOKS, 14 vols., elegantly illustrated.
+
+Or either of the following British Poets, octavo edition, retail price
+$5.00, bound in full morocco:
+
+SHAKESPEARE.       HEMANS.
+BYRON.             COWPER.
+SCOTT.             MILTON.
+BEN JONSON.        MOORE.
+MONTOGOMERY.       BURNS.
+LANDON.            ROGERS AND CAMPBELL.
+HOOD.
+
+The Postage on the above premiums will, in all cases, be prepaid by the
+Publishers, thus delivering to each person the books he is entitled to,
+free of charge. The terms are extremely liberal, and offer inducements
+for Clubbing never before offered by any publishing house in the
+country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IMPORTANT TO FARMERS AND DAIRY-MEN!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We would respectfully announce that we have become the publishers of
+that
+
+VALUABLE AND BEAUTIFUL WORK,
+
+Milch Cows and Dairy Farming,
+
+THE BEST WORK EXTANT ON THE SUBJECT.
+
+Comprising the Breeds, Breeding and Management, in Health and Disease of
+Dairy and other Stock; the Selection of Milch Cows, with a full
+explanation of Guenon's Method; the Culture of Forage Plants, and the
+production of
+
+MILK, BUTTER, AND CHEESE;
+
+Embodying the most recent improvements, and adapted to Farming in the
+United Status and British Provinces; with a treatise upon the
+
+DAIRY HUSBANDRY OF HOLLAND;
+
+to which is added
+
+HORSFALL'S SYSTEM OF DAIRY MANAGEMENT.
+
+By CHARLES L. FLINT,
+
+_Sec'y of the Mass. State Board of Agriculture; author of "A Treatise on
+Grasses and Forage Plants," etc._
+
+FULLY AND BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH 130 ENGRAVINGS.
+
+12mo. 416 pp. Price $1.25.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Chapter on the Diseases of Dairy Stock, mostly prepared by Dr. C.M.
+Wood and Dr. J.H. Dadd, is worth many times the cost of the book_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
+
+The most valuable work for universal use among farmers that has ever
+been published in this country. There is scarcely any thing worth
+knowing about how to select a cow, how to treat her, and how to make
+butter and cheese, that cannot be found in this volume.--_New York
+Tribune_.
+
+We recommend the work to every one who keeps a cow, or intends to do
+so.--_Ohio Farmer_.
+
+We recommend it _as a matter of economy_; because, if studied, it cannot
+fail to impart facts of more value to most dairy-men and dairy-women
+than several times its cost.--_New England Farmer_.
+
+It should be in the hands of every owner of a cow.--_Vermont Stock
+Journal_.
+
+It can but rank as a standard American Dairy book,--the best, we have no
+hesitation in saying, yet issued on the subject--_Country Gentleman_.
+
+The more we examine the book the better we like it. To say that it is
+superior to any work hitherto published on that subject, is not enough;
+it is a better book of its kind than we had hoped to have an opportunity
+of welcoming to the shelves of our agricultural library.--_Wisconsin
+Farmer_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PUBLISHED BY
+
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY,
+
+13 Winter Street, Boston.
+
+SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS AND PERIODICAL AGENTS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.
+
+N.B. Copies will be sent by mail, postage-paid, on receipt of the
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+enclosed and sent by letter to the publishers, for a single copy. Or ten
+copies will be sent to any address in the United States, _postage, or
+freight paid_, for ten dollars.
+
+Any Bookseller, Periodical Agent, or Postmaster, can procure a copy by
+mail, if requested, at the wholesale price.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. IV, NO. 22, AUG., 1859 ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859
+by  Various
+(#22 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. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859
+
+Author:  Various
+
+Release Date: November, 2005  [EBook #9265]
+[This file was first posted on September 16, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. IV, NO. 22, AUG., 1859 ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Sandra Brown, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. IV.--AUGUST, 1859.--NO. XXII.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN THE BIBLE.
+
+
+We say dramatic element _in_ the Bible, not dramatic element _of_ the
+Bible, since that of which we speak is not essential, but incidental; it
+is an aspect of the form of the book, not an attribute of its
+inspiration.
+
+By the use of the term _dramatic_ in this connection, let us, in the
+outset, be understood to have no reference whatever to the theatre and
+stage-effect, or to the sundry devices whereby the playhouse is made at
+once popular and intolerable. Nor shall we anticipate any charge of
+irreverence; since we claim the opportunity and indulge only the license
+of the painter, who, in the treatment of Scriptural themes, seeks both
+to embellish the sacred page and to honor his art,--and of the sculptor,
+and the poet, likewise, each of whom, ranging divine ground, remarks
+upon the objects there presented according to the law of his profession.
+As the picturesque, the statuesque, the poetical in the Bible are
+legitimate studies, so also the dramatic.
+
+But in the premises, is not the term _dramatic_ interdicted,--since it
+is that which is not the Bible, but which is foreign to the Bible, and
+even directly contradistinguished therefrom? The drama is
+representation,--the Bible is fact; the drama is imitation,--the Bible
+narrative; the one is an embodiment,--the other a substance; the one
+transcribes the actual by the personal,--the other is a return to the
+simplest originality; the one exalts its subjects by poetic
+freedom,--the other adheres to prosaic plainness.
+
+Yet are there not points in which they meet, or in which, for the
+purposes of this essay, they may be considered as coming together,--that
+is, admitting of an artistical juxtaposition?
+
+In the first place, to take Shakspeare for a type of the drama, what, we
+ask, is the distinguishing merit of this great writer? It is his
+fidelity to Nature. Is not the Bible also equally true to Nature? "It is
+the praise of Shakspeare," says Dr. Johnson, "that his plays are the
+mirror of life." Was there ever a more consummate mirror of life than
+the Bible affords? "Shakspeare copied the manners of the world then
+passing before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the
+traditions and superstitions of the vulgar." The Bible, perhaps, excels
+all other books in this sort of description. "Shakspeare was an exact
+surveyor of the inanimate world." The Bible is full of similar sketches.
+An excellence of Shakspeare is the individuality of his characters.
+"They are real beings of flesh and blood," the critics tell us; "they
+speak like men, not like authors." How truly this applies to the persons
+mentioned in sacred writ! Goethe has compared the characters of
+Shakspeare to "watches with crystalline cases and plates, which, while
+they point out with perfect accuracy the course of the hours and
+minutes, at the same time disclose the whole combination of springs and
+wheels whereby they are moved." A similar transparency of motive and
+purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous action, belongs to the
+Bible. From the hand of Shakspeare, "the lord and the tinker, the hero
+and the valet, come forth equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the
+various sorts of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of
+being exhibited by Nature herself, and are not a contrivance of the
+imagination. "Shylock," observes a recent critic, "seems so much a man
+of Nature's making, that we can scarce accord to Shakspeare the merit of
+creating him." What will you say of Balak, Nabal, Jeroboam? "Macbeth is
+rather guilty of tempting the Weird Sisters than of being tempted by
+them, and is surprised and horrified at his own hell-begotten
+conception." Saul is guilty of tampering with the Witch of Endor, and is
+alarmed at the Ghost of Samuel, whose words distinctly embody and
+vibrate the fears of his own heart, and he "falls straightway all along
+on the earth." "The exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her
+masculine attire." The exquisite refinement of Ruth triumphs in the
+midst of men.
+
+We see there are points in which dramatic representation and Scriptural
+delineation mutually touch.
+
+A distinguished divine of Connecticut said he wanted but two books in
+his library, the Bible and Shakspeare,--the one for religion, the other
+to be his instructor in human nature. In the same spirit, St. Chrysostom
+kept a copy of Aristophanes under his pillow, that he might read it at
+night before he slept and in the morning when he waked. The strong and
+sprightly eloquence of this father, if we may trust tradition, drew its
+support from the vigorous and masculine Atticism of the old comedian.
+
+But human nature, in every stage of its development and every variety of
+its operation, is as distinctly pronounced on the pages of Scripture as
+in the scenes of the dramatist. Of Shakespeare it is said, "He turned
+the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men,
+and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns,
+passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives." He has been
+called the "thousand-minded," the "oceanic soul." The Bible creates the
+world and peoples it, and gives us a profound and universal insight into
+all its concerns.
+
+Another peculiarity of Shakspeare is his self-forgetfulness. In reading
+what is written, you do not think of him, but of his productions. "The
+perfect absence of himself from his own pages makes it difficult for us
+to conceive of a human being having written them." This remark applies
+with obvious force to the Bible. The authors of the several books do not
+thrust themselves upon your notice, or interfere with your meditations
+on what they have written; indeed, to such an extent is this
+self-abeyance maintained, that it is impossible, at this period of time,
+to determine who are the authors of some of the books. The narrative of
+events proceeds, for the most part, as if the author had never existed.
+How _na�vely_ and perspicuously everything is told, without the
+colouring of prejudice, or an infusion of egotism on the part of the
+writer!
+
+Coleridge says, Shakspeare gives us no moral highwaymen, no sentimental
+thieves and rat-catchers, no interesting villains, no amiable
+adulteresses. The Bible even goes farther than this, and is faithful to
+the foibles and imperfections of its favorite characters, and describes
+a rebellious Moses, a perjured David, a treacherous Peter.
+
+"In nothing does Shakspeare so deeply and divinely touch the heart of
+humanity as in the representation of woman." We have the grandeur of
+Portia, the sprightliness of Rosalind, the passion of Juliet, the
+delicacy of Ophelia, the mournful dignity of Hermione, the filial
+affection of Cordelia. How shall we describe the Pythian greatness of
+Miriam, the cheerful hospitality of Sarah, the heroism of Rahab, the
+industry of Dorcas, the devotion of Mary? And we might set off Lady
+Macbeth with Jezebel, and Cleopatra with Delilah.
+
+But the Bible, it may be said, so far as the subject before us is
+concerned, is chiefly historical, while Shakspeare is purely dramatic.
+The one is description,--the other action; the one relates to
+events,--the other to feelings; the department of the one is the general
+course of human affairs,--that of the other, the narrower circle of
+individual experience; the field of the one is that which the eye of
+philosophy may embrace,--while that of the other is what the human frame
+may portray.
+
+However this may apply to the average of history, it will be found that
+the Bible, in its historical parts, is not so strictly historical as to
+preclude associations of another sort. The Bible is remarkable for a
+visual and embodied relief, a bold and vivid detail. We know of no book,
+if we may except the compositions of professed dramatists, that contains
+so much of personal feeling and incident. In simplicity and directness,
+in freedom from exaggeration, and in the general unreserve of its
+expression, it even exceeds the most of these. In it we may discover a
+succession of little dramas of Nature that will affect us quite as
+profoundly as those larger ones of Art.
+
+If the structure of the drama be dialogistic, we find the Bible formed
+on the same model. If the writers of the former disappear under the
+personages of their fancy, the writers of the latter disappear under the
+personages of fact. As in the one, so in the other, strangers are
+introduced to tell their own story, each in his own way.
+
+In the commencement of the Bible, after a brief prologue, the curtain
+rises, and we, as spectators, look in upon a process of interlocution.
+The scene is the green, sunny garden of Eden, that to which the memory
+of humanity reverts as to its dim golden age, and which ever expresses
+the bright dream of our youth, ere the rigor of misfortune or the
+dulness of experience has spoilt it. The _dramatis personae_ are three
+individuals, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. There are the mysterious tree,
+with its wonderful fruit,--the beautiful, but inquisitive woman,--the
+thoughtful, but too compliant man,--and the insinuating reptile. One
+speaks, the other rejoins, and the third fills up the chasm of interest.
+The plot thickens, the passions are displayed, and the tragedy hastens
+to its end. Then is heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool
+(the wind) of the garden, the impersonal presence of Jehovah is, as it
+were, felt in the passing breeze, and a shadow falls upon the
+earth,--but such a shadow as their own patient toil may dissipate, and
+beyond the confines of which their hope, which has now taken the place
+of enjoyment, is permitted ever to look.
+
+Without delaying on the moral of this passage, what we would remark upon
+is the clearness and freedom of the dialogue,--a feature which we find
+pervading the whole of the sacred writings.
+
+In the account of Cain, which immediately succeeds, the narrative is
+inelaborate, casual, secondary; the dialogue is simple and touching. The
+agony of the fratricide and his remorse are better expressed by his own
+lips than could be done by any skill of the historian.
+
+In the deception which Abraham put upon the Egyptians, touching his
+wife,--which it is no part of our present object to justify or to
+condemn,--what a stroke of pathos, what a depth of conjugal sentiment,
+is exhibited! "Thou art a fair woman to look upon, and the Egyptians,
+when they see thee, will kill me and save thee alive. _Say, I pray thee,
+thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my
+soul shall live because of thee_."
+
+Viola appears very interesting and very innocent, when, in boy's
+clothes, she wanders about in pursuit of a lover. Is not Sarah equally
+interesting and equally innocent, when, under cover of an assumed name,
+and that a sister's, she would preserve the love of one who has worthily
+won it?
+
+Will it be said that the dialogue of the Bible lacks the charm of
+poetry?--that its action and sentiment, its love and its sorrow, are not
+heightened by those efforts of the fancy which delight us in dramatic
+authors?--that its simplicity is bald, and its naturalness rough?--that
+its excessive familiarity repels taste and disturbs culture? If we may
+trust Wordsworth, simplicity is not inconsistent with the pleasures of
+the imagination. The style of the Bible is not redundant,--there is
+little extravagance in it, and it has no trickery of words. Yet this
+does not prevent its being deep in sentiment, brilliant with intrinsic
+thought or powerful effect.
+
+In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Valentine thus utters himself touching
+his betrothed:--
+
+  "What light is light, if Sylvia be not seen?
+  What joy is joy, if Sylvia be not by?
+  Except I see my Sylvia in the night,
+  There is no music in the nightingale.
+  Unless I look on Sylvia in the day,
+  There is no day for me to look upon.
+  She is my essence; and I cease to be,
+  If I be not by her fair influence
+  Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive."
+
+Compare with this the language of Abraham. "Thou art fair, my wife. Say,
+I pray thee, thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy
+sake, and my soul shall live because of thee." The first is an instance
+of poetic amplification and _abandon_; we should contend, for the last,
+that it expresses poetic tenderness and delicacy. In the one case,
+passion is diffuse,--in the other, concentrated. Which is the more
+natural, others must judge.
+
+"Euthanasy," "Theron and Aspasio," the "Phaedon" of Plato are dialogues,
+but they are not dramatic. It may be, that, for a composition to claim
+this distinction, it must embody great character or deep feeling,--that
+it must express not only the individuality, but the strength of the
+passions.
+
+Observing this criticism, we think we may find any quantity of dramatic
+dialogue in Scripture. The story of Joseph, the march in the wilderness,
+the history of David, are full of it.
+
+There are not only dramatic dialogue and movement, but dramatic
+monologue and episode. For illustration, we might refer to Hagar in the
+wilderness. Her tragic loneliness and shuddering despair alight upon the
+page of Scripture with the interest that attends the introduction of the
+veiled Niobe with her children into the Grecian theatre.
+
+There are those who say, that the truth of particular events, so far as
+we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure as well as the
+dignity of the drama,--in other words, that the Bible is too true to
+afford what is called dramatic delight, while the semblance of truth in
+Shakspeare is exactly graduated to this particular affection. Between
+the advocates of this theory, and those who say that Shakspeare is true
+as truth itself, we can safely leave the point.
+
+The subject has another aspect, which appears in the inquiry, What is
+the true object of the drama? If, as has been asserted, the object of
+the drama be the exhibition of the human character,--if, agreeably to
+Aristotle, tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity,--or if,
+according to a recent writer, it interests us through the moral and
+religious principles of our nature,--or even if, according to Dr.
+Johnson, it be the province of comedy to bring into view the customs,
+manners, vices, and the whole character of a people,--it is obvious that
+the Bible and the drama have some correspondence. If, in the somewhat
+heated language of Mrs. Jameson, "whatever in religion is holy and
+sublime, in virtue amiable and grave, whatever hath passion or
+admiration in the changes of fortune or the refluxes of feeling,
+whatever is pitiful in the weakness, grand in the strength, or terrible
+in the perversion of the human intellect," be the domain of tragedy,
+this correspondence increases upon us.
+
+If, however, it be the object of the drama to divert, then it occupies a
+wholly different ground from the Bible. If it merely gratifies curiosity
+or enlivens pastime, if it awakens emotion without directing it to
+useful ends, if it rallies the infirmities of human nature with no other
+design than to provoke our derision or increase our conceit, it shoots
+very, very wide of the object which the sacred writers propose.
+
+It is worthy to be remarked, that the Jews had no drama, or nothing that
+answers to our idea of that term at the present time; they had no
+theatres, no writers of tragedy or comedy. Neither are there any traces
+of the dramatic art among the Egyptians, among whom the Jews sojourned
+four hundred years, nor among the Arabs or the Persians, who are of
+kindred stock with this people. On the other hand, by the Hindoos and
+Chinese, the Greeks and Romans, histrionic representation was cultivated
+with assiduity.
+
+How shall we explain this national peculiarity? Was it because the
+religion of the Jews forbade creative imitation? Is it to be found in
+the letter or the spirit of the second commandment, which interdicts the
+making of graven images of any pattern in earth or heaven? We should
+hardly think so, since the object of this prohibition is rather to
+prevent idolatry than to discourage the gratification of taste. "Thou
+shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The Jews did have emblematic
+observances, costume, and works of art. Yet, on the other hand, the Jews
+possessed something resembling the drama, and that out of which the
+dramatic institutions of all nations have sprung. The question, then,
+why the Jews had no drama proper, and still preserved the semblance and
+germ thereof, will be partially elucidated by a reference to the early
+history of dramatic art.
+
+In its inception, the drama, among all nations, was a religious
+observance. It came in with the chorus and the ode. The chorus, or, as
+we now say, choir, was a company of persons who on stated occasions sang
+sacred songs, accompanying their music with significant gesture, and an
+harmonious pulsation of the feet, or the more deliberate march. The ode
+or song they sang was of an elevated structure and impassioned tone, and
+was commonly addressed to the Divinity. Instances of the ode are the
+lyrics of Pindar and David. The chorus was also divided into parts, to
+each of which was assigned a separate portion of the song, and which
+answered one another in alternate measures. A good instance of the
+chorus and its movement appears after the deliverance of the Jews from
+the dangers of the Red Sea. "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel
+this song unto the Lord: 'I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath
+triumphed gloriously,'" etc. "And Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel
+in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with
+dances; and Miriam answered them, 'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath
+triumphed gloriously.'" At a later period, in Jewish as in Greek
+history, choral exercises became a profession, and the choir constituted
+a detached portion of men and women.
+
+"Those who have studied the history of Grecian antiquities," says
+Archbishop Potter, "and collected the fragments which remain of the most
+ancient authors, have all concurred in the opinion, that poetry was
+first employed in celebrating the praises of the gods. The fragments of
+the Orphic hymns, and those of Linus and Musaeus, show these poets
+entertained sounder notions of the Supreme Being than many philosophers
+of a later date. There are lyric fragments yet remaining that bear
+striking resemblance to Scripture."
+
+So, says Bishop Horne, "The poetry of the Jews is clearly traceable to
+the service of religion. To celebrate the praises of God, to decorate
+his worship, and give force to devout sentiments, was the employment of
+the Hebrew Muse."
+
+The choral song, that is, a sacred ode united with appropriate action,
+distinguished the Jews and Greeks alike. At a later period of Jewish
+history, the chorus became perfected, yet without receiving any organic
+change. Among the Greeks, however, the chorus passed by degrees into the
+drama. To simple singing and dancing they added a variety of imitative
+action; from celebrating the praises of the Divinity, they proceeded to
+represent the deeds of men, and their orchestras were enlarged to
+theatres. They retained the chorus, but subordinated it to the action.
+The Jews, on the other hand, did no more than dramatize the chorus. So,
+Bishop Horsley says, the greater part of the Psalms are a sort of
+dramatic ode, consisting of dialogues between certain persons sustaining
+certain characters. In these psalms, the persons are the writer himself
+and a band of Levites,--or sometimes the Supreme Being, or a personation
+of the Messiah.
+
+We find, then, the Jews and the Greeks running parallel in respect of
+the drama, or that out of which the drama sprung, the chorus, for a long
+series of years. The practice of the two nations in this respect
+exhibits a striking coincidence, indeed, Lowth conceives that the Song
+of Solomon bears a strong resemblance to the Greek drama. "The chorus of
+virgins," he says, "seems in every respect congenial to the tragic
+chorus of the Greeks. They are constantly present, and prepared to
+fulfil all the duties of advice and consolation; they converse
+frequently with the different characters; they take part in the whole
+business of the poem." They fulfilled, in a word, all the purpose of the
+Greek chorus on the Greek stage.
+
+On certain occasions, the Greek chorus celebrated divine worship in the
+vicinity of the great altar of their god. Clad in magnificent vestments,
+they move to solemn measures about it; they ascend and descend the steps
+that lead to it; they offer sacrifices upon it; they carry in their
+hands lighted torches; they pour out lustral water; they burn incense;
+they divide into antiphonal bands, and sing alternate stanzas of their
+sacred songs.
+
+So, in their religious festivals, the Jewish chorus surrounded the high
+altar of their worship, gorgeously dressed, and with an harmonious
+tread; they mounted and remounted the steps; they offered sacrifices;
+they bore branches of trees in their hands; they scattered the lustral
+water; they burnt incense; they pealed the responsive anthem.
+
+But while we follow down the stream of resemblance to a certain point,
+it divides at last: on the Greek side, it is diverted into the lighter
+practice of the theatre; on the Jewish side, it seems to deepen itself
+in the religious feeling of the nation.
+
+Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, seizing upon the chorus, elaborated it
+into the drama. The religious idea, indeed, seems never to have deserted
+the gentile drama; for, at a later period, we find the Romans appointing
+theatrical performances with the special design of averting the anger of
+the gods. A religious spirit, also, pervades all the writings of the
+ancient dramatists; they bring the gods to view, and the terrors of the
+next world, on their stage, are seen crowding upon the sins of this.
+
+On the other hand, David, who may be denominated the Alfred of the Jews,
+seems to have contented himself with the chorus; he allotted its
+members, disciplined its ranks, heightened its effect, and supplied new
+lyrics for its use.
+
+Another exemplification of singular coincidence and diversity between
+the two nations appears in this, that the goat was common in the
+religious observances of both; a similar ritual required the sacrifice
+of this animal: but with the Jews the creature was an emblem of
+solemnity, while with the Greeks he was significant of joy; the Jews
+sacrificed him on their fasts,--the Greeks in their feasts. And here we
+may observe, that tragedy, the most dignified and the primitive form of
+the drama, deduces its origin from the goat,--being, literally, the song
+of the goat, that is, the song accompanying the sacrifice of the goat.
+
+Let us now endeavor to answer the question, Why, since the drama was
+generally introduced among surrounding nations, and Jewish customs and
+life comprised so many initial dramatic materials, this art was not
+known among that people?
+
+It was owing to the earnestness and solemnity of their religious faith.
+We find the cause in the simple, exalted, and comparatively spiritual
+ideas they had of the Supreme Being; in a word, we shall state the whole
+ground to be this,--that the Greeks were polytheists, and the Jews
+monotheists.
+
+Let us bear in mind that the chorus, and the drama that was built upon
+it, had a religious association, and were employed in religious
+devotion. We may add, moreover, that the Greeks introduced their gods
+upon the stage; this the Jews could not do. The Greeks, of course, had a
+great deal of religious feeling, but they could not cherish that
+profound reverence for the object of their worship which the Jews
+entertained towards theirs. The Jews accompanied the Greeks in the use
+of the chorus, but they could not go with them any farther. They both
+united in employing music and the dance, and all the pomp of procession
+and charm of ceremony, in divine worship; but when it came to displaying
+the object of their adoration in personal form to the popular eye, and
+making him an actor on the stage, however dignified that stage might be,
+the Jews could not consent.
+
+This, we think, will explain, in part, why others of the ancient
+nations, the Arabs and Persians, rich as they were in every species of
+literature, had no theatre; they were monotheists.
+
+But there is the department of comedy, of a lighter sort, which does not
+converse with serious subjects, or necessarily include reference to
+Deity; why do we find no trace of this among the Jews? We may remember,
+that all festivals, in very ancient time, of every description, the
+grave and the gay, the penitential and the jubilant, had a religious
+design, and were suggested by a religious feeling. We think the peculiar
+cast of the Judaic faith would hardly embody itself in such a mode of
+expression. Moreover, tragedy was the parent of comedy,--and since the
+Jews had not the first, we should hardly expect them to produce the
+last. It is not difficult to perceive how the Greeks could convert their
+goat to dramatic, or even to comic purposes; but the Jews could not deal
+so with theirs.
+
+We approach another observation, that there is no comedy in the Bible.
+There is tragedy there,--not in the sense in which we have just denied
+that the Jews had tragedy, but in the obvious sense of tragic elements,
+tragic scenes, tragic feelings. In the same sense, we say, there are no
+comic elements, or scenes, or feelings. There is that in the Bible to
+make you weep, but nothing to move you to laughter. Why is this? Are
+there not smiles as well as tears in life? Have we not a deep, joyous
+nature, as well as aspiration, reverence, awe? Is there not a
+free-and-easy side of existence, as well as vexation and sorrow? We
+assent that these things are so.
+
+But comedy implies ridicule, sharp, corroding ridicule. The comedy of
+the Greeks ridiculed everything,--persons, characters, opinions,
+customs, and sometimes philosophy and religion. Comedy became,
+therefore, a sort of consecrated slander, lyric spite, aesthetical
+buffoonery. Comedy makes you laugh at somebody's expense; it brings
+multitudes together to see it inflict death on some reputation; it
+assails private feeling with all the publicity and powers of the stage.
+
+Now we doubt if the Jewish faith or taste would tolerate this. The Jews
+were commanded to love their neighbor. We grant, their idea of neighbor
+was excessively narrow and partial; but still it was their neighbor.
+They were commanded not to bear false witness against their neighbor,
+and he was pronounced accursed who should smite his neighbor secretly.
+It might appear that comedy would violate each of these statutes. But
+the Jews had their delights, their indulgences, their transports,
+notwithstanding the imperfection of their benevolence, the meagreness of
+their truth, and the cumbersomeness of their ceremonials. The Feast of
+Tabernacles, for instance, was liberal and happy, bright and smiling; it
+was the enthusiasm of pastime, the psalm of delectableness. They did not
+laugh at the exposure of another's foibles, but out of their own merry
+hearts.
+
+Will it be said, the Bible is not true to Nature, if it does not
+represent the comical side of life, as well as Shakspeare does? We think
+the comical parts of Shakspeare, his extreme comical parts, are rather
+an exaggeration of individual qualities than a fair portraiture of the
+whole species. There is no Falstaff in the Bible, yet the qualities of
+Falstaff exist in the Bible and in Nature, but in combination, and this
+combination modifies their aspect and effect.
+
+There is laughter in the Bible, but it is not uttered to make you laugh.
+There are also events recorded, which, at the time, may have produced
+effects analogous to comedy. The approach of the Gibeonites to the camp
+of Israel in their mock-beggarly costume might be mentioned. Shimei's
+cursing David has always seemed to us to border on the ludicrous.
+
+But to leave these matters and return to the general thread of thought.
+Dramas have been formed on the Bible. We hardly need name "Paradise
+Lost," or "Samson Agonistes," or the "Cain" of Byron, the "Hadad" of
+Hillhouse, or Mrs. More's "David and Goliah." "Pilgrim's Progress" has a
+Scriptural basis.
+
+Moreover, if we may trust the best critics, certain portions of the
+sacred volume are conceived in a dramatic spirit, and are propounded to
+a dramatic interpretation. These are the Book of Job, the Song of
+Solomon, and, possibly, the Apocalypse of St. John. If we were disposed
+to contend for this view, we need but mention such authorities as
+Calmet, Carpzov, Bishops Warburton, Percy, Lowth, Bossuet.
+
+The Book of Job has a prose prologue and epilogue, the intermediate
+portions being poetic dialogue. The characters are discriminated and
+well supported. It does not preserve the unities of Aristotle, which,
+indeed, are found neither in the Bible nor in Nature,--which Shakspeare
+neglects, and which are to be met with only in the crystalline
+artificialness of the French stage. "It has no plot, not even of the
+simplest kind," says Dr. Lowth. It has a plot,--not an external and
+visible one, but an internal and spiritual one; its incidents are its
+feelings, its progress is the successive conditions of mind, and it
+terminates with the triumph of virtue. If it be not a record of actual
+conversation, it is an embodiment of a most wonderful ideality. The
+eternity of God, the grandeur of Nature, the profundity of the soul,
+move in silent panorama before you. The great and agitating problems of
+human existence are depicted with astonishing energy and precision, and
+marvellous is the conduct of the piece to us who behold it as a painting
+away back on the dark canvas of antiquity.
+
+We said the Jews had no drama, no theatre, because they would not
+introduce the Divinity upon the stage. Yet God appears speaking in the
+Book of Job, not bodily, but ideally, and herein is all difference. This
+drama addresses the imagination, not the eye. The Greeks brought their
+divinities into sight, stood them on the stage,--or clothed a man with
+an enormous mask, and raised him on a pedestal, giving him also
+corresponding apparel, to represent their god. The Hebrew stage, if we
+may share the ordinary indulgence of language in using that term, with
+an awe and delicacy suitable to the dignity of the subject, permits the
+Divinity to speak, but does not presume to employ his person; the
+majesty of Infinitude utters itself, but no robe-maker undertakes to
+dress it for the occasion. In the present instance, how exalted, how
+inspiring, is the appearance of God! how free from offensive diminution
+and costumal familiarity! "Then the Lord answered Job out of the
+whirlwind, and said." Dim indeed is the representation, but very
+distinct is the impression. The phenomenon conforms to the purity of
+feeling, not to the grossness of sense. Devotion is kindled by the
+sublime impalpableness; no applause is enforced by appropriate acting.
+The Greeks, would have played the Book of Job,--the Jews were contented
+to read it.
+
+And here we might remark a distinction between dramatic reading and
+dramatic seeing; and in support of our theory we can call to aid so good
+an authority as Charles Lamb. "I cannot help being of opinion," says
+this essayist, "that the plays of Shakspeare are less calculated for
+performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist
+whatever."
+
+How are the love dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, by the inherent fault of
+stage representation, sullied and turned from their very nature by being
+exposed to a large assembly! How can the profound sorrows of Hamlet be
+depicted by a gesticulating actor? So, to see Lear acted, to see an old
+man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors
+by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful
+and disgusting. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm
+in which he goes out is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of
+the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. In the acted
+Othello, the black visage of the Moor is obtruded upon you; in the
+written Othello, his color disappears in his mind. When Hamlet compares
+the two pictures of Gertrude's first and second husband, who wants to
+see the pictures? But in the acting, a miniature must be lugged out. "The
+truth is," he adds, "the characters of Shakspeare are more the objects
+of meditation than of interest or curiosity as to their actions."
+
+All this applies with force to what we have been saying. The Jews, in
+respect of their dramatic culture, seem more like one who enjoys
+Shakspeare in the closet; the Greeks, like those who are tolled off to
+the theatre to see him acted. The Greeks would have contrived a pair of
+bellows to represent the whirlwind; mystic, vast, inaudible, it passes
+before the imagination of the Jew, and its office is done. The Jew would
+be shocked to see his God in a human form; such a thing pleased the
+Greek. The source of the difference is to be sought in the theology of
+the two nations. The theological development of the Jews was very
+complete,--that of the Greeks unfinished.
+
+Yet the Jews were very deficient in art, and the Greeks perfect; both
+failed in humanity. The Greeks had more ideality than the Jews; but
+their ideality was very intense; it was continually, so to speak,
+running aground; it must see its conceptions embodied; and more,--when
+they were embodied, Pygmalion-like, it must seek to imbue them with
+motion and sensibility. The conception of the Jews was more vague,
+perhaps, but equally affecting; they were satisfied with carrying in
+their minds the faint outline of the sublime, without seeking to chisel
+it into dimension and tangibility. They cherished in their bosoms their
+sacred ideal, and worshipped from far the greatness of the majesty that
+shaded their imaginations. Hence we look to Athens for art, to Palestine
+for ethics; the one produces rhetoricians,--the other, prophets.
+
+So, we see, the theologico-dramatic forms of the two nations--and there
+were no other--are different. The one pleases the prurient eye,--the
+other gratifies the longing soul; the one amuses,--the other inspires;
+the one is a hollow pageant of divine things,--the other is a glad,
+solemn intimation from the unutterable heart of the universe.
+
+The Song of Solomon, that stumbling-block of criticism and pill of
+faith, a recent writer regards as a parable in the form of a drama, in
+which the bride is considered as representing true religion, the royal
+lover as the Jewish people, and the younger sister as the Gospel
+dispensation. But it is evidently conceived in a very different spirit
+from the Book of Job or the Psalms of David, and its theological
+character is so obscured by other associations as to lead many to
+inquire whether an enlightened religious sensibility dictated it.
+
+We cannot dismiss this part of our subject without allusion to a species
+of drama that prevailed in the Middle Ages, called Mysteries, or
+Moralities. These were a sort of scenical illustration of the Sacred
+Scripture, and the subjects were events taken sometimes from the New
+Testament and sometimes from the Old. It is said they were designed to
+supply the place of the Greek and Roman theatre, which had been banished
+from the Church. The plays were written and performed by the clergy.
+They seem to have first been employed to wile away the dulness of the
+cloister, but were very soon introduced to the public. Adam and Eve in
+Paradise, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection were theatrized. The effect
+could hardly be salutary. The different persons of the Trinity appeared
+on the stage; on one side of the scene stretched the yawning throat of
+an immense wooden dragon; masked devils ran howling in and out.
+
+"In the year 1437,"--we follow the literal history, as we find it quoted
+in D'Israeli,--"when the Bishop of Metz caused the Mystery of the
+Passion to be represented near that city, God was an old gentleman, a
+curate of the place, and who was very near expiring on the cross, had he
+not been timely assisted. He was so enfeebled that another priest
+finished his part. At the same time this curate undertook to perform the
+Resurrection, which being a less difficult task, he did it admirably
+well. Another priest, personating Judas, had like to have been stifled
+while he hung on the tree, for his neck slipped. This being at length
+luckily perceived, he was cut down, and recovered." In another instance,
+a man who assumed the Supreme Being becoming nearly suffocated by the
+paint applied to his face, it was wisely announced that for the future
+the Deity should be covered by a cloud. These plays, carried about the
+country, taken up by the baser sort of people, descended through all
+degrees of farce to obscenity, and, in England, becoming entangled in
+politics, at length disappeared. It is said they linger in Italy, and
+are annually reproduced in Spain.
+
+The Bible is incapable of representation. For a man to act the Supreme
+Being would be as revolting in idea as profane in practice. One may in
+words portray the divine character, give utterance to the divine will.
+This every preacher does. But to what is the effect owing? Not to
+proprieties of attitude or arrangement of muscle, but to the spirit of
+the man magnified and flooding with the great theme, and to the thought
+of God that surrounds and subdues all; in other words, the imagination
+is addressed, not the sight,--the sentiments and affections are engaged,
+not the senses. As Lamb says of the Lear of Shakspeare, it cannot be
+acted; so, with greater force, we may say of the Bible, it cannot be
+acted. When we read or hear of the Passion of the Saviour, it is the
+thought, the emotion, burning and seething within it, at which by
+invisible contact our own thought and emotion catch fire; and the
+capabilities of impersonation and manufacture are mocked by such a
+subject.
+
+But the Bible abounds in dramatic situation, action, and feeling. This
+has already been intimated; it only remains that we indicate some
+examples. The history of David fulfils all the demands of dramatic
+composition. It has the severe grandeur of Aeschylus, the moving
+tenderness of Euripides, and the individual fidelity of Shakspeare.
+Could this last-named writer, who, while he counterfeited Nature with
+such success, was equally commended for his historical integrity,--could
+Shakspeare have performed that service on this history, which Milton,
+More, and others have undertaken on other portions of the sacred
+volume,--could he have digested it into a regular dramatic form,--he
+would have accomplished a work of rare interest. It would include the
+characters of Samuel and Saul; it would describe the magnanimous
+Jonathan and the rebellious Absalom; Nathan, Nabal, Goliah, Shimei,
+would impart their respective features; it would be enriched with all
+that is beautiful in woman's love or enduring in parental affection. It
+is full of incident, and full of pathos. It verges towards the terrible,
+it is shaken with the passionate, it rises into the heroic. Pursued in
+the true spirit of Jewish theology, the awful presence of God would
+overhang and pervade it, while the agency of his providence should
+attend on the evolutions of events.
+
+There is one effect which, in the present arrangement of the canon, is
+entirely lost to view, and which could be revived only by the
+synchronizing of the Psalms with their proper epochs. For instance, the
+eighth Psalm is referable to the youth of David, when he was yet leading
+a shepherd life. The dramatic form of his history would detach this from
+its present place, and insert it amid the occasions and in the years to
+which it belongs. What a scene we should then have! The youthful David,
+ruddy he was, and, withal, of a beautiful countenance, (marginal
+reading, fair of eyes,) and goodly to look to; and he was a cunning
+player on the harp. There is the glow of poetic enthusiasm in his eyes,
+and the fervor of religious feeling in all his moods; as he tends his
+flock amid the quietness and beauty of his native hills, he joins to the
+aspirations of his soul the melodies of music. So the night overtakes
+him, the labors of the day are past, his meditations withdraw him from
+the society of men, he is alone with Nature and with God;--at such a
+moment the spirit of composition and utterance is upon him, and he hymns
+himself in those lofty and touching stanzas,--
+
+  "O Jehovah, our Lord,
+  How excellent is thy name in all the earth!
+  When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
+  The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
+  What is man that thou art mindful of him,
+  And the son of man that thou carest for him?
+  Yet thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
+  Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor;
+  Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hand,
+  Thou hast put all things under his feet,--
+  All sheep and oxen,
+  Yea, and the beasts of the forest,
+  The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea,
+  And whatsoever passes through the deep.
+  O Jehovah, our Lord,
+  How excellent is thy name in all the earth!"
+
+Again, the fifty-seventh Psalm is assigned, in respect of place, to the
+cave of En-gedi, into which David fled from the vengeance of Saul. Here,
+surrounded by lofty rocks, whose promontories screen a wide extent of
+vale, he breaks forth,--
+
+  "Have pity upon me, O God, have pity upon me,
+  For in thee doth my soul seek refuge!
+  Yea, in the shadow of thy wings do I take shelter,
+  Until these calamities be overpast!"
+
+Dramatically touched, and disposed according to the natural unities of
+the subject, these sublime and affecting songs would appear on their
+motive occasions, and be surrounded by their actual accompaniments.
+
+The present effect may be compared to that which would be felt, if we
+should detach the songs of the artificial drama from their original
+impulse and feeling, (for instance, the willow dirge of Desdemona, and
+the fantastic moans of Ophelia,) and produce them in a parlor. Not but
+that these lyrics have a universal fitness, and a value which no time
+can change or circumstance diminish; but as we are looking at them
+simply in a dramatic view, we claim the right to suggest their dramatic
+force and pertinency. This effect, we might remark, is particularly and
+most truthfully regarded in the Lament of David over Saul and Jonathan.
+That monody would be shorn of its interest, if it were inserted anywhere
+else. The Psalms are more impersonal and more strictly religious than
+that, and hence their universal application; only we say, we can easily
+conceive that the revival of them in the order of their history, and in
+all the purity of their native pathos, would render them more
+attractive.
+
+In connection with what we would further observe of the Psalms of David,
+let us again call attention to the ancient chorus,--how it was a species
+of melodrama, how it sang its parts, and comprised distinct vocalists
+and musicians, who pursued the piece in alternate rejoinder. What we
+would observe is, that many of the Psalms were written for the chorus,
+and, so to speak, were performed by it. There are some of them which it
+is impossible to understand without attention to this dramatic method of
+rehearsal. Psalm cxviii., for instance, includes several speakers. Psalm
+xxiv. was composed on the occasion of the transfer of the ark to the
+tabernacle on Mount Zion. And David, we read, and all the house of
+Israel, brought up the ark with shouting and with the sound of the
+trumpet. In the midst of the congregated nation, supported by a varied
+instrumental accompaniment, with the smoke of the well-fed altar surging
+into the skies, the chorus took up the song which had been prepared to
+their hand,--one group calling out, "Who shall ascend into the hill of
+the Lord?"--the other pealing their answer, "He that hath clean hands
+and a pure heart." Meanwhile, they dance before the Lord,--that is, we
+suppose, preserving with their feet the unities of the music.
+
+It was during a melodrama like this, in the midst of its exciting
+grandeur and all-pervading transport, executed at the Feast of
+Tabernacles, in the open area of the Temple, when the Jews were wont to
+pour upon the altar water taken from the pool of Siloam, chanting at the
+same time the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, and one division of the chorus
+had just sung the words,--
+
+  "With joy we draw water from the wells of salvation,"
+
+and before the other had replied,--it was at this moment, that Christ,
+as Dr. Furness very reasonably conjectures, took up the response in his
+own person, and overwhelmed attention by that memorable declaration, "If
+any man thirst, let him come to me and drink; and from within him shall
+flow rivers of living water."
+
+It is what we may term the dramatic proprieties that give to many of the
+Psalms, in the language of a recent commentator, "a greater degree of
+fitness, spirit, and grandeur"; and they impart to the history of David
+a certain decorousness of illustration and perspicuity of feature which
+it would not otherwise possess. They would produce upon it the same
+result as is achieved by the sister arts on this and other portions of
+the sacred volume, without marring the text or doing violence to truth.
+Not, let us repeat, that the Bible can be theatrized. Neither church nor
+playhouse can revive the forms of Judaism, without recalling its lost
+spirit. And that must be a bold hand, indeed, that shall undertake to
+mend again the shivered vail of the Temple, or collect from its ruins a
+ritual which He that was greater than Solomon typically denounced in
+foretelling the overthrow of that gorgeous pile. The Bible, as to its
+important verities and solemn doctrine, is transparent to the
+imagination and affections, and does not require the mediation of dumb
+show or scenic travesty.
+
+It is not difficult to trace many familiar dramatic resemblances in the
+Old Testament. Shakspeare, who was certainly well read in the Bible and
+frequently quotes it, in the composition of Lear may have had David and
+Absalom in mind; the feigned madness of Hamlet has its prototype in that
+of David; Macbeth and the Weird Sisters have many traits in common with
+Saul and the Witch of Endor. Jezebel is certainly a suggestive study for
+Lady Macbeth. The whole story has its key in that verse where we read,
+"There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work
+wickedness in the sight of the Lord, _whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred
+up_." As in the play, so in this Scripture, we have the unrestrained and
+ferocious ambition of the wife conspiring with the equally cruel, but
+less hardy ambition of the husband. When Macbeth had murdered sleep,
+when he could not screw his courage to the sticking-point, when his
+purpose looked green and pale, his wife stings him with taunts, scathes
+him with sarcasm, and by her own energy of intellect and storm of will
+arouses him to action. So Ahab came in heavy and displeased, and laid
+him down on his bed, and turned away his face, and so his wife inflames
+him with the sharpness of her rebuke. "Why art thou sad?" she asks.
+"Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, eat bread, and be
+merry!" The lust of regal and conjugal pride, intermixed, works in both.
+Jezebel, whose husband was a king, would crown him with kingly deeds.
+Lady Macbeth, whose husband was a prince, would see him crowned a king.
+Jezebel would aggrandize empire, which her unlawful marriage thereto had
+jeoparded. Lady Macbeth will run the risk of an unlawful marriage with
+empire, if she may thereby aggrandize it. Jezebel is insensible to
+patriotic feelings,--Lady Macbeth to civil and hospitable duties. The
+Zidonian woman braves the vengeance of Jehovah,--the Scotch woman dares
+the Powers of Darkness; the one is incited by the oracles of Baal,--the
+other by the predictions of witches. Lady Macbeth has more intellectual
+force,--Jezebel more moral decision; Lady Macbeth exhibits great
+imagination,--Jezebel a stronger will. As the character of Lady Macbeth
+is said to be relieved by the affection she shows for her husband, so is
+that of Jezebel by her tenderness for Ahab. The grandness of the
+audacity with which Jezebel sends after the prophet Elisha, saying, "So
+let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life
+of one of them by to-morrow about this time," has its counterpart in the
+lofty terror of the invocation which Lady Macbeth makes to the "spirits
+that wait on mortal thoughts,"--
+
+  "Fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
+  Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
+  Stop up the access and the passage of remorse!
+  . . . . Come to my woman's breasts,
+  And take my milk for gall, ye murdering ministers!"
+
+But the last moments of these excessive characters are singularly
+contrasted. Jezebel scoffs at approaching retribution, and, shining with
+paint and dripping with jewels, is pitched to the dogs; Lady Macbeth
+goes like a coward to her grave, and, curdled with remorse, receives the
+stroke of doom.
+
+If Shakspeare and the Old Testament are a just manifestation of human
+nature, the New is so different, its representation would seem to be
+almost fanciful or fallacious; or if the latter be accepted, the former
+would seem to be discarded. But both are faithful to the different ages
+and phases of man. The one is a dispensation of force,--the other of
+love; the one could make nothing perfect,--but the bringing in of a
+better covenant makes all things perfect. Through the tempest and storm,
+the brutality and lust of the Greek tragedians, and even of the
+barbarous times on which Shakspeare builds many of his plays, through
+the night of Judaical back-slidings, idolatry, and carnal commandments,
+we patiently wait, and gladly hail the morning of the Sun of
+Righteousness. The New Testament is a green, calm, island, in this
+heaving, fearful ocean of dramatic interest. How delightful is
+everything there, and how elevated! how glad, and how solemn! how
+energetic, and how tranquil! What characters, what incident, what
+feeling! Yet how different! So different, indeed, from what elsewhere
+appears, that we are compelled to ask, Can this be that same old
+humanity whose passions, they tell us, are alike in all ages, and the
+emphatic turbulence of which constitutes so large a portion of history?
+
+But how shall we describe what is before us? The events open, if we may
+draw a term from our subject, with a prologue spoken by angels,--
+
+  "Peace on earth, and good-will towards men."
+
+There had been Jezebels and Lady Macbeths enough; the memory of David
+still smelt of blood; the Roman eagles were gorging their beaks on human
+flesh; and the Samaritan everywhere felt the gnawing, shuddering sense
+of hatred and scorn. No chorus appears answering to chorus, praising the
+god of battles, or exulting in the achievements of arms; but the
+sympathies of Him who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities
+answer to the wants and woes of the race, and every thoughtful mind
+ecstatically encores. The inexorable Fate of the Greeks does not appear,
+but a good Providence interferes, and Heaven smiles graciously upon the
+scene. There is passion, indeed, grief and sorrow, sin and
+suffering,--but the tempest-stiller is here, who breathes tranquillity
+upon the waters, and pours serenity into the turbid deep. The Niobe of
+humanity, stiff and speechless, with her enmarbled children, that used
+sometimes to be introduced on the Athenian stage for purposes of terror
+or pity, is here restored to life, and she renders thanks for her
+deliverance and participates in the general joy to which the piece gives
+birth. No murderers of the prophets are hewn in pieces before the Lord;
+but from the agonies of the cross and the depths of a preternatural
+darkness, the tender cry is heard, on behalf of the murderers of the Son
+of God, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" No
+Alcestis is exhibited, doomed to destruction to save the life of her
+husband,--but One appears, moving cheerfully, voluntarily, forwards, to
+what may be termed the funeral pile of the world, from which,
+phoenix-like, he rises, and gloriously ascends, drawing after him the
+hearts, the love, the worship of millions of spectators. The key of the
+whole piece is Redemption, the spirit that actuates is Love. The chief
+actors, indeed, are Christ and Man; but innumerable subsidiary
+personages are the Charities. The elements of a spiritualized existence
+act their part. Humanity is not changed in its substance, but in its
+tendencies; the sensibilities exist, but under a divine culture. Stephen
+is as heroic as Agamemnon, Mary as energetic as Medea. Little children
+are no longer dashed in pieces,--they are embraced and blessed.
+
+But let us select for attention, and for a conclusion to these remarks,
+a particular scene. It shall be from Luke. This evangelist has been
+fabled a painter, and in the apotheosis of the old Church he was made
+the tutelar patron of that class of artists. If the individuality of his
+conceptions, the skill of his groupings, and the graphicness gave rise
+to such an idea, it would seem to have its foundation as well in Nature
+as in superstition. Matthew has more detail, more thought; Luke is more
+picturesque, more descriptive. John has more deep feeling; Luke more
+action, more life. The Annunciation, the Widow of Nain, the Prodigal Son,
+the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the incident to which
+we shall presently advert, are found in Luke alone.
+
+The incident in question is the dining of Christ at the house of Simon
+the Pharisee, and, while they were reclining at meat, the entrance of a
+woman which was a sinner, who bathes the feet of Jesus with tears, and
+wipes them with the hair of her head. The place is the city of Nain; the
+hour noon. The _dramatis personae_ are three,--Jesus, Simon, and the
+Woman,--and, if we choose to add them, the other guests, who are silent
+spectators of what transpires.
+
+Let, us consider, first, the Woman. She "was a sinner." This is all, in
+fact, that we know of her; but this is enough. The term "sinner," in
+this instance, as in many others, does not refer to the general apostasy
+in Adam; it is distinctive of race and habit. She was probably of
+heathen extraction, as she was certainly of a dissolute life. The poetry
+of sin and shame calls her the Magdalen, and there may be a convenience
+in permitting this name to stand. The depth of her depravity Christ
+clearly intimates in his allusion to the debtor who owed five hundred
+pence, and the language of Simon teaches that the infamy of her life was
+well understood among the inhabitants of the city. If a foreigner, she
+had probably been brought into the country by the Roman soldiers and
+deserted. If a native, she had fallen beneath the ban of respectability,
+and was an outcast alike from hope and from good society. She was
+condemned to wear a dress different from that of other people; she was
+liable at any moment to be stoned for her conduct; she was one whom it
+was a ritual impurity to touch. She was wretched beyond measure; but
+while so corrupt, she was not utterly hardened. Incapable of virtue, she
+was not incapable of gratitude. Weltering in grossness, she could still
+be touched by the sight of purity. Plunged into extremest vice, she
+retained the damning horror of her situation. If she had ever striven to
+recover her lost position, there were none to assist her; the bigotry of
+patriotism rejected her for her birth,--the scrupulousness of modesty,
+for her history. The night, that consecrated so many homes and gathered
+together so many families in innocence and repose, was to her blacker
+than its own blackness in misery and turpitude; the morning, that
+radiated gladness over the face of the world, revealed the extent and
+exaggerated the sense of her own degradation. But the vision of Jesus
+had alighted upon her; she had seen him speeding on his errands of
+mercy; she hung about the crowd that followed his steps; his tender look
+of pity may have sometimes gleamed into her soul. Stricken, smitten,
+confounded, her yearnings for peace gush forth afresh. It was as if
+Hell, moved by contrition, had given up its prey,--as if Remorse, tired
+of its gnawing, felt within itself the stimulus of hope. But how shall
+she see Jesus? Wherewithal shall she approach him? She has "nothing to
+pay." She has tears enough, and sorrows enough,--but these are derided
+by the vain, and suspected by the wise. She has an alabaster box of
+ointment, which, shut out as she is from honorable gain, must be the
+product and the concomitant of her guilt. But with these she must go. We
+see her threading her lonely way through the streets, learning by hints,
+since she would not dare to learn by questions, where Jesus is, and
+stops before the vestibule of the elegant mansion of Simon the Pharisee.
+
+Who is Simon the Pharisee? Not necessarily a bad man. We associate
+whatever is odious in hypocrisy or base in craft with the name Pharisee,
+while really it was the most distinguished title among the Jews. Many of
+the Pharisees were hypocrites; not all of them. The name is significant
+of profession, not of character. He could not have been an unprincipled,
+villanous man, or he would never have tendered to Jesus the
+hospitalities of his house. Indeed, Christ allows him, in the sense of
+moral indebtedness, to owe but fifty pence. He was probably a rich man,
+which might appear from the generous entertainment he made. He was a
+respectable man. The sect to which he belonged was the most celebrated
+and influential among the Jews; and when not debased by positive crime,
+a Pharisee was always esteemed for his learning and his piety. He had
+some interest in Christ, either in his mission or his character,--an
+interest beyond mere curiosity, or he would not have invited him to dine
+with him. He betrays a sincere friendliness, also, in his apprehension
+lest Christ should suffer any religious contamination.
+
+The third person in the scene is Christ, who, to speak of him not as
+theology has interpreted him to us, but as he appeared to the eyes of
+his contemporaries, was the reputed son of Joseph and Mary, the
+Bethlehemites; who by his words and deeds had attracted much attention
+and made some converts; now accused of breaking the Jewish Sabbath, now
+of plotting against the Roman sovereignty; one who in his own person had
+felt the full power of temptation, and who had been raised to the
+grandeur of a transfiguration; so tender he would not bruise the broken
+reed, so gentle his yoke was rest; raying out with compassion and love
+wherever he went; healing alike the pangs of grief and the languor of
+disease; whom some believed to be the Messiah, and others thought a
+prophet; whom the masses followed, and the priests feared;--this is the
+third member of the company.
+
+The two last, with the other guests, are engaged at their meal, and in
+conversation. The door is darkened by a strange figure; all eyes are
+riveted on the apparition; the Magdalen enters, faded, distressed, with
+long dishevelled hair. She has no introduction; she says nothing;
+indeed, in all this remarkable scene she never speaks; her silence is as
+significant as it is profound. She goes behind the couch where Jesus,
+according to Oriental custom, is reclined. She drops at his feet; there
+her tears stream; there the speechless agony of her soul bursts. Observe
+the workings of the moment. See how those people are affected. Surprise
+on the part of Simon and his friends turns to scorn, and this shades
+into indignation. Jesus is calm, collected, and intently thoughtful. The
+woman is overwhelmed by her situation. The lip of Simon curls, his eye
+flashes with fire of outraged virtue. Jesus meets his gaze with equal
+fire, but it is all of pure heavenly feeling. Simon moves to have the
+vagabond expelled; Christ interrupts the attempt. But the honor of the
+house is insulted. Yes, but the undying interests of the soul are at
+stake. But the breath of the woman is ritual poison, and her touch will
+bring down the curses of the law. But the look of Christ indicates that
+depth of spirituality before which the institutions of Moses flee away
+as chaff before the wind. Simon has some esteem for Jesus, and in this
+juncture his sensations take a turn of pity, spiced, perhaps, with a
+little contempt, and he says with himself,--"Surely, this man cannot be
+a prophet, as is pretended, or he would know who and what sort of woman
+it is that touches him; for she is a sinner; she is unclean and
+reprobate."
+
+"Simon!" says Jesus, with a tone that pierced to the worthy host's
+heart, and arrested the force of his pious alarm,--"Simon!"
+
+"Sir, say on," is the reply of the Pharisee, who is awed by this appeal
+into an humble listener.
+
+Whereupon Jesus relates the story of the two debtors, and, with
+irresistible strength of illustration and delicacy of application,
+breaks the prejudice and wins the composure of the Jew. "If, then," he
+continues, "he loves much to whom much is forgiven, what shall we say of
+one who loves so much?"
+
+"See," he goes on, pointing to the woman, "See this woman,--this wretch.
+I entered thy house; thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she has
+washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. She kisses
+my feet; she anoints them with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her
+sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."
+
+This scene, however inadequately it may be set forth, contains all that
+is sublime in tragedy, terrible in guilt, or intense in pathos. The
+woman represents humanity, or the soul of human nature; Simon, the
+world, or worldly wisdom; Christ, divinity, or the divine purposes of
+good to us ward. Simon is an incarnation of what St. Paul calls the
+beggarly elements; Christ, of spirituality; the woman, of sin. It is not
+the woman alone,--but in her there cluster upon the stage all want and
+woe, all calamity and disappointment, all shame and guilt. In Christ
+there come forward to meet her, love, hope, truth, light, salvation. In
+Simon are acted out doting conservatism, mean expediency, purblind
+calculation, carnal insensibility. Generosity in this scene is
+confronted with meanness, in the attempt to shelter misfortune. The
+woman is a tragedy herself, such as Aeschylus never dreamed of. The
+scourging Furies, dread Fate, and burning Hell unite in her, and, borne
+on by the new impulse of the new dispensation, they come towards the
+light, they ask for peace, they throng to the heaven that opens in
+Jesus. Simon embodies that vast array of influences that stand between
+humanity and its redemption. He is a very excellent, a very estimable
+man,--but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery
+disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what
+sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a
+contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such
+matters? Why is he not satisfied with a good dinner? "Simon!" "Simon!"
+
+The silence of the woman is wonderful, it is awful. What is most
+profound, most agitating, most intense cannot speak; words are too
+little for the greatness of feeling. So Job sat himself upon the ground
+seven days and seven nights, speechless. Not in this case, as is said of
+Schiller's Robbers, did the pent volcano find vent in power-words; not
+in strong and terrible accents was uttered the hoarded wrath of long
+centuries of misrule and oppression. The volcano, raging, aching, threw
+itself in silence into the arms of one who could soothe and allay it.
+The thunder is noisy and harmless. The lightning is silent,--and the
+lightning splits, kills, consumes. Humanity had muttered its thunder for
+ages. Its lightning, the condensed, fiery, fatal force of things, leaped
+from the blackness of sin, threaded with terrific glare the vision of
+man, and, in the person of the woman, fell hot and blasting at the feet
+of Jesus, who quenched its fire, and of that destructive bolt made a
+trophy of grace and a fair image of hope. She could not speak, and so
+she wept,--like the raw, chilling, hard atmosphere, which is relieved
+only by a shower of snow. How could she speak, guilty, remorseful
+wretch, without excuse, without extenuation? In the presence of divine
+virtue, at the tribunal of judgment, she could only weep, she could only
+love. But, blessed be Jesus, he could forgive her, he can forgive all.
+The woman departs in peace; Simon is satisfied; Jesus triumphs; we
+almost hear the applauses with which the ages and generations of earth
+greet the closing scene. From the serene celestial immensity that opens
+above the spot we can distinguish a voice, saying, "This is my beloved
+Son; hear ye him!"
+
+We speak of these things dramatically, but, after all, they are the only
+great realities. Everything else is mimetic, phantasmal, tinkling.
+Deeply do the masters of the drama move us; but the Gospel cleaves,
+inworks, regenerates. In the theatre, the leading characters go off in
+death and despair, or with empty conceits and a forced frivolity; in the
+Gospel, tranquilly, grandly, they are dismissed to a serener life and a
+nobler probation. Who has not pitied the ravings of Lear and the agonies
+of Othello? The Gospel pities, but, by a magnificence of plot altogether
+its own, by preserving, if we may so say, the unities of heaven and
+earth, it also saves.
+
+Of all common tragedy, we may exclaim, in the words of the old play,--
+
+  "How like a silent stream shaded with night,
+  And gliding softly, with our windy sighs,
+  Moves the whole frame of this solemnity!"
+
+The Gospel moves by, as a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,
+from the throne of God and the Lamb; on its surface play the sunbeams of
+hope; in its valleys rise the trees of life, beneath the shadows of
+which the weary years of human passion repose, and from the leaves of
+the branches of which is exhaled to the passing breeze healing for the
+nations.
+
+
+
+
+THE RING FETTER.
+
+
+A NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDY.
+
+
+There are long stretches in the course of the Connecticut River, where
+its tranquil current assumes the aspect of a lake, its sudden bends cut
+off the lovely reach of water, and its heavily wooded banks lie silent
+and green, undisturbed, except by the shriek of the passing steamer,
+casting golden-green reflections into the stream at twilight, and
+shadows of deepest blackness, star-pierced, at remoter depths of night.
+Here, now and then, a stray gull from the sea sends a flying throb of
+white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk
+paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of
+wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for these
+casual stirs of Nature, all is still, oppressive, and beautiful, as
+earth seems to the trance-sleeper on the brink of his grave.
+
+In one of these reaches, though on either side the heavy woods sweep
+down to the shore and hang over it as if deliberating whether to plunge
+in, on the eastern bank there is a tiny meadow just behind the
+tree-fringe of the river, completely hedged in by the deep woods, and
+altogether hidden from any inland road; nor would the traveller on the
+river discover it, except for the chimney of a house that peers above
+the yellow willows and seems in that desolate seclusion as startling as
+a daylight ghost. But this dwelling was built and deserted and
+weather-beaten long before the date of our story. It had been erected
+and inhabited during the Revolution, by an old Tory, who, foreseeing the
+result of the war better than some of his contemporaries, and being
+unwilling to expose his person to the chances of battle or his effects
+to confiscation, maintained a strict neutrality, and a secret trade with
+both parties; thereby welcoming peace and independence, fully stocked
+with the dislike and suspicion of his neighbors, and a large quantity of
+Continental "fairy-money." So, when Abner Dimock died, all he had to
+leave to his only son was the red house on "Dimock's Meadow," and a
+ten-acre lot of woodland behind and around the green plateau where the
+house stood. These possessions he strictly entailed on his heirs
+forever, and nobody being sufficiently interested in its alienation to
+inquire into the State laws concerning the validity of such an entail,
+the house remained in the possession of the direct line, and in the year
+18-- belonged to another Abner Dimock, who kept tavern in Greenfield, a
+town of Western Massachusetts, and, like his father and grandfather
+before him, had one only son. In the mean time, the old house in Haddam
+township had fallen into a ruinous condition, and, as the farm was very
+small, and unprofitable chestnut-woodland at that, the whole was leased
+to an old negro and his wife, who lived there in the most utter
+solitude, scratching the soil for a few beans and potatoes, and in the
+autumn gathering nuts, or in the spring roots for beer, with which Old
+Jake paddled up to Middletown, to bring home a return freight of salt
+pork and rum.
+
+The town of Greenfield, small though it was, and at the very top of a
+high hill, was yet the county town, subject to annual incursions of
+lawyers, and such "thrilling incidents" as arise from the location of a
+jail and a court-room within the limits of any village. The scenery had
+a certain summer charm of utter quiet that did it good service with some
+healthy people of well-regulated and insensitive tastes. From Greenfield
+Hill one looked away over a wide stretch of rolling country; low hills,
+in long, desolate waves of pasturage and grain, relieved here and there
+by a mass of black woodland, or a red farm-house and barns clustered
+against a hill-side, just over a wooden spire in the shallow valley,
+about which were gathered a few white houses, giving signs of life
+thrice a day in tiny threads of smoke rising from their prim chimneys;
+and over all, the pallid skies of New England, where the sun wheeled his
+shorn beams from east to west as coldly as if no tropic seas mirrored
+his more fervid glow thousands of miles away, and the chilly moon beamed
+with irreproachable whiteness across the round gray hills and the
+straggling pond, beloved of frogs and mud-turtles, that Greenfield held
+in honor under the name of Squam Lake.
+
+Perhaps it was the scenery, perhaps the air, possibly the cheapness of
+the place as far as all the necessaries of life went, that tempted Judge
+Hyde to pitch his tent there, in the house his fathers had built long
+ago, instead of wearing his judicial honors publicly, in the city where
+he attained them; but, whatever the motive might be, certain it is that
+at the age of forty he married a delicate beauty from Baltimore, and
+came to live on Greenfield Hill, in the great white house with a gambrel
+roof and dormer windows, standing behind certain huge maples, where
+Major Hyde and Parson Hyde and Deacon Hyde had all lived before him.
+
+A brief Northern summer bloomed gayly enough for Adelaide Howard Hyde
+when she made her bridal tour to her new home; and cold as she found the
+aspect of that house, with its formal mahogany chairs, high-backed, and
+carved in grim festoons and ovals of incessant repetition,--its
+penitential couch of a sofa, where only the iron spine of a
+Revolutionary heroine could have found rest,--its pinched, starved, and
+double-starched portraits of defunct Hydes, Puritanic to the very ends
+of toupet and periwig,--little Mrs. Hyde was deep enough in love with
+her tall and handsome husband to overlook the upholstery of a home he
+glorified, and to care little for comfort elsewhere, so long as she
+could nestle on his knee and rest her curly head against his shoulder.
+Besides, flowers grew, even in Greenfield; there were damask roses and
+old-fashioned lilies enough in the square garden to have furnished a
+whole century of poets with similes; and in the posy-bed under the front
+windows were tulips of Chinese awkwardness and splendor, beds of pinks
+spicy as all Arabia, blue hyacinths heavy with sweetness as well as
+bells, "pi'nies" rubicund and rank, hearts-ease clustered against the
+house, and sticky rose-acacias, pretty and impracticable, not to mention
+the grenadier files of hollyhocks that contended with fennel-bushes and
+scarlet-flowered beans for the precedence, and the hosts of wild flowers
+that bloomed by wood-edges and pond-shores wherever corn or potatoes
+spared a foot of soil for the lovely weeds. So in Judge Hyde's frequent
+absences, at court or conclave, hither and yon, (for the Judge was a
+political man,) it was his pretty wife's chief amusement, when her
+delicate fingers ached with embroidery, or her head spun with efforts to
+learn housekeeping from old Keery, the time-out-of-mind authority in the
+Hyde family, a bad-humored, good-tempered old maid,--it was, indeed, the
+little Southerner's only amusement,--to make the polish and mustiness of
+those dreary front-parlors gay and fragrant with flowers; and though
+Judge Hyde's sense of the ridiculous was not remarkably keen, it was too
+much to expect of him that he should do otherwise than laugh long and
+loud, when, suddenly returning from Taunton one summer day, he tracked
+his wife by snatches of song into the "company rooms," and found her on
+the floor, her hair about her ears, tying a thick garland of red
+peonies, intended to decorate the picture of the original Hyde, a dreary
+old fellow, in bands, and grasping a Bible in one wooden hand, while a
+distant view of Plymouth Bay and the Mayflower tried to convince the
+spectator that he was transported, among other antediluvians, by that
+Noah's ark, to the New World. On either hand hung the little Flora's
+great-grandmother-in-law, and her great-grandfather accordingly, Mrs.
+Mehitable and Parson Job Hyde, peering out, one from a bushy ornament of
+pink laurel-blossoms, and the other from an airy and delicate garland of
+the wanton sweet-pea, each stony pair of eyes seeming to glare with
+Medusan intent at this profaning of their state and dignity. "Isn't it
+charming, dear?" said the innocent little beauty, with a satisfaction
+half doubtful, as her husband's laugh went on.
+
+But for every butterfly there comes an end to summer. The flowers
+dropped from the frames and died in the garden; a pitiless winter set
+in; and day after day the mittened and mufflered schoolboy, dragging his
+sled through drifts of heavy snow to school, eyed curiously the wan,
+wistful face of Judge Hyde's wife pressed up to the pane of the south
+window, its great restless eyes and shadowy hair bringing to mind some
+captive bird that pines and beats against the cage. Her husband absent
+from home long and often, full of affairs of "court and state,"--her
+delicate organization, that lost its flickering vitality by every
+exposure to cold,--her lonely days and nights,--the interminable sewing,
+that now, for her own reasons, she would trust to no hands but her
+own,--conscious incapacity to be what all the women about her were,
+stirring, active, hardy housekeepers,--a vague sense of shame, and a
+great dread of the future,--her comfortless and motherless
+condition,--slowly, but surely, like frost, and wind, and rain, and
+snow, beat on this frail blossom, and it went with the rest. June roses
+were laid against her dark hair and in her fair hands, when she was
+carried to the lonely graveyard of Greenfield, where mulleins and
+asters, golden-rod, blackberry-vines, and stunted yellow-pines adorned
+the last sleep of the weary wife and mother; for she left behind her a
+week-old baby,--a girl,--wailing prophetically in the square bedroom
+where its mother died.
+
+Judge Hyde did not marry again, and he named his baby Mehitable. She
+grew up as a half-orphaned child with an elderly and undemonstrative
+father would naturally grow,--shy, sensitive, timid, and extremely
+grave. Her dress, thanks to Aunt Keery and the minister's wife, (who
+looked after her for her mother's sake,) was always well provided and
+neat, but no way calculated to cultivate her taste or to gratify the
+beholder. A district school provided her with such education as it could
+give; and the library, that was her resort at all hours of the day,
+furthered her knowledge in a singular and varied way, since its lightest
+contents were histories of all kinds and sorts, unless one may call the
+English Classics lighter reading than Hume or Gibbon.
+
+But at length the district-schoolma'am could teach Mehitable Hyde no
+more, and the Judge suddenly discovered that he had a pretty daughter of
+fourteen, ignorant enough to shock his sense of propriety, and delicate
+enough to make it useless to think of sending her away from home to be
+buffeted in a boarding-school. Nothing was left for him but to undertake
+her education himself; and having a theory that a thorough course of
+classics, both Greek and Latin, was the foundation of all knowledge,
+half a score of dusty grammars were brought from the garret, and for two
+hours every morning and afternoon little Miss Hitty worried her innocent
+soul over conjugations and declensions and particles, as perseveringly
+as any professor could have desired. But the dreadful part of the
+lessons to Hitty was the recitation after tea; no matter how well she
+knew every inflection of a verb, every termination of a noun, her
+father's cold, gray eye, fixed on her for an answer, dispelled all kinds
+of knowledge, and, for at least a week, every lesson ended in tears.
+However, there are alleviations to everything in life; and when the
+child was sent to the garret after her school-books, she discovered
+another set, more effectual teachers to her than Sallust or the "Graeca
+Minora," even the twelve volumes of "Sir Charles Grandison," and the
+fewer but no less absorbing tomes of "Clarissa Harlowe"; and every hour
+she could contrive not to be missed by Keery or her father was spent in
+that old garret, fragrant as it was with sheaves of all the herbs that
+grow in field or forest, poring over those old novels, that were her
+society, her friends, her world.
+
+So two years passed by. Mehitable grew tall and learned, but knew little
+more of the outside world than ever; her father had learned to love her,
+and taught her to adore him; still shy and timid, the village offered no
+temptation to her, so far as society went; and Judge Hyde was beginning
+to feel that for his child's mental health some freer atmosphere was
+fast becoming necessary, when a relentless writ was served upon the
+Judge himself, and one that no man could evade; paralysis smote him, and
+the strong man lay prostrate,--became bedridden.
+
+Now the question of life seemed settled for Hitty; her father admitted
+no nursing but hers. Month after month rolled away, and the numb grasp
+gradually loosed its hold on flesh and sense, but still Judge Hyde was
+bedridden. Year after year passed by, and no change for better or worse
+ensued. Hitty's life was spent between the two parlors and the kitchen;
+for the room her dead mother had so decorated was now furnished as a
+bedroom for her father's use; and her own possessions had been removed
+into the sitting-room next it, that, sleeping or waking, she might be
+within call. All the family portraits held a conclave in the other
+front-parlor, and its north and east windows were shut all the year,
+save on some sultry summer day when Keery flung them open to dispel damp
+and must, and the school-children stared in reverentially, and wondered
+why old Madam Hyde's eyes followed them as far as they could see.
+Visitors came now and then to the kitchen-door, and usurped Keery's
+flag-bottomed chair, while they gossiped with her about village affairs;
+now and then a friendly spinster with a budget of good advice called
+Hitty away from her post, and, after an hour's vain effort to get any
+news worth retailing about the Judge from those pale lips, retired full
+of disappointed curiosity to tell how stiff that Mehitable Hyde was, and
+how hard it was to make her speak a word to one! Friends were what Hitty
+read of in the "Spectator," and longed to have; but she knew none of the
+Greenfield girls since she left school, and the only companion she had
+was Keery, rough as the east wind, but genuine and kind-hearted,--better
+at counsel than consolation, and no way adapted to fill the vacant place
+in Hitty's heart.
+
+So the years wore away, and Miss Hyde's early beauty went with them. She
+had been a blooming, delicate girl,--the slight grace of a daisy in her
+figure, wild-rose tints on her fair cheek, and golden reflections in her
+light brown hair, that shone in its waves and curls like lost sunshine;
+but ten years of such service told their story plainly. When Hitty Hyde
+was twenty-six, her blue eyes were full of sorrow and patience, when the
+shy lids let their legend be read; the little mouth had become pale, and
+the corners drooped; her cheek, too, was tintless, though yet round;
+nothing but the beautiful hair lasted; even grace was gone, so long had
+she stooped over her father. Sometimes the unwakened heart within her
+dreamed, as a girl's heart will. Stately visions of Sir Charles
+Grandison bowing before her,--shuddering fascinations over the image of
+that dreadful Lovelace,--nothing more real haunted Hitty's imagination.
+She knew what she had to do in life,--that it was not to be a happy wife
+or mother, but to waste by a bedridden old man, the only creature on
+earth she loved as she could love. Light and air were denied the plant,
+but it grew in darkness,--blanched and unblooming, it is true, but still
+a growth upward, toward light.
+
+Ten years more of monotonous patience, and Miss Hyde was thirty-six. Her
+hair had thinned, and was full of silver threads; a wrinkle invaded
+either cheek, and she was angular and bony; but something painfully
+sweet lingered in her face, and a certain childlike innocence of
+expression gave her the air of a nun; the world had never touched nor
+taught her.
+
+But now Judge Hyde was dead; nineteen years of petulant, helpless,
+hopeless wretchedness were at last over, and all that his daughter cared
+to live for was gone; she was an orphan, without near relatives, without
+friends, old, and tired out. Do not despise me that I say "old," you
+plump and rosy ladies whose life is in its prime of joy and use at
+thirty-six. Age is not counted by years, nor calculated from one's
+birth; it is a fact of wear and work, altogether unconnected with the
+calendar. I have seen a girl of sixteen older than you are at forty. I
+have known others disgrace themselves at sixty-five by liking to play
+with children and eat sugar-plums!
+
+One kind of youth still remained to Hitty Hyde,--the freshness of
+inexperience. Her soul was as guileless and as ignorant as a child's;
+and she was stranded on life, with a large fortune, like a helmless
+ship, heavily loaded, that breaks from its anchor, and drives headlong
+upon a reef.
+
+Now it happened, that, within a year after Judge Hyde's death, Abner
+Dimock, the tavern-keeper's son, returned to Greenfield, after years of
+absence, a bold-faced, handsome man, well-dressed and "free-handed," as
+the Greenfield vernacular hath it. Nobody knew where Abner Dimock had
+spent the last fifteen years; neither did anybody know anything against
+him; yet he had no good reputation in Greenfield. Everybody looked wise
+and grave when his name was spoken, and no Greenfield girl cared to own
+him for an acquaintance. His father welcomed him home with more surprise
+than pleasure; and the whole household of the Greenfield Hotel, as
+Dimock's Inn was new-named, learned to get out of Abner Dimock's way,
+and obey his eye, as if he were more their master than his father.
+
+Left quite alone, without occupation or amusement, Miss Hyde naturally
+grasped at anything that came in her way to do or to see to; the lawyer
+who had been executor of her father's will had settled the estate and
+gone back to his home, and Miss Hyde went with him, the first journey of
+her life, that she might select a monument for her father's grave. It
+was now near a year since Judge Hyde's death, and the monument was on
+its way from Boston; the elder Dimock monopolized the cartage of freight
+as well as passengers to the next town, and to him Miss Hyde intrusted
+the care of the great granite pillar she had purchased; and it was for
+his father that Abner Dimock called on the young lady for directions as
+to the disposal of the tombstone just arrived. Hitty was in the garden;
+her white morning-dress shone among the roses, and the morning air had
+flushed her pale cheek; she looked fair and delicate and gracious; but
+her helpless ignorance of the world's ways and usages attracted the
+world-hardened man more than her face. He had not spent a _rou�_ life in
+a great city for nothing; he had lived enough with gentlemen,
+broken-down and lost, it is true, but well-bred, to be able to ape their
+manners; and the devil's instinct that such people possess warned him of
+Hitty Hyde's weakest points. So, too, he contrived to make that first
+errand lead to another, and still another,--to make the solitary woman
+depend on his help, and expect his coming; fifty thousand dollars, with
+no more incumbrance than such a woman, was worth scheming for, and the
+prey was easily snared.
+
+It is not to be expected that any country village of two streets, much
+less Greenfield, could long remain ignorant of such a new and amazing
+phase as the devotion of any man to any woman therein; but, as nobody
+liked to interfere too soon in what might only be, after all, a mere
+business arrangement, Greenfield contented itself with using its eyes,
+its ears, and its tongues, with one exception to the latter organ's
+clatter, in favor of Hitty Hyde; _to_ her no one dared as yet approach
+with gossip or advice.
+
+In the mean time Hitty went on her way, all regardless of the seraphs at
+the gate. Abner Dimock was handsome, agreeable, gentlemanly to a certain
+lackered extent;--who had cared for Hitty, in all her life, enough to
+aid and counsel her as he had already done? At first she was half afraid
+of him; then she liked him; then he was "so good to me!" and then--she
+pitied him! for he told her, sitting on that hard old sofa, in the June
+twilight, how he had no mother, how he had been cast upon the charities
+of a cruel and evil world from his infancy; reminded her of the old red
+school-house where they had been to school together, and the tyranny of
+the big boys over him,--a little curly, motherless boy. So he enlarged
+upon his life; talked a mildly bitter misanthropy; informed Miss Hyde by
+gradual insinuations that she was an angel sent on earth to console and
+reform a poor sinner like him; and before the last September rose had
+droped, so far had Abner Dimock succeeded in his engineering, that his
+angel was astounded one night by the undeniably terrestrial visitation
+of an embrace and a respectfully fervid kiss.
+
+Perhaps it would have been funny, perhaps pathetic, to analyze the mixed
+consternation and delight of Mehitable Hyde at such _bon�-fide_ evidence
+of a lover. Poor woman's heart!--altogether solitary and
+desolate,--starved of its youth and its joy,--given over to the chilly
+reign of patience and resignation,--afraid of life,--without strength,
+or hope, or pleasure,--and all at once Paradise dawns!--her cold,
+innocent life bursts into fiery and odorous bloom; she has found her
+fate, and its face is keen with splendor, like a young angel's. Poor,
+deluded, blessed, rapture-smitten woman!
+
+Blame her as you will, indignant maidens of Greenfield, Miss Flint, and
+Miss Sharp, and Miss Skinner! You may have had ten lovers and twenty
+flirtations apiece, and refused half-a-dozen good matches for the best
+of reasons; you, no doubt, would have known better than to marry a man
+who was a villain from his very physiognomy; but my heart must needs
+grow tender toward Miss Hyde; a great joy is as pathetic as a sorrow.
+Did you never cry over a doting old man?
+
+But when Mrs. Smith's son John, a youth of ten, saw, by the light of an
+incautious lamp that illuminated a part of the south parlor, a
+good-night kiss bestowed upon the departing Abner by Miss Hitty Hyde and
+absolutely returned by said Abner, and when John told his mother, and
+his mother revealed it to Miss Flint, Miss Flint to Miss Skinner, and so
+forth, and so on, till it reached the minister's wife, great was the
+uproar in Greenfield; and the Reverend Mrs. Perkins put on her gray
+bonnet and went over to remonstrate with Hitty on the spot.
+
+Whether people will ever learn the uselessness of such efforts is yet a
+matter for prophecy. Miss Hyde heard all that was said, and replied very
+quietly, "I don't believe it." And as Mrs. Perkins had no tangible
+proofs of Abner Dimock's unfitness to marry Judge Hyde's daughter, the
+lady in question got the better of her adviser, so far as any argument
+was concerned, and effectually put an end to remonstrance by declaring
+with extreme quiet and unblushing front,--
+
+"I am going to marry him next week. Will you be so good as to notify Mr.
+Perkins?"
+
+Mrs. Perkins held up both hands and cried. Words might have hardened
+Hitty; but what woman that was not half tigress ever withstood another
+woman's tears?
+
+Hitty's heart melted directly; she sat down by Mrs. Perkins, and cried,
+too.
+
+"Please, don't be vexed with me," sobbed she. "I love him, Mrs. Perkins,
+and I haven't got anybody else to love,--and--and--I never shall have.
+He's very good to love me,--I am so old and homely."
+
+"Very good!" exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, in great wrath, "_good_! to marry
+Judge Hyde's daughter, and--fifty thousand dollars," Mrs. Perkins bit
+off. She would not put such thoughts into Hitty's head, since her
+marriage was inevitable.
+
+"At any rate," sighed Hitty, on the breath of a long-drawn sob, "nobody
+else ever loved me, if I am Judge Hyde's daughter."
+
+So Mrs. Perkins went away, and declared that things had gone too far to
+be prevented; and Abner Dimock came on her retreating steps, and Hitty
+forgot everything but that he loved her; and the next week they were
+married.
+
+Here, by every law of custom, ought my weary pen to fall flat and refuse
+its office; for it is here that the fate of every heroine culminates.
+For what are women born but to be married? Old maids are excrescences in
+the social system,--disagreeable utilities,--persons who have failed to
+fulfil their destiny,--and of whom it should have been said, rather than
+of ghosts, that they are always in the wrong. But life, with
+pertinacious facts, is too apt to transcend custom and the usage of
+novel-writers; and though the one brings a woman's legal existence to an
+end when she merges her independence in that of a man, and the other
+curtails her historic existence at the same point, because the
+novelist's catechism hath for its preface this creed,--"The chief end of
+woman is to get married"; still, neither law nor novelists altogether
+displace this same persistent fact, and a woman lives, in all capacities
+of suffering and happiness, not only her wonted, but a double life, when
+legally and religiously she binds herself with bond and vow to another
+soul.
+
+Happy would it have been for Hitty Hyde, if with the legal fiction had
+chimed the actual existent fact!--happy indeed for Abner Dimock's wife
+to have laid her new joy down at the altar, and been carried to sleep by
+her mother under the mulleins and golden-rods on Greenfield Hill! Scarce
+was the allotted period of rapture past half its term, scarce had she
+learned to phrase the tender words aloud that her heart beat and choked
+with, before Abner Dimock began to tire of his incumbrance, and to
+invent plans and excuses for absence; for he dared not openly declare as
+yet that he left his patient, innocent wife for such scenes of vice and
+reckless dissipation as she had not even dreamed could exist.
+
+Yet for week after week he lingered away from Greenfield; even months
+rolled by, and, except for rare and brief visits home, Hitty saw no more
+of her husband than if he were not hers. She lapsed into her old
+solitude, varied only by the mutterings and grumblings of old Keery, who
+had lifted up her voice against Hitty's marriage with more noise and
+less effect than Mrs. Perkins, and, though she still staid by her old
+home and haunts, revenged herself on fate in general and her mistress in
+particular by a continual course of sulking, all the time hiding under
+this general quarrel with life a heart that ached with the purest
+tenderness and pity. So some people are made, like chestnuts; one gets
+so scratched and wounded in the mere attempt to get at the kernel
+within, that it becomes matter of question whether one does not suffer
+less from wanting their affection than from trying to obtain it. Yet
+Hitty Dimock had too little love given her to throw away even Keery's
+habit of kindness to her, and bore with her snaps and snarls as meekly
+as a saint,--sustained, it is true, by a hope that now began to solace
+and to occupy her, and to raise in her oppressed soul some glimmer of a
+bright possibility, a faint expectation that she might yet regain her
+husband's love, a passion which she began in her secret heart to fear
+had found its limit and died out. Still, Hitty, out of her meek,
+self-distrusting spirit, never blamed Abner Dimock for his absence or
+his coldness; rather, with the divine unselfishness that such women
+manifest, did she blame herself for having linked his handsome and
+athletic prime with her faded age, and struggle daily with the morbid
+conscience that accused her of having forgotten his best good in the
+indulgence of her own selfish ends of happiness. She still thought, "He
+is so good to me!" still idealized the villain to a hero, and, like her
+kind, predestined to be the prey and the accusing angel of such men,
+prayed for and adored her husband as if he had been the best and
+tenderest of gentlemen. Providence has its mysteries; but if there be
+one that taxes faith and staggers patience more than another, it is the
+long misery that makes a good woman cringe and writhe and agonize in
+silence under the utter rule and life-long sovereignty of a bad man.
+Perhaps such women do not suffer as we fancy; for after much trial every
+woman learns that it is possible to love where neither respect nor
+admiration can find foothold,--that it even becomes necessary to love
+some men, as the angels love us all, from an untroubled height of pity
+and tenderness, that, while it sees and condemns the sin and folly and
+uncleanness of its object, yet broods over it with an all-shielding
+devotion, laboring and beseeching and waiting for its regeneration,
+upheld above the depths of suffering and regret by the immortal power of
+a love so fervent, so pure, so self-forgetting, that it will be a
+millstone about the necks that disregard its tender clasping now, to
+sink them into a bottomless abyss in the day of the Lord.
+
+Now had one long and not unhappy autumn, a lingering winter, a desolate
+spring, a weary summer, passed away, and from an all-unconscious and
+protracted wrestling with death Hitty Dimock awoke to find her hope
+fulfilled,--a fair baby nestled on her arm, and her husband, not
+all-insensible, smiling beside her.
+
+It is true, that, had she died then, Abner Dimock would have regretted
+her death; for, by certain provisions of her father's will, in case of
+her death, the real estate, otherwise at her own disposal, became a
+trust for her child or children, and such a contingency ill suited Mr.
+Dimock's plans. So long as Hitty held a rood of land or a coin of silver
+at her own disposal, it was also at his; but trustees are not women,
+happily for the world at large, and the contemplation of that fact
+brought Hitty Hyde's husband into a state of mind well fitted to give
+him real joy at her recovery.
+
+So, for a little while, the sun shone on this bare New England
+hill-side, into this grim old house. Care and kindness were lavished on
+the delicate woman, who would scarce have needed either in her present
+delight; every luxury that could add to her slowly increasing strength,
+every attention that could quiet her fluttering and unstrung nerves, was
+showered on her, and for a time her brightest hopes seemed all to have
+found fruition.
+
+As she recovered and was restored to strength, of course these cares
+ceased. But now the new instincts of motherhood absorbed her, and,
+brooding over the rosy child that was her own, caressing its waking, or
+hanging above its sleep, she scarce noted that her husband's absences
+from home grew more and more frequent, that strange visitors asked for
+him, that he came home at midnight oftener than at dusk. Nor was it till
+her child was near a year old that Hitty discovered her husband's old
+and rewakened propensity,--that Abner Dimock came home drunk,--not drunk
+as many men are, foolish and helpless, mere beasts of the field, who
+know nothing and care for nothing but the filling of their insatiable
+appetite;--this man's nature was too hard, too iron in its moulding, to
+give way to temporary imbecility; liquor made him savage, fierce,
+brutal, excited his fiendish temper to its height, nerved his muscular
+system, inflamed his brain, and gave him the aspect of a devil; and in
+such guise he entered his wife's peaceful Eden, where she brooded and
+cooed over her child's slumbers, with one gripe of his hard hand lifted
+her from her chair, kicked the cradle before him, and, with an awful
+though muttered oath, thrust mother and child into the entry, locked the
+door upon them, and fell upon the bed to sleep away his carouse.
+
+Here was an undeniable fact before Hitty Dimock, one she could no way
+evade or gloss over; no gradual lesson, no shadow of foreboding,
+preluded the revelation; her husband was unmistakably, savagely drunk.
+She did not sit down and cry;--drearily she gathered her baby in her
+arms, hushed it to sleep with kisses, passed down into the kitchen, woke
+up the brands of the ash-hidden fire to a flame, laid on more wood, and,
+dragging old Keery's rush-bottomed chair in front of the blaze, held her
+baby in her arms till morning broke, careless of anything without or
+within but her child's sleep and her husband's drunkenness. Long and
+sadly in that desolate night did she revolve this new misery in her
+mind; the fact was face to face, and must be provided for,--but how to
+do it? What could she do, poor weak woman, even to conceal this
+disgrace, much more to check it? Long since she had discovered that
+between her and her husband there was no community of tastes or
+interests; he never talked to her, he never read to her, she did not
+know that he read at all; the garden he disliked as a useless trouble;
+he would not drive, except such a gay horse that Hitty dared not risk
+her neck behind it, and felt a shudder of fear assail her whenever his
+gig left the door; neither did he care for his child. Nothing at home
+could keep him from his pursuits; that she well knew; and, hopeful as
+she tried to be, the future spread out far away in misty horror and
+dread. What might not, become of her boy, with such a father's
+influence? was her first thought;--nay, who could tell but in some fury
+of drink he might kill or maim him? A chill of horror crept over Hitty
+at the thought,--and then, what had not she to dread? Oh, for some
+loophole of escape, some way to fly, some refuge for her baby's innocent
+life! No,--no,--no! She was his wife; she had married him; she had vowed
+to love and honor and obey,--vow of fearful import now, though uttered
+in all pureness and truth, as to a man who owned her whole heart! Love
+him!--that was not the dread; love was as much her life as her breath
+was; she knew no interval of loving for the brute fiend who mocked her
+with the name of husband; no change or chance could alienate her divine
+tenderness,--even as the pitiful blue sky above hangs stainless over
+reeking battle-fields and pest-smitten cities, piercing with its sad and
+holy star-eyes down into the hellish orgies of men, untouched and
+unchanged by just or unjust, forever shining and forever pure. But honor
+him! could that be done? What respect or trust was it possible to keep
+for a self-degraded man like that? And where honor goes down, obedience
+is sucked into the vortex, and the wreck flies far over the lonely sea,
+historic and prophetic to ship and shore.
+
+No! there was nothing to do! her vow was taken, past the power of man to
+break; nothing now remained but endurance. Perhaps another woman, with a
+strong will and vivid intellect, might have set herself to work, backed
+by that very vow that defied poor Hitty, and, by sheer resolution, have
+dragged her husband up from the gulf and saved him, though as by fire;
+or a more buoyant and younger wife might have passed it by as a first
+offence, hopeful of its being also the only one. But an instinctive
+knowledge of the man bereft Hitty of any such hope; she knew it was not
+the first time; from his own revelations and penitent confessions while
+she was yet free, she knew he had sinned as well as suffered, and the
+past augured the future. Nothing was left her, she could not escape, she
+must shut her eyes and her mouth, and only keep out of his way as far as
+she could. So she clasped her child more tightly, and, closing her heavy
+eyes, rocked back and forth till the half-waked boy slept again; and
+there old Keery found her mistress, in the morning, white as the cold
+drifts without, and a depth of settled agony in her quiet eyes that
+dimmed the old woman's only to look at.
+
+Neither spoke; nor when her husband strode into the breakfast-room and
+took his usual place, sober enough, but scarcely regretful of the
+over-night development, did any word of reproach or allusion pass the
+wife's white lips. A stranger would have thought her careless and cold.
+Abner Dimock knew that she was heartbroken; but what was that to him?
+Women live for years without that organ; and while she lived, so long as
+a cent remained of the Hyde estate, what was it to him if she pined
+away? She could not leave him; she was utterly in his power; she was
+his,--like his boots, his gun, his dog; and till he should tire of her
+and fling her into some lonely chamber to waste and die, she was bound
+to serve him; he was safe.
+
+And she offered no sort of barrier to his full indulgence of his will to
+drink. Had she lifted one of her slender fingers in warning, or given
+him a look of reproachful meaning, or uttered one cry of entreaty, at
+least the conscience within him might have visited him with a temporary
+shame, and restrained the raging propensity for a longer interval; but
+seeing her apparent apathy, knowing how timid and unresisting was her
+nature,--that nothing on earth will lie still and be trodden on but a
+woman,--Abner Dimock rioted and revelled to his full pleasure, while all
+his pale and speechless wife could do was to watch with fearful eyes and
+straining ears for his coming, and slink out of the way with her child,
+lest both should be beaten as well as cursed; for faithful old Keery,
+once daring to face him with a volley of reproaches from her shrill
+tongue, was levelled to the floor by a blow from his rapid hand, and
+bore bruises for weeks that warned her from interference. Not long,
+however, was there danger of her meddling. When the baby was a year and
+a half old. Keery, in her out-door labors,--now grown burdensome enough,
+since Mr. Dimock neither worked himself nor allowed a man on the
+premises,--Keery took a heavy cold, and, worn out with a life of hard
+work, sank into rest quickly, her last act of life being to draw Hitty's
+face down to her own, wrinkled and wan as it was, scarce so old in
+expression as her mistress's, and with one long kiss and sob speak the
+foreboding and anxious farewell she could not utter.
+
+"Only you now!" whispered Hitty to her child, as Keery's peaceful,
+shrouded face was hidden under the coffin-lid and carried away to
+Greenfield Hill. Pitiful whisper! happily all-unmeaning to the child,
+but full of desolation to the mother, floating with but one tiny plank
+amid the wild wrecks of a midnight ocean, and clinging as only the
+desperate can cling to this vague chance of life.
+
+A rough, half-crazed girl, brought from the alms-house, now did the
+drudgery of the family. Abner Dimock had grown penurious, and not one
+cent of money was given for comfort in that house, scarce for need. The
+girl was stupid and rude, but she worked for her board,--recommendation
+enough in Mr. Dimock's eyes; and so hard work was added to the other
+burdens loaded upon his silent wife. And soon came another,
+all-mysterious, but from its very mystery a deeper fear. Abner Dimock
+began to stay at home, to be visited at late hours by one or two men
+whose faces were full of evil and daring; and when, in the dead of the
+long nights, Hitty woke from her broken and feverish sleep, it was to
+hear muffled sounds from the cellar below, never heard there before; and
+once, wrapping a shawl about her, she stole down the stairways with bare
+feet, and saw streams of red light through the chinks of the
+cellar-door, and heard the ring of metal, and muttered oaths, all
+carefully dulled by such devices as kept the sounds from chance passers
+in the street, though vain as far as the inhabitants of the house itself
+were concerned. Trembling and cold, she stole back to her bed, full of
+doubts and fears, neither of which she dared whisper to any one, or
+would have dared, had she possessed a single friend to whom she could
+speak. Troubles thickened fast over Hitty; her husband was always at
+home now, and rarely sober; the relief his absences had been was denied
+her entirely; and in some sunny corner of the uninhabited rooms
+up-stairs she spent her days, toiling at such sewing as was needful, and
+silent as the dead, save as her life appealed to God from the ground,
+and called down the curse of Cain upon a head she would have shielded
+from evil with her own life.
+
+Keen human legislation! sightless justice of men!--one drunken wretch
+smites another in a midnight brawl, and sends a soul to its account with
+one sharp shudder of passion and despair, and the maddened creature that
+remains on earth suffers the penalty of the law. Every sense sobered
+from its reeling fury, weeks of terribly expectation heaped upon the
+cringing soul, and, in full consciousness, that murderer is strangled
+before men and angels, because he was drunk!--necessary enough, one
+perceives, to the good of society, which thereby loses two worse than
+useless members; but what, in the name of God's justice, should His
+vicegerent, law, visit upon the man who wrings another life away by slow
+tortures, and torments heart and soul and flesh for lingering years,
+where the victim is passive and tenacious, and dies only after
+long-drawn anguish that might fill the cup of a hundred sudden deaths?
+Yet what escapes the vicegerent shall the King himself visit and judge.
+"For He cometh! He cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness shall
+he judge the world, and the people with equity."
+
+Six months passed after Keery's death, and now from the heights of
+Greenfield and her sunny window Hitty Dimock's white face looked out
+upon a landscape of sudden glory; for October, the gold-bringer, had
+come, pouring splendor over the earth, and far and wide the forests
+blazed; scarlet and green maples, with erect heads, sentinelled the
+street, gay lifeguards of autumn; through dark green cedars the crimson
+creeper threaded its sprays of blood-red; birches, gilded to their tops,
+swayed to every wind, and drooped their graceful boughs earthward to
+shower the mossy sward with glittering leaves; heavy oaks turned
+purple-crimson through their wide-spread boughs; and the stately
+chestnuts, with foliage of tawny yellow, opened wide their stinging
+husks to let the nuts fall for squirrel and blue-jay. Splendid sadness
+clothed all the world, opal-hued mists wandered up and down the valleys
+or lingered about the undefined horizon, and the leaf-scented south wind
+sighed in the still noon with foreboding gentleness.
+
+One day, Abner Dimock was gone, and Hitty stole down to the garden-door
+with her little child, now just trying to walk, that he might have a
+little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the
+air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and
+springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air,
+the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature,
+stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the
+budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her
+child might yet atone for the agony of the past;--a time might come when
+she should sit in that door, white-haired and trembling with age, but as
+peaceful as the autumn day, watching the sports of his children, while
+his strong arm sustained her into the valley of shadow, and his tender
+eyes lit the way.
+
+As she sat dreaming, suddenly a figure intercepted the sunshine, and,
+looking up, she saw Abner Dimock's father, the elder Abner, entering the
+little wicket-gate of the garden. A strange, tottering old figure, his
+nose and chin grimacing at each other, his bleared eyes telling
+unmistakable truths of cider-brandy and New England rum, his scant locks
+of white lying in confusion over his wrinkled forehead and cheeks, his
+whole air squalid, hopeless, and degraded,--not so much by the poverty
+of vice as by its demoralizing stamp penetrating from the inner to the
+outer man, and levelling it even below the plane of brutes that perish.
+
+"Good-day! good-day!" said he to his son's wife, in a squeaking,
+tremulous tone, that drove the child to his mother's arms,--"Abner to
+home?"
+
+"No, Sir," said Hitty, with an involuntary shudder, that did not escape
+the bleared blue eye that fixed its watery gaze upon her.
+
+"Cold, a'n't ye? Better go in, better go in! Come, come along! How d'e
+do, little feller? don't know yer grandper, hey?"
+
+The child met his advances with an ominous scream, and Hitty hurried
+into the house to give him to the servant's charge, while she returned
+to the sitting-room, where the old man had seated himself in the
+rocking-chair, and was taking a mental inventory of the goods and
+chattels with a momentary keenness in his look that no way reassured
+Hitty's apprehensive heart.
+
+"So, Abner a'n't to home?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Don't know where he's gone, do ye?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Don't never know where he goes, I expect?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Well, when he comes home,--know when he's a-comin' home?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Well, when he doos, you tell him 't some folks come to the tavern last
+night, 'n' talked pretty loud, 'n' I heerd--Guess 'ta'n't best, though,
+to tell what I heerd. Only you tell Abner 't I come here, and I said
+he'd better be a-joggin'. He'll know, he'll know,--h'm, yes," said the
+old man, passing his hand across his thin blue lips, as if to drive away
+other words better left unsaid,--and then rising from his seat, by the
+aid of either arm, gained his balance, and went on, while he fumbled for
+his stick:--
+
+"I'd ha' writ, but black and white's a hangin' matter sometimes, 'n'
+words a'n't; 'n' I hadn't nobody to send, so I crawled along. Don't ye
+forget now! don't ye! It's a pretty consider'ble piece o' business; 'n'
+you'll be dreffully on't, ef you do forget. Now _don't_ ye forget!"
+
+"No, I won't," said Hitty, trembling as she spoke; for the old man's
+words had showed her a depth of dreadful possibility, and an old
+acquaintance with crime and its manoeuvres, that chilled the blood in
+her veins. She watched him out of the gate with a sickening sense of
+terror at her heart, and turned slowly into the house, revolving all
+kinds of plans in her head for her husband's escape, should her fears
+prove true. Of herself she did not think; no law could harm her child;
+but, even after years of brutality and neglect, her faithful affection
+turned with all its provident thoughtfulness and care at once to her
+husband; all her wrongs were forgotten, all her sorrows obliterated by
+this one fear. Well did St. Augustine say, "God is patient because He is
+eternal": but better and truer would the saying have been, had it run,
+"God is patient because He is love": a gospel that He publishes in the
+lives of saints on earth, in their daily and hourly "anguish of
+patience," preaching to the fearful souls that dare not trust His
+long-suffering by the tenacious love of those who bear His image,
+saying, in resistless human tones, "Shall one creature endure and love
+and continually forgive another, and shall I, who am not loving, but
+Love, be weary of thy transgressions, O sinner?" And so does the silent
+and despairing life of many a woman weave unconsciously its golden
+garland of reward in the heavens above, and do the Lord's work in a
+strange land where it cannot sing His songs.
+
+The day crept toward sunset, and Hitty sat with her wan face pressed to
+the window-pane, hushing her child in his cradle with one of those low,
+monotoned murmurs that mothers know; but still her husband did not come.
+The level sun-rays pierced the woods into more vivid splendor, burnished
+gold fringed the heavy purple clouds in the west, and warm crimson
+lights turned the purple into more triumphant glory; the sun set,
+unstained with mist or tempest, behind those blue and lonely hills that
+guard old Berkshire with their rolling summits, and night came fast,
+steel-blue and thick with stars; but yet he did not come, the untouched
+meal on the table was untouched still. Hour after hour of starry
+darkness crept by, and she sat watching at the window-pane; overhead,
+constellations marched across the heavens in relentless splendor,
+careless of man or sorrow; Orion glittered in the east, and climbed
+toward the zenith; the Pleiades clustered and sparkled as if they missed
+their lost sister no more; the Hyades marked the celestial pastures of
+Taurus, and Lyra strung her chords with fire. Hitty rested her weary
+head against the window-frame and sent her wearier thoughts upward to
+the stars; there were the points of light that the Chaldeans watched
+upon their plains by night, and named with mystic syllables of their
+weird Oriental tongue,--names that in her girlhood she had delighted to
+learn, charmed by that nameless spell that language holds, wherewith it
+plants itself ineradicably in the human mind, and binds it with fetters
+of vague association that time and chance are all-powerless to
+break,--Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgunebi, Bellatrix and Betelguese,
+sonorous of Rome and Asia both, full of old echoes and the dry resonant
+air of Eastern plains,--names wherein sounded the clash of Bellona's
+armor, and the harsh stir of palm-boughs rustled by a hot wind of the
+desert, and vibrant with the dying clangor of gongs, and shouts of
+worshipping crowds reverberating through horrid temples of grinning and
+ghastly idols, wet with children's blood.
+
+Far, far away, the heavenly procession and their well-remembered names
+had led poor Hitty's thoughts; worn out with anxiety, and faint for want
+of the food she had forgotten to take, sleep crept upon her, and her
+first consciousness of its presence was the awakening grasp of a rough
+hand and the hoarse whisper of her husband.
+
+"Get up!" said he. "Pick up your brat, get your shawl, and come!"
+
+Hitty rose quickly to her feet. One faculty wretchedness gives, the
+power of sudden self-possession,--and Hitty was broad awake in the very
+instant she was called. Her husband stood beside her, holding a lantern;
+her boy slept in the cradle at her feet.
+
+"Have you seen your father?" said she, with quick instinct.
+
+"Yes, d--n you, be quick! do you want to hang me?"
+
+Quick as a spirit Hitty snatched her child, and wrapped him in the
+blanket where he lay; her shawl was on the chair she had slept in, her
+hood upon a nail by the door, and flinging both on, with the child in
+her arms, she followed her husband down-stairs, across the back-yard,
+hitting her feet against stones and logs in the darkness, stumbling
+often, but never falling, till the shadow of the trees was past, and the
+starlight showed her that they were traversing the open fields, now
+crisp with frost, but even to the tread,--over two or three of these,
+through a pine-wood that was a landmark to Hitty, for she well knew that
+it lay between the turnpike-road and another, less frequented, that by
+various windings went toward the Connecticut Hue,--then over a tiny
+brook on its unsteady bridge of logs, and out into a lane, where a
+rough-spoken man was waiting for them, at the head of a strong horse
+harnessed to one of those wagons without springs that New-Englanders
+like to make themselves uncomfortable in. Her husband turned to her
+abruptly.
+
+"Get in," said he; "get in behind; there's hay enough; and don't breathe
+loud, or I'll murder you!"
+
+She clambered into the wagon and seated herself on the hay, hushing her
+child, who nestled and moaned in her arms, though she had carried him
+with all possible care. A sharp cut of the whip sent the powerful horse
+off at full speed, and soon this ill-matched party were fast traversing
+the narrow road that wound about the country for the use of every farm
+within a mile of its necessary course, a course tending toward the
+Connecticut.
+
+Hour after hour crept by. Worn out with fatigue, poor Hitty dozed and
+fell back on the soft hay; her child slept, too, and all her troubles
+faded away in heavy unconsciousness, till she was again awakened by her
+husband's grasp, to find that dawn was gathering its light roseate
+fleeces in the east, and that their flight was for the present stayed at
+the door of a tavern, lonely and rude enough, but welcome to Hitty as a
+place of rest, if only for a moment. The sullen mistress of the house
+asked no questions and offered no courtesy, but, after her guests had
+eaten their breakfast, rapidly prepared, she led the way to a bedroom in
+the loft, where Abner Dimock flung himself down upon the straw bed and
+fell sound asleep, leaving Hitty to the undisturbed care of her child.
+And occupation enough that proved; for the little fellow was fretful and
+excited, so that no hour for thought was left to his anxious and timid
+mother till the dinner-bell awoke her husband and took him downstairs.
+She could not eat, but, begging some milk for her boy, tended, and fed,
+and sung to him, till he slept; and then all the horrors of the present
+and future thronged upon her, till her heart seemed to die in her
+breast, and her limbs failed to support her when she would have dragged
+herself out of doors for one breath of fresh air, one refreshing look at
+a world untroubled and serene.
+
+So the afternoon crept away, and as soon as night drew on the journey
+was resumed. But this night was chill with the breath of a sobbing east
+wind, and the dim stars foreboded rain. Hitty shivered with bitter cold,
+and the boy began to cry. With a fierce curse Abner bade her stop his
+disturbance, and again the poor mother had hands and heart full to
+silence the still recurring sobs of the child. At last, after the
+midnight cocks had ceased to send their challenges from farm to farm,
+after some remote church-clocks had clanged one stroke on the damp wind,
+they began to pass through a large village; no lights burned in the
+windows, but white fences gleamed through the darkness, and sharp gable
+ends loomed up against the dull sky, one after another, and the horse's
+hoofs flashed sparks from the paved street before the church, that
+showed its white spire, spectre-like, directly in their path. Here, by
+some evil chance, the child awoke, and, between cold and hunger and
+fear, began one of those long and loud shrieks that no power can stop
+this side of strangulation. In vain Hitty kissed, and coaxed, and
+half-choked her boy, in hope to stop the uproar; still he screamed more
+and more loudly. Abner turned round on his seat with an oath, snatched
+the child from its mother's arms, and rolled it closely in the blanket.
+
+"Hold on a minute, Ben!" said he to his companion; "this yelp must be
+stopped"; and stepping over to the back of the wagon, he grasped his
+wife tightly with one arm, and with the other dropped his child into the
+street. "Now drive, Ben," said he, in the same hoarse whisper,--"drive
+like the Devil!"--for, as her child fell, Hitty shrieked with such a cry
+as only the heart of a mother could send out over a newly-murdered
+infant. Shriek on shriek, fast and loud and long, broke the slumbers of
+the village; nothing Abner could do, neither threat nor force, short of
+absolute murder, would avail,--and there was too much real estate
+remaining of the Hyde property for Abner Dimock to spare his wife yet.
+Ben drove fiend-fashion; but before they passed the last house in the
+village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened.
+Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past
+sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it
+could give the right clue to its explanation, and it dried into a
+legend.
+
+Now Hitty Dimock became careless of good or evil, except one absorbing
+desire to get away from her husband,--to search for her child, to know
+if it had lived or died. For four nights more that journey was pursued
+at the height of their horse's speed; every day they stopped to rest,
+and every day Hitty's half-delirious brain laid plans of escape, only to
+be balked by Abner Dimock's vigilance; for if he slept, it was with both
+arms round her, and the slightest stir awoke him,--and while he woke,
+not one propitious moment freed her from his watch. Her brain began to
+reel with disappointment and anguish; she began to hate her husband; a
+band of iron seemed strained about her forehead, and a ringing sound
+filled her ears; her lips grew parched, and her eye glittered; the last
+night of their journey Abner Dimock lifted her into the wagon, and she
+fainted on the hay.
+
+"What in hell did you bring her for, Dimock?" growled his companion;
+"women are d----d plagues always."
+
+"She'll get up in a minute," coolly returned the husband; "can't afford
+to leave a goose that lays golden eggs behind; hold on till I lift her
+up. Here, Hitty! drink, I tell you! drink!"
+
+A swallow of raw spirit certainly drove away the faintness, but it
+brought fresh fire to the fever that burned in her veins, and she was
+muttering in delirium before the end of that night's journey brought
+them to a small village just above the old house on the river that
+figured in the beginning of this history, and which we trust the patient
+reader has not forgotten. Abner Dimock left his wife in charge of the
+old woman who kept the hovel of a tavern where they stopped, and, giving
+Ben the horse to dispose of to some safe purchaser, after he had driven
+him down to the old house, returned at night in the boat that belonged
+to his negro tenant, and, taking his unconscious wife from her bed,
+rowed down the river and landed her safely, to be carried from the skiff
+into an upper chamber of the old house, where Jake's wife, Aunt Judy, as
+Mr. Dimock styled her, nursed the wretched woman through three weeks of
+fever, and "doctored" her with herbs and roots.
+
+The tenacious Hyde constitution, that was a proverb in Greenfield,
+conquered at last, and Hitty became conscious, to find herself in a
+chamber whose plastered walls were crumbling away with dampness and
+festooned with cobwebs, while the uncarpeted floor was checkered with
+green stains of mildew, and the very old four-post bedstead on which she
+lay was fringed around the rickety tester with rags of green moreen,
+mould-rotted.
+
+Hitty sank back on her pillow with a sigh; she did not even question the
+old negress who sat crooning over the fire, as to where she was, or what
+had befallen her; but accepted this new place as only another misty
+delirium, and in her secret heart prayed, for the hundredth time, to
+die.
+
+Slowly she recovered; for prayers to die are the last prayers ever
+answered; we live against our will, and tempt living deaths year after
+year, when soul and body cry out for the grave's repose, and beat
+themselves against the inscrutable will of God only to fall down before
+it in bruised and bleeding acquiescence. So she lived to find herself
+immured in this damp and crumbling house, with no society but a drinking
+and crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served
+him,--society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in
+speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking
+chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping
+fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now but a visionary
+paradise.
+
+For now it was winter, and the heavy drifts of snow that lay on Dimock's
+meadow forbade any explorations which the one idea of finding her child
+might have driven her to make; and the frozen surface of the river no
+white-sailed ship could traverse now, nor the hissing paddle-wheels of a
+steamer break the silence with intimations of life, active and salient,
+far beyond the lonely precinct of Abner Dimock's home.
+
+So the winter passed by. The noises and lights that had awoke Hitty at
+midnight in the house at Greenfield had become so far an institution in
+this lonely dwelling that now they disturbed her sleep no more; for it
+was a received custom, that, whenever Abner Dimock's two visitors should
+appear, the cellar should resound all night with heavy blows and
+clinking of metal, and red light as from a forge streamed up through the
+doorway; but it disturbed Hitty no more; apathy settled down in black
+mist on her soul, and she seemed to think, to care, for nothing.
+
+But spring awoke the dead earth, and sleeping roots aroused with fresh
+forces from their torpor, and sent up green signals to the birds above.
+A spark of light awoke in Hitty's eye; she planned to get away, to steal
+the boat from its hidden cove in the bushes and push off down the
+friendly current of the river,--anywhere away from him! anywhere! though
+it should be to wreck on the great ocean, but still away from him! Night
+after night she rose from her bed to hazard the attempt, but her heart
+failed, and her trembling limbs refused their aid. At length moonlight
+came to her aid, and when all the house slept she stole downstairs with
+bare, noiseless feet, and sped like a ghost across the meadow to the
+river-bank. Poor weak hands! vainly they fumbled with the knotted rope
+that bound the skiff to a crooked elm over-hanging the water,--all in
+vain for many lingering minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave
+way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so
+close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband,
+clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his face, and the lurid glow of
+drunkenness, that made a savage brute of a bad man, gleaming in his
+deep-set eyes. Hitty neither shrieked nor ran; despair nerved
+her,--despair turned her rigid before his face.
+
+"Well," said he, "where are you going?"
+
+"I am going away,--away from you,--anywhere in the world away from you!"
+answered she, with the boldness of desperation.
+
+"Ha, ha! going away from me!--that's a d--d good joke, a'n't it? Away
+from your husband! You fool! you can't get away from me! you're mine,
+soul and body,--this world and the next! Don't you know that? Where's
+your promise, eh?--'for better, for worse!'--and a'n't I worse, you
+cursed fool, you? You didn't put on the handcuffs for nothing; heaven
+and hell can't get you away from me as long as you've got on that little
+shiny fetter on your finger,--don't you know that?"
+
+The maddened woman made a quick wrench to pull away from him her left
+hand, which he held in his, taunting her with the ring that symbolized
+their eternal bonds; but he was too quick for her.
+
+"Hollo!" laughed he; "want to get rid of it, don't you? No, no! that
+won't do,--that won't do! I'll make it safe!"
+
+And lifting her like a child in his arms, he carried her across the
+meadow, back to the house, and down a flight of crazy steps into the
+cellar, where a little forge was all ablaze with white-hot coal, and the
+two ill-visaged men she well knew by sight were busy with sets of odd
+tools and fragments of metal, while on a bench near by, and in the seat
+of an old chair, lay piles of fresh coin. They were a gang of
+counterfeiters.
+
+Abner Dimock thrust his wife into the chair, sweeping the gilt eagles to
+the floor as one of the men angrily started up, demanding, with an oath,
+what he brought that woman there for to hang them all.
+
+"Be quiet, Bill, can't you?" interposed the other man. "Don't you see
+he's drunk? you'll have the Devil to pay, if you cross a drunk Dimock!"
+
+But Abner had not heard the first speaker; he was too much occupied with
+tying his wife's arms to the chair,--a proceeding she could nowise
+interfere with, since his heavy foot was set upon her dress so as to
+hold her own feet in helpless fixedness. He proceeded to take the ring
+from her finger, and, searching through a box of various contents that
+stood in one corner, extracted from it a delicate steel chain, finely
+wrought, but strong as steel can be; then, at the forge, with sundry
+tools, carefully chosen and skilfully used, he soldered one end of the
+chain to the ring, and, returning to his wife, placed it again upon her
+finger.
+
+"Here, Bill," growled he, "where's that padlock off the tool-chest, eh?
+give it here! This woman's a fool,--ha, ha, ha!--she wanted to get away
+from me, and she's my wife!"
+
+Another peal of dissonant laughter interrupted the words.
+
+"What a d----d good joke! I swear I haven't laughed before, this dog's
+age! And then she was goin' to rid herself of the ring! as if that would
+help it! Why, there's the promise in black and white,--'love, honor, and
+obey,'--'I take thee, Abner,'--ha, ha! that's good! But fast bind, fast
+find; she a'n't going to get rid of the ring. I'll make it as tight as
+the promise; both of 'em 'll last to doomsday. Give me the padlock, you
+scoundrel!"
+
+Bill, the man he addressed, knew too much to hesitate after the savage
+look that sent home the last words,--and, drawing from a bag of tools
+and dies a tiny padlock and key, he handed them to Dimock, who passed
+the chain about Hitty's thin white wrist, and, fastening it with the
+padlock, turned the key, and, withdrawing it from the lock, dropped it
+into the silvery heat of the forge, and burst into a fit of laughter, so
+savage and so inhuman that the bearded lips of his two comrades grew
+white with horror to hear the devil within so exult in his possession of
+a man.
+
+Hitty sat, statue-like, in her chair; stooping, the man unbound her, and
+she rose slowly and steadily to her feet, looking him in the face.
+
+"Look!" said she, raising her shackled arm high in air,--"I shall carry
+it to God!"--and so fled, up the broken stairway, out into the
+moonlight, across the meadow,--the three men following fast,--over the
+fallen boughs that winter had strewn along the shore, out under the
+crooked elm, swift as light, poising on the stern of the boat, that had
+swung out toward the channel,--and once more lifting her hand high into
+the white light, with one spring she dropped into the river, and its
+black waters rolled down to the sea.
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF ALL.
+
+
+  Wandering along a waste
+  Where once a city stood,
+  I saw a ruined tomb,
+  And in that tomb an urn,--
+
+  A sacred funeral-urn,
+  Without a name or date,
+  And in its hollow depths
+  A little human dust!
+
+  Whose dust is this, I asked,
+  In this forgotten urn?
+  And where this waste now lies
+  What city rose of old?
+
+  None knows; its name is lost;
+  It was, and is no more:
+  Gone like a wind that blew
+  A thousand years ago!
+
+  Its melancholy end
+  Will be the end of all;
+  For, as it passed away,
+  The universe will pass!
+
+  Its sole memorial
+  Some ruined world, like ours;
+  A solitary urn,
+  Full of the dust of men!
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS OF THE NIGHT.
+
+
+There are numerous swarms of insects and many small quadrupeds,
+requiring partial darkness for their security, that come abroad only
+during the night or twilight. These would multiply almost without check,
+but that certain birds are formed with the power of seeing in the dark,
+and, on account of their partial blindness in the daytime, are forced by
+necessity to seek their food by night. Many species of insects are most
+active after dewfall,--such, especially, as spend a great portion of
+their lifetime in the air. Hence the very late hour at which Swallows
+retire to rest, the hour succeeding sunset providing them with a fuller
+repast than any other part of the day. No sooner has the Swallow
+disappeared, than the Whippoorwill and the Night-Jar come forth, to prey
+upon the larger kinds of aerial insects. The Bat, an animal of an
+antediluvian type, comes out at the same time, and assists in lessening
+these multitudinous swarms. The little Owls, though they pursue the
+larger beetles and moths, direct their efforts chiefly at the small
+quadrupeds that steal out in the early evening to nibble the tender
+herbs and grasses. Thus the night, except the hours of total darkness,
+is with many species of animals, though they pursue their objects with
+comparative stillness and silence, a period of general activity.
+
+In this sketch, I shall treat of the Birds of the Night under two heads,
+including, beside the true nocturnal birds that go abroad in the night
+to seek their subsistence, those diurnal birds that continue their songs
+during a considerable portion of the night. Some species of birds are
+partly nocturnal in their habits. Such is the Chimney Swallow. This bird
+is seldom out at noonday, which it employs in sleep, after excessive
+activity from the earliest morning dawn. It is seen afterwards circling
+about in the decline of day, and is sometimes abroad in fine weather the
+greater part of the night, when the young broods require almost
+unremitted exertions, on the part of the old birds, to procure their
+subsistence.
+
+The true nocturnal birds, of which the Owl and the Whippoorwill are
+conspicuous examples, are distinguished by a peculiar sensibility of the
+eye, that enables them to see clearly by twilight and in cloudy weather,
+while they are dazzled by the broad light of day. Their organs of
+hearing are proportionally delicate and acute. Their wing-feathers also
+have a peculiar downy softness, so that they fly without the usual
+fluttering sounds that attend the flight of other birds, and are able to
+steal unawares upon their prey, and make their predal excursions without
+disturbing the general silence of the hour. This noiseless flight is
+very remarkable in the Owl, as may be observed, if a tame one be allowed
+to fly about a room, when we can perceive his motions only by our sight.
+It is a fact worthy of our attention, that this peculiar structure of
+the wing-feathers does not exist in the Woodcock. Nature makes no
+useless provisions for her creatures; and hence this nocturnal bird,
+which obtains his food by digging into the soil, and gets no part of it
+while on the wing, has no need of this contrivance. Neither stillness
+nor stealth would assist him in securing his helpless prey.
+
+Among the nocturnal birds, the most notorious is the Owl, of which there
+are many species, varying from the size of an Eagle down to the little
+Acadian, which is no larger than a Robin. The resemblance of the Owl to
+the feline quadrupeds has been a frequent subject of remark. Like the
+cat, he sees most clearly by twilight or the light of the moon, seeks
+his prey in the night, and spends the principal part of the day in
+sleep. The likeness is made stronger by his tufts of feathers, that
+correspond to the ears of the quadruped,--by his large head,--his round,
+full, and glaring eyes, set widely apart,--by the extreme contractility
+of the pupil,--and in his manners, by his lurking and stealthy habit of
+surprising his victims. His eyes are partially encircled by a disk of
+feathers that yields a peculiarly significant expression to his face.
+His hooked bill turned downwards, so as to resemble the nose in a human
+countenance, the general flatness of his features, and his upright
+position, give him a grave and intelligent look; and it was this
+expression that caused him to be selected by the ancients as the emblem
+of wisdom, and consecrated to Minerva.
+
+The Owl is remarkable also for the acuteness of his hearing, having a
+large ear-drum, and being provided with an apparatus by which he can
+exalt this faculty, when under the necessity of listening with greater
+attention. Hence, while he is silent in his own motions, he is able to
+perceive the least sound from the motion of any other object, and
+overtakes his prey by coming upon it in silence and darkness. The
+stillness of his flight is one of the circumstances that add mystery to
+his character, and which have assisted in rendering him an object of
+superstitious dread.
+
+Aware of his defenceless condition in the bright daylight, when his
+purblindness would prevent him from evading the attacks of his enemies,
+he seeks some obscure retreat where he may pass the day without exposing
+himself to observation. It is this necessity which has caused him to
+make his abode in desolate and ruined buildings, in old towers and
+belfries, and in the crevices of dilapidated walls. In these places he
+hides himself from the sight of other birds, who regard him as their
+common enemy, and who show him no mercy when he is discovered. Here also
+he rears his offspring, and with these solitary haunts his image is
+closely associated. In thinly settled and wooded countries, he selects
+the hollows of old trees and the clefts of rocks for his retreats. All
+the smaller Owls, however, seem to multiply with the increase of human
+population, subsisting upon the minute animals that accumulate in
+outhouses, orchards, and fallows.
+
+When the Owl is discovered in his hiding-place, the alarm is given, and
+there is a general excitement among the small birds. They assemble in
+great numbers, and with loud chattering commence assailing and annoying
+him in various ways, and soon drive him out of his retreat. The Jay,
+usually his first assailant, like a thief employed as a thief-taker,
+attacks him with great zeal and animation; the Chickadee, the Nuthatch,
+and the small Thrushes peck at his head and eyes; while other birds,
+less bold, fly round him, and by their vociferation encourage his
+assailants and help to terrify their victim.
+
+It is while sitting on the branch of a tree or on a fence, after his
+misfortune and his escape, that he is most frequently seen in the
+daytime; and here he has formed a subject for painters, who have
+commonly introduced him into their pictures as he appears in one of
+these open situations. He is likewise represented ensconced in his own
+select retreats, apparently peeping out of his hiding-place while
+half-concealed; and the fact of his being seen in these lonely places
+has caused many superstitions to be attached to his image. His voice is
+supposed to bode misfortune, and his spectral visits are regarded as the
+forewarnings of death. His connection with deserted houses and ruins has
+invested him with a peculiarly romantic character; while the poets, by
+introducing him to deepen the force of their gloomy and pathetic
+descriptions, have enlivened these associations; and he deserves,
+therefore, in a special degree, to be named among those animals which we
+call picturesque.
+
+The gravity of the Owl's general appearance, combined with a sort of
+human expression in his countenance, undoubtedly caused him to be
+selected by the ancients as the emblem of wisdom. The moderns have
+practically renounced this idea, which had no foundation in the real
+character of the bird, who possesses only the sly and sinister traits
+that mark the feline race. A very different train of associations and a
+new series of picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the
+Owl, who has been portrayed more correctly by modern poetry than by
+ancient mythology. He is now universally regarded as the emblem of ruin
+and desolation, true to his character and habits, which are intimately
+allied to this description of scenery.
+
+I will not enter into a speculation concerning the nature and origin of
+those agreeable emotions which are so generally produced by the sight of
+objects that suggest the ideas of decay and desolation. It is happy for
+us, that, by the alchemy of poetry, we are able to turn some of our
+misfortunes into sources of melancholy pleasure, after the poignancy of
+grief has been assuaged by time. Nature has beneficently provided, also,
+that many an object, which is capable of communicating no direct
+pleasure to our senses, shall affect us agreeably through the medium of
+sentiment. The image of the Owl is calculated to awaken the sentiment of
+ruin, and to this feeling of the human soul we may trace the pleasure we
+derive from the sight of this bird in his appropriate scenery. Two Doves
+upon the mossy branch of a tree in a wild and beautiful sylvan retreat
+are the pleasing emblems of innocent love and constancy; but they are
+not more suggestive of poetic fancies than an Owl sitting upon an old
+gate-post near a deserted house.
+
+I have alluded, in another page, to the faint sounds we hear when the
+Night Birds, on a still summer evening, are flying over short distances
+in a neighboring wood. There is a feeling of mystery excited by these
+sounds, that exalts the pleasure we derive from the delightful influence
+of the hour and the season. But the emotions thus produced are of a
+cheerful kind, and not equal in intensity to the effects of the scarcely
+perceptible sound occasioned by the flight of the Owl, as he glides by
+in the dusk of the evening or in the dim light of the moon. Similar in
+its influence is the dismal voice of this bird, which is harmonized with
+darkness, and, though in some cases not unmusical, is tuned, as it were,
+to the terrors of that hour when he makes secret warfare upon the
+sleeping inhabitants of the wood.
+
+One of the most interesting of this tribe of birds is the little Acadian
+Owl, (_Strix Acadica_,) whose note has formerly excited a great deal of
+curiosity. In "The Canadian Naturalist," an account is given of a rural
+excursion in April, in the course of which the attention of one of the
+party is called by his companion, just after sunset, to a peculiar sound
+proceeding from a cedar swamp. It was compared to the measured tinkling
+of a cow-bell, or regular strokes upon a piece of iron, quickly
+repeated. The one appealed to is able to give no satisfactory
+information about it, but remarks, that, "during the months of April and
+May, and in the former part of June, we frequently hear, after
+nightfall, the sound just described. From its regularity, it is thought
+to resemble the whetting of a saw, and hence the bird from which it
+proceeds is called the Saw-Whetter." The author could not identify the
+bird that uttered this note, but conjectured that it might be a Heron or
+a Bittern. It has since been ascertained that this singular note
+proceeds from the Acadian Owl. It is like the sound produced by the
+filing of a mill-saw, and is said to be the amatory note of the male,
+being heard only during the season of incubation.
+
+Mr. S.P. Fowler, of Danvers, informs me that "the Acadian Owl has
+another note, which we frequently hear in the autumn, after the breeding
+season is over. The parent birds, then accompanied by their young, while
+hunting their prey during a bright moonlight night, utter a peculiar
+note, resembling a suppressed moan or a low whistle. The little Acadian,
+to avoid the annoyance of the birds he would meet by day, and the
+blinding light of the sun, retires in the morning, his feathers wet with
+dew and rumpled by the hard struggles he has encountered in seizing his
+prey, to the gloom of the forest or the thick swamp, where, perched on a
+bough, near the trunk of the tree, he sleeps through a summer's day, the
+perfect picture of a _used-up_ little fellow, suffering from the sad
+effects of a night's carouse. But he is an honest bird, notwithstanding
+his late hours and his idle sleeping days; he is also domestic in his
+habits, and the father of an interesting family, close at hand, in a
+hollow white-birch, and he is ever ready to give them his support and
+protection."
+
+The Mottled Owl, (_Strix Asio_) or Screech Owl, is somewhat larger than
+the Acadian or Whetsaw, and not so familiar as the Barn Owl of Europe,
+though resembling it in general habits. He commonly builds in the hollow
+of an old tree, also in deserted buildings, whither he resorts in the
+daytime to find repose and to escape annoyance. His voice is heard most
+frequently in the latter part of summer, when the young Owlets are
+abroad, and use their cries for purposes of mutual salutation and
+recognition. This wailing note is singularly wild, and not unmusical. It
+is not properly a screech or a scream, like that of the Hawk or the
+Peacock, but rather a sort of moaning melody, half music and half
+bewailment. This wailing song is far from disagreeable, though it has a
+cadence which is expressive of dreariness and melancholy. It might be
+performed on a small flute, by commencing with D octave and running down
+by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently repeating the notes, for
+the space of a minute, with occasional pauses and slight variations,
+sometimes ascending as well as descending the scale. The bird does not
+slur the passages, but utters them with a sort of trembling _staccato_.
+The separate notes may be distinctly perceived, with intervals of about
+a semitone.
+
+The Owl is not properly regarded as a useful bird. The generality of the
+tribe deserve to be considered only as mischievous birds of prey, and no
+more entitled to mercy and protection than the Falcons, to which they
+are allied. All the little Owls, however, though guilty of destroying
+small birds, are very serviceable in ridding our fields and premises of
+mischievous animals. They likewise destroy multitudes of large nocturnal
+insects, flying above the summits of the trees in pursuit of them, while
+at other times their flight is low, when watching for the small animals
+that run upon the ground. It is probably on account of its low flight
+that the Owl is seldom seen on the wing. Bats, which are employed by
+Nature for the same kind of services, fall victims in large numbers to
+the Owls of different species, who are the principal means of preventing
+their multiplication.
+
+I should wander from my present purpose, were I to attempt a sketch of
+the large Owls, as I design only to treat of those birds which
+contribute, either as poetic or picturesque objects, to improve the
+charms of Nature. I shall say but a passing word, therefore, of the
+Great Snowy Owl, almost exclusively an inhabitant of the Arctic regions,
+where he frightens both man and beast with his dismal hootings,--or of
+the Cat Owl, the prince of these monsters, who should be consecrated to
+Pluto,--or of his brother monster, the Gray Owl, that will carry off a
+full-grown rabbit. There are several other species, more or less
+interesting, ridiculous, or frightful. I will leave them, to speak of
+birds of more pleasing habits and a more innocent character.
+
+The next remarkable family of nocturnal birds comprises the
+_Moth-Hunters_, including, in New England, only two species,--the
+Whippoorwill and the Night-Hawk, or Piramidig. These birds resemble the
+Owls in some of their habits; but in their structure, in their mode of
+subsistence, and in their general traits of character, they are like
+Swallows. They are shy and solitary, take their food while on the wing,
+abide chiefly in deep woods, and come abroad only at twilight or in
+cloudy weather. They remain, like the Dove, permanently paired, lay
+their eggs on the bare ground, and, when perched upon the branch of a
+tree, sit upon it lengthwise, unlike other birds. They are remarkable
+for their singular voices, of which that of only one species, the
+Whippoorwill, can be considered musical. They are known in all parts of
+the world, but are particularly numerous in the warmer parts of America.
+
+The Whippoorwill (_Caprimulgus vociferus_) is well known to the
+inhabitants of this part of the world, on account of his nocturnal song.
+This is heard only in densely wooded and retired situations, and is
+associated with the solitude of the forest, as well as the silence of
+night. The Whippoorwill is, therefore, emblematic of the rudeness of
+primitive Nature, and his voice always reminds us of seclusion and
+retirement. Sometimes he wanders away from the wood into the precincts
+of the town, and sings near some dwelling-house. Such an incident was
+formerly the occasion of superstitious alarm, being regarded as an omen
+of some evil to the inmates of the dwelling. The true cause of these
+irregular visits is probably the accidental abundance of a particular
+kind of insects, which the bird has followed from his retirement.
+
+I believe the Whippoorwill, in this part of the country, is first heard
+in May, and continues vocal until the middle of July. He begins to sing
+at dusk, and we usually hear his note soon after the Veery, the Philomel
+of our summer evenings, has become silent. His song consists of three
+notes, in a sort of triple or waltz time, with a slight pause after the
+first note in the bar, as given below:--
+
+[Illustration: SONG OF THE WHIPPOORWILL. Whip-poor-Will Whip-p'r-Will
+Whip-p'r-Will Whip-]
+
+I should remark, that the bird usually commences his song with the
+second syllable of his name, or the second note in the bar. Some birds
+fall short of these intervals; but there seems to be an endeavor, on the
+part of each individual, to reach the notes as they are written on the
+scale. A few sliding notes are occasionally introduced, and an
+occasional preluding cluck is heard when we are near the singer.
+
+The note of the Quail so closely resembles that of the Whippoorwill,
+that I have thought it might be interesting to compare the two.
+
+[Illustration: NOTE OF THE QUAIL. Bob White. More Wet.]
+
+So great is the general similarity of the notes of these two birds, that
+those of the Quail need only to be repeated several times in succession,
+without pause, to be mistaken for those of the Whippoorwill. They are
+uttered with similar intonations; but the voice of the nocturnal bird is
+more harsh, and his song consists of three notes instead of two.
+
+The song of the Whippoorwill, though wanting in mellowness of tone, as
+may be perceived when he is only a short distance from us, is to most
+people very agreeable, notwithstanding the superstitions associated with
+it. Some persons are not disposed to rank the Whippoorwill among
+singing-birds, regarding him as more vociferous than musical. But it
+would be difficult to determine in what respect his notes differ from
+the songs of other birds, except that they approach more nearly to the
+precision of artificial music. Yet it will be admitted that considerable
+distance is required to "lend enchantment" to the sound of his voice. In
+some retired and solitary districts, the Whippoorwills are often so
+numerous as to be annoying by their vociferations; but in those places
+where only two or three individuals are heard during the season, their
+music is the source of a great deal of pleasure, and is a kind of
+recommendation to the place.
+
+I was witness of this, some time since, in one of my botanical rambles
+in the town of Beverly, which is, for the most part, too densely
+populated to suit the habits of these solitary birds. On one of these
+excursions, after walking several hours over a rather unattractive
+region, I arrived at a very romantic spot, known by the unpoetical name
+of Black Swamp. Nature uses her most ordinary materials to form her most
+delightful landscapes, and often keeps in reserve prospects of
+enchanting beauty, and causes them to rise up, as it were, by magic,
+where we should least expect them. Here I suddenly found myself
+encompassed by a charming amphitheatre of hills and woods, and in a
+valley so beautiful that I could not have imagined anything equal to it.
+A neat cottage stood alone in this spot, without a single architectural
+decoration, which I am confident would have dissolved the spell that
+made the whole scene so attractive. It was occupied by a shoemaker, whom
+I recognized as an old acquaintance and a worthy man, who resided here
+with his wife and children. I asked them if they could live contented so
+far from other families. The wife of the cottager replied, that they
+suffered in the winter from their solitude, but in the spring and summer
+they preferred it to the town,--"for in this place we hear all the
+singing-birds, early and late, and the Whippoorwill sings here every
+night during May and June." It was the usual practice of these birds,
+they told me, to sing both in the morning and the evening twilight; but
+if the moon rose late in the evening, after they had become silent, they
+would begin to sing anew, as if to welcome her rising. May the birds
+continue to sing to this happy family, and may the voice of the
+Whippoorwill never bode them any misfortune!
+
+The Night-Hawk, or Piramidig, (_Caprimulgus Americanus_,) is similar in
+many points to the Whippoorwill, and the two species were formerly
+considered identical. The former, however, is a smaller bird; he has no
+song, and exhibits more of the ways of the Swallow. He is marked by a
+white spot on his wings, which is very apparent during his flight. He
+takes his prey in a higher part of the atmosphere,--being frequently
+seen, at twilight and in cloudy weather, soaring above the house-tops in
+quest of insects. The Whippoorwill finds his subsistence chiefly in the
+woods, and takes a part of it from the branches of trees, while poising
+himself on the wing, like a Humming-Bird. I believe he is never seen
+circling aloft like the Night-Hawk.
+
+The movements of the Night-Hawk, during this flight, are performed, for
+the most part, in circles, and are very picturesque. The birds are
+usually seen in pairs, at such times, but occasionally there are numbers
+assembled together; and one might suppose they were engaged in a sort of
+a�rial dance, or that they were emulating each other in their attempts
+at soaring to a great height. It is evident that these evolutions
+proceed in part from the pleasure of motion; but they are also connected
+with their courtship. While they are soaring and circling in the air,
+they occasionally utter the shrill and broken note which has been
+supposed to resemble the word Piramidig, whence the name is
+derived,--and now and then they dart suddenly aside, to seize a passing
+insect.
+
+While performing these circumvolutions, the male frequently dives almost
+perpendicularly downwards, a distance of forty feet or more, uttering,
+when he turns at the bottom of his descent, a singular note, resembling
+the twang of a viol-string. This sound has been supposed to proceed from
+the action of the air, as the bird dives swiftly through it with open
+mouth; but this supposition is rendered improbable by the fact that the
+European species makes a similar sound while sitting on its perch. It
+has also been alleged that the diving motion of this bird is an act
+designed to intimidate those who seem to be approaching his nest; but
+this cannot be true, because the bird performs the manoeuvre when he has
+no nest to defend. This habit is peculiar to the male, and it is
+probably one of those fantastic motions which are noticeable among the
+males of the gallinaceous birds, and are evidently their artifices to
+attract the attention of the female; very many of these motions may be
+observed in the manners of tame Pigeons.
+
+The twanging note produced during the precipitate descent of the
+Night-Hawk is one of the picturesque sounds of Nature, and is heard most
+frequently in the morning twilight, when the birds are busy collecting
+their repast of insects. During an early morning walk, while they are
+circling about, we may hear their cry frequently repeated, and
+occasionally the booming sound, which, if one is not accustomed to it,
+and is not acquainted with this habit of the bird, affects him with a
+sensation of mystery, and excites his curiosity in an extraordinary
+degree.
+
+The sound produced by the European species is a sort of drumming or
+whizzing note, like the hum of a spinning-wheel. The male commences this
+performance about dusk, and continues it at intervals during a great
+part of the night. It is effected while the breast is inflated with air,
+like that of a cooing Dove. The Piramidig has the power of inflating
+himself in the same manner, and he utters this whizzing note when one
+approaches his nest.
+
+The American Woodcock (_Scolopax minor_) is a more interesting bird than
+we should infer from his general appearance and physiognomy. He is
+mainly nocturnal in his habits, and his ways are worthy of study and
+observation. He obtains his food by scratching up the leaves and rubbish
+that lie upon the surface of the ground in damp and wooded places, and
+by boring into the earth for worms. He remains concealed in the wood
+during the day, and comes out to feed at twilight, choosing the open
+ploughed lands where worms are abundant; though it is probable that in
+the shade of the wood he is more or less busy in scratching among the
+leaves in the daytime.
+
+The Woodcock does not commonly venture abroad in the open day, unless he
+be disturbed and driven from his retreats. He makes his first appearance
+here in the latter part of April, and at this season we may observe that
+soaring habit which renders him one of the picturesque objects of
+Nature. This soaring takes place soon after sunset, continues during
+twilight, and is repeated at the corresponding hour in the morning. If
+you listen at this time near the places of his resort, he will soon
+reveal himself by a lively peep, frequently uttered, from the ground.
+While repeating this note, he may be seen strutting about, like a
+turkey-cock, with fantastic jerkings of the tail and a frequent bowing
+of the head; and his mate, I believe, is at this time not far off.
+Suddenly he springs upward, and with a wide circular sweep, uttering at
+the same time a rapid whistling note, he rises in a spiral course to a
+great height in the air. At the summit of his ascent, he hovers about
+with irregular motions, chirping a medley of broken notes, like
+imperfect warbling. This continues about ten or fifteen seconds, when it
+ceases, and he descends rapidly to the ground. We seldom hear him while
+in his descent, but receive the first intimation of it by hearing a
+repetition of his peep, resembling the sound produced by those minute
+wooden trumpets sold at the German toy-shops.
+
+No person could watch this playful flight of the Woodcock without
+interest; and it is remarkable that a bird with short wings and
+difficult flight should be capable of mounting to so great an altitude.
+It affords me a vivid conception of the pleasure with which I should
+witness the soaring and singing of the Skylark, known to me only by
+description. I have but to imagine the chirruping of the Woodcock to be
+a melodious series of notes, to feel that I am listening to that bird,
+which is so familiarized to our imaginations by English poetry that in
+our early days we always expect his greetings with a summer sunrise. It
+is with sadness that we first learn in our youth that the Skylark is not
+an inhabitant of the New World; and our mornings seem divested of a
+great portion of their charms, for the want of this poetical
+accompaniment.
+
+There is another circumstance connected with the habits of the Woodcock
+which increases his importance as an actor in the melodrame of Nature.
+When we stroll away from the noise and din of the town, where the
+stillness permits us to hear distinctly all those faint sounds which are
+turned by the silence of night into music, we may hear at frequent
+intervals the hum produced by the irregular flights of the Woodcock, as
+he passes over short distances in the wood, where he is collecting his
+repast. It resembles the sound of the wings of Doves, rendered distinct
+by the stillness of all other things, and melodious by the distance.
+There is a feeling of mystery attached to these musical nights that
+yields a savor of romance to the quiet voluptuousness of a summer
+evening.
+
+It is on such occasions, if we are in a moralizing mood, that we may be
+keenly impressed with the truth of the saying, that the secret of
+happiness consists in keeping alive our susceptibilities by frugal
+indulgences, rather than by seeking a multitude of pleasures, that pall
+in exact proportion to their abundance. The stillness and darkness of a
+quiet night produce this enlivening effect upon our minds. Our
+susceptibility is then awakened to such a degree, that slight sounds and
+feeble sparks of light convey to our souls an amount of pleasure which
+we seldom experience in the daytime from sights and sounds of the most
+pleasing description. Thus the player in an orchestra can enjoy such
+music only as would deafen common ears by its crash of sounds, in which
+they perceive no connection or harmony; while the simple rustic listens
+to the rude notes of a flageolet in the hands of a clown with feelings
+of ineffable delight. Nature, if the seekers after luxurious and
+exciting pleasures could but understand her language, would say to them,
+"Except ye become as this simple rustic, ye cannot enter into my
+paradise."
+
+The American Snipe has some of the nocturnal habits of the Woodcock, and
+the same habit of soaring at twilight, when he performs a sort of
+musical medley, which Audubon has very graphically described in the
+following passage:--"The birds are met with in meadows and low grounds,
+and, by being on the spot before sunrise, you may see both (male and
+female) mount high, in a spiral manner, now with continuous beats of the
+wings, now in short sailings, until more than a hundred yards high, when
+they whirl round each other with extreme velocity, and dance, as it
+were, to their own music; for, at this juncture, and during the space of
+five or six minutes, you hear rolling notes mingled together, each more
+or less distinct, perhaps, according to the state of the atmosphere. The
+sounds produced are extremely pleasing, though they fall faintly on the
+ear. I know not how to describe them; but I am well assured that they
+are not produced simply by the beatings of their wings, as at this time
+the wings are not flapped, but are used in sailing swiftly in a circle,
+not many feet in diameter. A person might cause a sound somewhat similar
+by blowing rapidly and alternately, from one end to another, across a
+set of small pipes, consisting of two or three modulations. This
+performance is kept up till incubation terminates; but I have never
+observed it at any other period."
+
+Among the Heron family we discover a few nocturnal birds, which, though
+not very well known, have some ways that are singular and interesting.
+Goldsmith considered one of these birds worthy of introduction into his
+"Deserted Village," as contributing to the poetic conception of
+desolation. Thus, in his description of the grounds which were the
+ancient site of the village, we read,--
+
+  "Along its glades, a solitary guest,
+  The hollow-sounding Bittern guards its nest."
+
+"The Bittern is a shy and solitary bird; it is never seen on the wing in
+the daytime, but sits, generally with the head erect, hid among the
+reeds and rushes of extensive marshes, from whence it will not stir,
+unless disturbed by the sportsman. When it changes its haunts, it
+removes in the dusk of the evening, and then, rising in a spiral
+direction, soars to a vast height. It flies in the same heavy manner as
+the Heron, and might be mistaken for that bird, were it not for the
+singularly resounding cry which it utters, from time to time, while on
+the wing: but this cry is feeble when compared with the hollow booming
+noise which it makes during the night, in the breeding season, from its
+swampy retreats. From the loudness and solemnity of its note, an
+erroneous notion prevails with the vulgar, that it either thrusts its
+head into a reed, which serves as a pipe for swelling its note beyond
+its natural pitch, or that it immerges its head in water, and then
+produces its boomings by blowing with all its might."
+
+The American Bittern is a smaller bird, but is probably a variety of the
+European species. It exhibits the same nocturnal habits, and has
+received at the South the name of _Dunkadoo_, from the resemblance of
+its common note to these syllables. This is a hollow-sounding noise, but
+not so loud as the voice of the Bittern to which Goldsmith alludes. I
+have heard it by day proceeding from the wooded swamps, and am at a loss
+to explain how so small a bird can produce so low and hollow a note.
+Among this family of birds are one or two other nocturnal species,
+including the Qua-Bird, which is common to both continents; but there is
+little to be said of it that would be interesting in this connection.
+The Herons, however, and their allied species, are birds of remarkable
+habits, the enumeration and account of which would occupy a considerable
+space. In an essay on the flight of birds in particular, the Herons
+would furnish a multitude of very interesting facts.
+
+
+Let us now turn our attention to those diurnal birds that sing in the
+night as well as in the day, and which might be comprehended under the
+general appellation of Nightingales. These birds do not confine their
+singing to the night, like the true nocturnal birds, and are most vocal
+when inspired by the light of the moon. Europe has several of these
+minstrels of the night. Beside the true Philomel of poetry and romance,
+the Reed-Thrush and the Woodcock are of this character. In the United
+States, the Mocking-Bird enjoys the greatest reputation; the
+Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the New York Thrush are also nocturnal
+songsters.
+
+The Mocking-Bird (_Turdus polyglottus_) is well known in the Middle and
+Southern States, but seldom passes a season in New England, except in
+the southern part of Rhode Island and Connecticut, which seem to be the
+northern limit of its migrations. Probably, like the Rose-breasted
+Grosbeak, which is constantly extending its limits in an eastern
+direction, the Mocking-Bird may be gradually making progress
+northwardly, so that fifty years hence both of these birds may be common
+in Massachusetts. The Mocking-Bird is familiar in his habits,
+frequenting gardens and orchards, and perching on the roofs of houses
+when singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at
+all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and
+seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners,
+however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being
+distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the
+attacks of his enemies.
+
+The Mocking-Bird is celebrated throughout the world for his musical
+powers; but it is difficult to ascertain precisely the character and
+quality of his original notes. Hence some naturalists have contended
+that he has no song of his own, but confines himself to imitations. That
+this is an error, all persons who have listened to him in his native
+wild-wood can testify. I should say, from my own observations, not only
+that he has a distinct song, peculiarly his own, but that his imitations
+are far from being equal to his original notes. Yet it is seldom we hear
+him except when he is engaged in mimicry. In his native woods, and
+especially at an early hour in the morning, when he is not provoked to
+imitation by the voices of other birds and animals, he sometimes pours
+forth his own wild notes with full fervor. Yet I have often listened
+vainly for hours to hear him utter anything but a few idle repetitions
+of monotonous sounds, interspersed with some ludicrous varieties. Why he
+should neglect his own pleasing notes, to tease the listener with his
+imitations of all imaginable discords, is not easily explained.
+
+Though his imitations are the cause of his notoriety, they are not the
+utterances upon which his true merit is based. He would be infinitely
+more valuable as a songster, if he were incapable of imitating a single
+sound. I would add, that as an imitator of the songs of other birds he
+is very imperfect, and in this respect has been greatly overrated by our
+ornithologists, who seem to vie with one another in their exaggerations
+of his powers. He cannot utter the notes of the rapid singers; he is
+successful only in his imitations of those birds whose notes are simple
+and moderately delivered. He is, indeed, more remarkable for his
+indefatigable propensity than for his powers. Single sounds, from
+whatever source they may come, from birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, or
+machines, he gives very accurately; but I have heard numbers of
+Mocking-Birds in confinement attempt to imitate the Canary, and always
+without success. There is a common saying, that the Mocking-Bird will
+die of chagrin, if placed in a cage by the side of a caged Bobolink,
+mortified because he cannot give utterance to his rapid notes. If this
+were the cause of his death, he would also die when caged in a room with
+a Canary, a Goldfinch, or any of the rapidly singing Finches. It is also
+an error to say of his imitations, as the generality of writers assert,
+that they are improvements upon the originals. When he utters the notes
+of the Red-Bird, the Golden Robin, or the Common Robin, he does not
+improve them; and when he gives us the screaming of the Jay or the
+mewing of the Cat, he does not change them into music.
+
+As an original songster, judging him by what he is capable of
+performing, however unfrequently he may exercise his powers to the best
+advantage, the Mocking-Bird is probably equalled only by two or three of
+our singing-birds. His notes are loud, varied, melodious, and of great
+compass. They may be compared to those of the Red Thrush, more rapidly
+delivered, and having more flute notes and fewer guttural notes and
+sudden transitions. He also sings on the wing and with fervor, like the
+Linnet, while the other Thrushes sing only from their perch. But his
+song has less variety than that of the Red Thrush, and falls short of it
+in as many respects as it surpasses it. For the greater part of the
+time, the only notes of the Mocking-Bird, when he is not engaged in
+mimicry, are a sort of melodious whistle, consisting of two notes about
+a fourth apart, uttered in quick, but not rapid, succession, and hardly
+to be distinguished from those of the Red-Bird of Virginia.
+
+I heard the notes of the Mocking-Bird the first time in his native
+wilds, during a railroad journey by night, through the Pine Barrens of
+North Carolina, in the month of June. The journey was very tiresome and
+unpleasant, nothing being seen, when looking out upon the landscape, but
+a gloomy stretch of level forest, consisting of tall pines, thinly
+scattered, without any branches, except at their tops. The dusky forms
+of these trees, pictured against the half-luminous sky, seemed like so
+many giant spectres watching the progress of our journey, and increased
+the loneliness of the hour. Before daylight, when the sky was faintly
+crimsoned around the place where the sun was to come forth, the train
+made a pause of half an hour, at one of the stations, and the passengers
+alighted. While I was looking at the dreary prospect of desert, tired of
+my journey and longing for day, suddenly the notes of the Mocking-Bird
+came to my ear, and changed all my gloomy feelings into delight.
+
+It is seldom I have felt so vividly the power of one little incident to
+change the tone of one's feelings and the humor of the occasion. As a
+few drops of oil, cast upon the surface of the waters, will quiet the
+troubled waves, so did the glad voice of this merry bird suddenly dispel
+all those sombre feelings which had been fostered by dismal scenes and a
+lonely journey. Nature never seemed so lovely as when the rising dawn,
+with its tearful beams and purple radiance, was greeted by this warbling
+salutation, as from some messenger of light, who came to announce that
+Morning was soon to step forth from her throne, and extend over all
+things her smiles and her beneficence.
+
+Of the other American birds that sing in the night I can say nothing
+from my own observation. The most important of these is the New York
+Thrush, (_Turdus aquaticus_,) which is said to resemble the River
+Nightingale of Europe. This bird, which is common in the Western States,
+is said to sing melodiously night and day. Wilson remarks of this
+species, "They are eminently distinguished by the loudness, sweetness,
+and expressive vivacity of their notes, which begin very high and clear,
+falling with an almost imperceptible gradation, till they are scarcely
+articulated. At these times the musician is perched on the middle
+branches of a tree, over a brook or river-bank, pouring out his charming
+melody, that may be distinctly heard for nearly half a mile. The voice
+of this little bird appeared to me so exquisitely sweet and expressive,
+that I was never tired listening to it." This description is exactly
+applicable to the song of the Veery, supposed to be silent by Wilson,
+who could not have fallen into such an error, except by having confined
+his researches chiefly to the Middle and Southern States.
+
+The Rose-breasted Grosbeak (_Loxia rosea_) is said to be an excellent
+songster, passing the greater part of the night in singing, and
+continuing vocal in confinement. This bird is common in the Western
+States, but until lately has seldom been seen in New England. I learn,
+however, from Mr. Fowler, that "the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is found in
+Essex County, and, though formerly seldom seen, is becoming every year
+more common. Like the Wood Thrush and Scarlet Tanager, it is retiring in
+its habits, and is usually found in the most sheltered part of the wood,
+where, perched about midway on a tree, in fancied concealment, it
+warbles its soft, clear, and melodious notes." He thinks this bird is
+not heard so frequently by night as by day, though it often sings in the
+light of the moon.
+
+In connection with this theme, we cannot help feeling a sense of regret,
+almost like melancholy, when we reflect that the true Nightingale and
+the Skylark, the classical birds of European literature, are strangers
+to our fields and woods. In May and June there is no want of sylvan
+minstrels to wake the morn and to sing the vespers of a sweet summer
+evening. A flood of song wakes us at the earliest daylight; and the shy
+and solitary Veery, after the Vesper-Bird has concluded his evening
+hymn, pours his few pensive notes into the very bosom of twilight, and
+makes the hour sacred by his melody. But after twilight is sped, and the
+moon rises to shed her meek radiance over the sleeping earth, the
+Nightingale is not here to greet her rising, and to turn her melancholy
+beams into the cheerfulness of daylight. And when the Queen Moon is on
+her throne,
+
+  "Clustered around by all her starry Fays,"
+
+the Whippoorwill alone brings her the tribute of his monotonous song,
+and soothes the dull ear of Night with sounds which, however delightful,
+are not of heaven. We have become so familiar with the Lark and the
+Nightingale, by the perusal of the romance of rural life, that "neither
+breath of Morn, when she ascends" without the charm of this her earliest
+harbinger, "nor silent Night" without her "solemn bird," seems holy, as
+when we contemplate them in the works of pastoral song. Poetry has
+hallowed to our minds the pleasing objects of the Old World; those of
+the New have to be cherished in song yet many more years, before they
+will be equally sacred to our imaginations.
+
+By some of our writers the Mocking-Bird is put forward as equal in song
+to the Nightingale. This assumption might be worthy of consideration, if
+the American bird were not a mimic. But his mocking habits almost
+annihilate his value as a songster,--as the effect of a good concert
+would be spoiled, if the players were constantly introducing, in the
+midst of their serious performances, snatches of ridiculous tunes and
+uncouth sounds. I have never heard the Nightingale; but if I may judge
+from descriptions of its song, and from the notes of those Canaries
+which are said to give us perfect imitations of it, we have no bird in
+America that equals this classical songster. The following description,
+by Pliny, which is said to be superior to any other, may afford us some
+idea of the extent of its powers:--"The Nightingale, that for fifteen
+days and nights, hid in the thickest shades, continues her note without
+intermission, deserves our attention and wonder. How surprising that so
+great a voice can reside in so small a body! Such perseverance in so
+minute an animal! With what musical propriety are the sounds it produces
+modulated! The note at one time drawn out with a long breath, now
+stealing off into a different cadence, now interrupted by a break, then
+changing into a new note by an unexpected transition, now seeming to
+renew the same strain, then deceiving expectation. She sometimes seems
+to murmur within herself; full, deep, sharp, swift, drawling, trembling;
+now at the top, the middle, and the bottom of the scale. In short, in
+that little bill seems to reside all the melody which man has vainly
+labored to bring from a variety of musical instruments. Some even seem
+to be possessed of a different note from the rest, and contend with each
+other with great ardor. The bird, overcome, is then seen to discontinue
+its song only with its life."
+
+The cause of the nocturnal singing of birds that do not go abroad during
+the night and are strictly diurnal in all their other habits has never
+been satisfactorily explained. It is natural that the Whippoorwill,
+which is a nocturnal bird, should sing during his hours of wakefulness
+and activity. There is also no difficulty in explaining why Ducks and
+Geese, and some other social birds, should utter their loud alarm-notes,
+when they meet with any midnight disturbance. These birds usually have a
+sentinel who keeps awake; and if he give an alarm, the others reply to
+it. The crowing of the Cock bears more analogy to the song of a bird,
+for it does not seem to be an alarm-note. This domestic bird may be
+considered, therefore, a nocturnal songster, if his crowing can be
+called a song; though it is remarkable that we seldom hear it during
+evening twilight. The Cock sings his matins, but not his vespers; he
+crows at the earliest dawn of day, and at midnight upon the rising of
+the moon, and whenever he is awakened by artificial light. Many
+singing-birds are accustomed to prolong their notes after sunset to a
+late hour, and become silent only to commence again at the earliest
+daybreak. But the habit of singing in the night is peculiar to a small
+number of birds, and the cause of it forms a curious subject of inquiry.
+
+By what means are they enabled to sustain such constant watchfulness,
+singing and providing subsistence for their offspring during the day,
+and still continuing wakeful and musical while it is night? Why do they
+take pleasure in singing, when no one will come in answer to their call?
+Have they their worship, like religious beings, and are their midnight
+lays but the outpouring of the fervency of their spirits? Do they
+rejoice, like the clouds, in the presence of the moon, hailing her beams
+as a pleasant relief from the darkness that has surrounded them? Or in
+the silence of night, are their songs but responses to the sounds of the
+trees, when they bow their heads and shake their rustling leaves in the
+wind? When they listen to the streamlet, that makes audible melody only
+in the hush of night, do they not answer to it from their leafy perch?
+And when the moth flies hummingly through the recesses of the wood, and
+the beetle sounds his horn, what are their notes but cheerful responses
+to these sounds, that break sweetly upon the quiet of their slumbers?
+
+Wilson remarks, that the hunters in the Southern States, when setting
+out on an excursion by night, as soon as they hear the Mocking-Bird
+sing, know that the moon is rising. He quotes a writer who supposes that
+it may be fear that operates upon the birds when they perceive the Owls
+flitting among the trees, and that they sing, as a timid person whistles
+in a lonely place, to quiet their fears. But the musical notes of birds
+are never used by them to express their fears; they are the language of
+love, sometimes animated by jealousy. It must be admitted that the
+moonlight awakes these birds, and may be the most frequent exciting
+cause of their nocturnal singing; but it is not true that they always
+wait for the rising of the moon; and if this were the fact, the question
+may still be asked, why these few species alone should be thus affected.
+
+Since Philosophy can give no explanation of this instinct, let Fancy
+come to her aid, and assist us in our dilemma,--as when we have vainly
+sought from Reason an explanation of the mysteries of Religion, we
+humbly submit to the guidance of Faith. With Fancy for our interpreter,
+we may suppose that Nature has adapted the works of creation to our
+moral as well as our physical wants; and while she has instituted the
+night as a time for general rest, she has provided means that shall
+soften the gloomy effects of darkness. The birds, which are the
+harbingers of all rural delights, are hence made to sing during
+twilight; and when they cease, the nocturnal songsters become vocal,
+bearing pleasant sensations to the sleepless, and by their lulling
+melodies preparing us to be keenly susceptible of all agreeable
+emotions.
+
+
+TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.
+
+
+  Carolling bird, that merrily, night and day,
+  Tellest thy raptures from the rustling spray,
+  And wakest the morning with thy varied lay,
+          Singing thy matins,--
+  When we have come to hear thy sweet oblation
+  Of love and joyance from thy sylvan station,
+  Why, in the place of musical cantation,
+          Balk us with pratings?
+
+  We stroll by moonlight in the dusky forest,
+  Where the tall cypress shields thee, fervent chorist!
+  And sit in haunts of Echoes, when thou pourest
+          Thy woodland solo.
+  Hark! from the next green tree thy song commences:
+  Music and discord join to mock the senses,
+  Repeated from the tree-tops and the fences,
+          From hill and hollow.
+
+  A hundred voices mingle with thy clamor;
+  Bird, beast, and reptile take part in thy drama;
+  Out-speak they all in turn without a stammer,--
+          Brisk Polyglot!
+  Voices of Killdeer, Plover, Duck, and Dotterel;
+  Notes bubbling, hissing, mellow, sharp, and guttural;
+  Of Cat-Bird, Cat, or Cart-Wheel, thou canst utter all,
+          And all-untaught.
+
+  The Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow,
+  The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow,
+  And hoot of Owls,--all join the soul to harrow,
+          And grate the ear.
+  We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing,
+  As if all creatures thou wert catechizing,
+  Tuning their voices, and their notes revising,
+          From far and near.
+
+  Sweet bird! that surely lovest the noise of folly;
+  Most musical, but never melancholy;
+  Disturber of the hour that should be holy,
+          With sound prodigious!
+  Fie on thee, O thou feathered Paganini!
+  To use thy little pipes to squawk and whinny,
+  And emulate the hinge and spinning-jenny,
+          Making night hideous!
+
+  Provoking melodist! why canst thou breathe us
+  No thrilling harmony, no charming pathos,
+  No cheerful song of love without its bathos?
+          The Furies take thee,--
+  Blast thy obstreperous mirth, thy foolish chatter,--
+  Gag thee, exhaust thy breath, and stop thy clatter,
+  And change thee to a beast, thou senseless prater!--
+          Nought else can check thee!
+
+  A lengthened pause ensues:--but hark again!
+  From the new woodland, stealing o'er the plain,
+  Comes forth a sweeter and a holier strain!--
+          Listening delighted,
+  The gales breathe softly, as they bear along
+  The warbled treasure,--the delicious throng
+  Of notes that swell accordant in the song,
+          As love is plighted.
+
+  The Echoes, joyful from their vocal cell,
+  Leap with the wing�d sounds o'er hill and dell,
+  With kindling fervor, as the chimes they tell
+          To wakeful Even:--
+  They melt upon the ear; they float away;
+  They rise, they sink, they hasten, they delay,
+  And hold the listener with bewitching sway,
+          Like sounds from heaven!
+
+
+
+
+A TRIP TO CUBA.
+
+
+HAVANA--THE JESUIT COLLEGE.
+
+
+The gentlemen of our party go one day to visit the Jesuit College in
+Havana, yclept "Universidad de Belen." The ladies, weary of dry goods,
+manifest some disposition to accompany them. This is at once frowned
+down by the unfairer sex, and Can Grande, appealed to by the other side,
+shakes his shoulders, and replies, "No, you are only miserable women,
+and cannot be admitted into any Jesuit establishment whatever." And so
+the male deputation departs with elation, and returns with airs of
+superior opportunity, and is more insufferable than ever at dinner, and
+thereafter.
+
+They of the feminine faction, on the other hand, consult with more
+direct authorities, and discover that the doors of Belen are in no wise
+closed to them, and that everything within those doors is quite at their
+disposition, saving and excepting the sleeping-apartments of the Jesuit
+fathers,--to which, even in thought, they would on no account draw near.
+And so they went and saw Belen, whereof one of them relates as follows.
+
+The building is spacious, inclosing a hollow square, and with numerous
+galleries, like European cloisters, where the youth walk, study, and
+play. We were shown up-stairs, into a pleasant reception-room, where two
+priests soon waited on us. One of these, Padre Doyaguez, seemed to be
+the decoy-duck of the establishment, and soon fastened upon one of our
+party, whose Protestant tone of countenance had probably caught his
+attention. Was she a Protestant? Oh, no!--not with that intelligent,
+physiognomy!--not with that talent! What was her name? Julia (pronounced
+_H_ulia). Hulia was a Roman name, a Catholic name; he had never heard of
+a Hulia who was a Protestant;--very strange, it seemed to him, that a
+Hulia could hold to such unreasonable ideas. The other priest, Padre
+Lluc, meanwhile followed with sweet, quiet eyes, whose silent looks had
+more persuasion in them than all the innocent cajoleries of the elder
+man. Padre Doyaguez was a man eminently qualified to deal with the sex
+in general,--a coaxing voice, a pair of vivacious eyes, whose cunning
+was not unpleasing, tireless good-humor and perseverance, and a savor of
+sincerity. Padre Lluc was the sort of man that one recalls in quiet
+moments with a throb of sympathy,--the earnest eyes, the clear brow, the
+sonorous voice. One thinks of him, and hopes that he is satisfied,--that
+cruel longing and more cruel doubt shall never spring up in that
+capacious heart, divorcing his affections and convictions from the
+system to which his life is irrevocably wedded. No, keep still, Padre
+Lluc I think ever as you think now, lest the faith that seems a fortress
+should prove a prison, the mother a step-dame,--lest the high,
+chivalrous spirit, incapable of a safe desertion, should immolate truth
+or itself on the altar of consistency.
+
+Between those two advocates of Catholicity, Hulia Protestante walks
+slowly through the halls of the University. She sees first a Cabinet of
+Natural History, including minerals, shells, fossils, and insects, all
+well-arranged, and constituting a very respectable beginning. Padre Lluc
+says some good words on the importance of scientific education. Padre
+Doyaguez laughs at the ladies' hoops, which he calls Malakoffs, as they
+crowd through the doorways and among the glass cases; he repeats
+occasionally, "_Hulia Protestante_?" in a tone of mock astonishment, and
+receives for answer, "_S�, Hulia Protestante_." Then comes a very
+creditable array of scientific apparatus,--not of the order employed by
+the judges of Galileo,--electric and galvanic batteries, an orrery, and
+many things beside. The library interests us more, with some luxurious
+classics, a superb Dante, and a prison-cage of forbidden works, of which
+Padre Lluc certainly has the key. Among these were fine editions of
+Rousseau and Voltaire, which appeared to be intended for use; and we
+could imagine a solitary student, dark-eyed and pale, exploring their
+depths at midnight with a stolen candle, and endeavoring, with
+self-torment, to reconcile the intolerance of his doctrine with the
+charities of his heart. We imagine such a one lost in the philosophy and
+sentiment of the "Nouvelle H�loise," and suddenly summoned by the
+convent-bell to the droning of the Mass, the mockery of Holy Water, the
+fable of the Real Presence. Such contrasts might be strange and
+dangerous. No, no, Padre Lluc! keep these unknown spells from your
+heart,--let the forbidden books alone. Instead of the Confessions of
+Jean Jacques, read the Confessions of St. Augustine,--read the new book,
+in three volumes, on the Immaculate Conception, which you show me with
+such ardor, telling me that Can Grande, which, in the vernacular, is
+Parker, has spoken of it with respect. Beyond the Fathers you must not
+get, for you have vowed to be a child all your life. Those clear eyes of
+yours are never to look up into the face of the Eternal Father; the
+show-box of the Church must content them, with Mary and the saints seen
+through its dusty glass,--the august figure of the Son, who sometimes
+reproved his mother, crowded quite out of sight behind the woman, whom
+it is so much easier to dress up and exhibit. What is this other book
+which Parker has read? Padre Doyaguez says, "Hulia, if you read this,
+you must become a Catholic." Padre Lluc says, "If Parker has read this
+book, I cannot conceive that he is not a Catholic." The quick Doyaguez
+then remarks, "Parker is going to Rome to join the Romish Church." Padre
+Lluc rejoins, "They say so." Hulia Protestante is inclined to cry out,
+"The day that Parker becomes a Catholic, I, too, will become one"; but,
+remembering the rashness of vows and the fallibility of men, she does
+not adopt that form of expressing _Never_. Parker might, if it pleased
+God, become a Catholic, and then the world would have two Popes instead
+of one.
+
+We leave at last the disputed ground of the library and ascend to the
+observatory, which commands a fine view of the city, and a good sweep of
+the heavens for the telescope, in which Padre Lluc seemed especially to
+delight. The observatory is commodious, and is chiefly directed by an
+attenuated young priest, with a keen eye and hectic cheek; another was
+occupied in working out mathematical tables;--for these Fathers observe
+the stars, and are in scientific correspondence with astronomers in
+Europe. This circumstance gave us real pleasure on their account,--for
+science, in all its degrees, is a positive good, and a mental tonic of
+the first importance. Earnestly did we, in thought, commend it to those
+wearied minds which have undergone the dialectic dislocations, the
+denaturalizations of truth and of thought, which enable rational men to
+become first Catholics and then Jesuits. For let there be no illusions
+about strength of mind, and so on,--this is effected by means of a vast
+machinery. As, in the old story, the calves were put in at one end of
+the cylinder and taken out leather breeches at the other, or as glass is
+cut and wood carved, so does the raw human material, put into the
+machine of the Catholic Church, become fashioned according to the will
+of those who guide it. Hulia Protestante! you have a free step and a
+clear head; but once go into the machine, and you will come out carved
+and embossed according to the old traditional pattern,--you as well as
+another. Where the material is hard, they put on more power,--where it
+is soft, more care; wherefore I caution you here, as I would in a mill
+at Lowell or Lawrence,--Don't meddle with the shafts,--don't go too near
+the wheel,--in short, keep clear of the machinery. And Hulia does so;
+for, at the last attack of Padre Doyaguez, she suddenly turns upon him
+and says, "Sir, you are a Doctrinary and a Propagandist." And the good
+Father suffers her to depart in peace. But first there is the chapel to
+be seen, with its tawdry and poor ornamentation,--and the dormitories of
+the scholars, with long double rows of beds and mosquito-nettings. There
+are two of these, and each of them has at one end a raised platform,
+with curtains and a bed, where rests and watches the shepherd of the
+little sheep. Lastly, we have a view of the whole flock, assembled in
+their play-ground, and one of them, looking up, sees his mother, who has
+kindly accompanied our visit to the institution. Across the distance
+that separates us, we see his blue eyes brighten, and, as soon as
+permission is given, he bounds like a young roe to her arms, shy and
+tender, his English blood showing through his Spanish skin,--for he is a
+child of mixed race. We are all pleased and touched, and Padre Lluc
+presently brings us a daguerreotype, and says, "It is my mother." To us
+it is an indifferent portrait of an elderly Spanish woman,--but to him,
+how much! With kindest mutual regard we take leave,--a little surprised,
+perhaps, to see that Jesuit priests have mothers, and remember them.
+
+
+
+
+SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BA�OS.
+
+
+  "Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone!"
+
+However enchanting Havana may prove, when seen through the moonlight of
+memory, it seems as good a place to go away from as any other, after a
+stifling night in a net, the wooden shutters left open in the remote
+hope of air, and admitting the music of a whole opera-troupe of dogs,
+including bass, tenor, soprano, and chorus. Instead of bouquets, you
+throw stones, if you are so fortunate as to have them,--if not,
+boot-jacks, oranges, your only umbrella. You are last seen thrusting
+frantic hands and feet through the iron bars, your wife holding you back
+by the flannel night-gown which you will persist in wearing in this
+doubtful climate. At last it is over,--the fifth act ends with a howl
+which makes you hope that some one of the performers has come to grief.
+But, alas! it is only a stage _d�nouement_, whose hero will die again
+every night while the season lasts. You fall asleep, but the welcome
+cordial has scarcely been tasted when you are aroused by a knock at the
+door. It is the night-porter, who wakes you at five by appointment, that
+you may enjoy your early coffee, tumble into a hired _volante_, and
+reach, half dead with sleep, the station in time for the train that goes
+to San Antonio.
+
+Now, whether you are a partisan of early rising or not, you must allow
+that sunrise and the hour after is the golden time of the day in Cuba.
+So this hour of starting,--six o'clock,--so distasteful in our
+latitudes, is a matter of course in tropical climates. Arriving at the
+station, you encounter new tribulations in the registering and payment
+of luggage, the transportation of which is not included in the charge
+for your ticket. Your trunks are recorded in a book, and, having paid a
+_real_ apiece for them, you receive a paper which entitles you to demand
+them again at your journey's end. The Cuban railways are good, but
+dear,--the charge being ten cents a mile; whereas in our more favored
+land one goes for three cents, and has the chance of a collision and
+surgeon's services without any extra payment. The cars have windows
+which are always open, and blinds which are always closed, or nearly so.
+The seats and backs of seats are of cane, for coolness,--hardness being
+secured at the same time. One reaches San Antonio in an hour and a half,
+and finds a pleasant village, with a river running through it, several
+streets of good houses, several more of bad ones, a cathedral, a
+cockpit, a _volante_, four soldiers on horseback, two on foot, a market,
+dogs, a bad smell, and, lastly, the American Hotel,--a house built in a
+hollow square, as usual,--kept by a strong-minded woman from the States,
+whose Yankee thrift is unmistakable, though she has been long absent
+from the great centres of domestic economy.
+
+Mrs. L----, always on the watch for arrivals, comes out to receive us.
+We are very welcome, she hints, as far as we go; but why are there not
+more of us? The smallest favors should be thankfully received, but she
+hears that Havana is full of strangers, and she wonders, for her part,
+why people will stay in that hot place, and roast, and stew, and have
+the yellow fever, when she could make them so comfortable in San
+Antonio. This want of custom she continues, during our whole visit, to
+complain of. Would it be uncharitable for us to aver that we found other
+wants in her establishment which caused us more astonishment, and which
+went some way towards accounting for the deficiency complained of? wants
+of breakfast, wants of dinner, wants of something good for tea, wants of
+towels, wants of candles, wants of ice, or, at least, of the cooling
+jars used in the country. Charges exorbitant,--the same as in Havana,
+where rents are an ounce a week, and upwards; _volantes_
+difficult,--Mrs. L. having made an agreement with the one livery-stable
+that they shall always be furnished at most unreasonable prices, of
+which she, supposably, pockets half. On the other hand, the village is
+really cool, healthy, and pretty; there are pleasant drives over
+dreadful roads, if one makes up one's mind to the _volante_, and
+delightful river-baths, shaded by roofs of palm-tree thatch. One of the
+best of these is at the foot of Mrs. L.'s inclosure, and its use is
+included in the privileges of the house. The water is nearly tepid,
+clear, and green, and the little fish float hither and thither in
+it,--though men of active minds are sometimes reduced to angle for them,
+with crooked pins, for amusement. At the hour of one, daily, the ladies
+of the house betake themselves to this refreshment; and there is
+laughing, and splashing, and holding of hands, and simulation of all the
+Venuses that ever were, from the crouching one of the bath, to the
+triumphant Cytherea, springing for the first time from the wave.
+
+Such are the resources of the house. Those of the neighborhood are
+various. Foremost among them is the _cafetal_, or coffee-plantation, of
+Don Juan Torres, distant a league from the village, over which league of
+stone, sand, and rut you rumble in a _volante_ dragged by three horses.
+You know that the _volante_ cannot upset; nevertheless you experience
+some anxious moments when it leans at an obtuse angle, one wheel in air,
+one sticking in a hole, the horses balking and kicking, and the
+postilion swearing his best. But it is written, the _volante_ shall not
+upset,--and so it does not. Long before you see the entrance to the
+plantation, you watch the tall palms, planted in a line, that shield,
+its borders. An avenue of like growth leads you to the house, where
+barking dogs announce you, and Don Juan, an elderly gentleman in
+slippers and a Panama hat, his hair, face, and eyes all faded to one hue
+of grayness, comes out to accost us. Here, again, Hulia Protestante
+becomes the subject of a series of attacks, in a new kind. Don Juan
+first exhausts his flower-garden upon her, and explains all that is new
+to her. Then she must see his blind Chino, a sightless Samson of a
+Cooly, who is working resolutely in a mill. "_Canta!_" says the master,
+and the poor slave gives tongue like a hound on the scent. "_Baila!_"
+and, a stick being handed him, he performs the gymnastics of his
+country, a sort of war-dance without accompaniment. "_El can!_" and,
+giving him a broom, they loose the dog upon him. A curious tussle then
+ensues,--the dog attacking furiously, and the blind man, guided by his
+barking, defending himself lustily. The Chino laughs, the master laughs,
+but the visitor feels more inclined to cry, having been bred in those
+Northern habits which respect infirmity. A _real_ dismisses the poor
+soul with a smile, and then begins the journey round the _cafetal_. The
+coffee-blossom is just in its perfection, and whole acres in sight are
+white with its flower, which nearly resembles that of the small white
+jasmine. Its fragrance is said to be delicious after a rain; but, the
+season being dry, it is scarcely discernible. As shade is a great
+object in growing coffee, the grounds are laid out in lines of fruit-
+trees, and these are the ministers of Hulia's tribulation; for Don
+Juan, whether in kindness or in mischief, insists that she shall taste
+every unknown fruit,--and as he cuts them and hands them to her, she
+is forced to obey. First, a little negro shins up a cocoa-nut-tree,
+and flings down the nut, whose water she must drink. One cocoa-nut she
+endures,--two,--but three? no, she must rebel, and cry out,--"_No mi
+gusta!_" Then she must try a bitter orange, then a sour bitter one, then
+a sweet lemon, then a huge fruit of triple verjuice flavor. "What is it
+good for?" she asks, after a shuddering plunge into its acrid depths.
+"Oh," says the Don, "they eat it in the castors instead of vinegar."
+Then come _sapotas, mamey_, Otaheite gooseberries. "Does she like
+bananas?" he cuts a tree down with his own hand, and sends the bunch of
+fruit to her _volante_;--"Sugar-cane?" he bestows a huge bundle of
+sticks for her leisurely rodentation;--he fills her pocket with coral
+beans for her children. Having, at last, exhausted every polite
+attention, and vainly offered gin, rum, and coffee, as a parting
+demonstration, Hulia and her partner escape, bearing with them many
+strange flavors, and an agonizing headache, the combined result of sun
+and acids. Really, if there exist anywhere on earth a society for the
+promotion and encouragement of good manners, it should send a diploma to
+Don Juan, admonishing him only to omit the vinegar-fruit in his further
+walks of hospitality.
+
+We take the Sunday to visit the nearest sugar-plantation, belonging to
+Don Jacinto Gonzales. Sun, not shade, being the desideratum in
+sugar-planting, there are few trees or shrubs bordering the
+sugar-fields, which resemble at a distance our own fields of Indian
+corn, the green of the leaves being lighter, and a pale blue blossom
+appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery,
+the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the
+_maquinista_ (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery,
+aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who
+begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence
+on those who refused him. The _maquinista_ was a fine-looking man, from
+the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told us that Don Jacinto was
+very old, and came rarely to the plantation. We asked him how the
+extreme heat of his occupation suited him, and for an answer he opened
+the bosom of his shirt, and showed us the marks of innumerable leeches.
+The machinery is not very complicated. It consists of a wheel and band,
+to throw the canes under the powerful rollers which crush them, and
+these rollers, three in number, all moved by the steam-engine. The juice
+flows into large copper caldrons, where it is boiled and skimmed. As
+they were not at work, we did not see the actual process. Leaving the
+sugar-house, we went in pursuit of the _mayoral_, or overseer, who
+seemed to inhabit comfortable quarters, in a long, low house, shielded
+from the sun by a thick screen of matting. We found him a powerful,
+thick-set man, of surly and uncivil manners, girded with a sword, and
+further armed with a pistol, a dagger, and a stout whip. He was much too
+important a person to waste his words upon us, but signified that the
+major-domo would wait on us, which he presently did. We now entered the
+negro quarter, a solid range of low buildings, formed around a hollow
+square, whose strong entrance is closed at nightfall, and its inmates
+kept in strict confinement till the morning hour of work comes round.
+Just within the doorway we encountered the trader, who visits the
+plantations every Sunday, to tempt the stray cash of the negroes by
+various commodities, of which the chief seemed to be white bread,
+calicoes, muslins, and bright cotton handkerchiefs. He told us that
+their usual weekly expenditure amounted to about twenty-five dollars.
+Bargaining with him stood the negro-driver, a tattooed African, armed
+with a whip. All within the court swarmed the black bees of the
+hive,--the men with little clothing, the small children naked, the women
+decent. All had their little charcoal fires, with pots boiling over
+them; the rooms within looked dismally dark, close, and dirty; there are
+no windows, no air and light save through the ever-open door. The beds
+are sometimes partitioned off by a screen of dried palm-leaf, but I saw
+no better sleeping-privilege than a board with a blanket or coverlet.
+From this we turned to the nursery, where all the children incapable of
+work are kept; the babies are quite naked, and sometimes very handsome
+in their way, black and shining, with bright eyes and well-formed limbs.
+No great provision is made for their amusement, but the little girls
+nurse them tenderly enough, and now and then the elders fling them a bit
+of orange or _chaimito_, for which they scramble like so many monkeys.
+Appeals are constantly made to the pockets of visitors, by open hands
+stretched out in all directions. To these "_Nada_"--"Nothing"--is the
+safe reply; for, if you give to one, the others close about you with
+frantic gesticulation, and you have to break your way through them with
+some violence, which hurts your own feelings more than it does theirs.
+On _strict_ plantations this is not allowed; but Don Jacinto, like Lord
+Ashburton at the time of the Maine treaty, is an old man,--a very old
+man; and where discipline cannot be maintained, peace must be secured on
+any terms. We visit next the sugar-house, where we find the desired
+condiment in various stages of color and refinement. It is whitened with
+clay, in large funnel-shaped vessels, open at the bottom, to allow the
+molasses to run off. Above are hogsheads of coarse, dark sugar; below is
+a huge pit of fermenting molasses, in which rats and small negroes
+occasionally commit involuntary suicide, and from which rum is made.--N.
+B. Rum is not a wicked word in Cuba; in Boston everybody is shocked when
+it is named, and in Cuba nobody is shocked when it is drunk.
+
+And here endeth the description of our visit to the sugar-plantation of
+Don Jacinto, and in good time, too,--for by this it had grown so hot,
+that we made a feeble rush for the _volante_, and lay back in it,
+panting for breath. Encountering a negress with a load of oranges on her
+head, we bought and ate the fruit with eagerness, though the oranges
+were bitter. The jolting over three miles of stone and rut did not
+improve the condition of our aching heads. Arriving at San Antonio, we
+thankfully went to bed for the rest of the morning, and dreamed, only
+dreamed, that the saucy black boy in the boiling-house had run after us,
+had lifted the curtain of the _volante_, screeched a last impertinence
+after us, and kissed his hand for a good-bye, which, luckily for him, is
+likely to prove eternal.
+
+
+
+
+THE MORRO FORTRESS--THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA--THE BENEFICENZA.
+
+
+The Spanish government experiences an unwillingness to admit foreigners
+into the Morro, their great stronghold, the causes of which may not be
+altogether mysterious. Americans have been of late especially excluded
+from it, and it was only by a fortunate chance that we were allowed to
+visit it. A friend of a friend of ours happened to have a friend in the
+garrison, and, after some delays and negotiations, an early morning hour
+was fixed upon for the expedition.
+
+The fort is finely placed at the entrance of the harbor, and is in
+itself a picturesque object. It is built of a light, yellowish stone,
+which is seen, as you draw near, in strong contrast with the vivid green
+of the tropical waters. We approached it by water, taking a rowboat from
+the Alameda. As we passed, we had a good view of a daily Havana
+spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and
+most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to
+the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they
+disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun.
+Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely
+back to the shore.
+
+But for the Morro. We entered without difficulty, and began at once a
+somewhat steep ascent, which the heat, even at that early hour, made
+laborious. After some climbing, we reached the top of the parapet, and
+looked out from the back of the fortress. On this side, if ever on any,
+it will be taken,--for, standing with one's back to the harbor, one
+sees, nearly on the right hand, a point where trenches could be opened
+with advantage. The fort is heavily gunned and garrisoned, and seems to
+be in fighting order. The outer wall is separated from the inner by a
+paved space some forty feet in width. The height of both walls makes
+this point a formidable one; but scaling-ladders could be thrown across,
+if one had possession of the outer wall. The material is the coralline
+rock common in this part of the island. It is a soft stone, and would
+prove, it is feared, something like the cotton-bag defence of New
+Orleans memory,--as the balls thrown from without would sink in, and not
+splinter the stone, which for the murderous work were to be wished. A
+little perseverance, with much perspiration, brought us to a high point,
+called the Lantern, which is merely a small room, where the telescope,
+signal-books, and signals are kept. Here we were received by an official
+in blue spectacles and with a hole in his boot, but still with that air
+of being the chiefest thing on God's earth common to all Spaniards. The
+best of all was that we brought a sack of oranges with us, and that the
+time was now come for their employment. With no other artillery than
+these did we take the very heart of the Morro citadel,--for, on offering
+them to the official with the hole, he surrendered at once, smiled, gave
+us seats, and sitting down with us, indeed, was soon in the midst of his
+half-dozenth orange. Having refreshed ourselves, examined the flags of
+all nations, and made all the remarks which our limited Spanish allowed,
+we took leave, redescended, and re�mbarked. One of our party, an old
+soldier, had meanwhile been busily scanning the points and angles of the
+fortress, pacing off distances, etc., etc. The result of his
+observations would, no doubt, be valuable to men of military minds. But
+the writer of this, to be candid, was especially engaged with the heat,
+the prospect, the oranges, and the soldiers' wives and children, who
+peeped out from windows here and there. Such trifling creatures do come
+into such massive surroundings, and trifle still!
+
+Our ladies, being still in a furious mood of sight-seeing, desired to
+visit the University of Havana, and, having made appointment with an
+accomplished Cuban, betook themselves to the College buildings with all
+proper escort. Their arrival in the peristyle occasioned some
+excitement. One of the students came up, and said, in good English,
+"What do you want?" Others, not so polite, stared and whispered in
+corners. A message to one of the professors was attended with some
+delay, and our Cuban friend, having gone to consult with him, returned
+to say, with some embarrassment, that the professor would be happy to
+show the establishment to the ladies on Sunday, at two, P.M., when every
+male creature but himself would be out of it; but as for their going
+through the rooms while the undergraduates were about, that was not to
+be thought of. "Why not?" asked the ladies. "For your own sake," said
+the messenger, and proceeded to explain that the appearance of the
+_skirted_ in these halls of learning would be followed by such
+ill-conduct and indignity of impertinence on the part of the _shirted_
+as might be intolerable to the one and disadvantageous to the other. Now
+there be women, we know, whose horrid fronts could have awed these saucy
+little Cubans into decency and good behavior, and some that we know,
+whether possessing that power or not, would have delighted in the
+fancied exercise of it. What strong-minded company, under these
+circumstances, would have turned back? What bolting, tramping, and
+rushing would they not have made through the ranks of the astonished
+professors and students? The Anniversary set, for example, who sweep the
+pews of men, or, coming upon one forlorn, crush him as a boa does a
+sheep. Our silly little flock only laughed, colored, and retreated to
+the _volantes_, where they held a council of war, and decided to go
+visit some establishment where possibly better manners might prevail.
+
+Returning on the Sunday, at the hour appointed, they walked through the
+deserted building, and found spacious rooms, the pulpits of the
+professors, the benches of the students, the Queen's portrait, a very
+limited library, and, for all consolation, some pleasant Latin sentences
+over the doors of the various departments, celebrating the solace and
+delights of learning. This was seeing the College, literally; but it was
+a good deal like seeing the lion's den, the lion himself being absent on
+leave,--or like visiting the hippopotamus in Regent's Park on those days
+in which he remains steadfastly buried in his tank, and will show only
+the tip of a nostril for your entrance-fee. Still, it was a pleasure to
+know that learning was so handsomely housed; and as for the little
+rabble who could not be trusted in the presence of the sex, we forgave
+them heartily, knowing that soberer manners would one day come upon
+them, as inevitably as baldness and paternity.
+
+Let me here say, that a few days in Havana make clear to one the
+seclusion of women in the East, and its causes. Wherever the animal
+vigor of men is so large in proportion to their moral power, as in those
+countries, women must be glad to forego their liberties for the
+protection of the strong arm. One master is better for them than many.
+Whatever tyranny may grow out of such barbarous manners, the institution
+springs from a veritable necessity and an original good intention. The
+Christian religion should change this, which is justifiable only in a
+Mohammedan country. But where that religion is so loosely administered
+as in Cuba, where its teachers themselves frequent the cock-pit and the
+gaming-table, one must not look for too much of its power in the manners
+and morals of men.
+
+The Beneficenza was our next station. It is, as its name signifies, an
+institution with a benevolent purpose, an orphan asylum and foundling
+hospital in one. The State here charitably considers that infants who
+are abandoned by their parents are as much orphaned as they can become
+by the interposition of death,--nay, more. The death of parents oftenest
+leaves a child with some friend or relative; but the foundling is cut
+off from all human relationship,--he belongs only to the hand that takes
+him up, when he has been left to die. Despite the kind cruelty of modern
+theories, which will not allow of suitable provision for the sufferer,
+for fear of increasing the frequency of the crime by which he suffers,
+our hearts revolt at the miserable condition of those little creatures
+in our great cities, confounded with hopeless pauperism in its desolate
+asylums, or farmed out to starve and die. They belong to the State, and
+the State should nobly retrieve the world's offence against them. Their
+broken galaxy shows many a bright star here and there. Such a little
+wailing creature has been found who has commanded great actions and done
+good service among men. Let us, then, cherish the race of foundlings, of
+whom Moses was the first and the greatest. The princess who reared him
+saw not the glorious destiny which lay hid, as a birth-jewel, in his
+little basket of reeds. She saw only, as some of us have seen, a
+helpless, friendless babe. When he dedicated to her his first edition of
+the Pentateuch--But, nay, he did not; for neither gratitude nor
+dedications were in fashion among the Jews.
+
+We found the Beneficenza spacious, well-ventilated, and administered
+with great order. It stands near the sea, with a fine prospect in view,
+and must command a cool breeze, if there be any. The children enjoy
+sea-bathing in summer. The superintendent received us most kindly, and
+presented us to the sisters who have charge of the children, who were
+good specimens of their class. We walked with them through the neat
+dormitories, and observed that they were much more airy than those of
+the Jesuit College, lately described. They all slept on the sackings of
+the cots, beds being provided only in the infirmary. In the latter place
+we found but two inmates,--one suffering from ordinary Cuban fever, the
+other with ophthalmia.--N.B. Disease of the eyes does not seem to be
+common in Cuba, in spite of the tropical glare of the sun; nor do people
+nurse and complain of their eyes there, as with us. We found a separate
+small kitchen for the sick, which was neat and convenient. The larger
+kitchen, too, was handsomely endowed with apparatus, and the
+superintendent told us, with a twinkle in his eye, that the children
+lived well. Coffee at six, a good breakfast at nine, dinner at the usual
+hour, bread and coffee before bed-time;--this seemed very suitable as to
+quantity, though differing from our ideas of children's food; but it
+must be remembered that the nervous stimulus of coffee is not found to
+be excessive in hot climates; it seems to be only what Nature
+demands,--no more. The kind nun who accompanied us now showed us, with
+some pride, various large presses, set in the wall, and piled to the top
+with clean and comfortable children's clothing. We came presently to
+where the boys were reciting their catechism. An ecclesiastic was
+hearing them;--they seemed ready enough with their answers, but were
+allowed to gabble off the holy words in a manner almost unintelligible,
+and quite indecorous. They were bright, healthy-looking little fellows,
+ranging apparently from eight to twelve in age. They had good
+play-ground set off for them, and shady galleries to walk up and down
+in. Coming from their quarter, the girls' department seemed quiet
+enough. Here was going on the eternal task of needlework, to which the
+sex has been condemned ever since Adam's discovery of his want of
+wardrobe. Oh, ye wretched, foolish women! why will ye forever sew? "We
+must not only sew, but be thankful to sew; that little needle being, as
+the sentimental Curtis has said, the only thing between us and the worst
+that may befall."
+
+These incipient women were engaged in various forms of sewing,--the most
+skilful in a sort of embroidery, like that which forms the border of
+_pi�a_ handkerchiefs. A few were reading and spelling. One poor blind
+girl sat amongst them, with melancholy arms folded, and learned
+nothing,--they told us, nothing; for the instruction of the blind is not
+thought of in these parts. This seemed piteous to us, and made us
+reflect how happy are _our_ blinds, to say nothing of our deafs and
+dumbs. Idiocy is not uncommon here, and is the result of continual
+intermarriage between near relations; but it will be long before they
+will provide it with a separate asylum and suitable instruction.
+
+But now came the saddest part of the whole exhibition,--a sight common
+enough in Europe, but, by some accident, hitherto unseen by us. Here is
+a sort of receptacle, with three or four compartments, which turns on a
+pivot. One side of it is open to the street, and in it the wretched
+parent lays the more wretched baby,--ringing a small bell, at the same
+time, for the new admittance; the parent vanishes, the receptacle turns
+on its pivot,--the baby is within, and, we are willing to believe, in
+merciful hands.
+
+The sight of this made, for the first time, the crime real to me. I saw,
+at a flash, the whole tragedy of desertion,--the cautious approach, the
+frightened countenance, the furtive act, and the great avenging pang of
+Nature after its consummation. What was Hester Prynne's pillory,
+compared to the heart of any of those mothers? I thought, too, of
+Rousseau, bringing to such a place as this children who had the right to
+inherit divine genius, and deserting them for the sordid reason that he
+did not choose to earn their bread,--the helpless mother weeping at
+home, and begging, through long years, to be allowed to seek and reclaim
+them.
+
+Well, here were the little creatures kindly cared for; yet what a
+piteous place was their nursery! Some of the recent arrivals looked as
+if ill-usage had been exhausted upon them before they were brought
+hither. Blows and drugs and starvation had been tried upon them, but,
+with the tenacity of infancy, they clung to life. They would not
+die;--well, then, they should live to regret it. Some of them lay on the
+floor, deformed and helpless; the older ones formed a little class, and
+were going through some elementary exercise when we passed. The babies
+had a large room allotted to them, and I found the wet-nurses
+apportioned one to each child. This appeared a very generous provision,
+as, in such establishments elsewhere, three and even four children are
+given to one nurse. They had comfortable cribs, on each of which was
+pinned the name of its little inmate, and the date of its
+entrance;--generally, the name and age of the child are found written on
+a slip of paper attached to its clothing, when it is left in the
+receptacle. I saw on one, "Cecilio, three weeks old." He had been but a
+few days in the establishment.
+
+Of course, I lingered longest in the babies' room, and longest of all
+near the crib of the little Cecilio. He was a pretty baby, and seemed to
+me the most ill-used of all, because the youngest. "Could they not bear
+with you three weeks, little fellow?" I said. "I know those at whose
+firesides such as you would have been welcome guests. That New York
+woman whom I met lately, young, rich, and childless,--I could commend
+you to her in place of the snarling little spaniel fiend who was her
+constant care and companion."
+
+But here the superintendent made a polite bow, saying,--"And now your
+Worships have seen all; for the chapel is undergoing repairs, and cannot
+be visited." And so we thanked, and departed.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL GRAY.
+
+
+  If I shall ever win the home in heaven
+    For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray,
+  In the great company of the forgiven
+    I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.
+
+  I knew him well; in fact, few knew him better;
+    For my young eyes oft read for him the Word,
+  And saw how meekly from the crystal letter
+    He drank the life of his beloved Lord.
+
+  Old Daniel Gray was not a man who lifted
+    On ready words his freight of gratitude,
+  And was not called upon among the gifted,
+    In the prayer-meetings of his neighborhood.
+
+  He had a few old-fashioned words and phrases,
+    Linked in with sacred texts and Sunday rhymes;
+  And I suppose, that, in his prayers and graces,
+    I've heard them all at least a thousand times.
+
+  I see him now,--his form, and face, and motions,
+    His homespun habit, and his silver hair,--
+  And hear the language of his trite devotions
+    Rising behind the straight-backed kitchen-chair.
+
+  I can remember how the sentence sounded,--
+    "Help us, O Lord, to pray, and not to faint!"
+  And how the "conquering-and-to-conquer" rounded
+    The loftier aspirations of the saint.
+
+  He had some notions that did not improve him:
+    He never kissed his children,--so they say;
+  And finest scenes and fairest flowers would move him
+    Less than a horseshoe picked up in the way.
+
+  He could see nought but vanity in beauty,
+    And nought but weakness in a fond caress,
+  And pitied men whose views of Christian duty
+    Allowed indulgence in such foolishness.
+
+  Yet there were love and tenderness within him;
+    And I am told, that, when his Charley died,
+  Nor Nature's need nor gentle words could win him
+    From his fond vigils at the sleeper's side.
+
+  And when they came to bury little Charley,
+    They found fresh dew-drops sprinkled in his hair,
+  And on his breast a rose-bud, gathered early,--
+    And guessed, but did not know, who placed it there.
+
+  My good old friend was very hard on fashion,
+    And held its votaries in lofty scorn,
+  And often burst into a holy passion
+    While the gay crowds went by, on Sunday morn.
+
+  Yet he was vain, old Gray, and did not know it!
+    He wore his hair unparted, long, and plain,
+  To hide the handsome brow that slept below it,
+    For fear the world would think that he was vain!
+
+  He had a hearty hatred of oppression,
+    And righteous words for sin of every kind;
+  Alas, that the transgressor and transgression
+    Were linked so closely in his honest mind!
+
+  Yet that sweet tale of gift without repentance,
+    Told of the Master, touched him to the core,
+  And tearless he could never read the sentence:
+    "Neither do I condemn thee: sin no more."
+
+  Honest and faithful, constant in his calling,
+    Strictly attendant on the means of grace,
+  Instant in prayer, and fearful most of falling,
+    Old Daniel Gray was always in his place.
+
+  A practical old man, and yet a dreamer,
+    He thought that in some strange, unlooked-for way,
+  His mighty Friend in heaven, the great Redeemer,
+    Would honor him with wealth some golden day.
+
+  This dream he carried in a hopeful spirit
+    Until in death his patient eye grew dim,
+  And his Redeemer called him to inherit
+    The heaven of wealth long garnered up for him.
+
+  So, if I ever win the home in heaven
+    For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray
+  In the great company of the forgiven
+    I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING.
+
+
+[Continued.]
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+The Doctor sat at his study-table. It was evening, and the slant beams
+of the setting sun shot their golden arrows through the healthy purple
+clusters of lilacs that veiled the windows. There had been a shower that
+filled them with drops of rain, which every now and then tattooed, with
+a slender rat-tat, on the window-sill, as a breeze would shake the
+leaves and bear in perfume on its wings. Sweet, fragrance-laden airs
+tripped stirringly to and fro about the study-table, making gentle
+confusions, fluttering papers on moral ability, agitating treatises on
+the great end of creation, mixing up subtile distinctions between
+amiable instincts and true holiness, and, in short, conducting
+themselves like very unappreciative and unphilosophical little breezes.
+
+The Doctor patiently smoothed back and rearranged, while opposite to him
+sat Mary, bending over some copying she was doing for him. One stray
+sunbeam fell on her light brown hair, tinging it to gold; her long,
+drooping lashes lay over the wax-like pink of her cheeks, as she wrote
+on.
+
+"Mary," said the Doctor, pushing the papers from him.
+
+"Sir," she answered, looking up, the blood just perceptibly rising in
+her cheeks.
+
+"Do you ever have any periods in which your evidences seem not
+altogether clear?"
+
+Nothing could show more forcibly the grave, earnest character of thought
+in New England at this time than the fact that this use of the term
+"evidences" had become universally significant and understood as
+relating to one's right of citizenship in a celestial, invisible
+commonwealth.
+
+So Mary understood it, and it was with a deepening flush she answered
+gently, "No, Sir."
+
+"What! never any doubts?" said the Doctor.
+
+"I am sorry," said Mary, apologetically; "but I do not see how I _can_
+have; I never could."
+
+"Ah!" said the Doctor, musingly, "would I could say so! There are times,
+indeed, when I hope I have an interest in the precious Redeemer, and
+behold an infinite loveliness and beauty in Him, apart from anything I
+expect or hope. But even then how deceitful is the human heart! how
+insensibly might a mere selfish love take the place of that
+disinterested complacency which regards Him for what He is in Himself,
+apart from what He is to us! Say, my dear friend, does not this thought
+sometimes make you tremble?"
+
+Poor Mary was truth itself, and this question distressed her; she must
+answer the truth. The fact was, that it had never come into her blessed
+little heart to tremble, for she was one of those children of the
+bride-chamber who cannot mourn, because the bridegroom is ever with
+them; but then, when she saw the man for whom her reverence was almost
+like that for her God thus distrustful, thus lowly, she could not but
+feel that her too calm repose might, after all, be the shallow,
+treacherous calm of an ignorant, ill-grounded spirit, and therefore,
+with a deep blush and a faltering voice, she said,--
+
+"Indeed, I am afraid something must be wrong with me. I _cannot_ have
+any fears,--I never could; I try sometimes, but the thought of God's
+goodness comes all around me, and I am so happy before I think of it!"
+
+"Such exercises, my dear friend, I have also had," said the Doctor; "but
+before I rest on them as evidences, I feel constrained to make the
+following inquiries:--Is this gratitude that swells my bosom the result
+of a mere natural sensibility? Does it arise in a particular manner
+because God has done me good? or do I love God for what He is, as well
+as for what He has done? and for what He has done for others, as well as
+for what He has done for me? Love to God which is built on nothing but
+good received is not incompatible with a disposition so horrid as even
+to curse God to His face. If God is not to be loved except when He does
+good, then in affliction we are free. If doing _us_ good is all that
+renders God lovely to us, then not doing us good divests Him of His
+glory, and dispenses us from obligation to love Him. But there must be,
+undoubtedly, some permanent reason why God is to be loved by all; and if
+not doing us good divests Him of His glory so as to free _us_ from our
+obligation to love, it equally frees the universe; so that, in fact, the
+universe of happiness, if ours be not included, reflects no glory on its
+Author."
+
+The Doctor had practised his subtile mental analysis till his
+instruments were so fine-pointed and keen-edged that he scarce ever
+allowed a flower of sacred emotion to spring in his soul without picking
+it to pieces to see if its genera and species were correct. Love,
+gratitude, reverence, benevolence,--which all moved in mighty tides in
+his soul,--were all compelled to pause midway while he rubbed up his
+optical instruments to see whether they were rising in right order.
+Mary, on the contrary, had the blessed gift of womanhood,--that vivid
+life in the soul and sentiment which resists the chills of analysis, as
+a healthful human heart resists cold; yet still, all humbly, she thought
+this perhaps was a defect in herself, and therefore, having confessed,
+in a depreciating tone, her habits of unanalyzed faith and love, she
+added,--
+
+"But, my dear Sir, you are my best friend. I trust you will be faithful
+to me. If I am deceiving myself, undeceive me; you cannot be too severe
+with me."
+
+"Alas!" said the Doctor, "I fear that I may be only a blind leader of
+the blind. What, after all, if I be only a miserable self-deceiver? What
+if some thought of self has come in to poison all my prayers and
+strivings? It is true, I think,--yes, I _think_," said the Doctor,
+speaking very slowly and with intense earnestness,--"I think, that, if I
+knew at this moment that my name never would be written among those of
+the elect, I could still see God to be infinitely amiable and glorious,
+and could feel sure that He _could_ not do me wrong, and that it was
+infinitely becoming and right that He should dispose of me according to
+His sovereign pleasure. I _think_ so;--but still my deceitful
+heart!--after all, I might find it rising in rebellion. Say, my dear
+friend, are you sure, that, should you discover yourself to be forever
+condemned by His justice, you would not find your heart rising up
+against Him?"
+
+"Against _Him_?" said Mary, with a tremulous, sorrowful expression on
+her face,--"against my Heavenly Father?"
+
+Her face flushed, and faded; her eyes kindled eagerly, as if she had
+something to say, and then grew misty with tears. At last she said,--
+
+"Thank you, my dear, faithful friend! I will think about this; _perhaps_
+I may have been deceived. How very difficult it must be to know one's
+self perfectly!"
+
+Mary went into her own little room, and sat leaning for a long time with
+her elbow on the window-seat, watching the pale shells of the
+apple-blossoms as they sailed and fluttered downward into the grass, and
+listened to a chippering conversation in which the birds in the nest
+above were settling up their small housekeeping accounts for the day.
+
+After a while, she took her pen and wrote the following, which the
+Doctor found the next morning lying on his study-table:--
+
+"MY DEAR, HONORED FRIEND,--How can I sufficiently thank you for your
+faithfulness with me? All you say to me seems true and excellent; and
+yet, my dear Sir, permit me to try to express to you some of the many
+thoughts to which our conversation this evening has given rise. To love
+God because He is good to me you seem to think is not a right kind of
+love; and yet every moment of my life I have experienced His goodness.
+When recollection brings back the past, where can I look that I see not
+His goodness? What moment of my life presents not instances of merciful
+kindness to me, as well as to every creature, more and greater than I
+can express, than my mind is able to take in? How, then, can I help
+loving God because He is good to me? Were I not an object of God's mercy
+and goodness, I cannot have any conception what would be my feeling.
+Imagination never yet placed me in a situation not to experience the
+goodness of God in some way or other; and if I do love Him, how can it
+be but because He is good, and to me good? Do not God's children love
+Him because He first loved them?
+
+"If I called nothing goodness which did not happen to suit my
+inclination, and could not believe the Deity to be gracious and merciful
+except when the course of events was so ordered as to agree with my
+humor, so far from imagining that I had any love to God, I must conclude
+myself wholly destitute of anything good. A love founded on nothing but
+good received is not, you say, incompatible with a disposition so horrid
+as even to curse God. I am not sensible that I ever in my life imagined
+anything _but_ good could come from the hand of God. From a Being
+infinite in goodness everything _must_ be good, though we do not always
+comprehend how it is so. Are not afflictions good? Does He not even in
+judgment remember mercy? Sensible that 'afflictions are but blessings in
+disguise,' I would bless the hand that, with infinite kindness, wounds
+only to heal, and love and adore the goodness of God equally in
+suffering as in rejoicing.
+
+"The disinterested love to God, which you think is alone the genuine
+love, I see not how we can be certain we possess, when our love of
+happiness and our love of God are so inseparably connected. The joys
+arising from a consciousness that God is a benefactor to me and my
+friends, (and when I think of God, every creature is my friend,) if
+arising from a selfish motive, it does not seem to me possible could be
+changed into hate, even supposing God my enemy, whilst I regarded Him as
+a Being infinitely just as well as good. If God is my enemy, it must be
+because I deserve He should be such; and it does not seem to me
+_possible_ that I should hate Him, even if I knew He would always be so.
+
+"In what you say of willingness to suffer eternal punishment, I don't
+know that I understand what the feeling is. Is it wickedness in me that
+I do not feel a willingness to be left to eternal sin? Can any one
+joyfully acquiesce in being thus left? When I pray for a new heart and a
+right spirit, must I be willing to be denied, and rejoice that my prayer
+is not heard? Could any real Christian rejoice in this? But he fears it
+not,--he knows it will never be,--he therefore can cheerfully leave it
+with God; and so can I.
+
+"Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts, poor and unworthy; yet they seem
+to me as certain as my life, or as anything I see. Am I unduly
+confident? I ask your prayers that I may be guided aright.
+
+"Your affectionate friend,
+
+"MARY."
+
+There are in this world two kinds of natures,--those that have wings,
+and those that have feet,--the winged and the walking spirits. The
+walking are the logicians: the winged are the instinctive and poetic.
+Natures that must always walk find many a bog, many a thicket, many a
+tangled brake, which God's happy little winged birds flit over by one
+noiseless flight. Nay, when a man has toiled till his feet weigh too
+heavily with the mud of earth to enable him to walk another step, these
+little birds will often cleave the air in a right line towards the bosom
+of God, and show the way where he could never have found it.
+
+The Doctor paused in his ponderous and heavy reasonings to read this
+real woman's letter; and being a loving man, he felt as if he could have
+kissed the hem of her garment who wrote it. He recorded it in his
+journal, and after it this significant passage from Canticles:--
+
+"I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the
+hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake this lovely one till
+she please."
+
+Mrs. Scudder's motherly eye noticed, with satisfaction, these quiet
+communings. "Let it alone," she said to herself; "before she knows it,
+she will find herself wholly under his influence." Mrs. Scudder was a
+wise woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+In the course of a day or two, a handsome carriage drew up in front of
+Mrs. Scudder's cottage, and a brilliant party alighted. They were
+Colonel and Madame de Frontignac, the Abb� L�fon, and Colonel Burr. Mrs.
+Scudder and her daughter, being prepared for the call, sat in afternoon
+dignity and tranquillity, in the best room, with their knitting-work.
+
+Madame de Frontignac had divined, with the lightning-like tact which
+belongs to women in the positive, and to French women in the superlative
+degree, that there was something in the cottage-girl, whom she had
+passingly seen at the party, which powerfully affected the man whom she
+loved with all the jealous intensity of a strong nature, and hence she
+embraced eagerly the opportunity to see her,--yes, to see her, to study
+her, to dart her keen French wit through her, and detect the secret of
+her charm, that she, too, might practise it.
+
+Madame de Frontignac was one of those women whose beauty is so striking
+and imposing, that they seem to kindle up, even in the most prosaic
+apartment, an atmosphere of enchantment. All the pomp and splendor of
+high life, the wit, the refinements, the nameless graces and luxuries of
+courts, seemed to breathe in invisible airs around her, and she made a
+Faubourg St. Germain of the darkest room into which she entered. Mary
+thought, when she came in, that she had never seen anything so splendid.
+She was dressed in a black velvet riding-habit, buttoned to the throat
+with coral; her riding-hat drooped with its long plumes so as to cast a
+shadow over her animated face, out of which her dark eyes shone like
+jewels, and her pomegranate cheeks glowed with the rich shaded radiance
+of one of Rembrandt's pictures. Something quaint and foreign, something
+poetic and strange, marked each turn of her figure, each article of her
+dress, down to the sculptured hand on which glittered singular and
+costly rings,--and the riding-glove, embroidered with seed-pearls, that
+fell carelessly beside her on the floor.
+
+In Antwerp one sees a picture in which Rubens, who felt more than any
+other artist the glory of the physical life, has embodied his conception
+of the Madonna, in opposition to the faded, cold ideals of the Middle
+Ages, from which he revolted with such a bound. _His_ Mary is a superb
+Oriental sultana, with lustrous dark eyes, redundant form, jewelled
+turban, standing leaning on the balustrade of a princely terrace, and
+bearing on her hand, _not_ the silver dove, but a gorgeous paroquet. The
+two styles, in this instance, were both in the same room; and as Burr
+sat looking from one to the other, he felt, for a moment, as one would
+who should put a sketch of Overbeck's beside a splendid painting of
+Titian's.
+
+For a few moments, everything in the room seemed faded and cold, in
+contrast with the tropical atmosphere of this regal beauty. Burr watched
+Mary with a keen eye, to see if she were dazzled and overawed. He saw
+nothing but the most innocent surprise and delight. All the slumbering
+poetry within her seemed to awaken at the presence of her beautiful
+neighbor,--as when one, for the first time, stands before the great
+revelations of Art. Mary's cheek glowed, her eyes seemed to grow deep
+with the enthusiasm of admiration, and, after a few moments, it seemed
+as if her delicate face and figure reflected the glowing loveliness of
+her visitor, just as the virgin snows of the Alps become incarnadine as
+they stand opposite the glorious radiance of a sunset sky.
+
+Madame de Frontignac was accustomed to the effect of her charms; but
+there was so much love in the admiration now directed towards her, that
+her own warm, nature was touched, and she threw out the glow of her
+feelings with a magnetic power. Mary never felt the cold, habitual
+reserve of her education so suddenly melt, never felt herself so
+naturally falling into language of confidence and endearment with a
+stranger; and as her face, so delicate and spiritual, grew bright with
+love, Madame de Frontignac thought she had never seen anything so
+beautiful, and, stretching out her hands towards her, she exclaimed, in
+her own language,--
+
+"_Mais, mon Dieu! mon enfant, que tu es belle_!"
+
+Mary's deep blush, at her ignorance of the language in which her visitor
+spoke, recalled her to herself;--she laughed a clear, silvery laugh, and
+laid her jewelled little hand on Mary's with a caressing movement.
+
+"_He_ shall not teach you French, _ma toute belle_" she said, indicating
+the Abb�, by a pretty, wilful gesture; "_I_ will teach you;--and you
+shall teach me English. Oh, I shall try _so_ hard to learn!" she said.
+
+There was something inexpressibly pretty and quaint in the childish lisp
+with which she pronounced English. Mary was completely won over. She
+could have fallen into the arms of this wondrously beautiful fairy
+princess, expecting to be carried away by her to Dream-land.
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Scudder was gravely discoursing with Colonel Burr and M.
+de Frontignac; and the Abb�, a small and gentlemanly personage, with
+clear black eye, delicately-cut features, and powdered hair, appeared to
+be absorbed in his efforts to follow the current of a conversation
+imperfectly understood. Burr, the while, though seeming to be entirely
+and politely absorbed in the conversation he was conducting, lost not a
+glimpse of the picturesque aside which was being enacted between the two
+fair ones whom he had thus brought together. He smiled quietly when he
+saw the effect Madame de Frontignac produced on Mary.
+
+"After all, the child has flesh and blood!" he thought, "and may feel
+that there are more things in heaven and earth than she has dreamed of
+yet. A few French ideas won't hurt her."
+
+The arrangements about lessons being completed, the party returned to
+the carriage. Madame de Frontignac was enthusiastic in Mary's praise.
+
+"_Cependant_" she said, leaning back, thoughtfully, after having
+exhausted herself in superlatives,--"_cependant elle est d�vote,--et �
+dix-neuf comment cela se peut il_?"
+
+"It is the effect of her austere education," said Burr. "It is not
+possible for you to conceive how young people are trained in the
+religious families of this country."
+
+"But yet," said Madame, "it gives her a grace altogether peculiar;
+something in her looks went to my heart. I could find it very easy to
+love her, because she is really good."
+
+"The Queen of Hearts should know all that is possible in loving," said
+Burr.
+
+Somehow, of late, the compliments which fell so readily from those
+graceful lips had brought with them an unsatisfying pain. Until a woman
+really _loves_, flattery and compliment are often like her native air;
+but when that deeper feeling has once awakened in her, her instincts
+become marvellously acute to detect the false from the true. Madame de
+Frontignac longed for one strong, unguarded, real, earnest word from the
+man who had stolen from her her whole being. She was beginning to feel
+in some dim wise what an untold treasure she was daily giving for tinsel
+and dross. She leaned back in the carriage, with a restless, burning
+cheek, and wondered why she was born to be so miserable. The thought of
+Mary's saintly face and tender eyes rose before her as the moon rises on
+the eyes of some hot and fevered invalid, inspiring vague yearnings
+after an unknown, unattainable peace.
+
+Could some friendly power once have made her at that time clairvoyant
+and shown her the _reality_ of the man whom she was seeing through the
+prismatic glass of her own enkindled ideality! Could she have seen the
+calculating quietness in which, during the intervals of a restless and
+sleepless ambition, he played upon her heart-strings, as one uses a
+musical instrument to beguile a passing hour,--how his only
+embarrassment was the fear that the feelings he was pleased to excite
+might become too warm and too strong, while as yet his relations to her
+husband were such as to make it dangerous to arouse his jealousy! And if
+he could have seen that pure ideal conception of himself which alone
+gave him power in the heart of this woman,--that spotless, glorified
+image of a hero without fear, without reproach,--would he have felt a
+moment's shame and abasement at its utter falsehood?
+
+The poet says that the Evil Spirit stood abashed when he saw virtue in
+an angel form! How would a man, then, stand, who meets face to face his
+own glorified, spotless ideal, made living by the boundless faith of
+some believing heart? The best must needs lay his hand on his mouth at
+this apparition; but woe to him who feels no redeeming power in the
+sacredness of this believing dream,--who with calculating shrewdness
+_uses_ this most touching miracle of love only to corrupt and destroy
+the loving! For him there is no sacrifice for sin, no place for
+repentance. His very mother might shrink in her grave to have him laid
+beside her.
+
+Madame de Frontignac had the high, honorable nature of the old blood of
+France, and a touch of its romance. She was strung heroically, and
+educated according to the notions of her caste and church, purely and
+religiously. True it is, that one can scarcely call _that_ education
+which teaches woman everything except herself,--_except_ the things that
+relate to her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness
+of ignorance, sends her without one word of just counsel into the
+temptations of life. Incredible as it may seem, Virginie de Frontignac
+had never read a romance or work of fiction of which love was the
+staple; the _r�gime_ of the convent in this regard was inexorable; at
+eighteen she was more thoroughly a child than most American girls at
+thirteen. On entrance into life, she was at first so dazzled and
+bewildered by the mere contrast of fashionable excitement with the
+quietness of the scenes in which she had hitherto grown up, that she had
+no time for reading or thought,--all was one intoxicating frolic of
+existence, one dazzling, bewildering dream.
+
+He whose eye had measured her for his victim verified, if ever man did,
+the proverbial expression of the iron hand under the velvet glove. Under
+all his gentle suavities there was a fixed, inflexible will, a calm
+self-restraint, and a composed philosophical measurement of others, that
+fitted him to bear despotic rule over an impulsive, unguarded nature.
+The position, at once accorded to him, of her instructor in the English
+language and literature, gave him a thousand daily opportunities to
+touch and stimulate all that class of finer faculties, so restless and
+so perilous, and which a good man approaches always with certain awe. It
+is said that he once asserted that he never beguiled a woman who did not
+come half-way to meet him,--an observation much the same as a serpent
+might make in regard to his birds.
+
+The visit of the morning was followed by several others. Madame de
+Frontignac seemed to conceive for Mary one of those passionate
+attachments which women often conceive for anything fair and
+sympathizing, at those periods when their whole inner being is made
+vital by the approaches of a grand passion. It took only a few visits to
+make her as familiar as a child at the cottage; and the whole air of the
+Faubourg St. Germain seemed to melt away from her, as, with the
+pliability peculiar to her nation, she blended herself with the quiet
+pursuits of the family. Sometimes, in simple straw hat and white
+wrapper, she would lie down in the grass under the apple-trees, or join
+Mary in an expedition to the barn for hen's eggs, or a run along the
+sea-beach for shells; and her childish eagerness and delight on these
+occasions used to arouse the unqualified astonishment of Mrs. Katy
+Scudder.
+
+The Doctor she regarded with a _na�ve_ astonishment, slightly tinctured
+with apprehension. She knew he was very religious, and stretched her
+comprehension to imagine what he might be like. She thought of Bossuet's
+sermons walking about under a Protestant coat, and felt vaguely alarmed
+and sinful in his presence, as she used to when entering under the
+shadows of a cathedral. In her the religious sentiment, though vague,
+was strong. Nothing in the character of Burr had ever awakened so much
+disapprobation as his occasional sneers at religion. On such occasions
+she always reproved him with warmth, but excused him in her heart,
+because he was brought up a heretic. She held a special theological
+conversation with the Abb�, whether salvation were possible to one
+outside of the True Church,--and had added to her daily prayer a
+particular invocation to the Virgin for him.
+
+The French lessons, with her assistance, proceeded prosperously. She
+became an inmate in Mrs. Marvyn's family also. The brown-eyed, sensitive
+woman loved her as a new poem; she felt enchanted by her; and the
+prosaic details of her household seemed touched to poetic life by her
+innocent interest and admiration. The young Madame insisted on being
+taught to spin at the great wheel; and a very pretty picture she made of
+it, too, with her earnest gravity of endeavor, her deepening cheek, her
+graceful form, with some strange foreign scarf or jewelry waving and
+flashing in odd contrast with her work.
+
+"Do you know," she said, one day, while thus employed in the north room
+at Mrs. Marvyn's,--"do you know Burr told me that princesses used to
+spin? He read me a beautiful story from the 'Odyssey,' about how
+Penelope cheated her lovers with her spinning, while she was waiting for
+her husband to come home;--_he_ was gone to sea, Mary,--her _true_
+love,--you understand."
+
+She turned on Mary a wicked glance, so full of intelligence that the
+snowdrop grew red as the inside of a sea-shell.
+
+"_Mon enfant_! thou hast a thought _deep in here_!" she said to Mary,
+one day, as they sat together in the grass under the apple-trees.
+
+"Why, what?" said Mary, with a startled and guilty look.
+
+"Why, what? _petite_!" said the fairy princess, whimsically mimicking
+her accent. "_Ah! ah! ma belle_! you think I have no eyes;--Virginie
+sees deep in here!" she said, laying her hand playfully on Mary's heart.
+"_Ah, petite_!" she said, gravely, and almost sorrowfully, "if you love
+him, wait for him,--_don't marry another_. It is dreadful not to have
+one's heart go with one's duty."
+
+"I shall never marry anybody," said Mary.
+
+"Nevare marrie anybodie!" said the lady, imitating her accents in tones
+much like those of a bobolink. "Ah! ah! my little saint, you cannot
+always live on nothing but the prayers, though prayers are verie good.
+But, _ma ch�re_," she added, in a low tone, "don't you ever marry that
+good man in there; priests should not marry."
+
+"Ours are not priests,--they are ministers," said Mary. "But why do you
+speak of him?--he is like my father."
+
+"Virginie sees something!" said the lady, shaking her head gravely; "she
+sees he loves little Mary."
+
+"Of course he does!"
+
+"Of-course-he-does?--ah, yes; and by-and-by comes the mamma, and she
+takes this little hand, and she says, 'Come, Mary!' and then she gives
+it to him; and then the poor _jeune homme_, when he comes back, finds
+not a bird in his poor little nest. _Oh, c'est ennuyeux cela_!" she
+said, throwing herself back in the grass till the clover-heads and
+buttercups closed over her.
+
+"I do assure you, dear Madame!"--
+
+"I do assure you, dear Mary, _Virginie knows_. So lock up her words in
+your little heart; you will want them some day."
+
+There was a pause of some moments, while the lady was watching the
+course of a cricket through the clover. At last, lifting her head, she
+spoke very gravely,--
+
+"My little cat! it is _dreadful_ to be married to a good man, and want
+to be good, and want to love him, and yet never like to have him take
+your hand, and be more glad when he is away than when he is at home; and
+then to think how different it would all be, if it was only somebody
+else. That will be the way with you, if you let them lead you into this;
+so don't you do it, _mon enfant_."
+
+A thought seemed to cross Mary's mind, as she turned to Madame de
+Frontignac, and said, earnestly,--
+
+"If a good man were my husband, I would never think of another,--I
+wouldn't let myself."
+
+"How could you help it, _mignonne_? Can you stop your thinking?"
+
+Mary said, after a moment's blush,--
+
+"I can _try_!"
+
+"Ah, yes! But to try all one's life,--oh, Mary, that is too hard! Never
+do it, darling!"
+
+And then Madame de Frontignac broke out into a carolling little French
+song, which started all the birds around into a general orchestral
+accompaniment.
+
+This conversation occurred just before Madame de Frontignac started for
+Philadelphia, whither her husband had been summoned as an agent in some
+of the ambitious intrigues of Burr.
+
+It was with a sigh of regret that she parted from her friends at the
+cottage. She made them a hasty good-bye call,--alighting from a splendid
+barouche with two white horses, and filling their simple best-room with
+the light of her presence for a last half-hour. When she bade good-bye
+to Mary, she folded her warmly to her heart, and her long lashes drooped
+heavily with tears.
+
+After her absence, the lessons were still pursued with the gentle, quiet
+little Abb�, who seemed the most patient and assiduous of teachers; but,
+in both houses, there was that vague _ennui_, that sense of want, which
+follows the fading of one of life's beautiful dreams! We bid her adieu
+for a season;--we may see her again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The summer passed over the cottage, noiselessly, as our summers pass.
+There were white clouds walking in saintly troops over blue mirrors of
+sea,--there were purple mornings, choral with bird-singing,--there were
+golden evenings, with long, eastward shadows. Apple-blossoms died
+quietly in the deep orchard grass, and tiny apples waxed and rounded and
+ripened and gained stripes of gold and carmine; and the blue eggs broke
+into young robins, that grew from gaping, yellow-mouthed youth to
+fledged and outflying maturity. Came autumn, with its long Indian
+summer, and winter, with its flinty, sparkling snows, under which all
+Nature lay a sealed and beautiful corpse. Came once more the spring
+winds, the lengthening days, the opening flowers, and the ever-renewing
+miracle of buds and blossoms on the apple-trees around the cottage. A
+year had passed since the June afternoon when first we showed you Mary
+standing under the spotty shadows of the tree, with the white dove on
+her hand--a year in which not many outward changes have been made in the
+relations of the actors of our story.
+
+Mary calmly spun and read and thought; now and then composing with care
+very English-French letters, to be sent to Philadelphia to Madame de
+Frontignac, and receiving short missives of very French-English in
+return.
+
+The cautions of Madame, in regard to the Doctor, had not rippled the
+current of their calm, confiding intercourse; and the Doctor, so very
+satisfied and happy in her constant society and affection, scarcely as
+yet meditated distinctly that he needed to draw her more closely to
+himself. If he had a passage to read, a page to be copied, a thought to
+express, was she not ever there, gentle, patient, unselfish? and scarce
+by the absence of a day did she let him perceive that his need of her
+was becoming so absolute that his hold on her must needs be made
+permanent.
+
+As to his salary and temporal concerns, they had suffered somewhat for
+his unpopular warfare with reigning sins,--a fact which had rather
+reconciled Mrs. Scudder to the dilatory movement of her cherished hopes.
+Since James was gone, what need to press imprudently to new
+arrangements? Better give the little heart time to grow over before
+starting a subject which a certain womanly instinct told her might be
+met with a struggle. Somehow she never thought without a certain
+heart-sinking of Mary's look and tone the night she spoke with her about
+James; she had an awful presentiment that that tone of voice belonged to
+the things that cannot be shaken. But yet, Mary seemed so even, so
+quiet, her delicate form filled out and rounded so beautifully, and she
+sang so cheerfully at her work, and, above all, she was so entirely
+silent about James, that Mrs. Scudder had hope.
+
+Ah, that silence! Do not listen to hear whom a woman praises, to know
+where her heart is! do not ask for whom she expresses the most earnest
+enthusiasm! but if there be one she once knew well, whose name she never
+speaks,--if she seem to have an instinct to avoid every occasion of its
+mention,--if, when you speak, she drops into silence and changes the
+subject,--why, look there for something! just as, when going through
+deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may
+know her nest is not there, but far off, under distant tufts of fern and
+buttercup, through which she has crept with a silent flutter in her
+spotted breast, to act her pretty little falsehood before you.
+
+Poor Mary's little nest was along the sedgy margin of the sea-shore,
+where grow the tufts of golden-rod, where wave the reeds, where crimson,
+green, and purple sea-weeds float up, like torn fringes of Nereid
+vestures, and gold and silver shells lie on the wet wrinkles of the
+sands.
+
+The sea had become to her like a friend, with its ever-varying monotony.
+Somehow she loved this old, fresh, blue, babbling, restless giant, who
+had carried away her heart's love to hide him in some far-off palmy
+island, such as she had often heard him tell of in his sea-romances.
+Sometimes she would wander out for an afternoon's stroll on the rocks,
+and pause by the great spouting cave, now famous to Newport
+_dilettanti_, but then a sacred and impressive solitude. There the
+rising tide bursts with deafening strokes through a narrow opening into
+some inner cavern, which, with a deep thunder-boom, like the voice of an
+angry lion, casts it back in a high jet of foam into the sea.
+
+Mary often sat and listened to this hollow noise, and watched the
+ever-rising columns of spray as they reddened with the transpiercing
+beams of the afternoon sun; and thence her eye travelled far, far off
+over the shimmering starry blue, where sails looked no bigger than
+miller's wings; and it seemed sometimes as if a door were opening by
+which her soul might go out into some eternity,--some abyss, so wide and
+deep, that fathomless lines of thought could not sound it. She was no
+longer a girl in a mortal body, but an infinite spirit, the adoring
+companion of Infinite Beauty and Infinite Love.
+
+As there was an hour when the fishermen of Galilee saw their Master
+transfigured, his raiment white and glistening, and his face like the
+light, so are there hours when our whole mortal life stands forth in a
+celestial radiance. From our daily lot falls off every weed of
+care,--from our heart-friends every speck and stain of earthly
+infirmity. Our horizon widens, and blue, and amethyst, and gold touch
+every object. Absent friends and friends gone on the last long journey
+stand once more together, bright with an immortal glow, and, like the
+disciples who saw their Master floating in the clouds above them, we
+say, "Lord, it is good to be here!" How fair the wife, the husband, the
+absent mother, the gray-haired father, the manly son, the bright-eyed
+daughter! Seen in the actual present, all have some fault, some flaw;
+but absent, we see them in their permanent and better selves. Of our
+distant home we remember not one dark day, not one servile care, nothing
+but the echo of its holy hymns and the radiance of its brightest
+days,--of our father, not one hasty word, but only the fulness of his
+manly vigor and noble tenderness,--of our mother, nothing of mortal
+weakness, but a glorified form of love,--of our brother, not one
+teasing, provoking word of brotherly freedom, but the proud beauty of
+his noblest hours,--of our sister, our child, only what is fairest and
+sweetest.
+
+This is to life the true ideal, the calm glass, wherein looking, we
+shall see, that, whatever defects cling to us, they are not, after all,
+permanent, and that we are tending to something nobler than we yet
+are;--it is "the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the
+purchased possession." In the resurrection we shall see our friends
+forever as we see them in these clairvoyant hours.
+
+We are writing thus on and on, linking image and thought and feeling,
+and lingering over every flower, and listening to every bird, because
+just before us there lies a dark valley, and we shrink and tremble to
+enter it.
+
+But it _must_ come, and why do we delay?
+
+
+Towards evening, one afternoon in the latter part of June, Mary returned
+from one of these lonely walks by the sea, and entered the kitchen. It
+was still in its calm and sober cleanness;--the tall clock ticked with a
+startling distinctness. From the half-closed door of her mother's
+bedroom, which stood ajar, she heard the chipper of Miss Prissy's voice.
+She stayed her light footsteps, and the words that fell on her ear were
+these:--
+
+"Miss Marvyn fainted dead away;--she stood it till he came to _that_;
+but then she just clapped both hands together, as if she'd been shot,
+and fell right forward on the floor in a faint!"
+
+What could this be? There was a quick, intense whirl of thoughts in
+Mary's mind, and then came one of those awful moments when the powers of
+life seem to make a dead pause and all things stand still; and then all
+seemed to fail under her, and the life to sink down, down, down, till
+nothing was but one dim, vague, miserable consciousness.
+
+Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy were sitting, talking earnestly, on the
+foot of the bed, when the door opened noiselessly, and Mary glided to
+them like a spirit,--no color in check or lip,--her blue eyes wide with
+calm horror; and laying her little hand, with a nervous grasp, on Miss
+Prissy's arm, she said,--
+
+"Tell me,--what is it?--is it?--is he--dead?"
+
+The two women looked at each other, and then Mrs. Scudder opened her
+arms.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+"Oh! mother! mother!"
+
+Then fell that long, hopeless silence, broken only by hysteric sobs from
+Miss Prissy, and answering ones from the mother; but _she_ lay still and
+quiet, her blue eyes wide and clear, making an inarticulate moan.
+
+"Oh! are they _sure_?--_can_ it be?--_is_ he dead?" at last she gasped.
+
+"My child, it is too true; all we can say is, 'Be still, and know that I
+am God!'"
+
+"I shall _try_ to be still, mother," said Mary, with a piteous, hopeless
+voice, like the bleat of a dying lamb; "but I did not think he _could_
+die! I never thought of that!--I never _thought_ of it!--Oh! mother!
+mother! mother! oh! what shall I do?"
+
+They laid her on her mother's bed,--the first and last resting-place of
+broken hearts,--and the mother sat down by her in silence. Miss Prissy
+stole away into the Doctor's study, and told him all that had happened.
+
+"It's the same to her," said Miss Prissy, with womanly reserve, "as if
+he'd been an own brother."
+
+"What was his spiritual state?" said the Doctor, musingly.
+
+Miss Prissy looked blank, and answered mournfully,--
+
+"I don't know."
+
+The Doctor entered the room where Mary was lying with closed eyes. Those
+few moments seemed to have done the work of years,--so pale, and faded,
+and sunken she looked; nothing but the painful flutter of the eyelids
+and lips showed that she yet breathed. At a sign from Mrs. Scudder, he
+kneeled by the bed, and began to pray,--"Lord, thou hast been our
+dwelling-place in all generations,"--prayer deep, mournful, upheaving
+like the swell of the ocean, surging upward, under the pressure of
+mighty sorrows, towards an Almighty heart.
+
+The truly good are of one language in prayer. Whatever lines or angles
+of thought may separate them in other hours, _when they pray in
+extremity_, all good men pray alike. The Emperor Charles V. and Martin
+Luther, two great generals of opposite faiths, breathed out their dying
+struggle in the self-same words.
+
+There be many tongues and many languages of men,--but the language of
+prayer is one by itself, _in_ all and _above_ all. It is the inspiration
+of that Spirit that is ever working with our spirit, and constantly
+lifting us higher than we know, and, by our wants, by our woes, by our
+tears, by our yearnings, by our poverty, urging us, with mightier and
+mightier force, against those chains of sin which keep us from our God.
+We speak not of _things_ conventionally called prayers,--vain mutterings
+of unawakened spirits talking drowsily in sleep,--but of such prayers as
+come when flesh and heart fail, in mighty straits;--_then_ he who prays
+is a prophet, and a Mightier than he speaks in him; for the "_Spirit_
+helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we
+ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings
+which cannot be uttered."
+
+So the voice of supplication, upheaving from that great heart, so
+childlike in its humility, rose with a wisdom and a pathos beyond what
+he dreamed in his intellectual hours; it uprose even as a strong angel,
+whose brow is solemnly calm, and whose wings shed healing dews of
+paradise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The next day broke calm and fair. The robins sang remorselessly in the
+apple-tree, and were answered by bobolink, oriole, and a whole tribe of
+ignorant little bits of feathered happiness that danced among the
+leaves. Golden and glorious unclosed those purple eyelids of the East,
+and regally came up the sun; and the treacherous sea broke into ten
+thousand smiles, laughing and dancing with every ripple, as
+unconsciously as if no form dear to human hearts had gone down beneath
+it. Oh! treacherous, deceiving beauty of outward things! beauty, wherein
+throbs not one answering nerve to human pain!
+
+Mary rose early and was about her morning work. Her education was that
+of the soldier, who must know himself no more, whom no personal pain
+must swerve from the slightest minutiae of duty. So she was there, at
+her usual hour, dressed with the same cool neatness, her brown hair
+parted in satin bands, and only the colorless cheek and lip differing
+from the Mary of yesterday.
+
+How strange this external habit of living! One thinks how to stick in a
+pin, and how to tie a string,--one busies one's self with folding robes,
+and putting away napkins, the day after some stroke that has cut the
+inner life in two, with the heart's blood dropping quietly at every
+step.
+
+Yet it is better so! Happy those whom stern principle or long habit or
+hard necessity calls from the darkened room, the languid trance of pain,
+in which the wearied heart longs to indulge, and gives this trite prose
+of common life, at which our weak and wearied appetites so revolt! Mary
+never thought of such a thing as self-indulgence;--this daughter of the
+Puritans had her seed within her. A�rial in her delicacy, as the
+blue-eyed flax-flower with which they sowed their fields, she had yet
+its strong fibre, which no stroke of the flail could break; bruising and
+hackling only made it fitter for uses of homely utility. Mary,
+therefore, opened the kitchen-door at dawn, and, after standing one
+moment to breathe the freshness, began spreading the cloth for an early
+breakfast. Mrs. Scudder, the mean while, was kneading the bread that had
+been set to rise over-night; and the oven was crackling and roaring with
+a large-throated, honest garrulousness.
+
+But, ever and anon, as the mother worked, she followed the motions of
+her child anxiously.
+
+"Mary, my dear," she said, "the eggs are giving out; hadn't you better
+run to the barn and get a few?"
+
+Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. No treatise on the laws of
+nervous fluids could have taught Mrs. Scudder a better _r�le_ for this
+morning, than her tender gravity, and her constant expedients to break
+and ripple, by changing employments, that deep, deadly under-current of
+thoughts which she feared might undermine her child's life.
+
+Mary went into the barn, stopped a moment, and took out a handful of
+corn to throw to her hens, who had a habit of running towards her and
+cocking an expectant eye to her little hand, whenever she appeared. All
+came at once flying towards her,--speckled, white, and gleamy with hues
+between of tawny orange-gold,--the cocks, magnificent with the bladelike
+waving of their tails,--and, as they chattered and cackled and pressed
+and crowded about her, pecking the corn, even where it lodged in the
+edge of her little shoes, she said, "Poor things, I am glad they enjoy
+it!"--and even this one little act of love to the ignorant fellowship
+below her carried away some of the choking pain which seemed all the
+while suffocating her heart. Then, climbing into the hay, she sought the
+nest and filled her little basket with eggs, warm, translucent,
+pinky-white in their freshness. She felt, for a moment, the customary
+animation in surveying her new treasures; but suddenly, like a vision
+rising before her, came a remembrance of once when she and James were
+children together and had been seeking eggs just there. He flashed
+before her eyes, the bright boy with the long black lashes, the dimpled
+cheeks, the merry eyes, just as he stood and threw the hay over her when
+they tumbled and laughed together,--and she sat down with a sick
+faintness, and then turned and walked wearily in.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+ROBA DI ROMA.
+
+
+[Continued.]
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+BEGGARS IN ROME.
+
+
+Directly above the Piazza di Spagna and opposite to the Via di Condotti,
+rise the double towers of the Trinit� de' Monti. The ascent to them is
+over one hundred and thirty-five steps, planned with considerable skill,
+so as to mask the steepness of the Pincian, and forming the chief
+feature of the Piazza. Various landings and dividing walls break up
+their monotony; and a red granite obelisk, found in the gardens of
+Sallust, crowns the upper terrace in front of the church. All day long,
+these steps are flooded with sunshine, in which, stretched at length, or
+gathered in picturesque groups, models of every age and both sexes bask
+away the hours when they are free from employment in the studios. Here,
+in a rusty old coat and long white beard and hair, is the _Padre
+Eterno_, so called from his constantly standing as model for the First
+Person of the Trinity in religious pictures. Here is the ferocious
+bandit, with his thick black beard and conical hat, now off duty, and
+sitting with his legs wide apart, munching in alternate bites an onion,
+which he holds in one hand, and a lump of bread, which he holds in the
+other. Here is the _contadina_, who is always praying at a shrine with
+upcast eyes, or lifting to the Virgin the little child, among whose dark
+curls, now lying tangled in her lap, she is on a vigorous hunt for the
+animal whose name denotes love. Here is the invariable pilgrim, with his
+scallop-shell, who has been journeying to St. Peter's and reposing by
+the way near aqueducts or broken columns so long that the memory of man
+runneth not to the contrary, and who is now fast asleep on his back,
+with his hat pulled over his eyes. When the _forestieri_ come along, the
+little ones run up and thrust out their hands for _baiocchi_; and so
+pretty are they, with their large, black, lustrous eyes, and their
+quaint, gay dresses, that new comers always find something in their
+pockets for them. Sometimes a group of artists, passing by, will pause
+and steadily examine one of these models, turn him about, pose him,
+point out his defects and excellences, give him a _baiocco_, and pass
+on. It is, in fact, the model's exchange. [Footnote: During this last
+winter, the government have prohibited the models, for I know not what
+reason, from gathering upon these steps; and they now congregate at the
+corner of the Via Sistina and Capo le Case, near the Pizzicheria, from
+which they supply themselves with groceries.]
+
+All this is on the lower steps, close to the Piazza di Spagna; but as
+one ascends to the last platform, before reaching the upper piazza in
+front of the Trinit� de' Monti, a curious squat figure, with two
+withered and crumpled legs, spread out at right angles and clothed in
+long stockings, comes shuffling along on his knees and hands, which are
+protected by clogs. As it approaches, it turns suddenly up from its
+quadrupedal position, takes off its hat, shows a broad, stout, legless
+_torso_, with a vigorous chest and a ruddy face, as of a person who has
+come half-way up from below the steps through a trap-door, and with a
+smile whose breadth is equalled only by the cunning which lurks round
+the corners of the eyes, says, in the blandest and most patronizing
+tones, with a rising inflection, "_Buon giorno, Signore! Oggi fa bel
+tempo_," or "_fa cattivo tempo_," as the case may be. This is no less a
+person than Beppo, King of the Beggars, and permanent bore of the Scale
+di Spagna. He is better known to travellers than the Belvedere Torso of
+Hercules at the Vatican, and has all the advantage over that wonderful
+work, of having an admirable head and a good digestion. Hans Christian
+Andersen has celebrated him in "The Improvvisatore," and unfairly
+attributed to him an infamous character and life; but this account is
+purely fictitious, and is neither _vero_ nor _ben trovato_. Beppo, like
+other distinguished personages, is not without a history. The Romans say
+of him, "_Era un Signore in paese suo_"--"He was a gentleman in his own
+country,"--and this belief is borne out by a certain courtesy and style
+in his bearing which would not shame the first gentleman in the land. He
+was undoubtedly of a good family in the provinces, and came to Rome,
+while yet young, to seek his fortune. His crippled condition cut him off
+from any active employment, and he adopted the profession of a
+mendicant, as being the most lucrative and requiring the least exertion.
+Remembering Belisarius, he probably thought it not beneath his own
+dignity to ask for an _obolus_. Should he be above doing what a general
+had done? However this may be, he certainly became a mendicant, after
+changing his name,--and, steadily pursuing this profession for more than
+a quarter of a century, by dint of his fair words, his bland smiles, and
+his constant "_Fa buon tempo_" and "_Fa cattivo tempo_," which, together
+with his withered legs, were his sole stock in starting, he has finally
+amassed a very respectable little fortune. He is now about fifty-five
+years of age, has a wife and several children; and a few years ago, on
+the marriage of a daughter to a very respectable tradesman, he was able
+to give her what was considered in Rome a more than respectable dowry.
+The other day, a friend of mine met a tradesman of his acquaintance
+running up the Spanish steps.
+
+"_Dove andate in una tanta affretta?_" he inquired.
+
+"_Al Banchiere mio._"
+
+"_Al Banchiere? Ma quale Banchiere sta in su le scale?_"
+
+"_Ma Beppo_," was the grave answer. "_Ho bisogna di sessanta scudi, e
+lui mele prester� senza difficolt�._"
+
+"_Da vero?_" said my friend.
+
+"_Eh sicuro, come gli pare_," said the other, as he went on to his
+banker. [Footnote: "Where are you going in such haste?"]
+
+"To my banker."
+
+"To your banker? But what banker is there above the steps?"
+
+"Only Beppo. I want sixty _scudi_, and he can lend them to ma without
+difficulty."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Beppo hires his bank--which is the upper platform of the steps--of the
+government, at a small rent _per annum_; and woe to any poor devil of
+his profession who dares to invade his premises! Hither, every fair day,
+at about noon, he comes mounted on his donkey and accompanied by his
+valet, a little boy, who, though not lame exactly, wears a couple of
+crutches as a sort of livery,--and as soon as twilight begins to thicken
+and the sun is gone, he closes his bank, (it is purely a bank of
+deposit,) crawls up the steps, mounts a stone post, and there
+majestically waits for his valet to bring the donkey. But he no more
+solicits deposits. His day is done; his bank is closed; and from his
+post he looks around, with a patronizing superiority, upon the poorer
+members of his profession, who are soliciting, with small success, the
+various passers by, as a king smiles down upon his subjects. The donkey
+being brought, he shuffles on to its crupper and makes a joyous and
+triumphant passage down through the streets of the city to his home. The
+bland business smile is gone. The wheedling subserviency of the day is
+over. The cunning eye opens largely. He is calm, dignified, and
+self-possessed. He mentions no more the state of the weather. What's
+Hecuba to him, at this free moment of his return? It is the large style
+in which all this is done that convinces me that Beppo was a "_Signore
+in paese suo_." He has a bank, and so has Sir Francis Baring. What of
+that? He is a gentleman still. The robber knights and barons demanded
+toll of those who passed their castles, with violence and threats, and
+at the bloody point of their swords. Whoso passes Beppo's castle is
+prayed in courtesy to leave a remembrance, and receives the blandest bow
+and thanks in return. Shall we, then, say, the former are nobles and
+gentlemen,--the other is a miserable beggar? Is it worse to ask than to
+seize? Is it meaner to thank than to threaten? If he who is supported by
+the public is a beggar, our kings are beggars, our pensions are charity.
+Did not the Princess Royal hold out her hand, the other day, to the
+House of Commons? and does any one think the worse of her for it? We are
+all, in measure, beggars; but Beppo, in the large style of kings and
+robber-barons, asks for his _baiocco_, and, like the merchant-princes,
+keeps his bank. I see dukes and _guardie nobili_, in shining helmets,
+spurs, and gigantic boots, ride daily through the streets on horseback,
+and hurry to their palaces; but Beppo, erectly mounted on his donkey in
+his short-jacket, (for he disdains the tailored skirts of a fashionable
+coat, though at times over his broad shoulders a great blue cloak is
+grandly thrown, after the manner of the ancient emperors,) is far more
+impressive, far more princely, as he slowly and majestically moves at
+nightfall towards his august abode. The shadows close around him as he
+passes along; salutations greet him from the damp shops; and darkness at
+last swallows up for a time the great square _torso_ of the "King of the
+Beggars."
+
+Begging, in Rome, is as much a profession as praying and shop-keeping.
+Happy is he who is born _stroppiato_, with a withered limb, or to whom
+Fortune sends the present of a hideous accident or malady; it is a stock
+to set up trade upon. St. Vitus's dance is worth its hundreds of _scudi_
+annually; epileptic fits are also a prize; and a distorted leg and
+hare-lip have a considerable market value. Thenceforth the creature who
+has the luck to have them is absolved from labor. He stands or lies in
+the sun, or wanders through the Piazza, and sings his whining,
+lamentable strophe of, "_Signore, povero stroppiato, datemi qualche cosa
+per amor di Dio!_"--and when the _baiocco_ falls into his hat, like ripe
+fruit from the tree of the stranger, he chants the antistrophe, "_Dio la
+benedica, la Madonna e tutti santi!_" [Footnote: Signore, a poor
+cripple; "give me something, for the love of God!--May God bless you,
+the Madonna, and all the saints!"] No refusal but one does he recognize
+as final,--and that is given, not by word of mouth, but by elevating the
+fore-finger of the right hand, and slowly wagging it to and fro. When
+this finger goes up he resigns all hope, as those who pass the gate of
+the Inferno, replaces his hat and lapses into silence, or turns away to
+some new group of sunny-haired foreigners. The recipe to avoid beggars
+is, to be black-haired, to wear a full beard, to smoke in the streets,
+speak only Italian, and shake the fore-finger of the right hand when
+besieged for charity. Let it not be supposed from this that the Romans
+give nothing to the beggars, but pass them by on the other side. This is
+quite a mistake. On the contrary, they give more than the foreigners;
+and the poorest class, out of their little, will always find something
+to drop into their hats for charity.
+
+The ingenuity which the beggars sometimes display in asking for alms is
+often humoristic and satirical. Many a woman on the cold side of thirty
+is wheedled out of a _baiocco_ by being addressed as _Signorina._ Many a
+half-suppressed exclamation of admiration, or a prefix of _Bella_,
+softens the hearts of those to whom compliments on their beauty come
+rarely. The other day, as I came out of the city gate of Siena, a ragged
+wretch, sitting, with one stump of a leg thrust obtrusively forward, in
+the dust of the road, called out, "_Una buona passeggiata, Signorino
+mio!_" (and this although my little girl, of thirteen years, accompanied
+me.) Seeing, however, that I was too old a bird for that chaff, he
+immediately added, "_Ma prima pensi alia conservazione dell' anima
+sua._" [Footnote: "A pleasant walk, young gentleman!"--"But first pay
+heed to the salvation of your soul."] A great many _baiocchi_ are also
+caught, from green travellers of the middle class, by the titles which
+are lavishly squandered by these poor fellows. _Illustrissimo,
+Eccellenza, Altezza_, will sometimes open the purse, when plain
+"_Mosshoe_" will not.
+
+The profession of a beggar is by no means an unprofitable one. A great
+many drops finally make a stream. The cost of living is almost nothing
+to them, and they frequently lay up money enough to make themselves very
+comfortable in their old age. A Roman friend of mine, Conte C., speaking
+of them one day, told me this illustrative anecdote:--
+
+"I had occasion," he said, "a few years ago, to reduce my family," (the
+servants are called, in Rome, the family,) "and having no need of the
+services of one under-servant, named Pietro, I dismissed him. About a
+year after, as I was returning to my house, after nightfall, I was
+solicited by a beggar, who whiningly asked me for charity. There was
+something in the voice which struck me as familiar, and, turning round
+to examine the man more closely, I found it was my old servant, Pietro.
+'Is that you, Pietro?' I said; 'you begging here in the streets! what
+has brought you to this wretched trade?' He gave me, however, no very
+clear account of himself, but evidently desired to avoid me when he
+recognized who I was. But, shocked to find him in so pitiable a
+condition, I pressed my questions, and finally told him I could not bear
+to see any one who had been in my service reduced to beggary; and though
+I had no actual need of his services, yet, rather than see him thus, he
+might return to his old position as servant in my house, and be paid the
+same wages as he had before. He hesitated, was much embarrassed, and,
+after a pause, said,--'A thousand thanks, your Excellency, for your
+kindness; but I cannot accept your proposal, because, to tell you the
+truth, I make more money by this trade of begging.'"
+
+But though the beggars often lay by considerable sums of money, so that
+they might, if they chose, live with a certain degree of comfort, yet
+they cannot leave off the habit of begging after having indulged it for
+many years. They get to be avaricious, and cannot bring their minds to
+spend the money they have. The other day, an old beggar, who used to
+frequent the steps of the Ges�, when about to die, ordered the hem of
+her garment to be ripped up, saying that there was money in it. In fact,
+about a thousand _scudi_ were found there, three hundred of which she
+ordered to be laid out upon her funeral, and the remainder to be
+appropriated to masses for her soul. This was accordingly done, and her
+squalid life ended in a pompous procession to the grave.
+
+The great holidays of the beggars are the country _festas_. Thronging
+out of the city, they spread along the highways, and drag, drive, roll,
+shuffle, hobble, as they can, towards the festive little town.
+Everywhere along the road they are to be met,--perched on a rock, seated
+on a bank, squatted beneath a wall or hedge, and screaming, with
+outstretched hand, from the moment a carriage comes in sight until it is
+utterly passed by. As one approaches the town where the _festa_ is held,
+they grow thicker and thicker. They crop up along the road like
+toadstools. They hold up every hideous kind of withered arm, distorted
+leg, and unsightly stump. They glare at you out of horrible eyes, that
+look like cranberries. You are requested to look at horrors, all without
+a name, and too terrible to be seen. All their accomplishments are also
+brought out. They fall into improvised fits; they shake with sudden
+palsies; and all the while keep up a chorus, half whine, half scream,
+which suffers you to listen to nothing else. It is hopeless to attempt
+to buy them all off, for they are legion in number, and to pay one
+doubles the chorus of the others. The clever scamps, too, show the
+utmost skill in selecting their places of attack. Wherever there is a
+sudden rise in the road, or any obstacle which will reduce the gait of
+the horses to a walk, there is sure to be a beggar. But do not imagine
+that he relies on his own powers of scream and hideousness alone,--not
+he! He has a friend, an ambassador, to recommend him to your notice, and
+to expatiate on his misfortunes. Though he himself can scarcely move,
+his friend, who is often a little ragged boy or girl, light of weight
+and made for a chase, pursues the carriage and prolongs the whine,
+repeating, with a mechanical iteration, "_Signore! Signore! datemi
+qualche cosa, Signore!_" until his legs, breath, and resolution give out
+at last; or, what is still commoner, your patience is wearied out or
+your sympathy touched, and you are glad to purchase the blessing of
+silence for the small sum of a _baiocco_. When his whining fails, he
+tries to amuse you; and often resorts to the oddest freaks to attract
+your notice. Sometimes the little rascal flings himself heels over head
+into the dust, and executes somersets without number, as if they had
+some hidden influence on the sentiment of compassion. Then, running by
+the side of the carriage, he will play upon his lips with both hands,
+making a rattling noise, to excite your curiosity. If you laugh, you are
+lost, and he knows it.
+
+As you reach the gates of the town, the row becomes furious. There are
+scores of beggars on either side the road, screaming in chorus. No
+matter how far the town be from the city, there is not a wretched,
+maimed cripple of your acquaintance, not one of the old stumps who have
+dodged you round a Roman corner, not a ragged baron who has levied toll
+for passage through the public squares, a privileged robber who has shut
+up for you a pleasant street or waylaid you at an interesting church,
+but he is sure to be there. How they got there is as inexplicable as how
+the apples got into the dumplings in Peter Pindar's poem. But at the
+first ring of a _festa_-bell, they start up from under ground, (those
+who are legless getting only half-way up,) like Roderick Dhu's men, and
+level their crutches at you as the others did their arrows. An English
+lady, a short time since, after wintering at Rome, went to take the
+baths at Siena in the summer. On going out for a walk, on the first
+morning after her arrival, whom should she meet but King Beppo, whom she
+had just left in Rome! He had come with the rest of the nobility for
+recreation and bathing, and of course had brought his profession with
+him.
+
+Owing to a great variety of causes, the number of beggars in Rome is
+very large. They grow here as noxious weeds in a hot-bed. The government
+neither favors commerce nor stimulates industry. Its policy is averse to
+change of any kind, even though it be for the development of its own
+resources or of the energies of the people. The Church is Brahmanic,
+contemplating only its own navel. Its influence is specially restrictive
+in Rome, because it is also the State there. It restrains not only
+trade, but education; it conserves exploded ideas and usages; it prefers
+not to grow, and looks with abhorrence upon change.
+
+Literature may be said to be dead in Rome. There is not only no free
+press there, but no press at all. The "Diario Romano" contains about as
+much news as the "Acta Diurna" of the ancient Romans, and perhaps less.
+I doubt whether at present such facts as those given by Petronius, in an
+extract from the latter, would now be permitted to be published.
+However, we know that Augustus prohibited the "Acta Diurna,"--and the
+"Diario Romano" exists still; so that some progress has been made. And
+it must be confessed that Tuscany is scarcely in advance of Rome in this
+respect; and Naples is behind both. Even the introduction of foreign
+works is so strictly watched and the censorship so severe, that few
+liberal books pass the cordon. The arguments in favor of a censorship
+are very plain, but not very conclusive. The more compressed the
+energies and desires of a people, the more danger of their bursting into
+revolution. There is no safety-valve to passions and desires like the
+utterance of them,--no better corrective to false ideas than the free
+expression of them. Freedom of thought can never be suppressed, and
+ideas kept too long pent up in the bosom, when heated by some sudden
+crisis of passion, will explode into license and fury. Let me put a
+column from Milton here into my own weak plaster; the words are well
+known, but cannot be too well known. "Though all the winds of doctrine,"
+he says, "were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the
+field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her
+strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the
+worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest
+suppressing." Here in Rome genius rots. The saddest words I almost ever
+heard were from a young Italian of ability and _esprit_.
+
+"Why," said I, in conversation with him, one day, "do you not devote
+your talents to some worthy object, instead of frittering them away in
+dancing, chatting, fencing, and morning-calls?"
+
+"What would you have me do?" he answered.
+
+"Devote yourself to some course of study. Write something."
+
+"_Mio caro_" was his reply, "it is useless. How can I write what I
+think? How can I publish what I write? I have now manuscript works begun
+in my desk, which it would be better to burn. Our only way to be happy
+is to be idle and ignorant. The more we know, the unhappier we must be.
+There is but one avenue for ambition,--the Church. I was not made for
+that."
+
+This restrictive policy of the Church makes itself felt everywhere, high
+and low; and by long habit the people have become indolent and supine.
+The splendid robes of ecclesiastical Rome have a draggled fringe of
+beggary and vice. What a change there might be, if the energies of the
+Italians, instead of rotting in idleness, could have a free scope!
+Industry is the only purification of a nation; and as the fertile and
+luxuriant Campagna stagnates into malaria, because of its want of
+ventilation and movement, so does this grand and noble people. The
+government makes what use it can, however, of the classes it exploits by
+its system; but things go in a vicious circle. The people, kept at a
+stand-still, become idle and poor; idleness and poverty engender vice
+and crime; crime fills the prisons; and the prisons afford a body of
+cheap slaves to the government.
+
+To-day, as I am writing, some hundreds of _for�ats_, in their striped
+brown uniforms, are tugging at their winches and ropes to drag the
+column of the Immaculate Virgin to its pedestal on the Piazza di Spagna.
+By the same system of compulsory labor, the government, despite its
+limited financial resources, is enabled to carry out public projects
+which, with well-paid workmen, would be too expensive to be feasible. In
+this manner, for instance, for an incredibly small sum, was built the
+magnificent viaduct which spans with its triple tier of arches the
+beautiful Val di L'Arriccia. But, for my own part, I cannot look upon
+this system as being other than very bad, in every respect. And when,
+examining into the prisons themselves, I find that the support of these
+poor criminal slaves is farmed out by the government to some responsible
+person at the lowest rate that is offered, generally for five or six
+_baiocchi_ apiece _per diem_, and often refarmed by him at a still lower
+rate, until the poor wretches are reduced to the very minimum of
+necessary food as to quantity and quality, I confess that I cannot look
+with pleasure on the noble viaduct at L'Arriccia, or the rich column to
+the Immaculate Virgin, erected by the labor of their hands.
+
+Within a few years the government seemed to become conscious of the
+great number of beggars in Rome, and of the reproach they offered to the
+wise and paternal regulations of the priestcraft. Accordingly, for a
+short time, they carried on a move in the right direction, which had
+been begun by the Triumvirate of 1849, during their short career. Some
+hundreds of the beggars were hired at the rate of a few _baiocchi_ a day
+to carry on excavations in the Forum and in the Baths of Caracalla. The
+selection was most appropriate. Only the old, decrepit, and broken-down
+were taken,--the younger and sturdier were left. Ruined men were in
+harmony with the ruined temples. Such a set of laborers was never before
+seen. Falstaff's ragged regiment was a joke to them. Each had a
+wheelbarrow, a spade, or pick, and a cloak; but the last was the most
+important part of their equipment. Some of them picked at the earth with
+a gravity that was equalled only by the feebleness of the effort and the
+poverty of the result. Three strokes so wearied them that they were
+forced to pause and gather strength, while others carried away the
+ant-hills which the first dug up. It seemed an endless task to fill the
+wheelbarrows. Fill, did I say? They were never filled. After a bucketful
+of earth had been slowly shovelled in, the laborer paused, laid down his
+spade carefully on the little heap, sighed profoundly, looked as if to
+receive congratulations on his enormous success, then, flinging, with a
+grand sweep, the tattered old cloak over his left shoulder, lifted his
+wheelbarrow-shafts with dignity, and marched slowly and measuredly
+forward towards the heap of deposit, as Belisarius might have moved at a
+funeral in the intervals of asking for _oboli_. But reduced gentlemen,
+who have been accustomed to carry round the hat as an occupation, always
+have a certain air of condescension when they work for pay, and, by
+their dignity of deportment, make you sensible of their former superior
+state. Occasionally, in case a _forestiere_ was near, the older, idler,
+and more gentlemanlike profession would be resumed for a moment, (as by
+parenthesis,) and if without success, a sadder dignity would be seen in
+the subsequent march. Very properly for persons who had been reduced
+from beggary to work, they seemed to be anxious both for their health
+and their appearance in public, and accordingly a vast deal more time
+was spent in the arrangement of the cloak than in any other part of the
+business. It was grand in effect, to see these figures, incumbered in
+their heavy draperies, guiding their wheelbarrows through the great
+arches of Caracalla's Baths or along the Via Sacra. It often reminded me
+of modern _bassi-rilievi_ and portrait statues, in which gentlemen
+looking sideways with very modern faces, and both hands full of swords,
+pens, or books, stand impotently swaddled up in ancient togas or the
+folds of similar enormous cloaks. The antique treatment with the modern
+subject was evident in both. If sometimes, with a foolish spirit of
+innovation, one felt inclined to ask what purpose in either case these
+heroic mantles subserved, and whether, in fact, they could not be
+dispensed with to advantage, he was soon made to know that his inquiry
+indicated ignorance, and a desire to debase in the one case Man, in the
+other Art.
+
+It would, however, be a grievous mistake to suppose that all the beggars
+in the streets of Rome are Romans. In point of fact, the greater number
+are strangers, who congregate in Rome during the winter from every
+quarter. Naples and Tuscany send them by thousands. Every little country
+town of the Abruzzi Mountains yields its contribution. From north,
+south, east, and west they flock here as to a centre where good pickings
+may be had of the crumbs that fall from the rich men's tables. In the
+summer season they return to their homes with their earnings, and not
+one in five of those who haunted the churches and streets in the winter
+is to be seen.
+
+It is but justice to the Roman government to say that its charities are
+very large. If, on the one hand, it does not encourage commerce and
+industry, on the other, it liberally provides for the poor. In
+proportion to its means, no government does more, if so much. Every
+church has its _Cassa dei Poveri_. Numerous societies, such as the
+_Sacconi_, and other confraternities, employ themselves in accumulating
+contributions for the relief of the poor and wretched. Well-endowed
+hospitals exist for the care of the sick and unfortunate; and there are
+various establishments for the charge and education of poor orphans. A
+few figures will show how ample are these charities. The revenue of
+these institutions is no less than eight hundred and forty thousand
+_scudi_ annually, of which three hundred thousand are contributed by the
+Papal treasury, forty thousand of which are a tax upon the Lottery. The
+hospitals, altogether, accommodate about four thousand patients, the
+average number annually received amounting to about twelve thousand; and
+the foundling hospitals alone are capable of receiving upwards of three
+thousand children annually. Besides the hospitals for the sick, there is
+also a hospital for poor convalescents at Sta Trinit� dei Pellegrini, a
+lunatic asylum containing about four hundred patients, one for
+incurables at San Giacomo, a lying-in hospital at San Rocco, and a
+hospital of education and industry at San Michele. There are also
+thirteen societies for bestowing dowries on poor young girls on their
+marriage; and from the public purse, for the same object, are expended
+every year no less than thirty-two thousand _scudi_. In addition to
+these charities, are the sums collected and administered by the various
+confraternities, as well as the sum of one hundred and seventy-two
+thousand _scudi_ distributed to the poor by the commission of subsidies.
+But though so much money is thus expended, it cannot be said that it is
+well administered. The proportion of deaths at the hospitals is very
+large; and among the foundlings, it amounted, between the years 1829 and
+1833, to no less than seventy-two _per cent_.
+
+The arrangements at these institutions were very much improved during
+the career of the Triumvirate, and, under the auspices of the Princess
+Belgiojoso, cleanliness, order, and system were introduced. The heroism
+of this noble-hearted woman during the trying days of the Roman siege
+deserves a better record than I can give. She gave her whole heart and
+body to the regeneration of the hospitals, and the personal care of the
+sick and wounded. Her head-quarters were at the Hospital _dei
+Pellegrini_. Day after day and night after night she was at her post,
+never moving from her chair, except to visit the various wards, and to
+comfort with tender words the sufferers in their beds. Their faces,
+contorted with pain, smoothed at her approach; and her hand and voice
+carried consolation wherever she went. Many a scene have I witnessed
+there more affecting than any tragedy, in which I knew not which most to
+admire, the heroism of the sufferers or the tender humanity of the
+consoler and nurse. In all her arrangements she showed that masterly
+administrative faculty in which women are far superior to men. When she
+came to the Pellegrini, all was in disorder; but a few days sufficed to
+reduce a chaotic confusion to exact and admirable system. Hers was the
+brain that regulated all the hospitals. Always calm, she distributed her
+orders with perfect tact and precision, and with a determination of
+purpose and clearness of perception which commanded the minds of all
+about her. The care, fatigue, and labor which she underwent would have
+broken down a less determined spirit. Nothing moved except from her
+touch. In a little damp cell, a pallet of straw was laid on the brick
+floor, and there, when utterly overcome, she threw herself down to sleep
+for a couple of hours,--no more; all the rest of the time she sat at her
+desk, writing orders, giving directions, and supervising the new
+machinery which owed its existence to her.
+
+With the return of the Papal government came the old system. Certain it
+is that _that_ system does not work well. Despite the enormous sums
+expended in charity, the people are poor, the mortality in the hospitals
+is very large. "Something is rotten in the state of" Rome.
+
+There is one noble exception not to be forgotten. To the Hospital of San
+Michele Cardinal Tosti has given a new life and vigor, and set an
+example worthy of his elevated position in the Church. This foundation
+was formerly an asylum for poor children and infirm and aged persons;
+but of late years an industrial and educational system has been
+ingrafted upon it, until it has become one of the most enlarged and
+liberal institutions that can anywhere be found. It now embraces not
+only an asylum for the aged, a house of correction for juvenile
+offenders and women, and a house of industry for children of both sexes,
+but also a school of arts, in which music, painting, drawing,
+architecture, and sculpture are taught gratuitously to the poor, and a
+considerable number of looms, at which from eight hundred to one
+thousand persons are employed for the weaving of woollen fabrics for the
+government. A stimulus has thus been given to education and to industry,
+and particularly to improvements in machinery and manufacture. Once a
+year, during the holy week, religious dramas and operas, founded on some
+Biblical subject, are creditably performed by the pupils in a private
+theatre connected with the establishment. I was never present but at one
+of these representations, when the tragical story of Shadrach, Meshach,
+and Ahednego was performed. Honor to Cardinal Tosti for his successful
+efforts in this liberal direction!
+
+At many of the convents in Rome, it is the custom at noon to distribute,
+gratis, at the door, a quantity of soup, and any poor person may receive
+a bowlful on demand. Many of the beggars thus become pensioners of the
+convents, and may be seen daily at the appointed hour gathering round
+the door with their bowl and wooden spoon, in expectation of the _Frate_
+with the soup. This is generally made so thick with cabbage that it
+might be called a cabbage-stew; but Soyer himself never made a dish more
+acceptable to the palate of the guests than this. No nightingales'
+tongues at a banquet of Tiberius, no edible birds-nests at a Chinese
+feast, were ever relished with more gusto. The figures and actions of
+these poor wretches, after they have obtained their soup, make one sigh
+for human nature. Each, grasping his portion as if it were a treasure,
+separates himself immediately from his brothers, flees selfishly to a
+corner, if he can find one empty, or, if not, goes to a distance, turns
+his back on his friends, and, glancing anxiously at intervals all
+around, as if in fear of a surprise, gobbles up his cabbage, wipes out
+his bowl, and then returns to companionship or disappears. The idea of
+sharing his portion with those who are portionless occurs to him only as
+the idea of a robber to the mind of a miser.
+
+Any account of the beggars of Rome without mention of the Capuchins and
+Franciscans would be like performing the "Merchant of Venice" with no
+Shylock; for these orders are founded in beggary and supported by
+charity. The priests do not beg; but their ambassadors, the
+lay-brothers, clad in their long, brown serge, a cord around their
+waist, and a basket on their arm, may be seen shuffling along at any
+hour and in every street, in dirty sandalled feet, to levy contributions
+from shops and houses. Here they get a loaf of bread, there a pound of
+flour or rice, in one place fruit or cheese, in another a bit of meat,
+until their basket is filled. Sometimes money is given, but generally
+they are paid in articles of food. There is another set of these
+brothers who enter your studio or ring at your bell and present a little
+tin box with a slit in it, into which you are requested to drop any sum
+you please, for the holidays, for masses, for wax candles, etc. As a big
+piece of copper makes more ring than gold, it is generally given, and
+always gratefully received. Sometimes they will enter into conversation,
+and are always pleased to have a little chat about the weather. They are
+very poor, very good-natured, and very dirty. It is a pity they do not
+baptize themselves a little more with the material water of this world.
+But they seem to have a hydrophobia. Whatever the inside of the platter
+may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day and they sleep
+by night in the same old snuffy robe, which is not kept from contact
+with the skin by any luxury of linen, until it is worn out. Dirt and
+piety seem to them synonymous. Sometimes I have deemed, foolishly
+perhaps, but after the manner of my nation, that their goodness would
+not wash off with the soil of the skin,--that it was more than
+skin-deep; but as this matter is above reason, in better moods I have
+faith that it would. Still, in disbelieving moments, I cannot help
+applying to them Charles Lamb's famous speech,--"If dirt were trumps,
+what a hand they would have of it!" Yet, beggars as they are, they have
+the reputation at Rome of being the most inoffensive of all the
+conventual orders, and are looked upon by the common people with
+kindliness, as being thoroughly sincere in their religious professions.
+They are, at least, consistent in many respects in their professions and
+practice. They really mortify the flesh by penance, fasting, and
+wretched fare, as well as by dirt. They do not proclaim the virtues and
+charms of poverty, while they roll about in gilded coaches dressed in
+"purple and fine linen," or gloat over the luxuries of the table. Their
+vices are not the cardinal ones, whatever their virtues may be. The
+"Miracles of St. Peter," as the common people call the palaces of Rome,
+are not wrought for them. Their table is mean and scantily provided with
+the most ordinary food. Three days in the week they eat no meat; and
+during the year they keep three _Quaresime_. But, good as they are,
+their sour, thin wine, on empty, craving stomachs, sometimes does a mad
+work; and these brothers in dirt and piety have occasionally violent
+rows and disputes in their refectories over their earthen bottles. It is
+only a short time since that my old friends the Capuchins got furious
+together over their wine, and ended by knocking each other about the
+ears with their earthen jars, after they had emptied them. Several were
+wounded, and had time to repent and wash in their cells. But one should
+not be too hard on them. The temper will not withstand too much fasting.
+A good dinner puts one at peace with the world, but an empty stomach is
+the habitation often of the Devil, who amuses himself there with pulling
+all the nerve-wires that reach up into the brain. I doubt whether even
+St. Simeon Stylites always kept his temper as well as he did his fast.
+
+As I see them walking up and down the alleys of their vegetable garden,
+and under the sunny wall where oranges glow and roses bloom, without the
+least asceticism, during the whole winter, I do not believe in their
+doctrine, nor envy them their life. And I cannot but think that the one
+hundred and fifty thousand _Frati_ who are in the Roman States would do
+quite as good service to God and man, if they were an army of laborers
+on the Campagna, or elsewhere, as in their present life of beggary and
+self-contemplation. I often wonder, as I look at them, hearty and stout
+as they are, despite their mode of life, what brought them to this pass,
+what induced them to enter this order,--and recall, in this connection,
+a little anecdote current here in Rome, to the following effect:--A
+young fellow, from whom Fortune had withheld her gifts, having become
+desperate, at last declared to a friend that he meant to throw himself
+into the Tiber, and end a life which was worse than useless. "No, no,"
+said his friend, "don't do that. If your affairs are so desperate,
+retire into a convent, become a Capuchin." _"Ah, non!_" was the
+indignant answer; "I am desperate; but I have not yet arrived at such a
+pitch of desperation."
+
+Though the Franciscans live upon charity, they have almost always a
+garden connected with their convent, where they raise multitudes of
+cabbages, cauliflowers, _finocchi_, peas, beans, artichokes, and
+lettuce. Indeed, there is one kind of the latter which is named after
+them,--_capuccini_. But their gardens they do not till themselves; they
+hire gardeners, who work for them. Now I cannot but think that working
+in a garden is just as pious an employment as begging about the streets,
+though perhaps scarcely as profitable. The opinion, that, in some
+respects, it would be better for them to attend to this work themselves,
+was forced upon my mind by a little farce I happened to see enacted
+among their cabbages, the other day, as I was looking down out of my
+window. My attention was first attracted by hearing a window open from a
+little three-story-high _loggia_, opposite, hanging over their garden. A
+woman came forth, and, from amid the flower-pots which half-concealed
+her, she dropped a long cord to the ground. "_Pst, Pst_," she cried to
+the gardener at work below. He looked up, executed a curious pantomime,
+shrugged his shoulders, shook his fore-finger, and motioned with his
+head and elbow sideways to a figure, visible to me, but not to her, of a
+brown Franciscan, who was amusing himself in gathering some _finocchi_,
+just round the corner of the wall. The woman, who was fishing for the
+cabbages, immediately understood the predicament, drew up her cord,
+disappeared from the _loggia_, and the curtain fell upon the little
+farce. The gardener, however, evidently had a little soliloquy after she
+had gone. He ceased working, and gazed at the unconscious Franciscan for
+some time, with a curious grimace, as if he were not quite satisfied at
+thus losing his little perquisite.
+
+These brown-cowled gentlemen are not the only ones who carry the tin
+box. Along the curbstones of the public walks, and on the steps of the
+churches, sit blind old creatures, and shake at you a tin box, outside
+of which is a figure of the Madonna, and inside of which are two or
+three _baiocchi_, as a rattling accompaniment to an unending invocation
+of aid. Their dismal chant is protracted for hours and hours, increasing
+in loudness whenever the steps of a passer-by are heard. It is the old
+strophe and antistrophe of begging and blessing, and the singers are so
+wretched that one is often softened into charity. Those who are not
+blind have often a new _Diario_ or _Lunario_ to sell towards the end of
+the year, and at other times they vary the occupation of shaking the box
+by selling lives of the saints, which are sometimes wonderful enough.
+One sad old woman, who sits near the Quattro Fontane, and says her
+prayers and rattles her box, always touches my heart, there is such an
+air of forlornness and sweetness about her. As I was returning, last
+night, from a mass at San Giovanni in Laterano, an old man glared at us
+through great green goggles,--to which Jealousy's would have yielded in
+size and color,--and shook his box for a _baiocco_. "And where does this
+money go?" I asked. "To say masses for the souls of those who die over
+opposite," said he, pointing to the Hospital of San Giovanni, through
+the open doors of which we could see the patients lying in their beds.
+
+Nor are these the only friends of the box. Often in walking the streets
+one is suddenly shaken in your ear, and, turning round, you are startled
+to see a figure entirely clothed in white from head to foot, a rope
+round his waist, and a white _capuccio_ drawn over his head and face,
+and showing, through two round holes, a pair of sharp black eyes behind
+them. He says nothing, but shakes his box at you, often threateningly,
+and always with an air of mystery. This is a penitent _Saccone_; and as
+this _confraternit�_ is composed solely of noblemen, he may be one of
+the first princes or cardinals in Rome, performing penance in expiation
+of his sins; or, for all you can see, it may be one of your intimate
+friends. The money thus collected goes to various charities. They always
+go in couples,--one taking one side of the street, the other the
+opposite,--never losing sight of each other, and never speaking. Clothed
+thus in secresy, these _Sacconi_ can test the generosity of any one they
+please with complete impunity, and they often amuse themselves with
+startling foreigners. Many a group of English girls, convoyed by their
+mother, and staring into some mosaic or cameo shop, is scared into a
+scream by the sudden jingle of the box, and the apparition of the
+spectre in white who shakes it. And many a simple old lady retains to
+the end of her life a confused impression, derived therefrom, of
+Inquisitions, stilettos, tortures, and banditti, from which it is vain
+to attempt to dispossess her mind. The stout old gentleman, with a bald
+forehead and an irascibly rosy face, takes it often in another
+way,--confounds the fellows for their impertinence, has serious notions,
+first, of knocking them down on the spot, and then of calling the
+police, but finally concludes to take no notice of them, as they are
+nothing but _Eye_-talians, who cannot be expected to know how to behave
+themselves in a rational manner. Sometimes a _santa elemosina_ is
+demanded after the oddest fashion. It was only yesterday that I met one
+of the _confraternit�_, dressed in a shabby red suit, coming up the
+street, with the invariable oblong tin begging-box in his hand,--a
+picture of Christ on one side, and of the Madonna on the other. He went
+straight to a door, opening into a large, dark room, where there was a
+full cistern of running water, at which several poor women were washing
+clothes, and singing and chatting as they worked. My red acquaintance
+suddenly opens the door, letting in a stream of light upon this
+Rembrandtish interior, and, lifting his box with the most wheedling of
+smiles, he says, with a rising inflection of voice, as if asking a
+question,--"_Prezioso sangue di Ges� Christo?_"--( Precious blood of
+Jesus Christ?)
+
+The last, but by no means the meanest, of the tribe of pensioners whom I
+shall mention, is my old friend, "Beefsteak,"--now, alas! gone to the
+shades of his fathers. He was a good dog,--a mongrel, a Pole by
+birth,--who accompanied his master on a visit to Rome, where he became
+so enamored of the place that he could not be persuaded to return to his
+native home. Bravely he cast himself on the world, determined to live,
+like many of his two-legged countrymen, upon his wits. He was a dog of
+genius, and his confidence in the world was rewarded by its
+appreciation. He had a sympathy for the arts. The crowd of artists who
+daily and nightly flocked to the Lepre and the Caff� Greco attracted his
+notice. He introduced himself to them, and visited them at their studios
+and rooms. A friendship was struck between them and him, and he became
+their constant visitor and their most attached ally. Every day, at the
+hour of lunch, or at the more serious hour of dinner, he lounged into
+the Lepre, seated himself in a chair, and awaited his friends, confident
+of his reception. His presence was always hailed with a welcome, and to
+every new comer he was formally presented. His bearing became, at last,
+not only assured, but patronizing. He received the gift of a
+chicken-bone or a delicate titbit as if he conferred a favor. He became
+an epicure, a _gourmet_. He did not eat much; he ate well. With what a
+calm superiority and gentle contempt he declined the refuse bits a
+stranger offered from his plate! His glance, and upturned nose, and
+quiet refusal, seemed to say,--"Ignoramus! know you not I am Beefsteak?"
+His dinner finished, he descended gravely, and proceeded to the Caff�
+Greco, there to listen to the discussions of the artists, and to partake
+of a little coffee and sugar, of which he was very fond. At night, he
+accompanied some one or other of his friends to his room, and slept upon
+the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most
+remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favors with an
+even hand. He had few favorites, and called no man master. He never
+outstayed his welcome "and told the jest without the smile," never
+remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A
+calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more
+admirable self-respect,--in a word, a profounder sense of what belongs
+to a gentleman, was never known in any dog. But Beefsteak is now no
+more. Just after the agitations of the Revolution of '48, with which he
+had little sympathy,--he was a conservative by disposition,--he
+disappeared. He had always been accustomed to make a _villegratura_ at
+L'Arriccia during a portion of the summer months, returning only now and
+then to look after his affairs in Rome. On such visits he would often
+arrive towards midnight, and rap at the door of a friend to claim his
+hospitality, barking a most intelligible answer to the universal Roman
+inquiry of "_Chi �_?" "One morn we missed him at the accustomed" place,
+and thenceforth he was never seen. Whether a sudden homesickness for his
+native land overcame him, or a fatal accident befell him, is not known.
+Peace to his manes! There "rests his head upon the lap of earth" no
+better dog.
+
+In the Roman studio of one of his friends and admirers, Mr. Mason, I had
+the pleasure, a few days since, to see, among several admirable and very
+spirited pictures of Campagna life and incidents, a very striking
+portrait of Beefsteak. He was sitting in a straw-bottomed chair, as we
+have so often seen him in the Lepre, calm, dignified in his deportment,
+and somewhat obese. The full brain, the narrow, fastidious nose, the
+sagacious eye, were so perfectly given, that I seemed to feel the actual
+presence of my old friend. So admirable a portrait of so distinguished a
+person should not be lost to the world. It should be engraved, or at
+least photographed.
+
+
+
+
+ENCELADUS.
+
+
+  Under Mount Etna he lies;
+      It is slumber, it is not death;
+  For he struggles at times to arise,
+  And above him the lurid skies
+      Are hot with his fiery breath.
+
+  The crags are piled on his breast,
+      The earth is heaped on his head;
+  But the groans of his wild unrest,
+  Though smothered and half suppressed,
+      Are heard, and he is not dead.
+
+  And the nations far away
+      Are watching with eager eyes;
+  They talk together and say,
+  "To-morrow, perhaps to-day,
+      Enceladus will arise!"
+
+  And the old gods, the austere
+      Oppressors in their strength,
+  Stand aghast and white with fear,
+  At the ominous sounds they hear,
+      And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"
+
+  Ah, me! for the land that is sown
+      With the harvest of despair!
+  Where the burning cinders, blown
+  From the lips of the overthrown
+      Enceladus, fill the air!
+
+  Where ashes are heaped in drifts
+      Over vineyard and field and town,
+  Whenever he starts and lifts
+  His head through the blackened rifts
+      Of the crags that keep him down!
+
+  See, see! the red light shines!
+      'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
+  And the storm-wind shouts through the pines
+  Of Alps and of Apennines,
+      "Enceladus, arise!"
+
+
+
+
+THE ZOUAVES.
+
+
+The decree of October 1, 1830, approved by a royal ordinance, March 21,
+1831, created two battalions of Zouaves. To perceive the necessity for
+this body of troops, to understand the nature of the service required of
+them, and to obtain a just notion of their important position in African
+affairs, it will be necessary to glance, for a moment, at the previous
+history of Algeria under the Deys, and especially at the history of that
+Turkish militia which they were to replace,--a body of irresponsible
+tyrants, which, since 1516, had exercised the greatest power in Africa,
+and had rendered their name hated and feared by the most distant tribes.
+
+Algeria was settled in 1492, by Moors driven from Spain. They recognized
+a kind of allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey, which was, however, only
+nominal; he appointed their Emirs, but further than this there was no
+restraint on their actions. Hard pressed by the Spaniards in 1509, the
+Emirs sent in haste to Turkey for aid; and Barbarossa, a noted pirate,
+sailed to their help, drove out the Christians, but fixed upon the Moors
+the yoke of Turkish sovereignty. In 1516, he declared himself Sultan, or
+Dey, of Algiers; and his brother succeeding him, the Ottoman power was
+firmly established in the Northwest of Africa. Hated by the people of
+this great territory, both Moors and Arabs, menaced not only by their
+dissensions, but frequently attacked by the Christians from the North,
+there was but one method by which the Dey could maintain his power. He
+formed a large body of mercenary soldiers, drawn entirely from Turkey,
+united with himself and each other by a feeling of mutual dependence and
+common danger, and bound by no feeling of interest or affection to the
+inhabitants of the soil. Brave they were, as they proved in 1541,
+against Charles the Fifth, whose forces they defeated and nearly
+destroyed at Haratsch,--in 1565, at the siege of Malta,--in 1572, in the
+seafight of Lepanto,--in many smaller combats at different times,
+defending their land triumphantly in 1775 against the Spaniards under
+O'Reilly and Castejon. Hardy and ready they were, from the very
+necessity of the case; for they were hated and dreaded beyond measure by
+the Arabs, and theirs was a life of constant exertion. Other than united
+they could not be; for they were in continual warfare of offence or of
+defence; they suppressed rebellion and anarchy,--for without a leader
+and union they had been cut off by the restless foe, whose piercing eyes
+watched, and whose daggers waited only _for the time_. In constant
+danger, they could not sink into that sloth that eats out the heart of
+Eastern and Southern nations; for it was only in unrest that safety
+lay;--he who slumbered on those burning plains, no less than the sleeper
+on Siberian ice, was lost utterly and without remedy.
+
+This body of troops, called the _Odjack_, elected or deposed Deys at
+pleasure; the Dey, nominally their ruler, was in reality their tool. In
+one period of twenty years there were six Deys, of whom four were
+decapitated, one abdicated through fear, and one died peacefully in the
+exercise of his governing functions. [Footnote: _Voyage pour la
+R�demption des Captifs aux Royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis, fait en 1720._
+Paris, 1721.] In 1629, they declared the kingdom free from the
+domination of Turkey; soon after, they expelled the Koulouglis, or
+half-breed Turks, and enslaved the Moors. Admitting some of the latter
+to service in the militia, they never allowed them to hope for
+advancement in the State, or, what was the same thing, the army. Only
+Turks, or in some instances renegade Christians, could lead the
+soldiers, whom thus no feeling of local patriotism mollified in their
+course of savage cruelty, grinding the face of the poor natives till
+spirit and hope were lost and resistance ceased to be a settled idea in
+their minds.
+
+Now when the French navy came up to the port of Algiers, June 12, 1830,
+the unity between the soldiers and their master, Hussein Pacha, was
+tottering on the verge of dissolution; a plot against his life had just
+been discovered, he had punished the ringleaders with death, and many
+who had been concerned in the conspiracy felt that there was no safety
+for them with him. Beaten constantly in every skirmish or battle, they
+conceived a high respect for the military genius of the invaders, and,
+ere the close of the summer campaign, offered their services in a body
+to General Clausel; this offer he promptly declined, and they thereupon
+withdrew, carrying their swords to the aid of other powers less
+scrupulous.
+
+The news, however, that the terrible Odjack had offered themselves to
+serve under the French spread a lively terror through the Arab tribes,
+who, believing themselves about to suffer an aggravation of their
+already intolerable oppression, experienced a sensation of relief and an
+elevation of spirit no less marked, on hearing that the newly formed
+government had rejected their services. Perceiving the fear in which
+these Algerine Praetorians were held by the tribes, Marshal Clausel
+conceived the plan of replacing them by a corps of light infantry,
+consisting of two battalions, to perform the services of household
+troops, and to receive some name as significant as that held by their
+predecessors under the old _r�gime_. Consequently, after some
+consideration, the newly constituted body was called by the name of
+_Zouaves_, from the Arabic word _Zouaoua_.
+
+The Zouaoua are a tribe, or rather a confederation of tribes, of the
+Kabyles, who inhabit the gorges of the Jurjura Mountains, the boundary
+of Algeria on the east, separating it from the province of Constantine.
+They are a brave, fierce, laborious people, whose submission to the
+Turks was never more than nominal; yet they were well known in the city
+of Algiers, whither they came frequently to exchange the products of
+their industry for the luxuries of comparative civilization. As they had
+the reputation of being the best soldiers in the Regency, and had
+occasionally lent their services to the Algerine princes, their name was
+given to the new military force; while, to give it the character of a
+French corps, the number of native soldiers received into its ranks was
+limited, and all its officers, from the highest to the lowest grade,
+were required to be native-born Frenchmen. The service in this corps was
+altogether voluntary, none being appointed to the Zouaves who did not
+seek the place; but there were found enough young and daring spirits who
+embraced with enthusiasm this life, so harassing, so full of privation,
+of rude labor, of constant peril. The first battalion was commanded by
+Major Maumet; the second by Captain Duvivier, (since General,) who died
+in Paris, 1848, of wounds received in the African service. Levaillant,
+(since General of Division,) Verge, (now General of Brigade,) and
+Molli�re, who died Colonel, of wounds received at the siege of Rome,
+were officers in these first two battalions.
+
+Scarcely six weeks had elapsed since their formation, when the Zouaves
+took the field under Marshal Clausel, marching against Medeah, an
+important station in the heart of Western Algeria. On the hill of
+Mouza�a they fought their first battle, in which they were completely
+successful. They remained two months as a garrison in Medeah. Here they
+showed proofs of a valor and patience most extraordinary. Left alone in
+a frontier post, constantly in the vicinity of a savage foe, watching
+and fighting night and day, leaving the gun only to take up the spade,
+compelled to create everything they needed, reduced to the last
+extremities for food, cut off from all communications,--it was a rough
+trial for this little handful of new soldiers. The place was often
+attacked; they were always at their posts; till in the last days of
+April they were recalled, and the fortress yielded up to the feeble Bey
+whom the French had decided to establish there. In June, troubles having
+again arisen, General Berthez�ne conducted some troops of the regular
+army to Medeah, to which was added the second battalion of Zouaves,
+under its gallant captain, Duvivier. On his return, the troops were
+attacked with fury on the hill of Mouza�a, the spot where the Zouaves
+had in February of the same year received their baptism of fire. Wearied
+with the long night-march, borne down by insupportable heat, stretched
+in a long straggling line through mountain-passes, the commander of the
+van severely wounded at the first discharge, they themselves separated,
+without chiefs, and surrounded by enemies, the French troops recoiled;
+when Duvivier, seeing the peril that menaced the army, advanced with his
+battalion. Shouting their war-cry, they rushed on the Kabyles, supported
+by the Volunteers of the Chart, or French Zouaves, thundering forth the
+Marseillaise; turning the pursuers into pursued, they covered the
+retreat of their associates to the farm of Mouza�a, where the army
+rallied and proceeded without further loss to Algiers. This retreat, and
+its attendant circumstances, made the Zouaves, before regarded, if not
+with contempt, at least with dislike, _free of the camp_.
+
+But now the losses sustained by the two battalions began to be seriously
+felt,--for the growing hostility of the Arabs rendered it difficult to
+recruit from native sources; and an ordinance of the king, dated March
+7,1833, united the two battalions into one, consisting of ten companies,
+eight of which were to be exclusively European, and two to be _not_
+exclusively Algerine,--it being required that in each native company
+there should be at least twelve Frenchmen. Duvivier was called to
+Bougie; Maumet was compelled by his wounds to return to Paris; Captain
+Lamorici�re was, therefore, appointed chief of the united battalion,
+having given proof of his capacity in every way,--whether as soldier,
+linguist, or negotiator,--being a wise and prudent man. It is to the
+training the Zouaves received under this remarkable man that much of
+their subsequent success must be ascribed. In his dealings with the
+Arabs he had shown himself the first who could treat with them by other
+means than the rifle or bayonet. [Footnote: _Annales Alg�riennes_, Tom.
+ii. p. 72.] In his capacity of Lieutenant-Colonel of Zouaves he showed
+talents of a high order. He infused into them the spirit, the activity,
+the boldness and impetuosity which he himself so remarkably possessed,
+with a certain independence of character which demanded from those who
+commanded them a resolute firmness on essential, and a dignified
+indulgence on unessential points. [Footnote: _Conqu�te d'Alger_. Par A.
+Nettement. p. 546.] To the course of discipline used by him, and still
+maintained in this arm of the service, are due their tremendous working
+power, their tirelessness, their self-dependence, and all their
+qualities differing from those of other soldiers; so that by his means
+one of the most irregular species of warfare has produced a body of
+irresistible regular soldiers, and border combats have given rise to the
+most rigid discipline in the world.
+
+The post of Dely Ibrahim was assigned to the Zouaves. At this place they
+were obliged to work laboriously, making for themselves whatever was
+needed; whether as masons, ditchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, or
+farmers,--whatever business was to be performed, they were, or learned
+to be, sufficient for it. No idlers in that camp,--each must earn his
+daily bread. What time was not devoted to labor was given to the
+practice of arms and the acquisition of instruction in all departments
+of military science; so that many a soldier was there fitted for the
+position he afterwards acquired, of officer, colonel, or general. To
+fence with the mounted bayonet, to wrestle, to leap, to climb, to run
+for miles, to swim, to make and to destroy temporary bridges, to throw
+up earth-walls, to carry great weights, to do, in short, what Indians
+learn to do, and much that they do not learn,--these served as the
+relaxations of the unwearied Zouaves. To vary the monotony of such a
+life, there was enough adventure to be found for the seeking,--now an
+incursion into the Sahel, or into the plains of Mitidja, or a wild foray
+through the northern gorges of the Atlas. Day by day progress appeared;
+they learned to march rapidly and long, to sustain the extremes of
+hunger, thirst, and weather, and to manoeuvre with intelligent
+precision; diligently fitting themselves, in industry, discipline, and
+warlike education, for the position they had to fill. Their costume and
+equipment were brought near perfection; they wore the Turkish dress,
+slightly modified,--a dress perfectly suited to the changes of that
+climate, and without which their movements would have been cramped and
+constrained. Only the officers retained the uniform of the hussars,
+which is rich and easy to wear. The cost of a suitable Turkish uniform
+would have been too heavy for them, besides that the dress of a Turk of
+rank is somewhat ridiculous. Certain officers on the march used,
+however, to wear the _fez_, or, as the Arabs called it, the _chechia_.
+Lamorici�re was known in Algeria as _Bou Chechia_, or _Papa with the
+Cap_,--as he was known later in Oran as _Bou Araoua, Papa with the
+Stick_. One finds, however, nothing of Orientalism in the regulations of
+this body of troops; not the least negligence or slovenliness is allowed
+in the most trifling detail. In fine, the care, and that descending to
+note the smallest minutiae, which brought this race of soldiers to such
+a pitch of perfection, leaving them their gayety and sprightliness, and,
+notwithstanding the rigidness of the discipline, giving solidity and
+precision to irregular troops, was rewarded by success unparalleled in
+history. It was the best practical school for soldiers and officers; and
+many of the best generals in the French army began their military career
+in the wild guerrilla combats or the patient camp-life of this band of
+heroes.
+
+Nearly two years had passed away in this training, when Marshal Clausel
+returned to Africa, and led the Zouaves, whose fitness for the service
+he well knew, into Oran. Here they added fresh laurels to those already
+acquired. In the expedition of Mascara, where they fought under the eye
+of the Duke of Orl�ans, they covered themselves with glory; insomuch
+that on his return to Paris he procured a decree, 1835, constituting the
+First Regiment of Zouaves, of two battalions, of six companies each,
+and, should occasion justify the measure, of ten companies. Lamorici�re
+continued in command.
+
+In 1836 the Zouaves again took the hill of Mouza�a. This time they razed
+its fortifications even with the ground, and returned to Algiers, where
+they remained during General Clausel's first and unfortunate expedition
+into Constantine, the eastern province of French Africa. In 1837 the
+second expedition was made, and in this the Zouaves took part. One of
+the divisions of the army was under the command of the Duke of N�mours.
+In this division were the Zouaves under Lamorici�re, who here showed
+themselves worthy of their renown. Fighting by the side of the most
+excellent soldiers in the regular army, they proved themselves bravest
+where all were brave. They were placed at the head of the first column
+of attack. Lamorici�re was the first officer on the breach, and carried
+all before him. The soldiers whom he had trained supported him nobly;
+but when they had won the day, they found that many companies were
+decimated, some nearly annihilated; numbers of their officers were dead
+in the breach, "Those who are not mortally wounded rejoice at this great
+success," said an officer to the Duke; and it was a significant
+sentence. [Footnote: Verbal report of Colonel Combes to the Duke of
+N�mours,--conclusion.]
+
+To form some notion of those troops, among whom the Zouaves showed
+themselves like the gods in the war of Troy, one anecdote will suffice,
+chosen from many which prove the valor of the army my generally. The
+rear-guard at Mansourah was under the command of Changarnier; it was
+reduced to three hundred men; he halted this little troop and said,
+"Come, my men, look these fellows in the face; they are six thousand,
+you are three hundred; surely the match is even." This speech was
+sufficient. The Frenchmen awaited the onset till the enemy was within
+pistol-shot; then, after a murderous volley, they charged on the Arabs,
+who broke and fled in dismay. During the remainder of the day they would
+not approach this band nearer than long rifle range. [Footnote:
+_Moniteur_, December 16, 1833; report of Marshal Clausel.]
+
+The siege of Constantine may properly be said to have ended the war of
+occupation in Africa. Hitherto we have seen the Zouaves only in time of
+active war, or in the defence of hill-forts, obliged to unity through
+fear of an ever-menacing foe, and laboring for their own preservation or
+comfort only; but now commenced a new training for them, no less severe
+and dangerous, in which they showed themselves equally willing and
+competent,--a war against stubborn Nature in all her most forbidding
+aspects. Under the blazing suns of that tropical climate they
+recommenced at Coleah the work already begun at Dely Ibrahim; ditches
+were to be dug, works thrown up, roads made, draining accomplished,
+farms tended, all that was necessary for the establishment of those
+permanent colonies which France was so anxious to settle in Algeria was
+to be done by the Zouaves; yet, despite that terrible labor, the danger
+and hardship, the sickness and death, the ranks of the regiment filled
+up rapidly; and, joined by the wrecks of the battalion of Mechouar, they
+were kept full to overflowing. This battalion of Mechouar was a troop
+left by Clausel in the _mechouar_, or citadel, of Tlemcen, in the West
+of Oran, under the command of Captain Cavaignac; on the conclusion of
+the war, in 1837, they, of course, returned to their regiment at Coleah.
+
+This deceitful peace lasted only till 1839. In this year the vigilant
+colonel of Zouaves perceived in his native troops alarming symptoms of
+mutiny, and learned, to his surprise, that they were in a ripe condition
+for revolt. Wild Santons of the desert, emissaries, doubtless, of
+Abd-el-Kader, held secret meetings near the camp; many soldiers attended
+them, and were seduced by artfully prepared inflammatory harangues and
+prophecies. In the month of December, 1839, at the raising of the
+standard of Islam, the natives flocked in vast numbers to rid the land
+of the Christians; and most of the native Zouaves deserted to join the
+fortunes of the prince whom they reverenced as a prophet. Old soldiers,
+trained in the French service to a thorough acquaintance with European
+tactics, and gray with battling long for Lamorici�re, suddenly left him,
+and by their knowledge of the art of war gave great advantage to the
+Arab force. In their combats with the Sultan, the Zouaves not
+infrequently found that a sharp resistance or a masterly retreat on the
+part of the enemy was executed under the direction of one of their
+former comrades in arms. It was a critical moment for the Zouaves; but
+at the announcement of the renewal of hostilities volunteers flowed in
+on all sides, whether of young men full of ardor and excitement, or, as
+in many instances, of old soldiers who had already served their time.
+After a winter of petty skirmishing and reestablishing in Algeria the
+semblance of security, the Duke of Orl�ans led the army, considerably
+reinforced, in a raid against the Arabs under Abd-el-Kader in their own
+territory. The Zouaves accompanied this expedition, and whether in their
+charges against the mountaineers, who, with the aid of the Arab
+regulars, defended each pass, or sustaining the shock of the provincial
+cavalry, or even standing unmoved before the attack of Abd-el-Kader's
+terrible "Reds," [Footnote: The mounted body-guard of Abd-el-Kader, so
+called by the French from their complete red uniform.] they maintained
+their character of rapid, intrepid, and successful soldiers. What names
+we find in this regiment! Lamorici�re, Regnault, Renault, (now General
+of Division,) Cavaignac, Lefl�, (now General of Brigade,) and St.
+Arnaud, who died Marshal of France two days after the victory of the
+Alma.
+
+A singular instance of the _handiness_ of the Zouaves is found in the
+notice of their forced march on this campaign, undertaken May 20th, to
+support the retreating Seventeenth Light Infantry. Their cartridges were
+fired away, the regulars of Abd-el-Kader were upon them, and nothing
+seemed to remain but an heroic death, when, "Comrades," cried one, "see,
+here are stones!" Not a word more; each caught the hint, and, with
+simultaneous volleys of stones, drove off the charging enemy, and broke
+their way to where the remains of the Seventeenth rallied under Colonel
+Bedeau, after a retreat more properly to be called a continual attack!
+
+Hard at work during the winter of 1840-41, General Bugeaud found these
+indefatigable soldiers in perfect condition to take the field again,
+when he landed in April. There had been sharp fighting during the past
+year at Mouza�a, in which the Zouaves always led the van, and were, as
+in every engagement they ever fought, covered with honor. "The Second,
+electrified by the example of its officers, and led by Colonel
+Changarnier, flung itself on the intrenchments; the redoubts were
+carried, etc. At the same time, in the other column, Lamorici�re led the
+way with his Zouaves, followed by the other troops. The Zouaves
+surmounted the almost impassable cliffs, attacked and carried two lines
+of intrenchment, and, in the teeth of a murderous fire, forced a third;
+a few moments later the two columns joined, and, rushing up the
+acclivity, planted the flag of France on the highest peak of the Atlas."
+[Footnote: Report of Marshal Val�e: _Moniteur_.] Little variation is
+found in the reports of generals concerning the Zouaves at this time;
+they say of these troops always, "The First," or "The Second, was
+covered with glory."
+
+But now, with the arrival of Bugeaud, the war in Africa was changed;
+hitherto it had been a mere war of occupation,--a holding of the ground
+already French against the attacking Arabs; now it was to be a duel, a
+war of devastation; thus only could France hope to tame the
+indefatigable Abd-el-Kader, and permanently hold her own. The trouble
+was not so much to fight him as to get near enough to fight him; for he
+pursued a truly Fabian policy, and being lighter armed, was consequently
+swifter than the invaders. Under Marshal Clausel, the French, drawing
+with them the heavy wagons and munitions of European warfare, were
+obliged to follow the high-roads, and the Arabs could never be taken by
+surprise; scouts gave information of their numbers, and after harassing
+marches they would find that the foe had either retreated to unknown
+fastnesses or assembled on the spot in prodigious force. Now Lamorici�re
+proposed a plan, in the execution of which he was eminently successful.
+Bugeaud's design was, to follow the Arabs into the desert, to climb the
+steep mountains, to plunge into their chasms, to storm every hill-fort,
+and to drive, step by step, the swift Abd-el-Kader far from the land
+which his presence so troubled; but how? for swift troops are
+light-armed, carry no luggage, and but little provision; and to follow
+without food the Arabs who concealed food in _silos_, _caches_ in the
+ground, seemed hopeless. Lamorici�re required but his Zouaves, who
+carried only four days' provisions, and no baggage of any sort; when
+they drew near any of these _silos_, which were always, of course, in
+the vicinity of the deserted villages, he spread out his troops in a
+long crescent, and they advanced slowly, rooting up the ground with
+their bayonets till some one struck on the stone or pebbles covering the
+precious deposit. Thus, without wagons, trained to tireless activity,
+they could follow the Arabs from _douar_ to _douar_ with little delay,
+and with fatal effect.
+
+Great reinforcements were sent to Africa, and the Zouaves were not
+forgotten; for, in the royal ordinance of September 8th, 1841, the
+regiment was raised to three battalions of nine companies; only one of
+the nine, however, could receive natives, so that but three native
+companies now existed, and few Algerines were found even in these. The
+reasons seem to have been threefold: first, the danger from mutiny;
+second, the evils arising from the mixture of the two races, which had
+augmented their vices, without a corresponding improvement in their good
+qualities; third, and perhaps most important of all, the discontent very
+properly felt by the French Zouaves, who were compelled to work at the
+trenches, to dig, to plant, etc., while the Mussulmans utterly refused
+to take part in this, to their mind, degrading toil. The Gordian knot
+was cut, and all difficulty done away, by making the regiment, in
+effect, exclusively European. Thus reorganized and reinforced, the
+regiment, on receiving the standard sent it by the king, immediately
+separated,--one battalion marching for Oran, one for Constantine, while
+the other remained at Blidah, in Algeria.
+
+The year 1842 was full of great results; the new system worked well,
+great numbers of tribes laid down their arms and swore fealty to France,
+and the provinces were more than nominally in the hands of the French.
+Still many of the more distant and powerful tribes held to their
+allegiance to the Prophet Sultan. The war gradually took on itself the
+form of a civil contest, and mutual animosities gave rise to many
+occasions for sanguinary combats; one of these, in the valley of the
+Cheliff, September, 1842, lasted unintermittingly for thirty-six hours!
+In this battle, and that of Oued Foddah, and, in fact, in almost every
+battle of those years, the Zouaves took an honorable part. In mountain
+fights, long marches over burning sands, repulses of cavalry, at
+Jurjura, Ouarsanis, among the Beni Menasser, at the Smalah, in the
+struggles of Bedeau with the Moroccan cavalry, and in the memorable
+battle of Isly, they did good service; their history was but a narrative
+of brilliant exploits. In many of their hill fights, the deserters of
+1839 gave much trouble. In a skirmish, 1844, on the south side of the
+Aur�s, in which Captain Espinasse (died General of Division, Magenta,
+June 6th, 1859) was concerned, and wounded four times, an old native
+Zouave commanded the Kabyles, and defended their principal position with
+much skill.
+
+In fine, to recount the hundredth part of their deeds,--to make out a
+list of their soldiers, sub-officers, or officers who have been since
+promoted to high honors,--to trace minutely each step by which they
+mounted to their present position, would be to write, not an article,
+but a book. In 1842 the natives disappeared finally from their ranks;
+the best and bravest soldiers of the African army eagerly sought their
+places, attracted by the uniform, the manner of life, the constant
+danger and no less constant excitement, the liberty allowed, the glory
+ever open to all. As their numbers were decimated by the continual
+warfare, the ranks were immediately filled by the descendants of those
+brave Gauls who once said, "If the heavens fall, what care we? We will
+support them on the points of our lances!" In 1848, the Zouaves received
+a large accession from Paris; the _gamins_ of the Revolution were sent
+to them in great numbers; out of this unpromising, rebellious material,
+some of the finest of these admirable troops have been made. And now,
+when the entry into this regiment was longed for by so many, as a
+species of promotion, on the 13th of February, 1852, Louis Napoleon,
+then President of the Republic, decreed that three regiments of Zouaves
+be formed, each on one of the three battalions as a nucleus, taking the
+number of the battalion as its own. Thus the first regiment was formed
+at Blidah, in Algiers; the second at Oran, in Oran; the third at
+Constantine, in the province of Constantine. Officers of the corps of
+infantry were eligible to the new regiments, holding the same grade; the
+men were to be drawn from any infantry corps in the army, on their own
+application, if the Minister of War saw proper. None were accepted but
+men physically and morally in excellent condition; the officers had, for
+the most part, already served with credit; the under-officers and
+soldiers had been many years in the service; and even many corporals,
+and not a few ensigns and lieutenants, voluntarily relinquished their
+positions to serve in the rank-and-file of the new corps. So, occupied
+in pacificating and securing the three provinces, the regiments lost
+nothing of their former renown; obedient to orders, and fearless of
+danger, it was no idle compliment paid them by Louis Napoleon, when, in
+the winter of 1853-4, be said, "If the war break out, we must show our
+Zouaves to the Russians." They were a body trained in the school of a
+terrible experience of twenty-four years; they had learned, like the
+lion-hunter, Gerard, to take death by the mane, and look into his fiery
+eyes without blenching; they were fit for this service, which demanded
+the best nerve of the two most powerful nations of the world. What they
+did there is known to all; at the battle of the Alma, Marshal St. Arnaud
+was unable to repress his admiration, calling them "the bravest soldiers
+in the world." All Europe, at first wondering at these strange troops,
+with their wild dress, their half-savage manners, and strange method of
+warfare, found speedy cause to admire their courage and success; France
+was proud of their renown, and they became immensely popular in Paris,
+sure proof of their remarkable qualities. Their oddities, their courage,
+their imperfect knowledge of the distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_,
+their wondering, childlike simplicity, furnished themes for endless
+songs and caricatures; the comedy of "Les Zouaves" met with great
+success; and the cant name for them, "Zouzou," is to be heard at any
+time in the streets. In 1855, the Fourth Zouaves was created, consisting
+of but two battalions, and enrolled in the Imperial Guard; they are
+distinguished from the others by wearing a white turban, while that of
+the other regiments is green; since the formation of this regiment, no
+new corps have been added. The peace with Russia, in 1856, was not peace
+for the Zouaves, who returned, desiring nothing better, to Africa,
+where, in the continued war, they found congenial employment till the
+final submission of the last tribes, July 15, 1857, dissolved the army
+of Kabylia, and made them, perforce, peaceful, till the 26th of April of
+this year brought them to win fresh laurels on a new field.
+
+Vague reports, assertions without proof, have been not infrequently
+made, to the effect that the Zouaves are in character cruel, dissolute,
+and excessively given to hard drinking. That they are absolutely free
+from the first charge I shall not attempt to deny; that they are more so
+than other men, in like circumstances, there is no proof; there is even
+good reason to state the contrary, if we may judge by instances, of
+which, for want of space, one shall suffice here. The Zouaves were in
+the van of the army, on their march toward the Tell; in their charge was
+a large body of prisoners, wounded, and helpless women, old men, and
+children, whom they were conducting to the Tell, to restore them to
+their homes. The weather was intensely hot, even for Africa; the nearest
+well was eleven leagues distant; and the sufferings of the poor people
+must have been dreadful indeed. Mothers flung down their infants on the
+burning sand, and pressed madly on to save themselves from the most
+horrible of deaths; old men and boys sunk exhausted, panting, declaring
+they could go no farther. "Then it was," says an eyewitness, "that the
+Zouaves behaved like very Sisters of Charity, rather than rough bearded
+soldiers; they divided their last morsel with these unfortunates, gave
+them drink from their own scanty stores, and, putting their canteens to
+the mouths of the dying, revived them with the precious draught. They
+raised the screaming infants, overturned and held ewes, that they might
+suckle the poor creatures, abandoned in despair by their mothers, and,
+in many instances, carried them the whole distance in their arms. At
+night they ate nothing, giving their food to the helpless prisoners,
+whose lives they thus saved at the risk of their own." If in war they
+"imitate the action of the tiger," we have every reason to believe that
+in peace they are, to say the least, not less humane than others.
+
+The author of "Recollections of an Officer" [Footnote: _Souvenirs d'un
+Officier du 2me de Zouaves_. Paris, 1859.] sums up the character of the
+Zouaves in a few words which clear them from the other two charges,
+those of dissoluteness and drunkenness. He says,--"Beside the condition
+of success resulting from the first organization, it must be said, that,
+somewhat later, the happy idea came to be adopted, of giving to the
+Zouaves destined to fight in the light-armed troops the costume of
+_Chasseurs-�-pied_. The recruitment added also not a little to the
+reputation which the Zouaves so rapidly acquired; the soldiers are all
+drawn, not from conscripts, but from applicants for the service. Many
+are Parisians, or, at all events, inhabitants of the other great French
+cities; most have already served,--are therefore inured to the
+work,--accustomed to privations, which they undergo gayly,--to fatigues,
+at which they joke,--to dangers in battle, which they treat as mere
+play. They are proud of their uniform, which does not resemble that of
+any other corps,--proud of that name, _Zouave_, of mysterious
+origin,--proud of the splendid actions with which each succeeding day
+enriches the history of their troops,--happy in the liberty they
+experience, both in garrison and on expeditions. It is said that the
+Zouaves love wine; it is true; but they are rarely seen intoxicated;
+they seek the pleasures of conviviality, not the imbrutement of
+drunkenness. These regiments count in their ranks officers, who,
+_ennuied_ by a lazy life, have taken up the musket and the
+_chechia_,--under-officers, who, having already served, brave, even
+rash, seek to win their epaulettes anew in this hard service, and gain
+either a glorious position or a glorious death,--old officers of the
+_garde mobile_,--broad-shouldered marines, who have served their time on
+shipboard, accustomed to cannon and the thunderings of the
+tempest,--young men of family, desirous to replace with the red ribbon
+of the Legion of Honor, bought and colored with their blood, the
+dishonor of a life gaped wearily away on the pavements of Paris.
+
+"Composed of such elements, one can scarcely imagine the body of Zouaves
+other than brilliant in the field of battle. The officers are generally
+chosen from the regiments of the line, men remarkable for strength,
+courage, and prudence; full of energy, pushing the love of their colors
+to its last limit, always ready to confront death and to run up to meet
+danger, they seek glory rather than promotion. To train up their
+soldiers, to give them an example, in their own persons, of all the
+military virtues,--such are their only cares. Our ancestors said,
+'_Noblesse, oblige_'; these choose the same motto. _Their_ nobility is
+not that of old family-titles, but the uniform in which they are
+clothed, the title of officer of Zouaves. _Esprit de corps_, that
+religion of the soldier, is carried by the Zouaves to its highest pitch;
+the common soldiers would not consent to change their turban for the
+epaulettes of an ensign in the other service; and many an ensign, and
+not a few captains, have preferred to await their advancement in the
+Zouaves rather than immediately obtain it by entering other regiments.
+There exists, moreover, between the soldiers and officers, a military
+fraternity, which, far from destroying discipline, tends rather to draw
+more closely its bonds. The officer sees in his men rather companions in
+danger and in glory than inferiors; he willingly attends to their
+complaints, and strives to spare them all unnecessary privations. Where
+they are exposed to difficulties, he does not hesitate to employ all the
+means in his power to aid them. In return, the soldier professes for his
+officer an affection, a devotion, a sort of filial respect. Discipline,
+he knows, must be severe, and he does not grumble at its penalties. In
+battle, he does not abandon his chief; he watches over him, will die for
+his safety, will not let him fall into the hands of the enemy if
+wounded. At the bivouac he makes the officer's fire, though his own
+should die for want of fuel; cares for his horse, arranges his
+furniture; if any delicacy in the way of food can be procured, he brings
+it to the chief. Convinced of the desire of their master that the
+soldiers shall be well fed, the Zouaves often insist that a part of
+their pay be expended for procuring the provisions of the tribe.
+[Footnote: In accordance with Arab customs, the Zouaves, who (to use the
+ordinary expression) "live in common," compose a circle to which they
+give the name of _tribe_. In the tribe, each one has his allotted task:
+one attends to making the fires and procuring wood; another draws water
+and does the cooking; another makes the coffee and arranges the camp,
+etc.] The colonel is the man most venerated by these soldiers, who look
+upon him as the father of the family. They are proud of the colonel's
+success, and happy to have contributed to his honor or advancement. When
+an order comes directly from him, be sure it will be religiously obeyed.
+'When _papa_ says anything,' they repeat, one to another, 'it must be
+done. Papa knows it is _already_ done; be wants us to be the best
+children possible.' In critical moments, the colonel can use the
+severest Draconian code, without having anything to fear from the
+disapprobation of his men."
+
+
+
+
+MY PSALM.
+
+
+  I mourn no more my vanished years:
+      Beneath a tender rain,
+  An April rain of smiles and tears,
+      My heart is young again.
+
+  The west winds blow, and, singing low,
+      I hear the glad streams run;
+  The windows of my soul I throw
+      Wide open to the sun.
+
+  No longer forward nor behind
+      I look in hope or fear;
+  But, grateful, take the good I find,
+      The best of now and here.
+
+  I plough no more a desert land,
+      To harvest weed and tare;
+  The manna dropping from God's hand
+      Rebukes my painful care.
+
+  I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
+    Aside the toiling oar;
+  The angel sought so far away
+    I welcome at my door.
+
+  The airs of Spring may never play
+      Among the ripening corn,
+  Nor freshness of the flowers of May
+      Blow through the Autumn morn;--
+
+  Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
+      Through fringed lids to heaven,
+  And the pale aster in the brook
+      Shall see its image given;--
+
+  The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
+      The south wind softly sigh,
+  And sweet, calm days in golden haze
+      Melt down the amber sky.
+
+  Not less shall manly deed and word
+      Rebuke an age of wrong;
+  The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
+      Make not the blade less strong.
+
+  But smiting hands shall learn to heal,
+      To build as to destroy;
+  Nor less my heart for others feel
+      That I the more enjoy.
+
+  All as God wills, who wisely heeds
+      To give or to withhold,
+  And knoweth more of all my needs
+      Than all my prayers have told!
+
+  Enough that blessings undeserved
+      Have marked my erring track,--
+  That, wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
+      His chastening turned me back,--
+
+  That more and more a Providence
+      Of love is understood,
+  Making the springs of time and sense
+      Sweet with eternal good,--
+
+  That death seems but a covered way
+      Which opens into light,
+  Wherein no blinded child can stray
+      Beyond the Father's sight,--
+
+  That care and trial seem at last,
+      Through Memory's sunset air,
+  Like mountain-ranges overpast,
+      In purple distance fair,--
+
+  That all the jarring notes of life
+      Seem blending in a psalm,
+  And all the angles of its strife
+      Slow rounding into calm.
+
+  And so the shadows fall apart,
+      And so the west winds play;
+  And all the windows of my heart
+      I open to the day!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
+
+
+WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.
+
+
+There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere of our
+boarding-house since my last record, as if something or other were going
+on. There is no particular change that I can think of in the aspect of
+things; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life were quietly
+playing and strange forces were at work, underneath this smooth surface
+of every-day boarding-house life, which would show themselves some fine
+morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have been
+watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may
+laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble
+myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours.
+Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,--a
+beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to
+Nature's women, turned loose among live men.
+
+--_Terrible_ fact?
+
+Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost heaven
+for the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who
+made mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? If
+jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies,--if pangs that
+waste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or moping
+melancholy,--if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities,
+then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman.--I
+love to look at this "Rainbow," as her father used sometimes to call
+her, of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and colors,--the
+very picture, as it seems to me, of that "golden blonde" my friend whose
+book you read last year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you
+remember, no doubt,)--handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, it
+is not her beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one
+of my fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort of
+fascination she has for me.
+
+It is in the hearts of many men and women--let me add children--that
+there is a _Great Secret_ waiting for them,--a secret of which they get
+hints now and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. These
+hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in sudden startling
+flashes,--second wakings, as it were,--a waking out of the waking state,
+which last is very apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped
+short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving my cheeks, in one
+of these sudden clairvoyant flashes. Of course I cannot tell what kind
+of a secret this is; but I think of it as a disclosure of certain
+relations of our personal being to time and space, to other
+intelligences, to the procession of events, and to their First Great
+Cause. This secret seems to be broken up, as it were, into fragments, so
+that we find here a word and there a syllable, and then again only a
+letter of it; but it never is written out for most of us as a complete
+sentence, in this life. I do not think it could be; for I am disposed to
+consider our beliefs about such a possible disclosure rather as a kind
+of premonition of an enlargement of our faculties in some future state
+than as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of us in this life.
+Persons, however, have fallen into trances,--as did the Reverend William
+Tennent, among many others,--and learned some things which they could
+not tell in our human words.
+
+Now among the visible objects which hint to us fragments of this
+infinite secret for--which our souls are waiting, the faces of women are
+those that carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery.
+There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain something
+in them that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct and
+palpable a revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remember
+two faces of women with wings, such as they call angels, of Fra
+Angelico,--and I just now came across a print of Raphael's Santa
+Apollina, with something of the same quality,--which I was sure had
+their prototypes in the world above ours. No wonder the Catholics pay
+their vows to the Queen of Heaven! The unpoetical side of Protestantism
+is, that it has no women to be worshipped.
+
+But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints the Great Secret
+to us, nor is it only in beautiful faces that we find traces of it.
+Sometimes it looks out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain
+countenance; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips of a woman,
+not otherwise fascinating, that we know they have a message for us, and
+wait almost with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl has at
+once the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Can
+she tell me anything? Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing
+element in it which I have been groping after through so many
+friendships that I have tired of, and through--Hush! Is the door fast?
+Talking loud is a bad trick in these curious boarding-houses.
+
+You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am going to remind you of
+and to use for a special illustration. Riding along over a rocky road,
+suddenly the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel changes to
+a deep heavy rumble. There is a great hollow under your feet,--a huge
+unsunned cavern. Deep, deep beneath you, in the core of the living rock,
+it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its winding
+galleries, their roofs dripping into streams where fishes have been
+swimming and spawning in the dark until their scales are white as milk
+and their eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless.
+
+So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the same faces, grinding
+over the same thoughts,--the gravel of the soul's highway,--now and then
+jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round
+as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment,
+but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and
+jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the
+smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground
+reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of
+thought or passion beneath us.----
+
+I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at her so much, and yet I
+cannot help it. Always that same expression of something that I ought to
+know,--something that she was made to tell and I to hear,--lying there
+ready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap out of her eyes and make
+a saint of me, or a devil or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the
+truth and be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon the
+dry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn over an age of lies in
+an hour of passion.
+
+It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you on the wrong track. The
+Great Secret that I refer to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set
+your mind at ease about that,--there are reasons I could give you which
+settle all that matter. I don't wonder, however, that you confounded the
+Great Secret with the Three Words.
+
+I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most women have to tell.
+When that is said, they are like China-crackers on the morning of the
+fifth of July. And just as that little patriotic implement is made with
+a slender train which leads to the magazine in its interior, so a sharp
+eye can almost always see the train leading from a young girl's eye or
+lip to the "I love you" in her heart. But the Three Words are not the
+Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces are only one of the tablets on
+which that is written in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies
+deeper than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. Some, I
+think,--Wordsworth might be one of them,--spell out a portion of it from
+certain beautiful natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. I
+can mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints which seem to
+me to come near the region where I think it lies. I have known two
+persons who pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists,--all
+wrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving up the daily search
+for it until they got tremulous and feeble, and their dreams changed to
+visions of things that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings,
+and so they died. The vulgar called them drunkards.
+
+I told you that I would let you know the mystery of the effect this
+young girl's face produces on me. It is akin to those influences a
+friend of mine has described, you may remember, as coming from certain
+voices. I cannot translate it into words,--only into feelings; and these
+I have attempted to shadow by showing that her face hinted that
+revelation of something we are close to knowing, which all imaginative
+persons are looking for either in this world or on the very threshold of
+the next.
+
+You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful incomprehensibleness
+of my description of the expression in a young girl's face. You forget
+what a miserable surface-matter this language is in which we try to
+reproduce our interior state of being. Articulation is a shallow trick.
+From the light Poh! which we toss off from our lips as we fling a
+nameless scribbler's impertinences into our waste-baskets, to the
+gravest utterance which comes from our throats in our moments of deepest
+need, is only a space of some three or four inches. Words, which are a
+set of clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little,
+compared to tones and expression of the features. I give it up; I
+thought I could shadow forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the
+effect this young girl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of
+no use. No doubt your head aches, trying to make something of my
+description. If there is here and there one that can make anything
+intelligible out of my talk about the Great Secret, and who has spelt
+out a syllable or two of it on some woman's face, dead or living, that
+is all I can expect. One should see the person with whom he converses
+about such matters. There are dreamy-eyed people to whom I should say
+all these things with a certainty of being understood;--
+
+  That moment that his face I see,
+  I know the man that must hear me:
+      To him my tale I teach.
+
+----I am afraid some of them have not got a spare quarter for this
+August number, so that they will never see it.
+
+----Let us start again, just as if we had not made this ambitious
+attempt, which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded,
+if you will make the change.
+
+This young girl, about whom I have talked so unintelligibly, is the
+unconscious centre of attraction to the whole solar system of our
+breakfast-table. The little gentleman, leans towards her, and she again
+seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force towards him. That
+slight inclination of two persons with a strong affinity towards each
+other, throwing them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side,
+is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is a tendency in all
+the men's eyes to converge on her; and I do firmly believe, that, if all
+their chairs were examined, they would be found a little obliquely
+placed, so as to favor the direction in which their occupants love to
+look.
+
+That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting
+opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some
+mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a
+sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another
+by the hand of Bridget to this old gentleman.
+
+----Sarvant, Ma'am! Much obleeged,--he said, and put it gallantly in his
+button-hole.--After breakfast he must see some of her drawings. Very
+fine performances,--very fine!--truly elegant productions,--truly
+elegant!--Had seen Miss Linley's needle-work in London, in the year
+(eighteen hundred and little or nothing, I think he said,)--patronized
+by the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty,--elegant, truly elegant
+productions, very fine performances; these drawings reminded him of
+them;--wonderful resemblance to Nature; an extraordinary art, painting;
+Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that he remembered seeing when
+he was a boy. Used to remember some lines about a portrait written by
+Mr. Cowper, beginning,--
+
+  "Oh that those lips had language! Life has past
+  With me but roughly since I saw thee last."
+
+And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking about a dead mother of
+his that he remembered ever so much younger than he now was, and
+looking, not as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The dead
+young mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to look
+at him so many, many years ago. He stood still as if cataleptic, his
+eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct and they
+ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out of the
+glimmering light through which he saw them.--What is there quite so
+profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother who died in his
+earlier years? Mother she remains till manhood, and by-and-by she grows,
+as it were, to be as a sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and
+broken, he looks back upon her in her fair youth, he sees in the sweet
+image he caresses, not his parent, but, as it were, his child.
+
+If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's face, the words with
+which he broke his silence would have betrayed his train of thought.
+
+----If they had only taken pictures then as they do now!--he said.--All
+gone! all gone! nothing but her face as she leaned on the arms of her
+great chair; and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest little
+picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling of anybody that you
+don't want to see.--The old gentleman put his hand to his forehead so as
+to shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of memory,
+and turned from him to Iris.
+
+How many drawing-books have you filled,--I said,--since you began to
+take lessons?--This was the first,--she answered,--since she was here;
+and it was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large size
+she had covered with drawings.
+
+I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies,
+principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so
+forth. Limbs from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a superb
+drawing of an arm! I don't remember it among the figures from Michel
+Angelo, which seem to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I
+think, or after a cast from Nature.--Oh!----
+
+----Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose,--I said, taking up the
+drawing-book with a lock on it.----Yes,--she said.--I should like to see
+her style of working on a small scale.--There was nothing in it worth
+showing,--she said; and presently I saw her try the lock, which proved
+to be fast. We are all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. I
+think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us what her
+fancies were about us boarders. Some of them act as if they were
+bewitched with her, but she does not seem to notice it much. Her
+thoughts seem to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else.
+The young fellow John appears to stand second in her good graces. I
+think he has once or twice sent her what the landlady's daughter calls
+b�-kays of flowers,--somebody has, at any rate.--I saw a book she had,
+which must have come from the divinity-student. It had a dreary
+title-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the
+author,--a face from memory, apparently,--one of those faces that small
+children loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inward
+disgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when they hear
+that these are "good men," and that heaven is full of such.--The
+gentleman with the "diamond"--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was not
+encouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He
+pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who never
+sees him, as it should seem. The young Marylander, who I thought would
+have been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from his
+corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, I wish
+you were up here by me, or I were down there by you,--which would,
+perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one. But nothing
+comes of all this,--and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of finding
+out the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book.
+
+Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I made an
+attempt also to work into the little gentleman's chamber. For this
+purpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was just
+ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followed
+him as he toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and faced
+round toward me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there!
+So we finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I mustered
+assurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready.--No
+answer.--Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly and
+locked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled,
+misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door were
+unfastened,--with unnecessary noise, I thought,--and he came into the
+passage. He pulled the inner door after him and opened the outer one at
+which I stood. He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as "Mr.
+Copley" used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes in; and a
+quaint-looking key in his hand. Our conversation was short, but long
+enough to convince me that the little gentleman did not want my company
+in his chamber, and did not mean to have it.
+
+I have been making a great fuss about what is no mystery at all,--a
+schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give up
+such nonsense and mind my own business.--Hark! What the deuse is that
+odd noise in his chamber?
+
+----I think I am a little superstitious. There were two things, when I
+was a boy, that diabolized my imagination,--I mean, that gave me a
+distinct apprehension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled round
+the neighborhood where I was born and bred. The first was a series of
+marks called the "Devil's footsteps." These were patches of sand in the
+pastures, where no grass grew, where even the low-bush blackberry, the
+"dewberry," as our Southern neighbors call it, in prettier and more
+Shakspearian language, did not spread its clinging creepers,--where even
+the pale, dry, sadly-sweet "everlasting" could not grow, but all was
+bare and blasted. The second was a mark in one of the public buildings
+near my home,--the college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. I
+do not think many persons are aware of the existence of this
+mark,--little having been said about the story in print, as it was
+considered very desirable, for the sake of the institution, to hush it
+up. In the northwest corner, and on the level of the third or fourth
+story, there are signs of a breach in the walls, mended pretty well, but
+not to be mistaken. A considerable portion of that corner must have been
+carried away, from within outward. It was an unpleasant story; and I do
+not care to repeat the particulars; but some young men had been using
+sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, which
+was variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in the
+chamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to the
+building there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where the
+mortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. The
+queer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps," had never attracted
+attention before this time, though there is no evidence that they had
+not existed previously, except that of the late Miss M., a "Goody," so
+called, or sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a strange
+horror of referring to an affair of which she was thought to know
+something.--I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy of
+impressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, with
+untenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly garret,--with the
+"Devil's footsteps" in the fields behind the house, and in front of it
+the patched dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken place
+which startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so that one
+of them was an idiot from that day forward, and another, after a
+dreadful season of mental conflict, took holy orders and became renowned
+for his ascetic sanctity.
+
+There were other circumstances that kept up the impression produced by
+these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark
+storeroom, on looking through the keyhole of which, I could dimly see a
+heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed to
+me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have
+huddled together and climbed up on each other's backs,--as the people
+did in that awful crush where so many were killed, at the execution of
+Holloway and Haggerty. Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the
+sword-thrusts through it,--marks of the British officers' rapiers,--and
+the tall mirror in which they used to look at their red coats,--confound
+them for smashing its mate!--and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chair
+in which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing;--he was a
+gentleman, and always had it covered with a large _peignoir_, to save
+the silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little room
+down-stairs, from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on
+the hill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk,--"the
+study," in my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of
+armed men,--sometimes filled with soldiers;--come with me, and I will
+show you the "dents" left by the butts of their muskets all over the
+floor.--With all these suggestive objects round me, aided by the wild
+stories those awful country-boys that came to live in our service
+brought with them,--of contracts written in blood and left out over
+night, not to be found the next morning,--removed by the Evil One, who
+takes his nightly round among our dwellings, and filed away for future
+use,--of dreams coming true,--of death-signs,--of apparitions,--no
+wonder that my imagination got excited, and I was liable to
+superstitious fancies.
+
+Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that he couldn't possibly see
+a ghost, is all very well--in the day-time. All the reason in the world
+will never get those impressions of childhood, created by just such
+circumstances as I have been telling, out of a man's head. That is the
+only excuse I have to give for the nervous kind of curiosity with which
+I watch my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie awake
+whenever I hear anything going on in his chamber after midnight.
+
+But whatever further observations I may have made must be deferred for
+the present. You will see in what way it happened that my thoughts were
+turned from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got my fancy
+full of material images,--faces, heads, figures, muscles, and so
+forth,--in such a way that I should have no chance in this number to
+gratify any curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing.
+
+Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my periodical record this time.
+It was all the work of a friend of mine, who would have it that I should
+sit to him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in the great
+lottery of life, where every one is sure of a prize, such as it is, the
+said soul inspects the said body with the same curious interest with
+which one who has ventured into a "gift enterprise" examines the
+"massive silver pencil-case" with the coppery smell and impressible
+tube, or the "splendid gold ring" with the questionable specific
+gravity, which it has been his fortune to obtain in addition to his
+purchase.
+
+The soul, having studied the article of which it finds itself
+proprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty well. But there is
+this difference between its view and that of a person looking at us:--we
+look from within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the elements
+in which we are incased; other observers look from without, and see us
+as living statues. To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few
+glimpses of our outside aspect; but this occasional impression is always
+modified by that look of the soul from within outward which none but
+ourselves can take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise to
+us. The artist looks only from without. He sees us, too, with a hundred
+aspects on our faces we are never likely to see. No genuine expression
+can be studied by the subject of it in the looking-glass.
+
+More than this; he sees us in a way in which many of our friends or
+acquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are conscious
+of, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place,
+each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle of
+assimilation referred to in my last record, if you happen to have read
+that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable of seeing
+just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in it the
+particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is truly an
+artist, does not take any one of these special views. Suppose he should
+copy you as you appear to the man who wants your name to a
+subscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend who entertains you
+to recognize the likeness to the smiling face which sheds its radiance
+at his board. Even within your own family, I am afraid there is a face
+which the rich uncle knows, that is not so familiar to the poor
+relation. The artist must take one or the other, or something compounded
+of the two, or something different from either. What the daguerreotype
+and photograph do is to give the features and one particular look, the
+very look which kills all expression, that of self-consciousness. The
+artist throws you off your guard, watches you in movement and in repose,
+puts your face through its exercises, observes its transitions, and so
+gets the whole range of its expression. Out of all this he forms an
+ideal portrait, which is not a copy of your exact look at any one time
+or to any particular person. Such a portrait cannot be to everybody what
+the ungloved call "as nat'ral as life." Every good picture, therefore,
+must be considered wanting in resemblance by many persons.
+
+There is one strange revelation which comes out, as the artist shapes
+your features from his outline. It is that you resemble so many
+relatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likeness
+in your countenance.
+
+He is at work at me now, when I catch some of these resemblances,
+thus:--
+
+There! that is just the look my father used to have sometimes; I never
+thought I had a sign of it. The mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye,
+those I knew I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile that
+faded away from my sister's lips--how many years ago! I thought it so
+pleasant in her, that I love myself better for having a trace of it.
+
+Are we not young? Are we not fresh and blooming? Wait a bit. The artist
+takes a mean little brush and draws three fine lines, diverging outwards
+from the eye over the temple. Five years.--The artist draws one
+tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between the
+eyebrows. Ten years.--The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth,
+so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon and
+recovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in the
+same creases, on smiling or other change of feature.--Hold on! Stop
+that! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of that
+interesting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc., etc.,
+etc.?
+
+There now! That is ourself, as we look after finishing an article,
+getting a three-mile pull with the ten-foot sculls, redressing the
+wrongs of the toilet, and standing with the light of hope in our eye and
+the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a POET that
+painted us?
+
+  "Blest be the art that can immortalize!"
+
+COWPER
+
+----Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school with
+any given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation,
+and in his features as special and definite an expression of his sole
+individuality as if he were the first created of his race. As soon as we
+are old enough to get the range of three or four generations well in
+hand, and to take in large family histories, we never see an individual
+in a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, with
+fragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. The analysis of a face
+into its ancestral elements requires that it should be examined in the
+very earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn look
+it brings with it out of the past eternity; and again in that brief
+space when Life, the mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, his
+silent servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines he
+has wrought so faithfully; and lastly, while a painter who can seize all
+the traits of a countenance is building it up, feature after feature,
+from the slight outline to the finished portrait.
+
+----I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to look upon our
+bodies more and more as a temporary possession, and less and less as
+identified with ourselves. In early years, while the child "feels its
+life in every limb," it lives in the body and for the body to a very
+great extent. It ought to be so. There have been many very interesting
+children who have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth
+and an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. There is a
+perfect literature of their biographies, all alike in their essentials;
+the same "disinclination to the usual amusements of childhood"; the same
+remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the same conscientiousness;
+in short, an almost uniform character, marked by beautiful traits, which
+we look at with a painful admiration. It will be found that most of
+these children are the subjects of some constitutional unfitness for
+living, the most frequent of which I need not mention. They are like the
+beautiful, blushing, half-grown fruit that falls before its time because
+its core is gnawed out. They have their meaning,--they do not live in
+vain,--but they are windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy children
+are injured morally by being forced to read too much about these little
+meek sufferers and their spiritual exercises. Here is a boy that loves
+to run, swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whittle, fish,
+tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash "tooters,"
+cut his name on fences, read about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the
+Sailor, eat the widest-angled slices of pie and untold cakes and
+candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out the better part of
+another boy's apple with his front ones, turn up coppers, "stick"
+knives, call names, throw stones, knock off hats, set mousetraps, chalk
+doorsteps, "cut behind" anything on wheels or runners, whistle through
+his teeth, "holler" Fire! on slight evidence, run after soldiers,
+patronize an engine-company, or, in his own words, "blow for tub No.
+11," or whatever it may be;--isn't that a pretty nice sort of a boy,
+though he has not got anything the matter with him that takes the taste
+of this world out? Now, when you put into such a hot-blooded,
+hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand a sad-looking volume or
+pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-faced child, whose life is
+really as much a training for death as the last month of a condemned
+criminal's existence, what does he find in common between his own
+overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and the experiences of the
+doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time comes when we have learned
+to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of resigned suffering, the
+holy light that plays over the pillow of those who die before their
+time, in humble hope and trust. But it is not until he has worked his
+way through the period of honest, hearty animal existence, which every
+robust, child should make the most of,--not until he has learned the use
+of his various faculties, which is his first duty,--that a boy of
+courage and animal vigor is in a proper state to read these tearful
+records of premature decay. I have no doubt that disgust is implanted in
+the minds of many healthy children by early surfeits of pathological
+piety. I do verily believe that He who took children in His arms and
+blessed them loved the healthiest and most playful of them just as well
+as those who were richest in the tuberculous virtues. I know what I am
+talking about, and there are more parents in this country who will be
+willing to listen to what I say than there are fools to pick a quarrel
+with me. In the sensibility and the sanctity which often accompany
+premature decay I see one of the most beautiful instances of the
+principle of compensation which marks the Divine benevolence. But to get
+the spiritual hygiene of robust natures out of the exceptional regimen
+of invalids is just simply what we Professors call "bad practice"; and I
+know by experience that there are worthy people who not only try it on
+their own children, but actually force it on those of their neighbors.
+
+----Having been photographed, and stereographed, and chromatographed, or
+done in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite note from
+Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at their
+Physiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired to
+that scientific Golgotha.
+
+Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and the
+woman in the toy called a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm
+suspended on a pivot,--so that when one comes to the door, the other
+retires backwards, and _vice vers�_. The more particular speciality of
+one is to lubricate your entrance and exit,--that of the other to polish
+you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose
+yourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counter-full of
+books with taking titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is there,
+"approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which was copied from _my_, the
+Professor's, folio plate in the work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra
+convolution, No. 9, _Destructiveness_, according to the list beneath,
+which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of Nature, was very
+liberally supplied by the artist, to meet the wants of the catalogue of
+"organs." Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of
+women,--horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range of
+life,--looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe
+Smith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on his
+cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" on a stripped twig of
+willow.
+
+The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as usual; let the
+horn-combers wait,--he shall be bumped without inspecting the
+antechamber.
+
+Tape round the head,--22 inches. (Come on, old 23 inches, if you think
+you are the better man!)
+
+Feels of thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid
+old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls
+at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other.
+_Victuality_, (organ at epigastrium,) some other number equally
+significant.
+
+Mild champooing of head now commences. Extraordinary revelations!
+Cupidipbilous, 6! Hymeniphilous, 6+! Paediphilous, 5! Deipniphilous, 6!
+Gelasmiphilous, 6! Muslkiphilous, 5! Uraniphilous, 5! Glossiphilous, 8!!
+and so on. Meant for a linguist.--Invaluable information. Will invest in
+grammars and dictionaries immediately.--I have nothing against the grand
+total of my phrenological endowments.
+
+I never set great store by my head, and did not think Messrs. Bumpus and
+Crane would give me so good a lot of organs as they did, especially
+considering that I was a _dead_-head on that occasion. Much obliged to
+them for their politeness. They have been useful in their way by calling
+attention to important physiological facts. (This concession is due to
+our immense bump of Candor.)
+
+_A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Boarders at our
+Breakfast-Table._
+
+I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a _Pseudo-science_. A
+Pseudo-science consists of _a nomenclature_, with a self-adjusting
+arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its
+doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells
+against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative
+practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually
+shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh
+a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women
+of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who
+always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on
+hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and
+there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician,
+and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.--I
+did not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences.
+
+A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may
+contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts
+with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the
+strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one.
+The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after
+they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest
+rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us,
+we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many
+persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The
+Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.--I did not say that it was so
+with Phrenology.
+
+I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was
+_something_ in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly
+agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villanous low" and has a huge
+hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely
+met an unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It
+is observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call
+"good heads" are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the
+doctrine.
+
+It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should assert that the
+moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of
+the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be
+puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call
+on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our satellite, before
+I purchase.
+
+It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement.
+It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot
+be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double,
+with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most
+closely crowded "organs." Can you tell how much money there is in a
+safe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your
+fingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the
+organs of _Individuality_, _Size_, etc., I trust him as much as I should
+if he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was a
+five-dollar- or a ten-dollar-bill under this or that particular rivet.
+Perhaps there is; _only he doesn't know anything about it_. But this is
+a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to,
+certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will all
+appreciate.
+
+I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of
+Phrenology, which is _very similar_ to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An
+example will show it most conveniently.
+
+A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a
+good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts
+and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump _does not lose_ in the
+act of copying.--I did not Hay it gained.--What do you look so for? (to
+the boarders.)
+
+Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all
+over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.--Not a bit
+of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? _That's_ the reason
+B. stole.
+
+And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,--used
+to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and
+put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing
+petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a _hollow_, instead of a bump, over
+Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of
+Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and ginger-bread, when a boy, with
+the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his
+example confirms our noble science.
+
+At last comes along a case which is apparently a _settler_, for there is
+a little brain with vast and varied powers,--a case like that of Byron,
+for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers
+everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a
+Phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the _quality_ of an organ,
+which determines its degree of power."
+
+Oh! oh! I see.--The argument may be briefly stated thus by the
+Phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient.
+
+It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the
+Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it was a Pseudo-science.
+
+I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed
+at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had
+read their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor
+acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and
+manipulations.--What are you laughing at? (to the boarders).--But let us
+just _suppose_, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did
+not know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and
+undertake to read off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar
+apiece. Let us see how well he could get along without the "organs."
+
+I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred
+dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other
+matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to
+begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor
+Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first
+customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,--ask
+him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang
+of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull,
+dictating as follows:--
+
+
+                            SCALE FROM I TO 10.
+
+  LIST OF FACULTIES FOR CUSTOMER.     PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL:
+                                   _Each to be accompanied with a wink._
+
+    _Amativeness_, 7.            Most men love the conflicting sex, and all
+                               men love to be told they do.
+
+    _Alimentiveness_, 8.         Don't you see that he has burst off his
+                               lowest waistcoat-button with feeding,--hay?
+
+    _Acquisitiveness_, 8.      Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
+
+    _Approbativeness_, 7+.       Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the
+                               effect of that _plus_ sign.
+
+    _Self-esteem_, 6.          His face shows that.
+
+    _Benevolence_, 9.          That'll please him
+
+    _Conscientiousness_, 8-1/2. That fraction looks first-rate.
+
+    _Mirthfulness_, 7.         Has laughed twice since he came in.
+
+    _Ideality_, 9.             That sounds well.
+
+    _Form, Size, Weight, Color, }
+    Locality, Eventuality, etc.,}   4 to 6. Average everything that
+    etc.,_                      }              can't be guessed.
+
+                                    And so of the other faculties.
+
+
+Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phrenologists do. They go
+only by the bumps.--What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders.)
+I only said that is the way _I_ should practise "Phrenology" for a
+living.
+
+_End of my Lecture._
+
+----The Reformers have good heads generally. Their faces are commonly
+serene enough, and they are lambs in private intercourse, even though
+their voices may be like
+
+  The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore,
+
+when heard from platform. Their greatest spiritual danger is from the
+perpetual _flattery of abuse_ to which they are exposed. These lines are
+meant to caution them.
+
+
+
+
+SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER.
+
+
+HIS TEMPTATION.
+
+
+  No fear lest praise should make us proud!
+    We know how cheaply that is won;
+  The idle homage of the crowd
+    Is proof of tasks as idly done.
+
+  A surface-smile may pay the toil
+    That follows still the conquering Right,
+  With soft, white hands to dress the spoil
+    That sunbrowned arms have clutched in fight.
+
+  Sing the sweet song of other days,
+    Serenely placid, safely true,
+  And o'er the present's parching ways
+    Thy verse distils like evening dew.
+
+  But speak in words of living power,--
+    They fall like drops of scalding rain
+  That plashed before the burning shower
+    swept o'er the cities of the plain!
+
+  Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,--
+    Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring,
+  And, smitten through their leprous mail,
+    Strike right and left in hope to sting.
+
+  If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath,
+    They feet on earth, they heart above,
+  Canst walk in peace they kingly path,
+    Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,--
+
+  Too kind for bitter words to grieve,
+    Too firm for clamor to dismay,
+  When Faith forbids thee to believe,
+    And Meekness calls to disobey,--
+
+  Ah, then beware of mortal pride!
+    The smiling pride that calmly scorns
+  Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed
+    In laboring on thy crown of thorns!
+
+
+
+
+THE ITALIAN WAR.
+
+
+War has been pronounced the condition of humanity; and it is certain
+that conflict of some kind rages everywhere and at all times. The most
+combative people on earth are the advocates of universal and perpetual
+peace. There is something essentially defiant in the action of men who
+avowedly seek the abolition of a custom that has existed since the days
+of Cain, and which was well known to those magnificent beasts that
+ranged over the earth's face long before man began to dream or was
+dreamed of. To fight seems a necessity of the animal nature, whether the
+animal be called tiger, bull, or man. Those who have fought assure us
+that there is a positive pleasure in battle. That clever young woman,
+Miss Flora Mac-Ivor, who passed most of her life in the very highest
+fighting society, assures us, that men, when confronted with each other,
+have a certain instinct for strife, as we see in other male animals,
+such as dogs, bulls, and so forth. It is even so; and, further, the
+fondness that men have for accounts and details of battles is another
+evidence of the popularity of war, and an absolute stumbling-block in
+the way of the Peace Society, which has the hardest of combats to fight.
+
+The journals of the world are at this time full of the details of a war
+such as that world has not witnessed since 1815, and in comparison with
+which even the Russian War was but a second-rate contest. The old
+quarrel between Austria and France, which has repeatedly caused the
+peace of Europe to be broken since the days of Frederick III. and Louis
+XI., has been renewed in our time with a fierceness and a vehemence and
+on a scale that would have astonished Francis I., Charles V., Richelieu,
+Turenne, Cond�, Louis XIV., Eug�ne, and even Napoleon himself, the most
+mighty of whose contests with Austria alone cannot be compared with that
+which his nephew is now waging with the House of Lorraine. For, in 1805
+and in 1809, Napoleon was not merely the ruler of France, but had at his
+control the resources of many other countries. Belgium and Holland were
+then at the command of France, and now they are independent monarchies,
+holding strictly the position of neutrals. In 1809, Napoleon had those
+very German States for his active allies that now threaten Napoleon
+III.; and some of the hardest fighting on the French side, in the first
+days of the campaign, was the work of Bavarians and other German
+soldiers. That part of Poland which then constituted the Grand Duchy of
+Warsaw was among his dependent principalities; and Russia sent an army
+to his aid. In 1805, Napoleon I. had far more of Italian assistance than
+Napoleon III. has had at the time we write; and in 1809, the entire
+Peninsula obeyed his decrees as implicitly as they were obeyed by
+France. Napoleon III. entered upon the war with the hereditary rival of
+his country with no other ally than Sardinia, though it is now evident
+that there was an "understanding" between him and the Czar, not pointing
+to an attack on England, but to prevent the intervention of the Germans
+in behalf of Austria, by holding out the implied threat of an attack on
+Germany by Russia, should its rulers or people move against the allies.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the motives of the French Emperor, and
+however little most men may be disposed to believe in his generosity, it
+is impossible to refrain from admiring the promptness and skill with
+which he has acted, or to deny to him the merit of courage in daring to
+pronounce so decidedly against the Austrians at a time when he could not
+have reasonably reckoned upon a single ally beyond the limits of Italy,
+when England, under Tory rule, was more disposed to act against him than
+with him, and when the hostility of Germany, and its readiness to
+support the Slavonic empire of Austria, were unequivocally expressed. So
+great indeed, were the odds against him, that we find in that fact the
+chief reason for the indisposition of the world to believe in the
+possibility of war, and its extraordinary surprise when war actually
+broke out.
+
+To those who had closely scanned the affairs of Europe, and who observed
+them by the light of the history of nearly four centuries, the coming of
+war was no surprise. They foresaw it, and predicted its occurrence some
+time before that famous lecture which the Emperor of the French
+administered to the Emperor of Austria in the person of Baron H�bner.
+With them, the question was not, Shall there be a war?--but it was, When
+will the war break out? They reasoned from the _cause_ of the quarrel
+between the two empires; while those who so long clung to the belief
+that peace would be preserved, and who so plausibly argued in support of
+their theory as to impose upon wellnigh the whole world, concerned
+themselves only with its _occasion_. The former referred to things that
+lay beyond the range of temporary politics, and, while admitting that
+the shock of actual conflict might be postponed even for a few years,
+were certain that such conflict must come, even if in the interval there
+should happen an entire change of government in France. France might be
+imperial, or royal, or republican, she might be Bonapartean, or
+Henriquist, or Orl�ansist, or democratic,--tri-color, white, blue or
+red,--but the quarrel would come, and cause new campaigns. The latter
+thinking that the dispute was on the Italian question only, and knowing
+that that was susceptible of diplomatic settlement, and believing that
+there would be a union of European powers to accomplish such settlement,
+rather than allow peace to be disturbed, never could suppose that the
+balance of probabilities would be found on the side of war. It is due to
+them to say, that a variety of causes conduced not merely to make them
+firm in their faith, but to win for their views the general approbation
+on mankind. Prominent among these was the striking fact, that there had
+been no European was, strictly so called, with the single exception of
+the Russian contest,--and that was highly exceptional in its
+character,--for four-and-forty years. The generation that is passing
+away, and the generation that is most active in discharging the business
+of the world, never had seen a grand conflict between Christian states,
+in which mighty armies had operated on vast and various fields. Old men
+recollected the wars of Napoleon, but the number of such men is not
+large, and their influence on opinion is small. Of quarrels and threats
+of war all had seen enough; but this only tended to make them slow to
+believe that war was really at hand. If so many quarrels had taken
+place, and had been settled without resort to arms, assuredly the new
+quarrel might be settled, and Europe get on peaceably for a few years
+more without warfare. Neither the invasion of Spain in 1823, nor the
+revolution of 1830, nor the Eastern question of 1840, nor the universal
+outbreaks of 1848-9, nor the threats of Russia against Turkey when she
+sought to compel the Sultan to give up those who had eaten his salt to
+the gallows of Arad, nor the repeated discussions of the practicability
+of a French conquest of England had led to a general war. If so many and
+so black clouds had been dispersed without storms, it was not reasonable
+to believe that the cloud which rose in the beginning of 1859 might also
+break, and leave again a serene sky. It may be added that we have all of
+us come to the conclusion that this is the best age the world has ever
+known, as in most respects it is; and it seemed scarcely compatible with
+our estimate of the age's excellence to believe that it _could_ send a
+couple of million of men into the field for the purpose of cutting one
+another's throats, except clearly as an act of self-defence. Man is the
+same war-making animal now that he was in the days of Marathon, but he
+readily admits the evils of war, and is peremptory in demanding that
+they shall not be incurred save for good and valid reasons. He is as
+ready to fight as ever he was, but he must fight for some definite
+cause,--for a cause that will bear examination: and it did not seem
+possible that a mere dispute concerning the manner in which Austria
+governed her Italian dominions was of sufficient moment to light up the
+flames of war anew on a scale as gigantic as ever they were made to
+blaze during the days of Napoleon. Then, so far as the Russian War threw
+any light upon the policy of France, the fair inference was that she at
+least was not disposed to fight. France made the peace by which that war
+was brought to a sudden end. She dictated that peace, much to the
+disgust of the English, who had just become thoroughly roused, and who,
+little anticipating the Indian mutiny, were for carrying on the contest
+until Russia should be thoroughly humiliated. Considering all these
+things, it was not unreasonable to believe that peace could be
+maintained, and that Austria, far from taking the initiative in the war,
+would be found ready to make such concessions as should lead to the
+indefinite postponement of hostilities.
+
+Those who reasoned from the mere occasion of the war were perfectly
+right, from their point of view. Unfortunately for their reputation for
+sagacity, their premises were entirely wrong, and hence the viciousness
+of their conclusion. If we would know the cause of the war, we must
+banish from our minds all that is said about the desire of Napoleon III
+for vengeance on the conquerors of his uncle, all that we are told of
+his sentimental wish for the elevation of the Italian people to a
+national position, and all that is predicated of his ambitious longings
+for the reconstruction of the First Empire. We must regard Napoleon III
+in the light of what he really is, namely, one of the greatest statesmen
+that ever lived, or we shall never be able to understand what are his
+purposes. We have nothing to do with his morals, but have to regard him
+only as the chief of France, pursuing the policy he believes best
+calculated to advance that country's interests, and doing so in strict
+accordance with her historical traditions, and in the same manner in
+which it was pursued by the ablest of the Valois kings, by Henry IV. and
+Sully, by Richelieu and Mazarin, by Louis XIV., by the chiefs of the
+First Republic, and by Napoleon I. He may be a good man or a bad man,
+but his character is entirely aside from the question, the nature and
+merits of which have no necessary connection with the nature and merits
+of the men engaged in effecting its solution. Let us examine the
+subject, and see if we cannot find an intelligent, reasonable cause for
+Napoleon's course of action, that shall harmonize with the duties, we
+might almost say the instincts, of a great French statesman. The
+examination will embrace nothing recondite, but we are confident it will
+show that the French Emperor is no Quixote, and that he has been forced
+into the war by the necessities of his situation, and by the very
+natural desire he feels to prevent France from being compelled to
+descend to a secondary place in the scale of European nations.
+
+Modern Europe, in the sense in which we understand the term, dates from
+the last quarter of the Fifteenth Century. Then England ceased to
+attempt permanent conquests on the continent. Then Spain assumed
+European rank and definite position. But two powers then began
+especially to show themselves, and to play parts which both have
+maintained down to the present time. The one was France, which then
+ceased to dread English invasions, from the effects of which she was
+rapidly recovering, whereby she was left to employ her energies on
+foreign fields. The other was the _House of Austria_, which, by a series
+of fortunate marriages, became, in the short period of forty years, the
+most powerful family the modern world has ever known. On the day when
+Maximilian, son of Frederick III., Emperor of Germany, wedded Mary of
+Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, the rivalry between France and
+the Austrian family began. Philip, son of that marriage, married Juana,
+daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; and their son, Charles I. of the
+Spains, became Charles V. of Germany. Thus there centred in his person a
+degree of power such as no other sovereign could boast, and which alone
+would have sufficed to make him the rival of the King of France, Francis
+I., had no personal feeling entered into the relations between them. But
+such feeling existed, and grew out of their competition for the imperial
+crown. The previous ill-will between the Valois and the Hapsburg was
+greatly increased, and assumed such force as permanently to color the
+course of European history from that day to this. The rivalry of Charles
+and Francis was the cause of many contests, and the French monarch,
+though he was "The Most Christian King," in the opinion of some, more
+than once aided, or offered to aid, the German Protestants against the
+Emperor. To Philip II. and Henry II. the rivalry of their fathers
+descended as an inheritance. It was in their warfare that the Battle of
+St. Quentin was fought. The progress of the Reformation led monarchs in
+those days to take a view of affairs not much unlike that which monarchs
+of this century took in the days of the Holy Alliance, and after the
+revolution of 1830. The hatred of Protestantism led the two kings to
+draw together, though Henry II. had had no mean part in that work which
+had enabled the Protestant Maurice of Saxony to render abortive all the
+plans of Charles V. for the full restoration of Catholicism in Germany.
+During the thirty years that followed the death of Henry II., the
+dissensions of France had rendered her unable to contend with the House
+of Austria, then principally represented by the Spanish branch of that
+family; and Philip II. at one time thought of obtaining the crown of
+that country for a member of his own house. But no sooner had Henry IV.
+ascended the French throne, and established himself firmly thereon, than
+the rivalry of France and Austria became as clearly pronounced as it had
+been in the reign of Francis I.; and at the time of his death that most
+popular of the Bourbon kings was engaged on a plan having for its object
+the subversion of the Austrian power. His assassination changed the
+course of events for a few years; but Richelieu became the ally of the
+Swedes and Protestant Germans in the Thirty Years' War, though he was a
+Cardinal, had destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, and might
+have aspired to the Papacy. Mazarin, another Cardinal, followed
+Richelieu's policy. Louis XIV. was repeatedly at war with the House of
+Austria, though he was the son of an Austrian princess, and was married
+to another. His last war with that house was for the throne of Spain,
+when the elder branch of the Hapsburgs died out, in 1700. Louis XV. had
+two contests with Austria; but in 1756, under the lead of Count Kaunitz,
+France and Austria were united, and acted together in the Seven Years'
+War, the incidents and effects of which were by no means calculated to
+reconcile the French to the departure of their government from its
+ancient policy. One of the causes of the French Revolution was the
+Austrian alliance, and one of its effects was the complete rupture of
+that alliance. Austria was the most determined foe that the French
+Republic and Empire ever encountered. Including the war of 1815, there
+were six contests between Austria and republican and imperial France. In
+all these wars Austria was the aggressor, and showed herself to be the
+enemy of _France_ as well as of those _French principles_ which so
+frightened the conservatives of the world in those days. In the first
+war, she took possession of French places for herself, and not for the
+House of Bourbon; and in the last she purposed a partition of France,
+long after Louis XVIII. had been finally restored, and when Napoleon was
+at or near St. Helena. She demanded that Alsace and Lorraine should be
+made over to her, in the autumn of 1815. She sought to induce Prussia to
+unite with her by offering to support any demand that she might make for
+French territory; and, failing to move that power, endeavored to get the
+smaller German States to act with her,--the same States, indeed, that
+are now so hostile to France, and which talk of a march upon Paris, and
+of a reduction of French territorial strength. Nothing prevented the
+Austrian idea from being reduced to practice but the opposition of
+Russia and England, neither of which had any interest in the spoliation
+of France, while both had no desire to see Austria rendered stronger
+than she was. It was to England that Austria owed her Italian
+possessions, which, in 1814, she at first had the sense not to wish to
+be cumbered with; and to make her still more powerful north of the Alps
+was not to be thought of even by the Liverpools and Castlereaghs. The
+Czar, too, had in his thoughts a closer connection with France than it
+suited him then to avow, and for purposes of his own; and therefore he
+could not desire the sensible diminution of the power of a country the
+resources of which he expected to employ. Nicholas inherited his
+brother's ideas and designs, and we are to attribute much of the
+ill-feeling that he exhibited towards the Orl�ans dynasty to his
+disappointment; for the revolution that elevated that dynasty to the
+French throne destroyed the hope that he had entertained of having
+French aid to effect the conquest of Turkey. There never would have been
+a siege of Sebastopol, if the elder branch of the Bourbons had continued
+to rule in France. It required even a series of revolutions to bring
+France to that condition in which the Western Alliance was possible. But
+there would have been something more than "an understanding" between
+France and Russia concerning Austria, had the government of the
+Restoration endured a few years beyond 1830. It suited the Austrian
+government to show considerable coldness towards the Orl�ans dynasty;
+but assuredly so wise a man as Prince Metternich, and who had such
+excellent means of information, never could have believed otherwise than
+that the establishment of that dynasty saved Austria from being assailed
+by both Russia and France.
+
+The rivalry of France and Austria being understood, and that rivalry
+leading to war whenever occasion therefor chances to arise, it remains
+to inquire what is the occasion of the existing contest. When Napoleon
+III. became head of France, as Prince-President, at the close of 1848,
+Austria was the last power with which he could have engaged in war,
+supposing that he had then been strong enough to control the policy of
+France, and it had suited him to make an occasion for war. She was then
+engaged in her death-and-life struggles with Hungarians, Italians, and
+others of her subjects who that year threw off her yoke, while the
+Sardinians had endeavored to obtain possession of Lombardy and Venice.
+Francis Joseph became chief of the Austrian Empire at the same time that
+Louis Napoleon ascended to the same point in France. Certainly, if the
+object of France had been the mere weakening and spoliation of Austria,
+then was the time to assail her, when one half her subjects were
+fighting the other half, when the Germans outside of her empire were by
+no means her friends, and when it was far from clear that she could rely
+upon assistance from Russia. Austria was then in a condition of
+helplessness apparently so complete, that many thought her hour had
+come; but those who knew her history, and were aware how often she had
+recovered from just such crises, held no belief of the kind. Yet if
+France had assailed her at that time, Austria must have lost all her
+Italian provinces; and it is now generally admitted, that, if Cavaignac
+had sent a French army into Italy immediately after the victory won by
+Radetzky over Charles Albert at Somma Campagna, (July 26th, 1848,) the
+"Italian question" would then have been settled in a manner that would
+have been satisfactory to the greater part of Europe, and have rendered
+such a war as is now waging in Italy quite impossible. Russia could have
+done nothing to prevent the success of the French arms, and it is
+probable that Austria would have abandoned the contest without fighting
+a battle. At an earlier period she had signified her readiness to allow
+the incorporation of most of Lombardy with Sardinia, she to retain the
+country beyond the Mincio, and to hold the two great fortresses of
+Peschiera (at the southern extremity of the Lago di Garda, and at the
+point where the river issues from the lake) and Mantua. She even asked
+the aid of France and England to effect a peace on this basis, but
+unsuccessfully. Cavoignac's anomalous political position prevented him
+from aiding the Italians. He was a Liberal, but the actual head of the
+reactionists in France of all colors, of men who looked upon the
+Italians as ruffians wedded to disorder, while Austria, in their eyes,
+was the champion of order. France did nothing, and in December Louis
+Napoleon became President. An opportunity was soon afforded him to
+interfere in Italian affairs. The armistice that had existed between the
+Austrians and the Sardinians after the 9th of August, 1848, was
+denounced on the 12th of March, 1849, by the latter; and Radetzky closed
+the order of the day, issued immediately after this denunciation was
+made, with the words,--"Forward, soldiers, to Turin!" The intentions of
+the Sardinians must have been known to Louis Napoleon, but he took no
+measures to aid them. He saw Piedmont conquered in a campaign of
+"hours." He saw Brescia treated by Haynau as Tilly treated Magdeburg. He
+saw the long and heroical defence of Venice against the Austrians,
+during the dreary spring and summer of '49,--a defence as worthy of
+immortality as the War of Chiozza, and indicating the presence of the
+spirit of Zeno, and Contarini, and Pisani in the old home of those
+patriots. But nothing moved him. He would not even mediate in behalf of
+the Venetians; and it was by the advice of the French consul and the
+French admiral on the station that Venice finally surrendered, but not
+until she had exhausted the means of defence and life. At that time, few
+men in America but were in the habit of denouncing the French President
+for his indifference to the Italian cause. He was charged with having
+been guilty of a blunder and a crime. His consent to the expedition to
+Rome aggravated his offence, for it was an act of intervention on the
+wrong side. But the passage of ten years enables us to be more just to
+him than it was possible for us to be in 1849. He was not firm in his
+seat. He was but a temporary chief of the State. He was surrounded by
+enemies, political and personal, who were seeking his overthrow, without
+any regard for the tenure of his office. He knew not his power. His
+object was the restoration of internal peace to France, her recovery
+from the weakness info which she had fallen or had been precipitated. He
+dared not offend the Catholics, who saw then, as they see now, a
+champion in Austria. He was the victim of circumstances, and he had to
+bow before them, in order that he might finally become their master.
+Then he had no occasion for a quarrel with Austria. She was at the
+lowest ebb her fortunes had known since the day that the Turks appeared
+for the second time before Vienna. She could not have maintained herself
+in Italy, even after the successes of Radetzky, had not Nicholas sent
+one hundred and fifty thousand men to her assistance in Hungary. What
+had France to fear from her? No more than she had to fear from her on
+the day after Austerlitz.
+
+Years rolled on, and brought with them great changes; and the greatest
+of those changes was to be seen in Italy, in reference to the position
+of Austria there, and its effect upon France. Austria rapidly
+re�stablished her power in Italy, not only over Lombardy and Venice, but
+over every part of the Peninsula, excepting Sardinia. Tuscany was
+connected with her by various ties, and was ruled as she wished it to be
+ruled. Parma and Modena were hers in every sense. She was the patron and
+protector of the abominable Bomba, and her support alone enabled him to
+defy the sentiment of the civilized world, and to indulge in cruelties
+such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld
+the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal
+of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the
+honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes,
+and were no more free to act without her consent than were the kings the
+Roman Republic and Empire allowed to exist within their dominions free
+to act without the consent of the proconsuls. What the proconsul of
+Syria was to the little potentates mentioned in the New Testament, the
+Austrian viceroy in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was to the nominal
+rulers of the various Italian States. It only remained to bring Sardinia
+within this ring-fence of sea and mountains to convert all Italy into an
+Austrian dependency. There is nothing like this in history, we verily
+believe. In the short period of ten years after the capture of Milan by
+Radetzky, (August 4, 1848,) the Austrians had established themselves
+completely in nearly every part of Italy. Of the twenty-seven millions
+of people that compose her population, twenty-two millions were as much
+at the command of Austria as were the Hungarians and Bohemians. Had she
+had the sense to use her power, not with mildness only, but beneficially
+to this great mass of men, and had nothing occurred to disturb her
+plans, she would have nearly doubled the number of her subjects, and
+have more than doubled her resources. She would have become a great
+maritime state, and have converted the Mediterranean into an Austrian
+lake. Had they been well governed, the Italians might, and most probably
+would, have accepted their condition, and have become loyal subjects of
+the House of Lorraine. Foreign rule is no new thing to them, nor have
+they ever been impatient under its existence, when it has existed for
+their good. The people rarely are hostile to any government that is
+conducted with ordinary fairness. There is no greater error than that
+involved in the idea that revolutions or changes of any kind originate
+from below, that they proceed from the people. Almost invariably they
+come from above, from governmental action; and it is ever in the power
+of a government to make itself perpetual. The term of its existence is
+in its own hands. At the very worst for Austria, she might have
+accomplished in Italy what was accomplished there three centuries ago by
+Spain, then ruled by the elder branch of the Hapsburgs. She might have
+commanded almost everything within its limits, with Sardinia to play
+some such part as was then played by Venice.
+
+This is said on the supposition, first, that her government should have
+been mild and conciliatory, active only for good, and that all her
+interference with local rule should have been on the side of humanity;
+and, second, that no foreign power should have interfered to prevent the
+full development of her policy. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately
+for other nations, and especially so for Italy, she not only did _not_
+govern well, but governed badly; and there was a great power which was
+deeply, vitally interested--moved by the all-controlling principle of
+self-preservation--in watching all her movements, and in finding
+occasion to drive her out of Italy. She was not content with upholding
+misgovernment in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and elsewhere,
+but she meant to subvert the constitutional polity established in the
+Sub-Alpine Kingdom of Sardinia. The enemy of constitutionalism and
+freedom everywhere, she was especially hostile to their existence in the
+little state that bordered on a portion of her Italian possessions,
+whence they always threatened Lombardy with a plague she detests far
+more heartily than she detests cholera. No natural boundary or _cordon
+militaire_ could suffice to stay the march of principles. Nothing would
+answer but the subversion of the Sardinian constitution and the bringing
+of that nation's government into harmony with the admirable rule that
+existed, under the double-headed eagle's protection, in Naples and
+Modena. Unless all Austrian history be false, Austria's object for years
+has been a revolution in Sardinia, and Rome has aided her. This is the
+necessity of her moral situation with reference to her little neighbor.
+The world has smiled at Austria's late complaint that Sardinia menaced
+her, it seemed so like the wolf's protestation that the lamb was doing
+him an injury; but it was really well founded, though not entitled to
+much respect. Sardinia _did_ menace Austria. She menaced her by the
+force of her example,--as the honest man menaces the rogue, as the
+peaceful man menaces the ruffian, as the charitable man menaces the
+miser, as the Good Samaritan menaced the priest and Levite. In the sense
+that virtue ever menaces vice, and right constantly menaces wrong,
+Sardinia was a menace to Austria;--and as we often find the wrongdoer
+denouncing the good as subverters of social order, we ought not to be
+astonished at the plaintive whine of the master of thrice forty legions
+at the conduct of the decorous, humane, and enlightened Victor Emanuel.
+
+The only foreign power that had a direct, immediate, positive interest
+in preventing the establishment of Austrian power over Italy was France.
+Several other powers had some interest adverse to the success of the
+Austrian scheme, but it was so far below that which France felt, that it
+is difficult to make any comparison between the several cases. England,
+speaking generally, might not like the idea of a new naval power coming
+into existence in the Mediterranean, which, with great fleets and
+greater armies, might come to have a controlling influence in the East,
+and prevent the establishment of her power in Egypt and Syria. She might
+see with some jealousy the further development of Austrian commerce,
+which has been so successfully pursued in the Mediterranean and the
+Levant since 1815. But then England is not very remarkable for
+forethought, and she has a just confidence in her own naval power.
+Besides, would not Austria, in the event of her adding Italy virtually
+to her dominions, become the ally of England in the business of
+supporting Turkey against Russia, and in preventing the further
+extension of Russian power to the South and the East? The old
+traditionary policy of England pointed to an Austrian alliance, and
+nations are tenacious of their traditions. The war in Italy was
+unquestionably precipitated by Austria's belief that in the last resort
+she could rely upon English support; and she made a fatal delay in her
+military movements in deference to English interposition. Prussia could
+not be expected to see the increase of the power of the House of Austria
+with pleasure; but it was possible that the extension of its dominions
+to the South, by giving it new objects of ambition, and forcing upon it
+a leading part in Eastern affairs, might cause that house to pay less
+regard to German matters, leaving them to be managed by the House of
+Hohenzollern. Russia, under the system that Nicholas pursued, could not
+have seen Austria absorb Italy without resisting the process at any
+cost; but Alexander IV., [Footnote: I call the present czar Alexander
+the _Fourth_, as there have been three other Alexanders _sovereigns_ of
+Russia; but he is generally styled Alexander the _Second_.] a wiser man
+than his father was, never would have gone to war to prevent it, his
+views being directed to those internal reforms the success of which is
+likely to create a _Russian People_, and to place his empire in a far
+higher position than it has ever yet occupied. Yet Russia could not have
+witnessed Austria's success with pleasure; and the readiness with which
+she has agreed to aid France, should the Germans aid Austria, is proof
+sufficient that she is desirous that Austria should not merely be
+prevented from extending her territory, but actually reduced in extent
+and in means. From no part of Europe have come more decided
+condemnations of the course of Austria than from the Russian capital.
+The language of the St. Petersburg journals touching the Treaties of
+Vienna has been absolutely contemptuous; and that language is all the
+more oracular and significant because we know that the editors of those
+journals must have been inspired by the government. It has been justly
+regarded as expressing the views of the Czar, and of the statesmen who
+compose his cabinet. Though not disposed for war, and probably sincerely
+desirous of the preservation of peace everywhere, the rulers of Russia
+are quite ready to support France in all proper measures that she may
+adopt to drive the Austrians from every part of the Italian Peninsula.
+They are too sagacious not to see that France cannot hold a league of
+Italian territory, and the reduction of Austrian power is just so much
+gained towards the ultimate realization of their Oriental policy.
+
+Of the other European powers, and of their opinions respecting the
+effect of Austrian supremacy, little need be said. Such countries as
+Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal have little weight in
+the European system, individually or collectively. Even Spain, though
+she is not the feeble nation many of our countrymen are pleased to
+represent her, when seeking to find a _reason_ for the seizure of
+Cuba,--even Spain, we say, could not be much moved by the prospect of
+Austria's reaching to that condition of vast strength which would
+necessarily follow from her undisputed ascendency in Italy. The lesser
+German States would probably have seen Austria's increase with pleasure,
+partly because it would have helped to remove their fears of France and
+Russia, and partly because it would have been flattering to their pride
+of race, the House of Austria being Germanic in its character, though
+ruling directly over but few Germans,--few, we mean, in comparison with
+the Slaves, Magyars, Italians, and other races that compose the bulk of
+its subjects. Turkey alone had a direct interest in Austria's success,
+as promising her protection against all the other great European powers;
+but Turkey is not, properly speaking, a member of the European
+Commonwealth.
+
+But the case was very different with France. She is the first nation of
+Continental Europe,--a position she has held for nearly four centuries,
+though sometimes her fortunes have been reduced very low, as during the
+closing days of the Valois dynasty, and in 1815; but even in 1815 she
+had the melancholy consolation of knowing that it required the combined
+exertions of all Europe to conquer her. Her wonderful elasticity in
+rising superior to the severest visitations has often surprised the
+world, and those who remember 1815 will be most astonished at her
+present position in Europe, or rather in Christendom. Her position,
+however, has always been the result of indefatigable exertions, and a
+variety of circumstances have made those exertions necessary on several
+occasions. Great as France is now, and great as she has been at several
+periods of her history since the death of Mazarin, it may be doubted if
+she is so great as she was at the date of the Treaty of Westphalia, the
+work of her arms and her diplomacy (1648). At that time, and for many
+years afterwards, several nations had no pronounced political existence
+that now are powers of the first class. Russia had no weight in Europe
+until the last years of Louis XIV., and her real importance commenced
+fifty years after that monarch was placed in his grave. Prussia, though
+she attained to a respectable position at the close of the seventeenth
+century, the date of the creation of her monarchy, did not become a
+first-class power until two generations later, and as the result of the
+Seven Years' War. The United States count but eighty-three years of
+national life; and they have had international influence less than half
+of that time. England, which the restoration of the Stuarts caused to
+sink so low in those very years during which Louis XIV. was at the
+zenith of his greatness, has been for one hundred and seventy years the
+equal of France. On the other hand, the two nations with which France
+was formerly much connected, Turkey and Sweden, have ceased to influence
+events. France allied herself with Turkey in the early years of her
+struggle with the House of Austria, to the offence of Christian peoples;
+and the relations between Paris and Constantinople were long maintained
+on the basis of common interest, the only tie that has ever sufficed to
+bind nations. Both countries were the enemies of Austria. The second
+half of the Thirty Years' War was maintained, on the part of the enemies
+of Austria, by the alliance of France and Sweden; and between these
+countries a good understanding frequently prevailed in after-times, the
+growth of Russia serving to force Sweden into the arms of France. Poland
+has disappeared from the list of nations, and her territory has
+augmented the resources of two countries that had no political weight in
+the first century of the Bourbon kings, and those of France's rival.
+Thus France has relatively fallen. That ancient international system of
+which she was the centre for nearly one hundred and fifty years--say
+from the middle of the reign of Henry IV. to the Peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle, (1599-1748)--has passed entirely away from the world,
+and never can be restored. France has seldom seriously thought of
+attempting its restoration, though some of her statesmen, and probably a
+large majority of the more intelligent of her people, have from time to
+time warmly favored the idea of the reconstruction of Poland; and of all
+the errors of Napoleon I., his failure to realize that idea was
+unquestionably the greatest. The turn that things took in the French
+Revolution enabled France to establish an hegemony in Europe, which
+might have been long preserved but for the disasters of 1812; but the
+empire of Napoleon I. was never a political empire, being only of a
+military character. France then led Europe, but she lost her ascendency
+on the first reverse, like Sparta after Leuctra. History has no parallel
+to the change that the France of 1814 presented to the France of 1812.
+On the 1st of October, 1812, the French were at Moscow; on the 1st of
+April, 1814, the allies were in Paris. Eighteen months had done work
+that no man living at the first date had expected to see accomplished.
+What happened in 1815 was but the complement of 1814. Then France was
+struck down, trampled upon, spoiled, insulted, and mulcted in immense
+sums of money; and finally forced to pay the cost of an armed police,
+headed by Wellington himself, which held her chief fortresses for three
+years, and saw that her chains were kept bright and strong. Never, since
+Lysander demolished the Long Walls of Athens to the music of the Spartan
+flute, had the world seen so bitter a spectacle of national humiliation,
+so absolute a reversal of fortune,--the long-conquering legions
+perishing by the sword, and him who had headed so many triumphal
+processions perishing as it were in the Mamertine dungeon.
+
+It was from the nadir to which she had thus fallen, that the rulers of
+France, acting as the agents of its people, have been laboring to raise
+her ever since 1815. They have had a twofold object in view. They have
+sought territory, in order that France might not be driven into the list
+of second-class nations,--and military glory, to make men forget
+Vittoria, and Leipzig, and Waterloo. All the governments of France have
+been alike in this respect, no matter how much they have differed in
+other respects. The legitimate Bourbons,--of whom an American is bound
+to speak well, for they were our friends, and often evinced a feeling
+towards us that exceeded largely anything that is required by the terms
+or the spirit of a political alliance,--the solitary Orl�ans King, the
+shadowy Republic of '48, and the imperial government, all have
+endeavored to do something to elevate France, to win for her new
+glories, and to regain for her her old position. The expedition into
+Spain, in 1823, ostensibly made in the interest of Absolutism, was
+really undertaken for the purpose of rebaptizing the white flag in fire.
+Charles X. and M. de Polignac were engaged in a great scheme of foreign
+policy when they fell, the chief object of which, on their side, was the
+restoration to France of the provinces of the Rhine,--and which Russia
+favored, because she knew, that, unless the Bourbons could do something
+to satisfy their people, they must remain powerless, and it did not
+answer her purpose that they should be otherwise than powerful. The
+conquest of Algiers was made for the purpose of gratifying the French
+people, and with the intention of spreading French dominion over
+Northern Africa. It was a step towards the acquisition of Egypt, for
+which land France has exhibited a strange longing. In this way the loss
+of French India and French America, things of the old monarchy, were to
+be compensated. The government of Louis Philippe expended mines of gold
+and seas of blood in Africa, much to the astonishment of prudent men,
+who had no idea of the end upon which its eyes were fixed. When the
+Republic of 1848 was improvised, even Lamartine, not an unjust man,
+could talk of the rights of France in Italy, and of her proper influence
+there; and the wicked attack on the Romans, in 1849, was prompted by a
+desire to make French influence felt in that country in a manner that
+should be clear to the sense of mankind.
+
+When Louis Napoleon became President of France, it was impossible for
+him to devote much attention to foreign affairs. His aim was to make
+himself Emperor, to restore the Napoleon dynasty. This, after a hard
+struggle, he effected in 1851-'52. It must be within the recollection of
+all that the French invasion question was never more vehemently
+discussed in England than during the ten or twelve months that followed
+the _coup d'�tat_. This happened because it was assumed that the Emperor
+_must_ do something to revenge the injuries his house and France had
+suffered from that alliance of which England was the chief member and
+the purse-holder. Whether he ever thought of assailing England, no man
+can say; for he never yet communicated his thoughts on any important
+subject to any human being. We may assume, however, that he would not
+have attacked England without having made extensive preparations for
+that purpose; and long before such preparations could have been
+perfected, the Eastern question was forced upon the attention of Europe,
+and the two nations which were expected to engage in war as foes united
+their immense armaments to thwart the plans of Russia. Blinded by his
+feelings, and altogether mistaking the character of the English people,
+the Czar treated Napoleon III. contemptuously, and sought to bring about
+the partition of Turkey by the aid of England alone. It will always
+furnish material for the ingenious writers of the history of things that
+might have been, whether the French Emperor would have accepted the
+Czar's proposition, had it been made to him. Certainly it would have
+enabled him to do great things for France, while by the same course of
+action he could have struck heavy blows at both England and Austria. As
+it was, he joined England to oppose Russia, and the English have borne
+full and honorable testimony to his fidelity to his engagements. The war
+concluded, his attention was directed to Italy, and he sought to
+meliorate the condition of that country; but Austria would not hear even
+of the discussion of Italian affairs. The events that marked the course
+of things in Paris, in the spring of 1856, showed that nothing could be
+hoped for Italy from Austria. She spoke, through Count Buol, as if she
+regarded the whole Peninsula as peculiarly her property, meddling with
+which on the part of other powers was sheer impertinence, and not to be
+borne with good temper, or even the show of it.
+
+The twenty-second meeting of the Congress of Paris, held the 8th of
+April, was long, exciting, and important; for then several European
+questions were discussed, among them being the affairs of Italy. The
+protocol of that day proves the sensitiveness of the Austrian
+plenipotentiaries and the earnestness of those of Sardinia. Eight days
+later, the Sardinian plenipotentiaries, Cavour and De Villa Marina,
+addressed to the governments of France and England a Memorial relating
+to the affairs of Italy, in the course of which occur expressions that
+must have had a strong effect on the mind of Napoleon III. "Called by
+the sovereigns of the small states of Italy, who are powerless to
+repress the discontent of their subjects," says the Memorial, "Austria
+occupies militarily the greater part of the Valley of the Po and of
+Central Italy, and makes her influence felt in an irresistible manner,
+_even in the countries where she has no soldiers_. Resting on one side
+on Ferrara and Bologna, her troops extend themselves to Ancona, the
+length of the Adriatic, which has become in a manner an Austrian lake;
+on the other, mistress of Piacenza, which, contrary to the spirit, if
+not to the letter, of the Treaties of Vienna, she labors to transform
+into a first-class fortress, she has a garrison at Parma, and makes
+dispositions to deploy her forces all along the Sardinian frontier, from
+the Po to the summit of the Apennines. This permanent occupation by
+Austria of territories which do not belong to her _renders her absolute
+mistress of nearly all Italy_, destroys the equilibrium established by
+the Treaties of Vienna, and is a continual menace to Piedmont." In
+conclusion, the plenipotentiaries say,--"Sardinia is the only state in
+Italy that has been able to raise an impassable barrier to the
+revolutionary spirit, and at the same time remain independent of
+Austria. It is the counterpoise to her invading influence. If Sardinia
+succumbed, exhausted of power, abandoned by her allies,--if she also was
+obliged to submit to Austrian domination, _then the conquest of Italy by
+this power would be achieved_; and Austria, after having obtained,
+without its costing her the least sacrifice, the immense benefit of the
+free navigation of the Danube, and the neutralization of the Black Sea,
+_would acquire a preponderating influence in the West_. This is what
+France and England would never wish,--this they will never permit."
+
+These are grave and weighty words, and were well calculated to produce
+an effect on the mind of Napoleon III.; and we are convinced that they
+furnish a key to his conduct toward Austria, and set forth the occasion
+of the Italian War. The supremacy of Austria once completely asserted
+over Italy, France would necessarily sink in the European scale in
+precisely the same proportion in which Austria should rise in it. The
+subjects of Francis Joseph would number sixty millions, while those of
+Napoleon III. would remain at thirty-six millions. The sinews of war
+have never been much at the command of Austria, but possession of Italy
+would render her wealthy, and enable her to command that gold which
+moves armies and renders them effective. Her commerce would be increased
+to an incalculable extent, and she would have naval populations from
+which to conscribe the crews for fleets that she would be prompt to
+build. Her voice would be potential in the East, and that of France
+would there cease to be heard. She would become the first power of
+Europe, and would exercise an hegemony far more decided than that which
+Russia held for forty years after 1814. It was to be expected that the
+Italians would cease fruitlessly to oppose her, and, their submission
+leading to her abandonment of the repressive system, they might become a
+bold and an adventurous people, helping to increase and to consolidate
+her power. They might prove as useful to her as the Hungarians and
+Bohemians have been, whom she had conquered and misruled, but whose
+youth have filled her armies. All these things were not only possible,
+but they were highly probable; and once having become facts, what
+security would France have that she would not be attacked, conquered,
+and partitioned? With sixty millions of people, and supported by the
+sentiment and arms of Germany, Austria could seize upon Alsace and
+Lorraine, and other parts of France, and thus reduce her strength
+positively as well as relatively. All that was talked of in 1815, and
+more than all that, might be accomplished in sixty years from that date,
+and while Napoleon III. himself should still be on the throne he had so
+strangely won. That degradation of France which the uncle's ambition had
+brought about at the beginning of the century would be more than
+equalled at the century's close through the nephew's forbearance. The
+very names of Napoleon and Bonaparte would become odious in France, and
+contemptible everywhere. On the other hand, should he interfere
+successfully in behalf of Italian nationality, he would reduce the
+strength of Austria, and prevent her from becoming an overshadowing
+empire. Her population and her territory would be essentially lessened.
+She would be cut off from all hope of making Italy her own, would be
+compelled to abandon her plans of commercial and maritime greatness,
+would be disregarded in the East, would not be courted by England, would
+lose half her influence in Germany, and would not be in a condition to
+menace France in any quarter. The glory of the French arms would be
+increased, the weight of France would be doubled, new lustre would shine
+from the name of Napoleon, the Treaties of Vienna would be torn up by
+the nation against which they had been directed, the most determined foe
+of the Bonaparte family would be punished, and that family's power would
+be consolidated.
+
+Such, we verily believe, were the reasons that led Napoleon III. to plan
+an attack on Austria, that attack which has been so brilliantly
+commenced. That he has gone to war for the liberation of Italy, merely
+as such, we do not suppose; but that must follow front his policy,
+because in that way alone can his grand object be effected. The freedom
+of the Peninsula will be brought about, because it is necessary for the
+welfare of France, for the maintenance of her weight in Europe, that it
+should be brought about. That the Emperor is insensible of the glory
+that would come from the rehabilitation of Italy, we do not assert. We
+think he is very sensible of it, and that he enjoys the satisfaction
+that comes from the performance of a good deed as much as if he were not
+a usurper and never had overthrown a nominal republic. But we cannot
+agree with those who say that the liberation of Italy was the pure and
+simple purpose of the war. He means that Austria shall not have Italy,
+and his sobriety of judgment enables him to understand that France
+cannot have it. That country is to belong to the children of the soil,
+who, with ordinary wisdom and conduct, will be able to prevent it from
+again relapsing under foreign rule. The Emperor understands his epoch,
+and will attempt nothing that shall excite against himself and his
+dynasty the indignation of mankind. If not a saint, he is not a
+senseless sinner.
+
+Our article is so long, that we cannot discuss the questions, whether
+Napoleon III. is not animated by the desire of vengeance, and whether,
+having chastised Russia and Austria, he will not turn his arms against
+Prussia and England. Our opinion is that he will do nothing of the kind.
+Prussia is not likely to afford him any occasion for war; and if he
+should make one, he would have to fight all the other German powers at
+the same time, and perhaps Russia. The only chance that exists for a
+Prussian war is to be found in the wrath of the Germans, who, at the
+time we write, have assumed a very hostile attitude towards France, and
+wish to be led from Berlin; but the government of Prussia is discreet,
+and will not be easily induced to incur the positive loss and probable
+disgrace that would follow from a Russian invasion, like that which took
+place in 1759. As to England, the Emperor would be mad to attempt her
+conquest; and he knows too well what is due to his fame to engage in a
+piratical dash at London. An invasion of England can never be safely
+undertaken except by some power that is master of the seas; and England
+is not in the least disposed to abandon her maritime supremacy. There
+would have to be a Battle of Actium before her shores could be in
+danger, and she must have lost it; and no matter what is said concerning
+the excellence of the French navy, that of England is as much ahead of
+it in all the elements of real, enduring strength, as it has been at any
+other period of the history of the two countries.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_The Iron-Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges, and
+Rolling-Mills of the United States_. By J.P. LESLEY. New York: John
+Wiley. 1859.
+
+This valuable book is published by the Secretary of the American
+Iron-Association, and by authority of the same. This Association--now
+four years old--is not a common trades-union, nor any impotent
+combination to resist the law of supply and demand. Its general objects,
+as stated in the constitution, are "to procure regularly the statistics
+of the trade, both at home and abroad; to provide for the mutual
+interchange of information and experience, both scientific and
+practical; to collect and preserve all works relating to iron, and to
+form a complete cabinet of ores, limestones, and coals; to encourage the
+formation of such schools as are designed to give the young iron-master
+a proper and thorough scientific training, preparatory to engaging in
+practical operations." In pursuance of this wise and liberal policy, the
+Association has now published this "Iron-Manufacturer's Guide,"
+containing, first, a descriptive catalogue of all the furnaces, forges,
+and rolling-mills of the United States and Canada; secondly, a
+discussion of the physical and chemical properties of iron, and its
+combinations with other elements; thirdly, a complete survey of the
+geological position, chemical, physical, or mechanical properties, and
+geographical distribution of the ores of iron in the United States.
+
+The directory to the iron-works of the United States and Canada
+enumerates 1545 works of various kinds, of which 386 are now abandoned;
+560 blast-furnaces, 389 forges, and 210 rolling-mills are now in
+operation; and the directory states the position, capacity, and
+prominent characteristics of each furnace, forge, or mill, the names of
+the owners or agents, and, in many cases, the date of the construction
+of the works, and their annual production. The great importance of the
+iron-manufacture, as a branch of industry, in this country, is clearly
+demonstrated by this very complete catalogue. It shows that in the year
+1856 there were nearly twelve hundred active iron-factories in the
+United States, and that they produced about eight hundred and fifty
+thousand tons of iron, worth fifty millions of dollars. When we consider
+that the greater part of the iron thus produced is left in a rough and
+crude state, merely extracted from its ores and made ready for the use
+of the blacksmith, the machinist, and the engineer,--when we remember
+that human labor multiplies by hundreds and by thousands the value of
+the raw material, that a bar of iron which costs five dollars will make
+three thousand dollars' worth of penknife-blades and two hundred and
+fifty thousand dollars' worth of watch-springs, we begin to understand
+the importance of the iron-manufacture, as an element of national
+wealth, independence, and power.
+
+A fourth part of all the iron-works which have been constructed in this
+country have been abandoned by their projectors, in despair of competing
+with the cheap iron from abroad, which the low _ad-valorem_ tariffs have
+admitted to the American market. The story which these ruined works
+might tell, of hopes disappointed, capital sunk, and labor wasted, would
+be long and dreary. From an excellent diagram, appended to the "Guide,"
+illustrating the duties on iron, the importations, and the price of the
+metal, for each year since 1840, we learn that the average annual
+importation of iron under the specific tariff of 1842 was 77,328 tons,
+while under the _ad-valorem_ tariff of 1846 it was 373,864 tons. The
+increase in the importation of foreign iron under the tariff of 1846 was
+more than ten times the increase of the population, and more than
+thirty-eight times the increase in the domestic production. The
+iron-masters of this country have been compelled to struggle against a
+host of formidable difficulties,--adverse legislation, the ruinous
+competition of English iron, the dearness of labor, and the high rates
+of interest on borrowed capital. These have all been met and, let us hope,
+in good part overcome. Slowly, and with many hindrances and disasters,
+the iron-business is gaining strength, and achieving independence
+of foreign competition and the tender mercies of legislators.
+Very conclusive evidence of this gradual growth is presented
+in the unusually accurate statistics of the "Iron-Manufacturer's
+Guide." Of the 1,209,913 tons of iron consumed in the United States
+in the year 1856, 856,235 tons, or seventy-one per cent, of the whole,
+was of domestic manufacture. The catalogue of iron-works shows that
+the country now possesses many extensive and well-constructed works,
+of which some are still owned by the men who built them, but the
+larger part have descended, at great sacrifices, to the hands of
+more fortunate proprietors. Beside the accumulated stock of machinery,
+knowledge of the ores and fuel has been gained, experience has
+refuted many errors and pointed out the dangers and difficulties to
+he overcome, the natural channels of communication throughout the
+country have been opened, and a large body of skilled workmen has been
+trained for the business and seeks steady employment. Whenever a rise in
+the price of iron stimulates the manufacture, the domestic production of
+iron suddenly expands, and increases with a rapidity which gives
+evidence of wonderful elasticity and latent strength. Twice within
+twenty years the production of American iron has nearly doubled in a
+period of three years. Twelve years ago no railroad-iron was made in the
+United States. In 1853 we imported 300,000 tons of rails, and in 1854
+280,000 tons; but in 1855 only 130,000 tons were imported, while 135,000
+tons were made at home, and in 1856, again, nearly one half of the
+310,000 tons of rails consumed was of domestic production. The admitted
+superiority of the American rails has undoubtedly contributed to this
+result.
+
+In spite of these encouraging signs, these sure indications of the
+success which at no distant day will reward this branch of American
+industry, it must not be imagined that checks and reverses are hereafter
+to be escaped. The production of the year 1857 promised in the summer to
+be much larger than that of 1856; but the panic of September wrought the
+same effect in the iron-business as in all the other manufactures of the
+country, and in the spring of 1858 more than half of the iron-works of
+the United States were standing idle. Mr. Lesley states that the returns
+received in answer to the circular issued by the Iron-Association, July
+1, 1858, were, almost without exception, unfavorable, and that these
+replies are sufficient to prove a very serious diminution in the
+production of iron for the year 1858. When the manufacture of iron, in
+its various branches, has expanded to its true proportions, and has
+reached a magnitude and importance second only to the agricultural
+interest of the country, the iron-masters of that generation may read in
+this first publication of the Iron-Association the record of the
+struggles and trials of their more adventurous, but less fortunate
+predecessors.
+
+The construction of the directory which constitutes the first part of
+the "Guide" might be improved in several respects. An alphabetical
+arrangement of the furnaces, forges, and rolling-mills, in each State,
+would be much more convenient for reference than the obscure and
+uncertain system which has been followed. If a State can be divided,
+like Pennsylvania, into two or three sections, by strongly marked
+geological features, it would, perhaps, be well to subdivide the list of
+its iron-works into corresponding sections, and then to make the
+arrangement of each section alphabetical. But convenience of reference
+is the essential property of a directory; and to that convenience the
+natural desire to follow a geological or geographical arrangement should
+he sacrificed. Some important items of information, such as the means of
+transportation, and the distance of each furnace or forge from its
+market, are not given in all cases; the power by which the works are
+driven, whether steam or water, is not uniformly stated; and the
+pressure of the blast used, that very important condition of success in
+the management of a furnace, is stated in only a very few instances. A
+useful piece of information, seldom given in the descriptions of forges
+and rolling-mills, is the source from which the iron used in the works
+is obtained; and it is also desirable that the nature of the work done
+in each forge or mill should be invariably stated. It would he
+interesting to know the number of men employed in the iron-manufacture
+throughout the country, and it would not seem difficult for the
+Association to add this fact to the very valuable statistics which they
+have already collected. The descriptions of abandoned works are not all
+printed in small type. If this rule is adopted in the directory, it
+should be uniformly adhered to. The maps accompanying the directory,
+which were made by the photolithographic process, are all on too small a
+scale, and consequently lack clearness. The colored lithographs, which
+exhibit the anthracite furnaces of Pennsylvania and the iron works of
+the region east of the Hudson River, are altogether the best
+illustrations in the book.
+
+An elaborate discussion of iron as a chemical element occupies another
+division of the book. Its purpose is to instruct the iron master in the
+chemical properties and relations of the metal with which he deals; and
+to this end it should be clear, concise, and definite, and, leaving all
+disputed points, should explain the known and well-determined
+characteristics of iron and its compounds with other elements. Mr.
+Lesley, the compiler of the book, distinctly states in the Preface that
+he is no chemist, and we are therefore prepared to meet the occasional
+inaccuracies observable in this chemical portion of the "Guide." It
+lacks condensation and system; matters of very little moment receive
+disproportionate attention; and pages are filled with discussions of
+nice points of chemical science still in dispute among professed
+chemists, and wholly out of place in what should be a brief elementary
+treatise on the known properties of iron. If these questions in dispute
+were such as the practical experience of the iron-master might settle,
+or, indeed, throw any light upon, there would be an obvious propriety in
+stating the points at issue; but if the question concerns the best
+chemical name for iron-rust, or the largest possible per cent. of carbon
+in steel, the practical metallurgist should not be perplexed with
+problems in analytical chemistry which the best chemists have not yet
+solved.
+
+Valuable space is occasionally occupied by the too rhetorical statement
+of matters which would have been better presented in a simpler way;
+thus, the fervid description of oxygen, however appropriate in Faraday's
+admirable lectures before the Royal Institution, is out of place in the
+"Iron-Manufacturer's Guide." We must also enter an earnest protest
+against the importation, upon any terms, of such words as
+"ironoxydulcarbonate," "ironoxydhydrate," and the adjective "anhydrate."
+Some descriptions of considerable imaginative power have found place
+even in the directory of works. From the description of the Allentown
+furnaces we learn, with some surprise, that "no finer object of art
+invites the artist"; and again, "that the _repose_ of bygone _centuries_
+seems to sit upon its immense walls, while the roaring _energy_ of the
+present day fills it with a truer and better life than the revelry of
+Kenilworth or the chivalry of Heidelberg." The average age of the
+Allentown works subsequently appears to be nine years.
+
+Another principal division of Mr. Lesley's book treats of the ores of
+iron in the United States. This portion of the book contains much
+valuable and interesting information, which has never been published
+before in so complete and satisfactory a form. The geographical and
+geological position of every ore-bank in the country, which has been
+opened and worked, is fully described, with many details of the peculiar
+properties, mineralogical associations, and history of each bed or mine.
+The inexhaustible wealth of the country in ores of iron is clearly
+shown, and the superiority of the American ores to the English needs no
+other demonstration than can be found on the pages of this catalogue of
+our ore-beds. Two or three geological maps, to illustrate the
+distribution of the ores, would have been an instructive addition to the
+book. In this section, as in the preceding one on the chemistry of iron,
+much space is misapplied to the discussion of questions of structural
+geology, of opposing theories of the formation of veins, and other
+scientific problems with which the iron-master is not concerned, and
+which he cannot be expected to understand, much less to solve. We regret
+the more this unnecessary introduction of comparatively irrelevant
+matters, when we find, at the close of the volume, that the unexpected
+length of the discussion of the ores has prevented the publication of
+several chapters on the machinery now in use, the hot-blast and
+anthracite coal, the efforts to obtain malleable iron directly from the
+ore, and the history and present condition of the iron-manufacture in
+America.
+
+The American Iron-Association, by their Secretary, have accomplished a
+very laborious and valuable work, in accumulating and digesting the mass
+of facts and statistics embodied in this, the first "Iron-Manufacturer's
+Guide"; but the subject is as inexhaustible as the mineral wealth of the
+country, and we shall look for the future publications of the society
+with much interest.
+
+
+_An Essay on Intuitive Morals_. Being an Attempt to Popularize Ethical
+Science. Part I. Theory of Morals. First American Edition, with
+Additions and Corrections by the Author. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.
+1859. pp. 294.
+
+Four years ago last March this book appeared in England, published by
+Longman; a thin octavo, exciting little attention there, and scarcely
+more on this side the water, where the best English books have of late
+years found their first appreciation. The first notice of it printed in
+this country, so far as we know, appeared in the "Harvard Magazine" for
+June, 1855,--a publication so obscure, that, to most readers of the
+ATLANTIC, this will be their first knowledge of its existence. About two
+years later, Part II appeared in England, and then both books were
+reviewed in the "Christian Examiner"; yet, to all intents and purposes,
+this new edition is a new book, and we shall treat it as such. We have
+as yet a reprint of Part I. only, but we trust the publishers will soon
+give us the other,--"The Practice of Morals,"--which, if less valuable
+than this, is still so much better than most works of its kind as to
+demand a republication.
+
+The author--a woman--(for, to the shame of our _virile secus_ be it
+said, a woman has written the best popular treatise on Ethics in the
+language)--divides her First Part into four chapters:--
+
+    I. What Is the Moral Law?
+   II. Where the Moral Law is found.
+  III. That the Moral Law can be obeyed.
+   IV. Why the Moral Law should be obeyed.
+
+This, as will be seen, is an exhaustive analysis. To the great question
+of the first chapter, after a full discussion, she gives this answer:--
+
+"The Moral Law is the resumption of the eternal necessary Obligation of
+all Rational Free Agents to do and feel those Sentiments which are
+Right. The identification of this law with His will constitutes the
+Holiness of the Infinite God. Voluntary and disinterested obedience to
+this law constitutes the Virtue of all finite creatures. Virtue is
+capable of infinite growth, of endless approach to the Divine nature and
+to perfect conformity with the law. God has made all rational free
+agents for virtue, and all worlds for rational free agents. _The Moral
+Law, therefore, not only reigns throughout His creation_, (all its
+behests being enforced thereon by His omnipotence,) _but is itself the
+reason why that creation exists_."--pp. 62-63.
+
+This is certainly good defining, and the passage we have Italicized has
+the true Transcendental ring. Indeed, the book is a system of Kantian
+Ethics, as the author herself says in her Preface; and the tough old
+K�nigsberg professor has no reason to complain of his gentle expounder.
+Unlike most British writers,--with the grand exception of Sir William
+Hamilton, the greatest British metaphysician since Locke and Hume,--she
+_understands_ Kant, admires and loves him, and so is worthy to develop
+his knotty sublimities. This alone would be high praise; but we think
+she earns a more original and personal esteem.
+
+The question of the second chapter she thus answers:--
+
+"The Moral Law is found in the Intuitions of the Human Mind. These
+Intuitions are natural; but they are also revealed. Our Creator wrought
+them into the texture of our souls to form the groundwork of our
+thoughts, and made it our duty first to examine and then to erect upon
+them by reflection a Science of Morals. But He also continually aids us
+in such study, and He increases this aid in the ratio of our obedience.
+Thus Moral Intuitions are both Human and Divine, and the paradoxes in
+their nature are thereby solved."--p. 136.
+
+This statement may, perhaps, be received without cavil by most readers;
+but the reasoning on which it depends is the weakest part of the book,
+and we shall be surprised if some hard-headed divine, who fears that
+this doctrine of Intuition will pester his Church, does not find out the
+flaws in the argument. It will be urged, for instance, that, in
+confessing that the Science of Morals can never be as exact as that of
+Mathematics, because we have no terminology for Ethics so exact as for
+Geometry, she, in effect, yields the whole question, and leaves us in
+the old slough of doubt where Pyrrho and Pascal delighted to thrust us,
+and where the Church threatens to keep us, unless we will pay her tolls
+and pick our way along her turnpike. But though her major and minor
+premises may not be on the best terms with each other,--even though they
+may remind us of that preacher of whom Pierrepont Edwards said, "If his
+text had the smallpox, his sermon would not catch it,"--her conclusion
+is sound, and as inspiring now as when the poet said,--
+
+  "Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo,"--
+
+or when George Fox trudged hither and thither over Europe with the same
+noble tune sounding in his ears.
+
+In the third chapter the old topics are treated, which, according to
+Milton, the fallen angels discussed before Adam settled the debate by
+sinning,--
+
+  "Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,"--
+
+and it is concluded that the Moral Law can be obeyed:--
+
+"1st. Because the Human Will is free. 2d. Because this freedom, though
+involving present sin and suffering, is foreseen by God to result
+eventually in the Virtue of every creature endowed therewith."
+
+In this chapter the history of the common doctrine of Predestination is
+admirably sketched, (pp. 159-164, note.) and the grounds for our belief
+in Free Will more clearly stated than we remember to have seen
+elsewhere. Especially fine is her method of reducing Foreordination to
+simple Ordination, by directing attention to the fact that with God
+there is no Past and Future, but an Endless Now; as Tennyson sings in
+"In Memoriam,"--
+
+  "Oh, if indeed that eye foresee,
+  Or see, (in Him is no before.)"--
+
+and as Dante sang five centuries ago.
+
+But it is the last chapter which best shows the power of the author and
+the pure and generous spirit with which the whole book is filled. Here
+she shows why the Moral Law should be obeyed; and dividing the advocates
+of Happiness as a motive into three classes, Euthumists, Public
+Eudaimonists, and Private Eudaimonists, she refutes them all and
+establishes her simple scheme, which she states in these words:--
+
+"The law itself, the Eternal Right, for right's own sake, that alone
+must be our motive, the spring of our resolution, the ground of our
+obedience. Deep from our inmost souls comes forth the mandate, the bare
+and simple law claiming the command of our whole existence merely by its
+proper right, and disdaining alike to menace or to bribe."
+
+The terms _Euthumism_ and _Eudaimonism_ are, perhaps, peculiar to this
+essay, and may need some explanation. The Euthumist is one who assumes
+moral pleasure as a sufficient reason why virtue should be sought; the
+Eudaimonist believes we should be virtuous for the sake of affectional,
+intellectual, and sensual pleasure; if he means the pleasure of all
+mankind, he is a Public Eudaimonist; but if he means the pleasure of the
+individual, he is a Private Eudaimonist. Democritus is reckoned the
+first among Euthumists; and in England this school has been represented,
+among others, by Henry More and Cumberland, by Sharrock, [Footnote:
+Sharrock is a name unfamiliar to most readers. His [Greek: Hypothesis
+aethikae] published in 1660, contains the first clear statement of
+Euthumism made by any Englishman. See p.223.] Hutcheson, and Shaftesbury.
+Paley thrust himself among Public Eudaimonists, and our author well
+exposes his grovelling morals, aiming to produce the "greatest happiness
+of the greatest number," a system which has too long been taught among
+the students of our colleges and high schools. But he properly belongs
+to the Private Eudaimonists; for this interpreter of ethics to the
+ingenuous youth of England and America says, "Virtue is the doing good
+to mankind in obedience to the will of God, _and for the sake of
+everlasting happiness_. According to which definition, the good of
+mankind is the subject, the will of God the rule, _and everlasting
+happiness the motive of virtue_."
+
+It is such heresies as this, and the still grosser pravities into which
+the ethics of expediency run, that this book will do much to combat.
+Nothing is more needed in our schools for both sexes than the systematic
+teaching of the principles here set forth; and we have no doubt this
+volume could be used as a text-book, at least with some slight omissions
+and additions, such as a competent teacher could well furnish. Portions
+of it, indeed, were some years since read by Mrs. Lowell to her classes,
+and are now incorporated in her admirable book, "Seed Grain"; nor does
+there seem to be any good reason why it should not be introduced at
+Cambridge. With a short introduction containing the main principles of
+metaphysics, and with the omission of some rhetorical passages unsuited
+to a text-book, it might supplant the books of both intellectual and
+moral philosophy now in use in our higher schools.
+
+But it is not as a school-book that this essay is to be considered; it
+will find a large and increasing circle of readers among the mature and
+the cultivated, and these will perceive that few have thought so
+profoundly or written so clearly on these absorbing topics. Take, for
+example, the classification of _possible_ beings, made in the first
+chapter:--
+
+"Proceeding on our premises, that the omnipotence of God is not to be
+supposed to include self-contradictions, we observe at the outset, that
+(so far as we can understand subjects so transcendent) there were only,
+in a moral point of view, three orders of beings possible in the
+universe:--1st. One Infinite Being. A Rational Free Agent, raised by the
+infinitude of his nature above the possibility of temptation. He is the
+only _Holy_ Being. 2d. Finite creatures who are Rational Free Agents,
+but exposed by the finity of their natures to continual temptations.
+These beings are either _Virtuous_ or _Vicious_. 3d. Finite creatures
+who are not rational nor morally free. These beings are _Unmoral_, and
+neither virtuous nor vicious."--pp. 24-25.
+
+Nothing can be shorter or more thorough than this statement, and, if
+accepted, it settles many points in theology as well as in ethics.
+
+Then, too, the comparison, in the last chapter, of the Law of Honor,
+considered as a system of morals, with the systems of Paley and Bentham,
+shows a fine perception of the true relation of chivalry to ethics, and
+gives occasion for one of the most eloquent passages in the book:--
+
+"I envy not the moralist who could treat disdainfully of Chivalry. It
+was a marvellous principle, that which could make of plighted faith a
+law to the most lawless, of protection to weakness a pride to the most
+ferocious. While the Church taught that personal duty consisted in
+scourgings and fastings, and social duty in the slaughter of Moslems and
+burning of Jews, Chivalry roused up a man to reverence himself through
+his own courage and truth, and to treat the weakest of his
+fellow-creatures with generosity and courtesy.... Recurring to its true
+character, the Law of Honor, when duly enlarged and rectified, becomes
+highly valuable. We perceive, that, amid all its imperfections and
+aberrations, it has been the truest voice of intuition, amid the
+lamentations of the believer in 'total depravity,' and the bargaining of
+the expediency-seeking experimentalist. While the one represented Virtue
+as a Nun and the other as a Shop-woman, the Law of Honor drew her as a
+Queen,--faulty, perhaps, but free-born and royal. Much service has this
+law done to the world; it has made popular modes of thinking and acting
+far nobler than those inculcated from many a pulpit; and the result is
+patent, that many a 'publican and sinner,' many an opera-frequenting,
+betting, gambling man of the world, is a far safer person with whom to
+transact business than the Pharisee who talks most feelingly of the
+'frailties of our fallen nature.'"--pp. 267-270.
+
+The learning shown in the book, though not astonishing, like Sir William
+Hamilton's, is sufficient and always at the author's service. The text
+throughout, and especially the notes on Causation, Predestination,
+Original Sin, and Necessary Truths, will amply support our opinion. But
+better than either learning or logic is that noble and devout spirit
+pervading every page, and convincing the reader, that, whether the
+system advanced be true or false, it is the result of a genuine
+experience, and the guide of a pure and generous life.
+
+The volume is neatly printed, but lacks an index sadly, and shows some
+errors resulting from the distance between the author and the
+proof-reader. Such is the misuse of the words "woof" and "warp" on page
+56; evidently a slip of the pen, since the same terms are correctly used
+elsewhere in the volume.
+
+
+_Memoirs of the Empress Catharine II._ Written by herself. With a
+Preface by A. HERZEN. Translated from the French. New York: D. Appleton
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 309.
+
+It would seem, that, if any one of the women celebrated in history
+should, more than all the others, have shrunk from writing her own
+memoirs, that woman was the petty German princess whom opportunity and
+her own crafty ambition made absolutest monarch of all the Russias under
+the name of Catharine II. And of that abandoned and shameless personal
+career which has made her name a reproach to her sex, and covered her
+memory with an infamy that the administrative glories of her reign serve
+only to cast into a blacker shadow, even she has shrunk from committing
+the details to paper. Indeed, in these Memoirs, she alludes to but one
+of her amours,--that with Sergius Soltikoff, which was the first, (if we
+may be sure that she had a first,)--and which seems clearly to have been
+elevated, if not purified, by a true and deep affection. That it was so
+appears not by any protestation or even calm assertion of her own, which
+in an autobiography might be reasonably doubted, but from the unstudied
+tenderness of her allusions to him; from the fact, which indirectly
+appears, that he first cooled towards her, and the pang--not of wounded
+vanity--which this gave her; and yet more unmistakably from the
+forgiveness which she, imperious and relentless as she was, extended,
+manifestly, again and again, to her errant lover.
+
+The Memoirs are confined to events which occurred between 1744 and
+1760,--the period of Catharine's girlhood and youthful womanhood; but
+although she brings herself before us, a young creature of fifteen,
+"with her hair dressed _� la Moise_," (which, in the benightment of our
+bearded ignorance, we suppose to mean that astounding style in which the
+excellent Mistress Hannah More is represented in the frontispiece to her
+Memoirs, with each particular hair standing on end,--a crimped glory of
+radiating powder,) she appears no less ambitious, crafty, designing,
+selfish, and self-conscious then than when she drops her pen as she is
+deepening the traits of the matured woman of thirty. She went to Russia
+to be betrothed to the Grand Duke, afterwards Peter III., to whom she
+was at first utterly indifferent, and whom she soon began to despise and
+regard with personal aversion; and yet when there was a chance that she
+might be released from this union, she seems not to have known the
+slightest thrill of joy or felt the least sensation of relief, although
+she was then not sixteen years old,--so entirely was her mind bent upon
+the crown of Russia. Partly to attain her end, and partly because it
+suited her intriguing, managing nature, she set herself immediately to
+the acquirement of the favor of the Empress on the one hand, and
+popularity on the other. The first she sought by an absolute submission
+of her will to that of Elizabeth, giving her self-negation an air of
+grateful deference; the latter she obtained, as most very popular people
+obtain their popularity, by adroit flattery,--the subtlest form of which
+was, in her case, as it ever is, the manifestation of an interest in the
+affairs of persons utterly indifferent to the flatterer. This moral
+emollient she applied, as popular people usually do, without
+discrimination. She remarks that she was liked because she was "the same
+to everybody"; and it is noteworthy that the same is said almost
+invariably of very popular persons, and in way of eulogy, by the very
+people into whose favor they have licked their way; the latter always
+seeming to be blinded by the titillation of their own cuticles to the
+fact that the most worthless and disagreeable individuals--those with
+whom they would scorn to be put upon a level--have received the same
+coveted evidences of personal regard. When will the world learn that the
+man, of whom we sometimes hear and read, who is absolutely without an
+enemy, must either be very unscrupulous or very weak? Catharine's
+duplicity in this respect seems to have been as constant as it was
+artful, during the years in which it was necessary for her purpose to
+make friends; and it was rewarded, as it almost always is, when
+skilfully practised, with entire success.
+
+Catharine seems to have written these Memoirs partly for her own
+satisfaction and partly to justify her course to her son Paul and his
+successors. Therefore they record much that is of little value or
+interest to the general reader; and that, indeed, is unintelligible,
+except to those who are intimately acquainted with the Russian Court
+during the reign of Elizabeth. Such persons will find in these pages
+much authentic matter which will confirm or unsettle their previous
+belief as to the secret intrigues of that court, political and personal.
+To the great mass of readers, the revelations of the internal economy of
+the Court of Russia in the middle of the last century, and of the
+manners and morals of the persons who composed it, which are freely made
+by the author of these imperial confessions, will constitute their
+principal, if not their only interest. In this respect they will well
+repay the attentive perusal of every person who likes the study of human
+nature. The picture which they present is striking, and its various
+parts keep alive the attention which its first sight awakens. Yet it
+cannot be regarded with pleasure by any reader of undepraved taste; and
+a consideration of it is absolutely fatal to the faith which is
+cherished by many deluded minds in the social, if not in the ethical
+virtues of an ancient aristocracy. In this respect Catharine's "Memoirs"
+are not peculiar. For it is remarkable, that in all the published
+memoirs, journals, and confessions of members of royal households,
+(there may be an exception, but we do not remember it,) court-life
+within-doors has appeared devoid of every grace and beauty, and deformed
+by all that is coarse, brutal, sordid, and grovelling. Even that grace,
+almost a virtue, which has its name from courts, seems not to exist in
+them in a genuine form; and instead of it we find only a hollow,
+glittering sham, which has but an outward semblance to real courtesy,
+and which itself even is produced only on occasions more or less public
+and for purposes more or less selfish.
+
+Russia in its most civilized parts was half barbarous in the days of
+Catharine's youth, and society at the Court of St. Petersburg seems to
+have been distinguished from that in the other circles of the empire
+only by an addition of the vices of civilization to those of barbarism.
+The women blended the manners and tastes of Indian squaws and French
+_marquises_ of the period; the men modelled themselves on Peter the
+Great, and succeeded in imitating him in everything except his wisdom
+and patriotism. The business of life was, first, to avoid being sent to
+Siberia or Astracan,--next and last, to get other people sent thither;
+its pleasure, an alternation of gambling and orgies. Catharine makes
+some excuse for her unrestrained sexual license, which shows that she
+wrote for posterity. For what need of extenuation in this regard for a
+woman whose immediate predecessors were Catharine I., and. Anne and
+Elizabeth, and who lived in a court where, on the simultaneous marriage
+of three of its ladies, a bet was made between the Hetman Count
+Rasoumowsky and the Minister of Denmark,--not which of the brides would
+be false to her marriage vows,--that was taken for granted with regard
+to all,--but which would be so first! It turned out that he who bet on
+the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of the
+Empire, and bride to Count Strogonoff, who was the plainest of the three
+and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager. The bet
+was wisely laid; for she was likely to be soonest neglected by her
+husband.
+
+What semblance of courtesy these highborn gamblers, adulterers, and
+selfish intriguers showed in their daily life appears in their behavior
+to a M. Brockdorf, against whom Catharine had ill feelings, more or less
+justifiable. This M. Brockdorf, who was high in favor with the Grand
+Duke, was unfortunately ugly--having a long neck, a broad, flat head,
+red hair, small, dull, sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging
+down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M.
+Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him
+'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But
+what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be
+expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the
+tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded
+by Catharine in the following remarkable paragraph?--
+
+"A few days afterwards, the death of my father was announced to me. It
+greatly afflicted me. For a week I was allowed to weep as much as I
+pleased; but at the end of that time, Madame Tchoglokoff came to tell me
+that I had wept enough,--that the Empress ordered me to leave off,--that
+my father was not a king. I told her, I knew that he was not a king; and
+she replied, that it was not suitable for a Grand Duchess to mourn for a
+longer period a father who had not been a king. In fine, it was arranged
+that I should go out on the following Sunday, and wear mourning for six
+weeks."
+
+It is worthy of especial note that these people, though they led this
+sensual, selfish, heartless life, trampling on natural affection and
+doing as they would not be done by, prided themselves very much on the
+orthodoxy of their faith, were sorely afraid of going to hell, and were
+consequently very regular and rigid in the performance of their
+religious duties. Catharine was no whit behind the rest in this respect.
+Though bred a Lutheran, she was most exemplary in her observance of all
+the requirements of the Greek Church; and even carried her hypocrisy so
+far, that, when, on occasion of a dangerous and probably fatal illness,
+it was proposed that she should see a Lutheran clergyman, she replied by
+asking for Simon Theodorsky, a prelate of the Greek Church, who came and
+had an edifying interview with her. And all this was done, as she says,
+for effect, chiefly with the soldiers and common people, among whom it
+made a sensation and was much talked of. This, by the way, is the only
+reference which occurs in the Memoirs to any interest below that of the
+highest nobility. As for the people of Russia, the right to draw their
+blood with the knout and make them sweat roubles into the royal treasury
+was taken as much for granted as the light and the air, by those who,
+either through fraud or force, could sit in the seat of Peter the Great.
+They regarded it as no less an appanage or perquisite of that seat than
+the jewels in the imperial diadem, and would as soon have thought of
+defending a title to the one as to the other. And the possession of the
+throne, with the necessary consent of the dominant party of the high
+nobility, seems to have been, and still to be, the only requisite for
+the unquestioned exercise of this power; for, as to legitimacy and
+divine dynastic right, was not Catharine I. a Livoman peasant? Catharine
+II. a German princess, who dethroned and put to death the grandson of
+Peter the Great? and does she not confess in these Memoirs that her son,
+the Emperor Paul, was not the son of Peter's grandson, but of Sergius
+Soltikoff? so that in the reigning house of Russia there is not a drop
+of the blood of Romanoff. And Catharine's confession, which M. Herzen
+emphasizes so strongly, conveys to the Russian nobles no new knowledge
+on this subject; for an eminent Russian publicist being asked, on the
+appearance of this book, if it were generally known in Russia that Paul
+was the son of Soltikoff, replied,--"No one who knew anything ever
+doubted it." And perhaps the descendants of the Boiards are quite
+content that their sovereign should have illegally sprung from the loins
+of a member of one of the oldest and noblest of the purely Russian
+families, rather than from those of a prince of the petty house of
+Holstein Gottorp. But then what is this principle of Czarism, which is
+not a submission to divine right, but which causes one man to sustain,
+perhaps to place, another in a position which puts his own life at the
+mercy of the other's mere caprice?
+
+Catharine tells many trifling, but interesting incidents, of various
+nature, in these Memoirs: of how, after the birth of her first child,
+she was left utterly alone and neglected, so that she famished with
+thirst for the lack of some one to bring her water; how her child was
+taken from her at its birth, and kept from her, she hardly being allowed
+even to see it; how it was always wrapped in fox-skins and seal-skins,
+till it lay in a continual bath of perspiration; how the members of the
+royal family itself were so badly accommodated, that sometimes they were
+made ill by walking through passages open to wind and rain, and
+sometimes stifled by over-crowded rooms; how at the imperial
+masquerades, during one season, the men were ordered to appear in
+women's dresses, and the women in the _propria quae maribus,_--the
+former hideous in large whaleboned petticoats and high feathered
+head-dresses, the latter looking like scrubby little boys with very
+thick legs,--and all that the Empress Elizabeth might show her tall and
+graceful figure and what beautiful things she used to walk with, which
+Catharine says were the handsomest that she ever saw; how in this court,
+where marriage was the mere shadow of a bond, it was yet deemed a matter
+of the first nuptial importance that a lady of the court should have her
+head dressed for the wedding by the hands of the Empress herself, or, if
+she were too ill, by those of the Grand Duchess; how Catharine used, at
+Oranienbaum, to dress herself from head to foot in male attire, and go
+out in a skiff, accompanied only by an old huntsman, to shoot ducks and
+snipe, sometimes doubling the Cape of Oranienbaum, which extends two
+versts into the sea,--and how thus the fortunes of the Russian Empire,
+during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were at the mercy of a
+spring-tide, a gust of wind, or the tipping of a shallop. There is even
+a recipe for removing tan and sunburn, which the beautiful Grand Duchess
+used at the instance of the beautiful Empress; and, as both the imperial
+belles testify to its great efficacy, it would be cruel not to give all
+possible publicity to the fact that it was composed of white of egg,
+lemon juice, and French brandy; but, alas! the proportion in which these
+constituents are to be mixed is not recorded.
+
+Of the authenticity of these Memoirs there appears to be no reasonable
+doubt, and we believe that none has been expressed. They were found,
+after the death of Catharine, in a sealed envelope addressed to her son
+Paul, in whose lifetime no one saw them but the friend of his childhood,
+Prince Kourakine. He copied them; and, about twenty years after the
+death of Paul, three or four copies were made from the Kourakine copy.
+The Emperor Nicholas caused all these to be seized by the secret police,
+and it is only since his death that one or two copies have again made
+their appearance at Moscow (where the original is kept) and St.
+Petersburg. From one of these M. Herzen made his transcript. They fail
+to palliate any of Catharine's crimes, or in the least to brighten her
+reputation, and add nothing to our knowledge of her sagacity and her
+administrative talents; but they are yet not without very considerable
+personal interest and historical value.
+
+
+_Milch Cows and Dairy Farming_; comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and
+Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and other Stock; the
+Selection of Milch Cows, with a full Explanation of Guenon's Method; the
+Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and
+Cheese: embodying the most recent Improvements, and adapted to Farming
+in the United States and British Provinces, with a Treatise upon the
+Dairy Husbandry of Holland; to which is added Horsfall's System of Dairy
+Management. By CHARLES L. FLINT, Secretary of the Massachusetts State
+Board of Agriculture; Author of a Treatise on Grasses and Forage Plants.
+Liberally illustrated. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 416.
+
+This very useful treatise contains a full account of the best breeds of
+cattle and of the most approved methods of crossing so as to develop
+qualities particularly desirable; directions for choosing good milkers
+by means of certain natural signs; a description of the most useful
+grasses and other varieties of fodder; and very minute instructions for
+the making of good butter and the proper arrangement and care of
+dairies. The author has had the advantage of practical experience as a
+dairyman, while his position as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of
+Agriculture has afforded him more than common opportunity of learning
+the experience of others.
+
+A volume of this kind cannot fail to commend itself to farmers and
+graziers, and will be found valuable also by those who are lucky enough
+to own a single cow. The production of good milk, butter, and meat is a
+matter of interest to all classes in the community alike; and Mr.
+Flint's book, by pointing out frankly the mistakes and deficiencies in
+the present methods of our farmers and dairymen, and the best means of
+remedying them, will do a good and much-needed service to the public. He
+shows the folly of the false system of economy which thinks it good
+farming to get the greatest quantity of milk with the least expenditure
+of fodder, and which regards poor stock as cheaper because it costs less
+money in the original outlay.
+
+If Dean Swift was right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass
+grow where one grew before is of more service to mankind than he who
+takes a city, we should be inclined to rank him hardly second as a
+benefactor of his race who causes one pound of good butter to be made
+where two pounds of bad were made before. We believe that more unsavory
+and unwholesome grease is consumed in the United States under the
+_alias_ of butter than in any other civilized country, and we trust that
+a wide circulation of Mr. Flint's thoroughly executed treatise will tend
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+_JUST PUBLISHED_,
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