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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29,
+March, 1860, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860
+       A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9389]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 28, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, MARCH 1860 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, David Widger and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. V.--MARCH, 1860.--NO. XXIX.
+
+
+
+THE FRENCH CHARACTER.
+
+The American character is now generally acknowledged to be the most
+cosmopolitan of modern times; and a native of this country, all things
+being equal, is likely to form a less prescriptive idea of other nations
+than the inhabitants of countries whose neighborhood and history unite
+to bequeathe and perpetuate certain fixed notions. Before the frequent
+intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we
+derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian
+skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest
+association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous.
+All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism,
+strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a
+Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner
+stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice;
+for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to
+our childhood proved a poor _émigré_ who gained a precarious livelihood
+as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of
+smiles, shrugs, bows, and compliments, prided himself on _la belle
+France_, played the fiddle, and took snuff. A more dignified view
+succeeded, when we read "Télémaque," so long an initiatory text-book
+in the study of the language, blended as its crystal style was in our
+imaginations with the pure and noble character of Fénelon. Perhaps the
+next link in the chain of our estimate was supplied by the bust of
+Voltaire, whose withered, sneering physiognomy embodies the wit and
+indifference, the soulless vagabondage that forms the worst side of
+the national mind. As patriotic sentiment awakened, the disinterested
+enthusiasm of Lafayette, woven, as it is, into the record of the
+struggle which gave birth to our republic, yielded another and more
+attractive element to the fancy portrait. Then, as our reading expanded,
+came the tragic chronicle of the first French Revolution and the
+brilliant and dazzling melodrama of Napoleon, the traditions so pathetic
+and sublime of gifted women, the _tableaux_ so exciting to a youthful
+temper of military glory. And thus, by degrees, we found ourselves
+bewildered by the most vivid contrasts and apparently irreconcilable
+traits, until the original idea of a Frenchman expanded to the widest
+range of associations, from the ingenious devices of a mysterious
+_cuisine_ to the brilliant manoeuvres of the battle-field; infinite
+female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable _bon-mots_,
+exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined
+profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,--Ude, Napoleon, Madame Récamier,
+Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and
+desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical
+and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we
+first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. The society of one of those
+benign _savans_ who attract the sympathy and win the admiration of
+young students may yield a delightful and noble association to our
+future reminiscences; or an unmodified experience of cynical hearts
+joined to scenical manners may leave us nothing to regret, upon our
+departure, save the material advantages there enjoyed. But whoever knows
+life in Paris, unrelieved by some consistent and individual purpose,
+will find it a succession of excitements, temporary, yet varied,--full
+of the agreeable, yet barren of consecutive interest and satisfactory
+results,--admirable as a recreative hygiene, deplorable as a permanent
+resource; their inevitable consequence being a faith in the external, a
+dependence on the immediate, and a habit of vagrant pleasure-seeking,
+which must at last cloy and harden the manly soul. For this very reason,
+however, the scenes, characters, and society there exhibited are
+prolific of suggestion to the philosophic mind.
+
+In every phase of life, manners, and action, we see a characteristic
+excellence in detail and process, and an equally remarkable deficiency
+in grand practical idea and consistent moral sentiment. The French
+chemists have the art to extract quinine from Peruvian bark and conserve
+the juices of meats; but one of their most patriotic writers calls
+attention to the wholly diverse motives addressed by Napoleon and Nelson
+to their respective followers. "Soldiers," exclaimed the former, "from
+the summit of those Pyramids forty ages are looking down upon you."
+"England," said the latter, "expects every man to do his duty." In
+Paris, the science of dissection is perfect; in London, that of
+nutrition;--Dumas has reduced plagiarism to a fine art; Cobbett made
+common-sense a social lever;--a British merchant or statesman attaches
+his name to a document in characters of such individuality that the
+signature is known at a glance; a French official invents a flourish
+so intricate that the forger's ingenuity is baffled in the attempt to
+imitate it;--government, on one side of the Channel, employs a taster to
+detect adulteration in wine whose sensitive palate is a fortune; on
+the other, the hereditary fame of a brewery is the guaranty of the
+excellence of ale.
+
+This minute observance of detail has made the French leaders in fashion;
+it directs invention to the minutiæ of dress, and confirms the sway of
+the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an
+extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as
+characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with
+their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so
+imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as
+every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick,
+"nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and
+lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your
+clothes."
+
+The superiority of the French in the minor philosophy of life was
+curiously exemplified during our Revolutionary War. The octogenarians of
+Rhode Island used to expatiate on the remarkable difference between the
+troops of France and those of England when quartered among them. The
+former speedily made a series of little arrangements, and fell naturally
+into a pleasant routine, making the best of everything, adapting
+themselves to the ways and prejudices of the inhabitants, and, in a
+word, becoming assimilated at once to a new mode of life and form of
+society; their wit, cheerfulness, and gallantry are yet proverbial
+in that region. The English, on the other hand, even when in full
+possession of the country, made but an awkward use of their privileges,
+were ill-at-ease, failed to recognize anything genial in the habits and
+manners even of the Tory families. While the French officers introduced
+the mysteries of their _cuisine_, and brightened many a rustic
+household with song, anecdote, dance, and conversation, the English
+complained of the simple viands, regretted London fogs and beer,
+and made themselves and their hosts, whether forced or voluntary,
+uncomfortable. They exhibited no tact or facility in improving the
+resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We
+beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and
+impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic
+allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and
+ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off,
+meantime, chagrin and _ennui_ with as much alacrity as they did
+Cossacks.
+
+_Finesse_ characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the
+cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as
+the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of
+intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it
+more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English,
+shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is _finesse_,
+which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal
+attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to
+an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims,
+of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the
+tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted.
+To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in
+France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated
+woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days
+the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order
+to learn the _savoir vivre_ of the metropolis. Itineraries of other
+cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs,
+the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these
+curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century
+ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, _Gouvernantes,
+Émeutes, Rêves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit_,
+--corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, _femmes de
+quarante ans_, with their "_deux ressources, la dévotion et le bel
+esprit"; Contre Poisons_,--indispensable in those days of jealousy
+and assassination; _Pots de Fleurs_ form an item of the most limited
+establishment; emblems, such as _Rubans_ and _Bonnets Rouges_, are
+described as essential to the intelligent conduct of the visitor; and a
+chapter is devoted to Gallantry, of which a modern author in the same
+department pensively remarks, "_Cette ancienne galanterie qui vivait
+d'esprit et d'infidélités est comptlètement dénaturée_."
+
+It is curious how municipal, economical, and social life are thus
+simultaneously daguerreotyped and indicate their mutual and intricate
+association in the French capital. Its history involves that of
+churches, congresses, academies, prisons, cemeteries, and police, each
+of which represents domestic and royal vicissitudes. What other city
+furnishes such a work as the Duchess D'Abrantes' "Histoire des Salons
+de Paris"? The _salons_ of Madame Necker, Polignac, De Beaumont, De
+Mazarin, Roland, De Genlis, of Condorcet, of Malmaison, of Talleyrand,
+and of the Hôtel Rambouillet, etc., embrace the career of statesmen
+and soldiers, the literary celebrities, the schools of philosophy,
+the revolutions, the court, the wars, diplomacy, and, in a word, the
+veritable annals of France. Society, according to this lively writer, in
+the proper acceptation of the term, was born in France in the reign of
+the Cardinal de Richelieu; and thenceforth, in its history, we trace
+that of the nation.
+
+Throughout the most salient eras of this history, therefore, is visible
+female influence. Cousin has just revived the career of Madame de
+Longueville, which is identified with the cabals, financial expedients,
+and war of the Fronde; tournaments, which formed so striking a feature
+in the diversions of Louis XIV.'s court, owed their revival to the whim
+of one of his mistresses; Montespan fostered a brood of satirists,
+and Maintenon one of devotees, while that extraordinary religious
+controversy which initiated the sect of the Quietists had its origin in
+the example and agency of Madame Guyon. Even now, although, as a late
+writer has quaintly observed, "no lady brings her distaff to the
+council-chamber," the influence of the sex on political opinion, in
+its operation as a social principle, is recognized. A friend of mine,
+returning from a dinner-party, described the free and witty sarcasm with
+which a fair Legitimist assailed the Imperial rule; a week afterwards,
+meeting her at the same table, she related, that, a few days after her
+imprudent conversation, she received a courteous invitation from the
+chief of police. "When they were seated alone in his bureau,--Madame,"
+said he, "you have position, conversational talent, and wield the pen
+effectively; are you disposed to exert this influence, henceforth, in
+behalf of, instead of against the government?" Before her indignant
+negative was fairly uttered, he opened a drawer that seemed full of
+Napoleons, and glanced at them and her significantly. Thus Montesquieu's
+observation continues true:--"The individual who would attempt to judge
+of the government by the men at the head of affairs, and not by the
+women who sway those men, would fall into the same error as he who
+judges of a machine by its outward-action, and not by its secret
+springs"; and the old base system of espionage is revived under the new
+despotism.
+
+It has become proverbial in France, that the life of woman has three
+eras,--in youth a coquette, in middle-life a wit, and in age a
+_dévote_,--which is but another mode of expressing that economy of
+personal gifts, that shrewd use of the most available social power,
+which distinguishes the Gallic from the Saxon woman, the worldly from
+the domestic instincts. There only can we imagine a royal favorite
+admitting her indebtedness to a royal wife. "To her," wrote Madame de
+Maintenon of the Queen of Louis; "I owe the King's affection. Picture
+a sovereign worn out with state affairs, intrigues, and ceremonies,
+possessed of a _confidante_ always the same, always calm, always
+rational, equally able to instruct and to soothe, with the intelligence
+of a confessor and the winning gentleness of a woman." It is peculiar
+to the sex there to escape outward soil, whatever may be their moral
+exposure; for one instinctively recognizes a Frenchwoman by her clean
+boots, even in the muddiest thoroughfare, her spotless muslin cap,
+kerchief, and collar. She retains also her individuality after marriage
+better than the fair of other nations, not only in character, but in
+name, the maiden appellative being joined to her husband's, so that,
+although a Madame, she keeps the world informed that she was _née_ of a
+family whose title, however modest, she will not drop. The maxims, so
+prevalent in France, which declare matrimony the tomb of love, are
+the legitimate result of a superficial theory of life and the mutual
+independence of the sexes thence arising; accordingly we are assured,
+"C'est surtout entre mari et femme que l'amour a le moins de chance de
+succès. Ils vieillirent ensemble comme deux portraits de famille, sans
+aucune intimité, aucun profit pour l'esprit, et arrivés au dernier
+relais de leur existence, le souvenir n'avait rien à faire entre eux."
+
+It is a curious illustration at once of the mobility and the isolation
+of the French mind, that, while it assimilates elements within its
+sphere which in other nations are kept comparatively apart, it rejects
+the process in regard to foreign material. Thus, in no other capital are
+politics and literature so interwoven with society; the love-affairs of
+a minister directly influence his policy; the tone of the _salon_
+often inspires and moulds the author; the social history of an epoch
+necessarily includes the genius of its statesmanship and of its letters,
+because they are identified with the intrigues, _the bon-mots_, and the
+conversation of the period; more is to be learned at a lady's morning
+reception or evening _soirée_ than in the writer's library or the
+official's cabinet. On the other hand, how few threads from abroad can
+be found in this mingled web of civic, literary, and social life! The
+vicinity of England and the influx of Englishmen have scarcely brought
+the ideas or the sentiment of that country into nearer recognition at
+Paris than was the case a century ago. Notwithstanding an occasional
+outbreak of Anglomania, the best French authors spell English proper
+names no better, the best French critics appreciate Shakspeare as
+little, and the majority of Parisians have no less partial and fixed a
+notion of the characteristics of their insular neighbors, than before
+the days of journalism and steam. The attempts to represent English
+manners and character are as gross caricatures now as in the time of
+Montaigne. However apt at fusion within, the national egotism is
+as repugnant to assimilation from without as ever. The stock seems
+incapable of vital grafting, as has been remarkably evidenced in all the
+colonial experiments of France.
+
+The excellence of the French character, intellectually speaking,
+consists in routine and detail. How well their authors describe and
+their artists depict peculiarities! how exact the evolutions of a French
+regiment, and the statements of a French naturalist! how apt is a
+Parisian woman in raising gracefully her skirts, throwing on a shawl, or
+carrying a basket! In loyalty to a method they are unrivalled, in the
+triumph of individualities weak; their artisans can make a glove fit
+perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a coat; their authors,
+like their soldiers, can be marshalled in groups; means are superior
+to ends; manners, the exponent of Nature in other lands, there color,
+modify, and characterize the development of intellect; the subordinate
+principle in government, in science, and in life, becomes paramount;
+drawing, the elemental language of Art, is mastered, while the standard
+of expression remains inadequate; the laws of disease are profoundly
+studied, while this knowledge bears no proportionate relation to the
+practical art of healing; the ancient rules of dramatic literature are
+pedantically followed, while the "pity and terror" they were made to
+illustrate are unawakened; the programme of republican government is
+lucidly announced, its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded,
+while its spirit and realization continue in abeyance: and thus
+everywhere we find a singular disproportion between formula and fact,
+profession and practice, specific knowledge and its application. The
+citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions,
+the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he
+aspire to be a courtier or a chemist, a soldier or a _savant_, a dancer
+or a doctor; and yet, for complete equipment, he must temper each weapon
+he there acquires, or it will break in his hand.
+
+In every epoch a word rules or illustrates the dominant spirit:
+_citoyen_ in the Revolution, _moustache_ during the Consulate,
+_victoire_ under the Empire, to-day _la Bourse_. "To a Frenchman," says
+Mrs. Jameson, "the words that express things seem the things themselves,
+and he pronounces the words _amour, grâce, sensibilité_, etc., with a
+relish in his mouth as if he tasted them, as if he possessed them. They
+talk of "_le sentiment du métier_"; in travelling, Paris is the eternal
+theme. A sagacious observer has remarked in their language the "short,
+aphoristic phrase, the frequent absence of the copulative, avoidance of
+dependent phrases, and disdain of modifying adverbs. _Naiveté, abandon,
+ennui_, etc., are specific terms of the language, and designate national
+traits. When Beaumarchais ridiculed a provincial expression, the
+Dauphiness, we are told, composed a head-dress expressly to give it a
+local habitation and a name."
+
+The mania for equality, in the first Revolution, De Tocqueville shows
+was not so much the result of political aspiration as the fierce protest
+against those exclusive rights once enjoyed by the nobility, (shown by
+Arthur Young to have been the primary impulse to revolution,) to hunt,
+keep pigeons, grind corn, press grapes, etc. For a long period, the man
+of letters was never combined with the statesman, as in England. In
+France, speculation in government ran wild, because the thinkers,
+suddenly raised to influence in affairs, had enjoyed no ordeal of public
+duty. Hence certain imaginary fruits of liberty were sought, and its
+absolute worth misunderstood. And now that experience, dearly bought,
+has modified visionary and moulded practical theories, how much of the
+normal interest of the French character has evaporated! Even the love
+of beauty and the love of glory, proverbially its distinctions, are
+eclipsed by the sullen orb of Imperialism; the Bourse is more attractive
+than the battle-field, material luxury than artistic distinction.
+
+One of their own philosophers has summed up, with justice, the anomalous
+elements of the versatile national character:--
+
+"Did there ever appear on the earth another nation so fertile in
+contrasts, so extreme in its acts,--more under the dominion of
+feeling, less ruled by principle; always better or worse than was
+anticipated,--now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people
+so unchangeable in its leading features that it may be recognized by
+portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in
+its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to
+itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it
+has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet, when once driven
+forth and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles to
+any lengths and to dare anything; indocile by disposition, but better
+pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a sovereign than
+with a free and regular government under its chief citizens; now fixed
+in hostility to subjection of any kind, now so passionately wedded to
+servitude that nations made to serve cannot vie with it; led by a thread
+so long as no word of resistance is spoken, wholly ungovernable when the
+standard of revolt is raised,--thus always deceiving its masters,
+who fear it too much or too little; never so free that it cannot be
+subjugated, never so kept down that it cannot break the yoke; qualified
+for every pursuit, but excelling in nothing but war; more prone to
+worship chance, force, success, _éclat_, noise, than real glory; endowed
+with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better
+adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of
+great enterprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation
+of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred,
+terror, or pity, but never indifference?"[1]
+
+What other social sphere could afford room for the vocation so aptly
+described in the following sketch of his "ways and means," given in a
+recent picture of life in Paris by a sycophant of millionnaires, at
+a period when interests, not rights, are the watchwords of the
+nation?--"Mon rôle de familier dans une véritable population d'enrichis
+me donnait du crédit dans les boudoirs, et mon crédit dans les boudoirs
+ajoutait à ma faveur près ces pauvres diables de millionaires, presque
+tous vieux et blasés, courant toujours en chancelant après un plaisir
+nouveau. Les marchands de vin me font la cour comme les jolies femmes,
+pour que je daigne leur indiqner des connaisseurs assez riches pour
+payer les bonnes choses le prix qu'elles valent. Mon métier est de tout
+savoir,--l'anecdote de la cour, le scandale de la ville, le secret des
+coulisses." And this species of adventurer, we are told, has always the
+same commencement to his memoirs,--"_Il vint à Paris en sabots._"
+
+[Footnote 1: De Tocqueville.]
+
+The numerous avocations of women in the French capital explain, in a
+measure, their superior tact, efficiency, and force of character. This
+is especially true of females of the middle class, who have been justly
+described as remarkable for good sense and appropriate costumes. The
+participation of women in so many departments of art and industry
+affects, also, the social tone and the manners. Sterne, long ago,
+remarked it of the fair shopkeepers. "The genius of a people," he says,
+"where nothing but the monarchy is _Salique_, having ceded this
+department totally to the women, by a continual higgling with customers
+of all ranks and sizes, from morning to night, like so many rough
+pebbles in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but
+will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant."
+
+How distinctly may be read the political vicissitudes of France in her
+literature,--classic, highly finished, keen, and formal, when a monarch
+was idolized and authors wrote only for courts and scholars: Bossuet,
+with his rhetorical graces; La Bruyère, with his gallery of characters,
+not one of which was moulded among the people; De la Rochefoucauld's
+maxims, drawn from the arcana of fashionable life; Racine, whose heroes
+die with an immaculate couplet and speak the faint echoes of Grecian or
+Roman sentiment! When politics became common property, and the walls of
+a prescriptive and conventional system fell, how wild ran speculation
+and sentiment in the copious and superficial Voltaire and the vague
+humanities of Rousseau! When an era of military despotism supervened
+upon the reign of license, how destitute of lettered genius seemed the
+nation, except when the pensive enthusiasm of Chateaubriand breathed
+music from American wilds or a London garret, and Madame de Staël gave
+utterance to her eloquent philosophy in exile at Geneva! "_Napoléon eût
+voulu faire manoeuvrer l'esprit humain comme il faisait manoeuvrer ses
+vieux bataillons_." Yet more emphatic is the reaction of political
+conditions upon literary development after the Restoration. The tragic
+horrors and protracted fever of the Revolution, and the passion for
+military glory exaggerated by the victories of Napoleon, legitimately
+initiated the intense school, which during the present century has
+signalized French literature. The _prestige_ of the scholar revived, and
+literary eclipsed warlike fame; but with the revival of letters came
+the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and
+in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the
+melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in
+dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Béranger;
+fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly
+artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the chaos and the
+earthquakes that laid bare and upheaved life and society in the
+preceding epochs; the journal became an intellectual gymnasium and
+Olympic game, where the first minds of the nation sought exercise and
+glory; the _feuilleton_ almost necessitated the novelist to concentrate
+upon each chapter the amount of interest once diffused through a volume;
+criticism, from tedious analysis, became a brilliant ordeal; egotism
+inspired a world of new confessions, political questions a new school
+of popular writing, the love of effect and the passion for excitement a
+multitude of dramatic, narrative, and biographical books, wherein the
+serenity of thought, the tranquil beauty of truth, and the healthful
+tone of nature were sacrificed, not without dazzling genius, to
+immediate fame, pecuniary reward, and the delight _d'éprouver une
+sensation_. Even in the history of the fine arts, we find the political
+element guiding the pencil and ruling the fortunes of genius. David was
+the government painter, and regarded Gros and Girodet as _suspects_.
+He effected a revolution in Art by going back to severe anatomical
+principles in design. There were conspiracies against him in the
+studios, and war was declared between color and design; the palette
+and the pencil were in conflict; David, the Napoleon of the
+former,--Prud'hon, Géricault, Delacroix, and others, leaders in the
+latter faction. Each party was surrounded by its respective corps of
+amateurs; and military terms were in vogue in the _atelier_ and academy.
+"_S'il est permis_" says Delacroix, speaking of his Sardanapalus,
+"de comparer les petites choses aux grandes, ce fut mon Waterloo. Je
+devenais l'abomination de la peinture; il fallait me refuser l'eau et
+le sel." "If you wish to share the favors of the government," said an
+official to another artist, "you must change your manner." From the
+tyranny of external influences have arisen the incongruities of the
+French schools of painting, and especially what has been well called
+"that meretricious breed which continue to depict the Magdalen with
+the united attractions of Palestine and the Palais Royal." The large
+pictures which Gros painted during the Empire were consigned to
+long obscurity at the Restoration. The lives, too, of many of these
+cultivators of the arts of peace had a tragic close. Haydon's fate made
+a deep impression in England, because it was an exceptional case; while,
+of the modern painters of France, whose career was far more harmonious
+and successful than his, Gros drowned himself, Robert cut his throat,
+Prud'hon died in misery, and Greuze was buried in Potter's Field. The
+side of life we naturally associate with tranquillity thus offers, in
+this dramatic realm, scenes of excitement and pity. It is the same in
+literature. Witness the fierce struggle between the Romantic and Classic
+schools,--the early victories of the _enfant sublime_, Victor Hugo.
+And we must acknowledge that "_les lettres et les arts ont aussi leurs
+émeutes et leurs révolutions_," and accept the inference of one of the
+_Parisian literati_,--that "_l'esprit a toujours quelque chose de
+satanique_." Every revolution is identified with some musical air: when
+Louis XVIII. first appeared at the theatre, after his long exile, he was
+greeted with the "Vive Henri IV.," and the new constitution of 1830 was
+ushered in by the "Marseillaise." The Vaudeville theatre, we are told,
+during the Revolution and under the Empire, was essentially political.
+An imaginary resemblance between _la chaste Suzanne_ and Marie
+Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which
+Cambacères took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it
+his official protection.
+
+In the family of nations France is the child of illusions, and excites
+the sympathy of the magnanimous because her destinies have been marred
+through the errors of the imagination rather than of the heart.
+Government, religion, and society--the three great elements of civil
+life--have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact.
+Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and
+literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness
+in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a
+thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety,
+gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without
+the solid foundation of principles and the efficient development in
+practice, either of polity, a social system, or religious belief,--the
+theory and the sentiment of each being at the same time luxuriant,
+attractive, and prolific.
+
+The popular writers are eloquent in abstractions, but each seems
+inspired by a thorough egotism. Descartes, their philosopher, drew all
+his inferences from consciousness; Madame de Sévigné, the epistolary
+queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love
+of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of
+self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the
+lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society
+through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyère elaborated
+generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial
+society; Boileau established a classical standard of criticism suggested
+by personal taste, which ignored the progress of the human mind.
+
+The redeeming grace of the nation is to be found in its wholesome sense
+of the enjoyable and the available in ordinary life, in its freedom
+from the discontent which elsewhere is born of avarice and unmitigated
+materialism. The love of pleasing, the influence of women, and a
+frivolous temper everywhere and on all occasions signalize them. "Why,
+people laugh at everything here!" naively exclaimed the young Duchess of
+Burgundy, on her arrival at the French court.
+
+The amount of commodities taken by French people on a journey, and the
+cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion
+demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The
+_pâté_, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff,
+and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory
+and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an
+interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to
+which the humblest of Dutch pictures are refined and elegant.
+
+The intrinsic diversity and the national relations between the French
+and English are curiously illustrated by their respective history and
+literature. Compare, for instance, the plays of Shakspeare, which
+dramatize the long wars of the early kings, with the account given in
+the journals of the reception of Victoria at Paris and of Louis Napoleon
+in London; imagine the royal salutation and the official recognition of
+the once anathematized Napoleon dynasty; General Bonaparte becomes in
+his tomb Napoleon I. No wonder "Punch" affirmed that the statue of Pitt
+shook its bronze head and the bones of Castlereagh stirred in protest.
+
+"The English," says a celebrated writer, "like ancient medals, kept more
+apart, preserve the first sharpness which the fair hand of Nature has
+given them; they are not so pleasant to feel, but, in return, the legend
+is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and
+superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth
+the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and
+assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,--a vital difference, which
+no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can essentially
+change.
+
+A century ago there were few better tests of popular sentiment in
+England than the plays in vogue. As indications of the state of the
+public mind, they were what the ballads are to earlier times, and the
+daily press is to our own,--generalized casual, but emphatic proofs of
+the opinions, prejudices, and fancies of the hour. Now a large English
+colony is domesticated in France; it is but a few hours' trip from
+London to Paris; newspapers and the telegraph in both capitals make
+almost simultaneous announcements of news; the soldiers of the two
+nations fight side by side; the French shopman declares on his sign that
+English is spoken within; the "Times," porter, and tea are obtainable
+commodities in Paris; and _fraternité_ is the watchword at Dover and
+Calais. Yet the normal idea which obtains in the conservative brain of a
+genuine _Anglais_, though doubtless expanded and modified by intercourse
+and treaties, may be found still in that once popular drama, Foote's
+"Englishman in Paris." "A Frenchman," says one of the characters, "is a
+fop. Their taste is trifling, and their politeness pride. What the deuse
+brings you to Paris, then? Where's the use? It gives Englishmen a true
+relish for their own domestic happiness, a proper veneration for their
+national liberties, and an honor for the extended generous commerce of
+their country. The men there are all puppies, the women painted dolls."
+Monsieur Ragout and Monsieur Rosbif bandy words; the former is said to
+"look as if he had not had a piece of beef or pudding in his paunch for
+twenty years, and had lived wholly on frogs,"--and the latter pines to
+leap a five-barred gate, and is afraid of being entrapped by "a rich
+she-Papist." His fair countrywoman is invited by a French marquis to
+marry him, with this programme,--"A perpetual residence in this paradise
+of pleasures; to be the object of universal adoration; to say what you
+please,--go where you will,--do what you like,--form fashions,--hate
+your husband, and let him see it,--indulge your gallant,--run in debt,
+and oblige the poor devil to pay it."
+
+As a pendant, take the description of one of the last French novels:--"À
+Paris tout s'oublie, tout se pardonne. Par convenance, par décence,
+quelquefois par crainte, on s'absente, ou fait un entr'acte: puis le
+rideau se rèleve pour le spectacle de nouvelles fautes et de nouvelles
+folies; toute la question est de savoir s'y prendre."
+
+Comedy is native to French genius and appreciation; it follows the
+changes of social life with marvellous celerity; it is the best school
+of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both
+in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The
+prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of
+invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic
+Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital
+affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like
+Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein
+novelty of combination, significance of dialogue, and artistic
+felicities quite unrivalled elsewhere, are exhibited.
+
+It is quite the reverse with the serious drama. In England this is a
+form of literature which goes nearest to the normal facts and conditions
+of human nature; it teaches the highest and deepest lessons, wins the
+most profound sympathy, and is remarkable and interesting through its
+subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters
+of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French
+tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of
+a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or
+melodramatic invention,--not to the universal and existing passions.
+There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies--those of
+modern civilization--with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas
+or Grecian mantles rehearse the sentiments of fatalism, the creed of
+ancient mythology, or Gallic rhetoric in a classic dress; and these
+disguises so envelope the love, ambition, despair, hate, or patriotism,
+that we are always conscious of the theatrical, and it requires the
+extraordinary gifts of a Rachel to enlist other than artistic interest.
+
+The French have manuals for breathing and composing the features
+to secure artistic effects; they offer academic prizes for every
+conceivable achievement; their very lamp-posts are designed with taste;
+a huckster in the street will exhibit dramatic tact and wonderful
+mechanical dexterity. "Quand il paraît un homme de génie en France,"
+says Madame de Staël, "dans quelque carrière que ce soit, il atteint
+presque toujours à un degré de perfection sans exemple; car il réunit
+l'audace qui fait sortir de la route commune au tact du bon goût." And
+yet in vast political interests they are victims,--in the more earnest
+developments of the soul, children. A new artificial lake in the Bois de
+Boulogne, a grand military reception, news of a victory in some distant
+corner of the globe, the distribution of eagles to brave survivors,--in
+a word, an appeal to the love of amusement, of display, and of
+glory,--quiets the murmur about to rise against interference with human
+rights or usurpation of the national will. Political interests of the
+gravest character are treated with flippancy: one writer calls the
+formation of a new government Talleyrand's table of whist; and another
+casually observes that "_tous les gouvernements nouveaux ont leur lune
+de miel_."
+
+That great principle of the division of labor, which the English carry
+into mechanical and commercial affairs, the French also apply to the
+economy of life and to Art; but, as these latter interests are more
+spontaneous and unlimited, the result is often a perfection in detail,
+and a like deficiency in general effect. Thus, there are schools of
+painting in France more distinct and apart than exist elsewhere; usually
+the followers of such are distinguished for excellence in the mechanical
+aptitudes of their vocation; the figure is admirably drawn, the costume
+rightly disposed, and sometimes the degree of finish quite marvellous;
+but, usually, this superiority is attained at the expense of the
+sentiment of the picture. French historic Art, like French life, is
+apt to be extravagant and melodramatic, or over-refined in unimportant
+particulars; it often lacks moral harmony,--the grand, simple, true
+reflection of Nature in its nicety. Delaroche, who, of all French
+painters, rose most above the adventitious, and gave himself to the soul
+of Art, to pure expression, was, for this very reason, thought by his
+brother artists to be cold and unattractive. There is one sphere,
+however, where this exclusiveness of style and partition of labor are
+productive of the most felicitous results: namely, the minor drama. In
+England and America the same theatre exhibits opera, melodrama, tragedy,
+comedy, rope-dancing, and legerdemain; but in Paris, each branch and
+element of histrionic art has its separate temple, its special corps of
+actors and authors, nay, its particular class of subjects; hence their
+unrivalled perfection. Ingenuity, science, and Art are concentrated by
+thus assigning free and individual scope to the dramatic niceties and
+phases of life, of history, of genius, and of society. At the Opera
+Comique you find one kind of musical creation; at the Italiens the
+lyrical drama of Southern Europe alone; at the Variétés a unique order
+of comic dialogue; and at the Porte St. Martin yet another species of
+play. One theatre gives back the identical tone of existing society and
+current events; another deals with the classical ideas of the past.
+Satire and song, the horrible and the brilliant, the graceful and the
+highly artistic, pictorial, elocutionary, pantomimic, tragic, vocal,
+statuesque, the past and present, all the elements of Art and of life,
+find representation in the plot, the language, the sentiment, the
+costume, the music, and the scenery of the many Parisian theatres.
+
+Yet how much of this superiority is fugitive! how little in the whole
+dramatic development takes permanent hold upon popular sympathy! Much
+of its significance is purely local, and of its interest altogether
+temporary. Scholars and the higher classes can talk eloquently of
+Corneille and Racine; the beaux and _spirituelle_ women of the day can
+repeat and enjoy the last hit of Scribe, or the new _bon-mot_ of
+the theatre: but contrast these results with the national love and
+appreciation of Shakspeare,--with the permanent reflection of Spanish
+life in Lope de Vega,--the patriotic aspirations which the young Italian
+broods over in the tragedies of Alfieri. The grace of movement, the
+triumph of tact and ingenuity, the devotion to conventionalism, either
+pedantry or the genius of the hour, also rules the drama in Paris. With
+all its brilliancy, entertainment, grace, wit, and popularity,--there
+exists not a permanently vital and universally recognized type of this
+greatest department of literature, familiar and endeared alike to
+peasant and peer, a representative of humanity for all time,--like the
+bard around whose name and words cluster the Anglo-Saxon hearts and
+intelligence from generation to generation.
+
+But nowhere do life and the drama so trench upon each other; nowhere is
+every incident of experience so dramatic. Miss H.M. Williams told the
+poet Rogers that she had seen "men and women, waiting for admission at
+the door of the theatre, suddenly leave their station, on the passing of
+a set of wretches going to be guillotined, and then, having ascertained
+that none of their relations or friends were among them, very
+unconcernedly return to the door of the theatre." A child is born at the
+Opera Comique during the performance, and it is instantly made an event
+of sympathy and effect by the audience; a subscription is raised, the
+child named for the dramatic heroine of the moment, and the fortunate
+mother sent home in a carriage, amid the plaudits of the crowd. You are
+listening to a play; and a copy of the "Entr'acte" is thrust into your
+hand, containing a minute account of the death of a statesman two
+squares off whose name fills pages of history, or a battle in the East,
+where some officer whom you met two months before on the Boulevard has
+won immortal fame by prodigies of valor. So do the actualities and the
+pastimes, the real and the imaginary drama, miraculously interfuse at
+Paris; the comedy of life is patent there, and often the spectator
+exclaims, "_Arlequin avait bien arrangé les choses, mais Colombine
+dérange tout!_"
+
+The Parisian females are "unexceptionably shod,"--but the agricultural
+instruments now in use in the rural districts of France are of a form
+and mechanism which, to a Yankee farmer, would seem antediluvian; the
+cooks, gardeners, and other working-people, have annually the most
+graceful festivals,--but the traveller sees in the fields women so
+bronzed and wrinkled by toil and exposure that their sex is hardly to be
+recognized. When the Gothamite passes along Pearl or Broad Street,
+he beholds the daily spectacle of unemployed carmen reading
+newspapers;--there may be said to be no such thing as popular literature
+in France; mental recreation, such as the German and Scotch peasantry
+enjoy, is unknown there. The Art and letters of the kingdom flourished
+in her court and were cultivated as an aristocratic element for so long
+a period, that neither has become domesticated among the lower classes;
+we find in them the sentiment of military glory, of religion in its
+superstitious phase, of music perhaps, of rustic festivity,--but not the
+enjoyments which spring from or are associated with thought and poetic
+sympathies such as national writers like Burns inspired. An exception
+comparatively recent may be found in the popular appreciation of
+Béranger and Souvestre.
+
+There is not a natural object too beautiful or an occasion too solemn
+to arrest the French tendency to the theatrical. Even one of their most
+ardent eulogists remarks,--"All that can be said against the French
+sublime is this,--that the grandeur is more in the word than in the
+thing; the French expression professes more than it performs"; and old
+Montaigne declares that "lying is not a vice among the French, _but a
+way of speaking_." Both observations admit too much; and indicate an
+habitual departure from Nature and simplicity as a national trait.
+Who but Frenchmen ever delighted in reducing to artificial shapes the
+graceful forms of vegetable life, or can so far lay aside the sentiment
+of grief as to engage in rhetorical panegyrics over the fresh graves
+of departed friends? Compare the high dead wall with its range of
+flower-pots, the porches undecked by woodbines or jessamine, the formal
+paths, the proximate kitchen, stables, and ungarnished _salon_ of
+a French villa, with the hedges, meadows, woodlands, and trellised
+eglantine of an English country-house; and a glance assures us that
+to the former nation the country is a _dernier ressort_, and not an
+endeared seclusion. Yet they romance, in their way, on rural subjects:
+"_À la campagne_," says one of their poets, "_où chaque feuille qui
+tombe est une élégie toute faite_." Through an avenue of scraggy poplars
+we approach a dilapidated _château_, whose owner is playing dominoes
+at the café of the nearest provincial town, or exhausting the sparse
+revenues of the estate at the theatres, roulette-tables, or balls of
+Paris. People leave these for a rural vicinage only to economize, to
+hide chagrin, or to die. So recognized is this indifference to Nature
+and inaptitude for rural life in France, that, when we desire to
+express the opposite of natural tastes, we habitually use the word
+"Frenchified." The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a
+convenient appendage to a lamp. The traveller never sees artificial
+light reflected from green leaves, without thinking of his evening
+promenades in the French capital, or a dance in the groves of
+Montmorency. The old verbal tyranny of the French Academy, the
+painted wreaths sold at cemetery-gates, the colored plates of fashions,
+powdered hair, and rouged cheeks, typify and illustrate this irreverent
+ambition to pervert Nature and create artificial effects; they are but
+so many forms of the theatrical instinct, and proofs of the ascendency
+of meretricious taste. It is this want of loyalty to Nature, and
+insensibility to her unadulterated charms, which constitute the real
+barrier between the Gallic mind and that of England and Italy, and
+which explain the fervent protest of such men as Alfieri and Coleridge.
+Simplicity and earnestness are the normal traits of efficient character,
+whether developed in action or Art, in sentiment or reflection; and
+manufactured verse, vegetation, and complexions indicate a faith in
+appearances and a divorce from reality, which, in political interests,
+tend to compromise, to theory, and to acquiescence in a military
+_régime_ and an embellished absolutism.
+
+It is this incompleteness, this comparative untruth, that gives rise to
+the dissatisfaction we feel in the last analysis of French character.
+It is delusive. The promise of beauty held out by external taste is
+unfulfilled; the fascination of manner bears a vastly undue proportion
+to the substantial kindness and trust which that immediate charm
+suggests. "Just Heaven!" exclaims Yorick, "for what wise reasons hast
+thou ordered it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance
+in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?" The
+bearing of an Englishman seldom awakens expectation of courtesy
+or entertainment; yet, if vouchsafed, how to be relied on is the
+friendship! how generous the hospitality! The urbane salutation with
+which a Frenchman greets the female passenger, as she enters a public
+conveyance, is not followed by the offer of his seat or a slice of his
+reeking _pâtè_,--while the roughest backwoodsman in America, who never
+touched his hat or inclined his body to a stranger, will guard a
+woman from insult, and incommode himself to promote her comfort, with
+respectful alacrity. It is so in literature. How often we eagerly follow
+the clear exposition of a subject in the pages of a French author, to
+reach an impotent conclusion! or suffer our sympathies to be enlisted by
+the admirable description of an interior or a character in one of their
+novels, to find the plot which embodies them an absurd melodrama!
+Evanescence is the law of Parisian felicities,--selfishness the
+background of French politeness,--sociability flourishes in an inverse
+ratio to attachment; we become skeptical almost in proportion as we are
+attracted. If we ask the way, we are graciously directed; but if we
+demand the least sacrifice, we must accept volubility for service. Thus
+the perpetual flowering in manners, in philosophy, in politics, and in
+economy, is rarely accompanied by fruit in either. To enjoy Paris, we
+must cease to be in earnest;--to pass the time, and not to wrest from it
+a blessing or a triumph, is the main object. The badges, the gardens,
+the smiles, the agreeable phrase, the keen repartee, the tempting dish,
+the ingenious _vaudeville_, the pretty foot, the elegant chair and
+becoming curtain, the extravagant gesture, the pointed epigram or
+alluring formula, must be taken as so many agreeabilities,--not for
+things performed, but imaginatively promised. The folly of war has been
+demonstrated to the entire sense of mankind; at best, it is now deemed
+a painful necessity; yet the most serious phase of life in France is
+military. Depth and refinement of feeling are lonely growths, and can no
+more spring up in a gregarious and festal life than trees in quicksands;
+citizenship is based on consistent acts, not on verbosity; and
+brilliant accompaniments never reconcile strong hearts to the loss of
+independence, which some English author has acutely declared the first
+essential of a gentleman. The civilization of France is an artistic and
+scientific materialism; the spiritual element is wanting. Paris is the
+theatre of nations; we must regard it as a continuous spectacle, a
+boundless museum, a place of diversion, of study,--not of faith, the
+deepest want and most sacred birthright of humanity.
+
+The want of directness, the absence of candor, the non-recognition of
+truth in its broad and deep sense, is, indeed, a characteristic phase
+of life, of expression, and of manners in France. A lover of his nation
+confesses that even in "_galantes aventures l'esprit prenait la place
+du coeur, la fantaisie celle du sentiment_." Voltaire's creed was, that
+"_le mensonge n'est un vice que quand il fait du mal; c'est une grande
+vertu quand il fait du bien_." "_L'exagération_" says De Maistre, "_est
+le mensonge des honnêtes gens_."
+
+In every aspect the histrionic prevails,--by facility of association and
+colloquial aptitude in the common intercourse of life,--by the inventive
+element in dress, furniture, and material arrangements, plastic to the
+caprice of taste and ingenuity,--by the habitudes of out-of-door life,
+giving greater variety and adaptation to manners,--and by a national
+temperament, susceptible and demonstrative. The current vocabulary
+suggests a perpetual recourse to the casual, a shifting of the
+life-scene, a recognition of the temporary and accidental. Such
+oft-recurring words as _flâneur_, _liaison_, _badinage_, etc., have no
+exact synonymes in other tongues. All that is done, thought, and felt
+takes a dramatic expression. Lamartine elaborates a "History of
+the Restoration" from two reports,--the one monarchical, the other
+republican,--and, by making the facts picturesque and sentimental, wins
+countless readers. Comte elaborates a masterly analysis of the sciences,
+proclaims a fascinating theory of eras or stages in human development;
+but the positive philosophy, of which all this is but the introduction,
+to be applied to the individual and society, eludes, at last, direct and
+complete application. A popular _savant_ dies, and students drag the
+hearse and scatter flowers over the grave; a philosopher lectures, and
+immediately his disciples form a school, and advocate his system with
+the ardor of partisans; a disappointed soldier commits suicide by
+throwing himself from Napoleon's column, while a _grisette_ and her
+lover make their exit through a last embrace and the fumes of charcoal;
+a wit seeks revenge with a clever repartee instead of his fists or cane.
+A lady is the centre of attraction at a reception, and, upon inquiry, we
+are gravely informed that the charm lies in the fact, that, though now
+fat and more than forty, as well as married to an old noble, in her
+youth she was the mistress of a celebrated poet. Notoriety, even when
+scandalous, is as good a social distinction as birth, fame, or beauty.
+Rousseau wrote a love-story, and sentiment became the rage. An artisan
+has a day to spare, and takes his family to a garden or a dance. Human
+existence, thus embellished, impulsive, and caricatured, becomes
+a continuous melodrama, with an occasional catastrophe induced by
+political revolutions. Louis XIV., the most characteristic king France
+ever had, is a genuine representative of this theatrical instinct and
+development.
+
+Herein may we find a key to the riddle of governmental vicissitudes
+in France. People so easily satisfied with illusions, so fertile in
+superficial expedients, are like children and savages in their sense of
+what is novel and amusing, and their love of excitement,--and make
+no such demands upon reality as full-grown men and educated citizens
+instinctively crave. Their powers, in this regard, have not been
+disciplined,--their wants but vaguely realized. Accustomed to look out
+of themselves for a law of action, to consult authority upon every
+occasion, to defer to official sources for guidance in every detail of
+municipal and personal affairs,--the lesson of self-dependence,
+the courage and the knowledge needful for efficiency are wanting.
+"_Savez-vous_," asks an epicure, "_ce qui a chassé la gaîté? C'est la
+politique_." They rally at the voice of command, submit to interference,
+and take for granted a prescribed formula, partly because it is
+troublesome to think, and partly on account of inexperience in assuming
+responsibility. De Tocqueville has remarked, that, in every instance
+of attempted colonization, they have adapted themselves to, instead of
+elevating savage tribes. They have never gone through the process of
+state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the
+Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability
+realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow
+reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things
+that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and
+will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of
+political training. But those who look deeper know that this political
+inefficiency is but the external manifestation or the latent cause of
+more serious defects: by impeding healthful development in one way, it
+occasions a morbid development in another. If citizenship in its most
+free and active privilege were enjoyed, there would be less devotion to
+amusement, a more virile national character, and the sanctities of
+life would have observance. Public spirit and a political career are
+incentives to manly ambition,--to an employment of mind and feeling
+that wins men from trifling pursuits and vain diversion; they are the
+national basis of private usefulness; to thwart them is to condemn
+humanity to perpetual childhood,--to render members of a state machines.
+
+The social evils and kinds of crime in France are referable in no
+small degree to the absence of great motives,--the limited spheres and
+hopeless routine involved in arbitrary government, unsustained by any
+elevated sentiment. Such a rule makes literature servile, enterprise
+mercenary, and manners profligate: all history proves this. It is not,
+therefore, rational to infer, from the apparent want of ability in the
+nation to take care of its own affairs, that a military despotism is
+justifiable; when the truth is equally demonstrated, that such a sway,
+by indefinitely postponing the chance to acquire the requisite training,
+keeps down and throws back the national impulse and destiny. The man who
+thus abuses power is none the less a traitor and a parricide.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+"Mr. Geer!"
+
+Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.
+
+This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently warm appreciation of Mrs.
+Geer's social charms; but the enormity of the offence will be greatly
+modified by a brief review of the attending circumstances. If you will
+but consider that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
+stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies,--that the cushion of a
+capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted as if with a single eye
+to a delicious dose, nay, to a long succession of doses, is a powerful
+temptation to a sleepy soul,--that the regular, and, it must be
+confessed, somewhat monotonous _click, click, click_ of Mrs. Geer's
+knitting-needles only served to measure, without disturbing the
+silence,--and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife for thirty
+years,--you will not cease to wonder that Mr. Geer
+
+  "was glorious,
+  O'er all the ills of life victorious."
+
+To most men, an interruption at such a time would have been particularly
+annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or
+awake, always made a point of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned
+his round, honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his bosom,
+who went on,--
+
+"Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall."
+
+"Possible?" replied Mr. Geer. "Who'd 'a' thunk it?"
+
+Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker, or rather, a
+free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact, he tyrannized over
+all parts of speech: wrested nouns and verbs from their original shape,
+till you could hardly recognize their distorted faces; and committed
+that next worst sin to murdering one's mother, namely,--murdering one's
+mother-tongue, with an _abandon_ that was absolutely fascinating. Having
+delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he at once subsided, closed
+his placid eyes, and retired into his inner world of--thought, perhaps.
+
+"_Mr. Geer!_"
+
+This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about him scared,
+blinking eyes.
+
+"Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time so?"
+
+"Sleep? I--I--am sure, I was never wider awake in my life."
+
+"Well, then, tell me what I said."
+
+"Said? Eh,--eh,--something about Ivy, wasn't it?"
+
+And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced
+his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had
+been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her
+own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; so she answered,--
+
+"Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?"
+
+"Lud, lud! What's the matter?" asked Mr. Geer, wildly.
+
+"Matter? Why, she'll be seventeen, come fall, and doesn't know a thing."
+
+"O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'."
+
+And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair once more.
+He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of smallpox, cholera, and
+throat-distemper, the worst evils that he could think of and dread for
+his darling, had been conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found
+the real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly fallen on
+his heart, was as suddenly lifted.
+
+"But I tell you it _is_ something," continued Mrs. Geer, energetically.
+"Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been ten miles from home in her
+life, and to no school but our little district"----
+
+"And she's as pairk a gal," interrupted Mr. Geer, "as any you'll find in
+all the ten miles round, be the other who she will."
+
+"She's well enough in her way," replied Mrs. Geer, in all the humility
+of motherly pride; "and so much the more reason why she shouldn't be let
+go so. There's Mr. Dingham sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's
+seminary. (I wonder if he expects they'll ever turn out anything.) And
+here's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well able to maintain
+her like a lady, and have done nothing but turn her out to grass all her
+life, till she's fairly run wild. I declare it's a shame. She ought to
+be sent to school to-morrow."
+
+"Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' lo have no such doin's.
+Sha'n't go off to school. What's the use havin' her, if she can't stay
+at home with us? Let Mr. Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to.
+All the book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy with
+only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin' up high-falutin'
+notions. She's all gold now. She don't need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge
+an inch. Sha'n't stir a step."
+
+"But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us some time. We
+can't have her always."
+
+"Why can't we?" exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides you and me, I
+suppose, that thinks she's pairk. What's John Herricks and Dan Norris
+hangin' round for all the time?"
+
+"And they may hang round till the cows come home! Nary hair of Ivy's
+head shall they touch,--nary one on em!"
+
+Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question bounded into
+the room.
+
+"Come here, Ivy," said the old man; "your mother's been a-slanderin'
+you; says you don't know nothin'."
+
+Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and turned upon him
+a pair of palpably roguish eyes.
+
+"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."
+
+"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
+Herricks, do you?"
+
+"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"
+
+"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"
+
+"Never a one, father."
+
+"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
+for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
+You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
+to go away, Ivy."
+
+"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
+syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
+live."
+
+"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"
+
+And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
+with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
+parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
+She had said she would not, and of course she would not."
+
+"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
+could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his
+everlasting smirk, and his diddling walk, and take care of all the
+Herricks' sisters and mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and
+horses and pigs--and--hens--and--and"----
+
+But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer than ever before
+in her life; and ere she had finished the inventory of John Herricks's
+personal property and real estate, the blue eyes were closed in the
+sweet, sound sleep of youth and health.
+
+Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments, was partly
+right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been "finished" at Mrs. Porter's
+seminary, and was consequently in a highly unfinished condition. "Small
+Latin and less Greek" jostled each other in her head. German and French,
+Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy. She could not dance,
+nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor work little dogs on footstools.
+
+What, then, could she do?
+
+_Imprimis_, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. _Secundo_, she could
+walk across the great beam in the barn like a year-old kitten. In the
+pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold,
+from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
+under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some
+inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure.
+With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly
+and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer
+consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
+behind. Without saddle or bridle she could
+
+  "Ride a black horse
+  To Banbury Cross."
+
+(N.B.--I don't say she actually did. I only say she could; and under
+sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt she would.) She knew
+where the purple violets and the white innocence first flecked the
+spring turf, and where the ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs.
+All the little waddling, downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and
+faint-hearted, desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and
+shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the
+morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool,
+and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True
+Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
+Legion!
+
+From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have faithfully
+reported, a casual observer, particularly if young and inexperienced,
+might infer that the question of Miss Ivy's education was definitively
+settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof.
+I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and
+intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
+a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that
+appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something,
+and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow
+over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
+does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman
+can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to
+tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything
+will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,--one to his
+farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs
+just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor of her way
+unmoved:
+
+  "Beware! beware!
+  Trust her not; she is fooling thee."
+
+Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like Napoleon, she was
+never more elated than after a defeat. Before consulting her husband
+at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had
+deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the
+senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
+and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
+notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the
+next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly,
+as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that departure had been
+fixed.
+
+Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time. She had a sublime
+faith in herself. She felt in her soul the divine afflatus, and pressed
+forward gloriously to her goal. Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to
+say obstinacy, as falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more;
+and as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, "A woman in
+the very house has such deused opportunities!" so Farmer Geer grumbled,
+and squirmed, and remonstrated, and--yielded.
+
+Mrs. Geer was _not_ right. She had reckoned without her host. Her
+affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way of prosperity in a
+chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders, when, presto! they turned
+a sharp and unexpected corner, and over went the whole establishment
+into a mirier mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.
+
+To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira was announced to
+Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady, to the ill-concealed vexation of
+her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed exultation of her
+father, expressed decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she
+was the chief _dramatis persona_, the very Hamlet of the play, this
+unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All
+the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one
+point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty
+were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any
+allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only
+hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own
+will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth.
+One last resort, one forlorn hope,--one expedient, which had never
+failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her
+parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst
+into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father
+and mother by going away from them. This drove the nail into her old
+father's heart, and then the little vixen clenched it by throwing
+herself into his arms, and sobbing, "Oh, papa! would you turn your Ivy
+out of doors and break her heart?"
+
+Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she was the only and
+beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy passed unchallenged; the
+strong arms closed around the naughty girl; and the soothing voice
+murmured, "There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you sha'n't
+be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!" and the _status quo_ was
+restored.
+
+  "It is not in the sea nor in the strife
+  We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
+  But in the after silence on the shore,
+  When all is lost, except a little life,"
+
+said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
+fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
+be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
+her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
+been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
+authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
+emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
+disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
+miserable.
+
+"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
+were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
+decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
+care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
+a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
+be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
+heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
+if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
+would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
+_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
+and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
+just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
+whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
+Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
+B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
+enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
+Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be
+sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric, and I don't believe he knows
+much, either; and there's nobody else in town that knows any more than
+anybody else; and there's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I
+am ever to know anything." (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted for several
+minutes.) "There's Mr. Clerron!" (A sudden cessation.) "I suppose he
+knows more than the whole town tumbled into one; and writes books,
+and--mercy! there's no end to his knowledge; and he's rich, and does
+everything he likes, all day long. Oh, if I only _did_ know him! I would
+ask him straight off to teach me. I should be scared to death. I've a
+great mind to ask him, as it is. I can tell him who I am. He never will
+know any other way, for he isn't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
+as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would rather ask
+him than go to school. He might just as well do something as not. I am
+sure, if God had made me him, and him me, I should be glad to help him.
+I'll go straight to him the first thing to-morrow morning."
+
+Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow vanished.
+Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did she sing about the
+house that night; for she was summoning all her powers to prepare an
+introductory speech to Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar.
+Her elocutionary attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
+she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she took heart of
+grace, slung her broadbrimmed hat over her arm, and began her march
+"over the hills and far away," in search of her--fate.
+
+"And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on such an errand,
+to a perfect stranger?"
+
+Humanly speaking, nothing was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a
+prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such
+an--to use the mildest term--unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact
+is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of the plan.
+
+"Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without leave? without even
+informing her parents?"
+
+I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life, one
+cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper, not to say
+indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres generally. Duty
+compels me to adhere closely to the truth; and for whatever of obloquy
+may be heaped upon me, or upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the
+words of the illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious
+Taylor; I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
+Washington:--"Do right, and let the consequences take care of
+themselves." I am therefore obliged to say, that Ivy's departure in
+pursuit of knowledge was entirely unknown to her respected and beloved
+parents. But you must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
+child,--spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents, somewhat
+advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do not defend Ivy. On
+the contrary, notwithstanding my regard for her, I hand her over to the
+reprobation of an enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
+persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take warning by the
+fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any important undertaking, until
+they have, to say the least, consulted those who are their natural
+guides, their warmest friends, and their most experienced counsellors.
+
+While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart, fleet of foot,
+and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and
+across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron,
+Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that
+enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
+breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat
+stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance
+of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; but
+in her excitement she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the
+door-step, as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before, (not
+in the same place,) with the "wind blowing her fair hair about her
+beautiful cheeks."
+
+There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague rumor, that,
+instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian, with your own good
+knuckles, for such case made and provided, modern fashion had introduced
+"the ringing and the dinging of the bells." This vague rumor found
+a local habitation, when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
+established himself, his men and women and horses and cattle; but as
+Ivy stood on his door-step, looking upward, downward, sidewise, with
+earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and no sign of bell, was visible;
+nothing unusual, save a little door-knob at the right-hand side of the
+door,--a thing which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
+deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must be inside,
+and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So she tried to twist it,
+first one way, then the other; but twist it would not. In despair she
+betook herself to her fingers and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again.
+No use. Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled path,
+selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her station before the
+door, and began to pound away. In a moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown
+and smoking-cap, with a cigar between his fingers, came round the
+corner. Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
+bowed, and, with a polite "allow me," stepped to the door, pulled the
+bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not so confused at being
+detected in her assault and battery on the door of a respectable,
+peaceable, private gentleman, as not to make the silent reflection,
+"Pulled the knob, instead of twisting it. How easy it is to do a
+thing, if you only know how!"
+
+The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into
+a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully
+fresh and _green_-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,--then a step in
+the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
+the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single glance showed her
+that he was the person who had rung the bell for her, though the gay
+dressing-gown had been changed for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed.
+Ivy, hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, "I am Ivy Geer." A
+half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered behind the heavy beard, and
+gleamed beneath the heavy eyebrows, as he answered, "I am happy to
+make your acquaintance"; but another glance at the trembling form, the
+frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile into one
+that was very good-natured, and even kind; and he added, playfully,--
+
+"I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service."
+
+"You write books and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly,
+never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her
+hat-strings.
+
+There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing a little
+diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct bit of information. She
+made the assertion with the air of one who has a disagreeable piece of
+business on hand, and is determined to go through with it as soon as
+possible. He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily,--since, as I
+have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed on the carpet. A
+slight pause for breath and she pitched ahead again.
+
+"I am very ignorant, and I am growing old. I am almost seventeen. I
+don't know anything to speak of. Mamma wishes me to go to school. Papa
+did not, but now he does. I won't go. I would rather be stupid all my
+life long than leave home. But mamma is vexed, and I want to please
+her, and I thought,--Mr. Brownslow is so busy,--and you,--if you have
+nothing to do,--and know so much,--I thought"------
+
+She stopped short, utterly unable to proceed. Wonderfully different did
+this affair seem from the one she had planned the preceding evening. My
+dear Sir, Madam,--have not we, too, sometimes found it an easier thing
+to fight the battle of life in our own chimney-corner, by the ruddy and
+genial firelight, than in broad day on the world's great battle-field?
+
+Mr. Clerron, seeing Ivy's confusion, kindly came to her aid. "And you
+thought my superfluous time and wisdom might be transferred to you, thus
+making a more equal division of property?"
+
+"If you would be so good,--I,--yes, Sir."
+
+"May I inquire how you propose to effect such an exchange?"
+
+He really did not intend to be anything but kind, but the whole matter
+presented itself to him in a very ludicrous light; and in endeavoring to
+preserve proper gravity, he became severe. Ivy, all-unused to the world,
+still had a secret feeling that he was laughing at her. Tears, that
+would not be repressed, glistened in her downcast eyes, gathered on the
+long lashes, dropped silently to the floor. He saw that she was entirely
+a child, ignorant, artless, and sincere. His better feelings were
+roused, and he exclaimed, with real earnestness,--
+
+"My dear young lady, I should rejoice to serve you in any way, I beg you
+to believe."
+
+His words only hastened the catastrophe which seems to be always
+impending over the weaker sex. Ivy sobbed outright,--a perfect tempest.
+Felix Clerron looked on with a bachelor's dismay. "What in thunder?
+Confound the girl!" were his first reflections; but her utter
+abandonment to sorrow melted his heart again,--not a very susceptible
+heart either; but men, especially bachelors, are so--_green!_ (the word
+is found in Cowper.)
+
+He sat down by her side, stroked the hair from her burning forehead, as
+if she had been six instead of sixteen, and again and again assured her
+of his willingness to assist her.
+
+"I must go home," whispered Ivy, as soon as she could command, or rather
+coax her voice.
+
+His hospitality was shocked.
+
+"Indeed you must not, till we have at least had a consultation. Tell me
+how much you know. What have you studied?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, Sir. I am very stupid."
+
+"Ah! we must begin with the Alphabet, then. Blocks or a primer?"
+
+Ivy smiled through her tears.
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, Sir."
+
+"You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even count, and spell your
+name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten me."
+
+Ivy grew calm as he became playful.
+
+"I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's Large."
+
+"House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you please."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's large. You did
+not designate what."
+
+He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and genial, and she
+joined.
+
+"My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew that. Everybody
+calls it so."
+
+"Time is short. Yes. We are an abbreviating nation. Do you like
+Arithmetic?"
+
+"Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial Payments. But I
+can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and such things."
+
+"Positions are occasionally embarrassing. And Grammar?"
+
+"I think it's horrid. It's all 'indicative mood, common noun, third
+person, singular number, and agrees with John.'"
+
+"_Bravissima!_ A comprehensive sketch! _A multum in parvo!_ A bird's-eye
+view, as one may say,--and not entertaining, certainly. What other
+branches have you pursued? Drawing, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, no, Sir!"
+
+"Nor Music?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Good, my dear! excellent! An overruling Providence has saved you and
+your friends from many a pitfall. Shall we proceed to History? Be so
+good as to inform me who discovered America."
+
+"I believe Columbus has the credit of it," replied Ivy, demurely.
+
+"Non-committal, I see. Case goes strongly in his favor, but you reserve
+your judgment till further evidence."
+
+"I think he was a wise and good and enterprising man."
+
+"But are rather skeptical about that San Salvador story. A wise course.
+Never decide till both sides have been fairly presented. 'He that
+judgeth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto
+him,' said the wise man. Occasionally his after-judgment is
+equally discreditable. That is a thousand times worse. Exit Clio.
+Enter--well!--Geographia. My young friend, what celebrated city has
+the honor of concentrating the laws, learning, and literature of
+Massachusetts, to wit, namely, is its capital?"
+
+"Boston, Sir."
+
+"My dear, your Geography has evidently been attended to. You have
+learned the basis fact. You have discovered the pivot on which the world
+turns. You have dug down to the ante-diluvian, ante-pyrean granite,--the
+primitive, unfused stratum of society. The force of learning can no
+farther go. Armed with that fact, you may march fearlessly forth to do
+battle with the world, the flesh, and--the--ahem--the King of Beasts!
+Do you think you should like me for a teacher?"
+
+"I can't tell, Sir. I did not like you as anything awhile ago."
+
+"But you like me better now? You think I improve on acquaintance? You
+detect signs of a moral reformation?"
+
+"No, Sir, I don't like you now. I only don't dislike you so much as I
+did."
+
+"Spoken like a major-general, or, better still, like a brave little
+Yankee girl, as you are. I am an enthusiastic admirer of truth. I
+foresee we shall get on famously. I was rather premature in sounding the
+state of your affections, it must be confessed,--but we shall be rare
+friends by-and-by. On the whole, you are not particularly fond of
+books?"
+
+"I like some books well enough, but not studying-books," said Ivy, with
+a sigh, "and I don't see any good in them. If it wasn't for mamma, I
+never would open one,--never! I would just as soon be a dunce as not; I
+don't see anything very horrid in it."
+
+"An opinion which obtains with a wonderfully large proportion of our
+population, and is applied in practice with surprising success. There is
+a distinction, however, my dear young lady, which you must immediately
+learn to make. The dunce subjective is a very inoffensive animal,
+contented, happy, and harmless; and, as you justly remark, inspires no
+horror, but rather an amiable and genial self-complacency. The dunce
+objective, on the contrary, is of an entirely different species. He is a
+bore of the first magnitude,--a poisoned arrow, that not only pierces,
+but inflames,--a dull knife, that not only cuts, but tears,--a cowardly
+little cur, that snaps occasionally, but snarls unceasingly; whom,
+which, and that, it becomes the duty of all good citizens to sweep from
+the face of the earth."
+
+"What is the difference between them? How shall one know which is
+which?"
+
+"The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point of view,--the
+dunce with his eyes turned inward,--confining his duncehood to the bosom
+of his family. The dunce objective is the dunce butting against his
+neighbor's study-door,--intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid
+folly and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He is a
+creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's angels, in one
+respect at least: you may thrust him through and through with the
+two-edged sword of your satire, and at the end he shall be as intact and
+integral as at the beginning. Am I sufficiently obvious?"
+
+"It is very obvious that I am both, according to your definition."
+
+"It is very obvious that you are neither, I beg to submit, but a
+sensible young girl,--with no great quantity of the manufactured
+article, perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being wrought
+into fabric of the finest quality."
+
+"Do you really think I can learn?" asked Ivy, with a bright blush of
+pleasure.
+
+"Demonstrably certain."
+
+"As much as if I went to school?"
+
+"My dear miss, as the forest oak, 'cabined, cribbed, confined' with
+multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby, and dwarfed, but,
+brought into the open fields alone, stretches out its arms to the blue
+heavens and its roots to the kindly earth, so that the birds of the air
+lodge in the branches thereof, and men sit under its shadow with great
+delight,--so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care, flourish
+like a green bay-tree; that is, if I am to have the honor."
+
+"Yes, Sir, I mean--I meant--I was thinking as if you were teaching me--I
+mean were going to teach me."
+
+"Which I also mean, if time and the favoring gods allow, and your
+parents continue to wish it."
+
+"Oh, they won't care!"
+
+"Won't care?"
+
+"No, Sir, they will be glad, I think. Papa, at least, will be glad to
+have me stay at home."
+
+"Did not they direct you to come to me to-day?"
+
+Ivy blushed deeply, and replied, in a low voice, "No, Sir; I knew mamma
+would not let me come, if I asked her."
+
+"And to prevent any sudden temptation to disobedience, and a consequent
+forfeiture of your peace of mind, you took time by the forelock and came
+on your own responsibility?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Very ingenious, upon my word! An accomplished casuist! A born Jesuit!
+But, my dear Miss Geer, I must confess I have not this happy feminine
+knack of keeping out of the way of temptation. I should prefer to
+consult your friends, even at the risk of losing the pleasure of your
+society."
+
+"Oh, yes, Sir! I don't care, now it is all settled."
+
+And so, over hill-side, along wood-path, and through meadow-land, with
+light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy back again. To Mrs. Geer
+shelling peas in the shady porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with
+his straw hat on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her
+adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was
+lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase;
+Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed
+the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron
+rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the points of his
+Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's scarlet verbena, and assured
+them he should be very glad to refresh his own early studies, and also
+to form an acquaintance with the family,--he knew very few in the
+village,--and if Mrs. Geer would drive over when Ivy came to recite,--or
+perhaps they would rather he should come to their house. Oh, no! Mrs.
+Geer could not think of that. Just as they pleased. Mrs. Simm, the
+housekeeper, would be very glad of Mrs. Geer's company while Miss Ivy
+was reciting, in case Mrs. Geer should not wish to listen; and the house
+and grounds would be shown by Mrs. Simm with great pleasure. By the way,
+Mrs. Simm was a thrifty and sensible woman, and he was sure they would
+be mutually pleased.--When, in short, all this and much more had been
+said, it was decided that Ivy should be regularly installed pupil of Mr.
+Felix Clerron.
+
+"_Eureka!_" cries the professional novel-reader, that far-sighted and
+keen-scented hound that snuffs a _dénouement_ afar off; and anon there
+rises before his eyes the vision of poor little Stella drinking in love
+and learning, especially love, from the divine eyes of the anything but
+divine Swift,--of Shirley, the lioness, the pantheress, the leopardess,
+the beautiful, fierce creature, sitting, tamed, quiet, meek, by the side
+of Louis Moore, her tutor and master,--and of all the legends of all the
+ages wherein Beauty has sat at the feet of Wisdom, and Love has crept
+in unawares, and spoiled the lesson while as yet half-unlearnt;--so
+he cries, "She is going the way of all heroines. The man and the
+girl,--they will fall in love, marry, and live happily all the rest of
+their days."
+
+Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should not? If any man
+can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
+him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.
+
+I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should,
+in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall
+in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital
+principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye
+sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning
+words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling
+work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a
+weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and
+heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not?
+Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming,
+floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid _soupçon_ of
+curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite
+distress, Adolphus and Miranda have made
+
+  "One of the very best matches,
+  Both well mated for life:
+  She's got a fool for her husband,
+  He's got a fool for his wife."
+
+Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry that gilds
+with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of many a prosaic life.
+"Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime"; tramp behind the plough,
+hammer on the lapstone, beat the anvil, drive the plane, "from morn till
+dewy eve"; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams soft and
+golden over the far-off pinetrees, but
+
+  "The star that lightens your bosom most,
+  And gives to your weary feet their speed,
+  Abides in a cottage beyond the mead."
+
+It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare. Threadbare
+it may be to you, enervated and _blasé_ man of pleasure, worn and
+hardened man of the world; but it is not for you I write. The fountain
+which leaps up fresh and living in every new life can never be exhausted
+till the springs of all life are dry. Tell me, O lover, gazing into
+those tender eyes uplifted to yours, twining the silken rings around
+your bronzed finger, pressing reverently the warm lips consecrated to
+you,--does it abate one jot or tittle of your happiness to know that
+eyes just as tender, curls just as silken, lips just as red, have
+stirred the hearts of men for a thousand years?
+
+Love, then, is a _sine qua non_ in stories; and if love, why not
+marriage? What pleasure can a humane and benevolent man find in
+separating two individuals whose chief, perhaps whose sole happiness,
+consists in being together? For certain inscrutable reasons, Divine
+Benevolence permits evil to exist in the world. All who have a taste for
+misery can find it there in exhaustless quantities. Johns are every day
+falling in love with Katys, but marrying Isabels, and Isabels the same,
+_mutatis mutandis_. We submit to it because there is no alternative; and
+we believe that good shall finally be wrought and wrested from evil.
+Don't, for heaven's sake, let us in mere wantonness introduce into
+our novel-world the work of our own hand, an abridged edition, a
+daguerreotype copy of the world without, of which we know so little and
+so much. I always do and always shall read the last page of a novel
+first; and if I perceive there any indications that matters are not
+coming out "shipshape," my reading invariably terminates with the last
+page.
+
+For the rest, please to remember that I am not writing about a princess
+of the blood, nor of the days of the bold barons, but only the life of
+a quiet little girl in a quiet little town in the eastern part of
+Massachusetts; and so far as my experience and observation go, men and
+women in the eastern part of Massachusetts are not given to thrilling
+adventures, hairbreadth escapes, wonderful concatenations of
+circumstances, and blood and thunder generally,--but pursue the even
+tenor of their way, and of their love, with a sober and delightful
+equanimity. If you want a plot, go to the "Children of the Abbey,"
+"Consuelo," and myriads of that kin, and help yourself. As for me, I
+must confess I hate plots. I see no pleasure in stumbling blindfolded
+through a story, unable to see a yard ahead, fancying every turn to be
+the last, and the road to go straight on to a glorious goal,--and,
+lo! we are in a more hopeless labyrinth than ever. I have a sense of
+restraint. I want to breathe freely, and can't. I want to have leisure
+to observe the style, the development of character, the author's tone of
+thought, and not be galloped through on the back of a breathless desire
+to know "how they are coming out."
+
+But, my dear plot-loving friend, be easy. I will not leave you in
+the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and woman out of hand. An
+obstacle, of which I suppose you have never heard,--an obstacle entirely
+new, fresh, and unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let patience
+have her perfect work.
+
+Wonderful was the new world opened to Ivy Geer. It was as if a corpse,
+cold, inert, lifeless, had suddenly sprung up, warm, invigorated,
+informed with a spirit which led her own spell-bound. Grammar,--Grammar,
+which had been a synonyme for all that was dry, irksome, useless,--a
+beating of the wind, the crackling of thorns under a pot,--Grammar even
+assumed for her a charm, a wonder, a glory. She saw how the great and
+wise had shrined in fitting words their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow,
+and suffering, and penitence; and how, as this generation passed away,
+and another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket became dim,
+and the memory of its priceless gem faded away; but how, at the touch of
+a mighty wand, the obedient lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought
+"sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and
+freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the
+poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged
+for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect
+mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod
+with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul
+of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself
+in words. Roaming in the dense forest with the stern and bloody
+Druid,--bounding over the waves with the fierce pirates who supplanted
+them, and in whose blue eyes and beneath whose fair locks gleamed indeed
+the ferocity of the savage, but lurked also, though unseen and unknown,
+the tender chivalry of the English gentleman,--gazing admiringly on the
+barbaric splendor of the cloth-of-gold, whereon trod regally, to the
+sound of harp and viol, the beauty and bravery of the old Norman
+nobility, she delighted to see how the mother-tongue, our dear
+mother-tongue, had laid all the nations under contribution to enrich
+her treasury,--gathering from one its strength, from another its
+stateliness, from a third its harmony, till the harsh, crude, rugged
+dialect of a barbarous horde became worthy to embody, as it does, the
+love, the wisdom, and the faith of half a world.
+
+So Grammar taught Ivy to reverence language.
+
+History, in the light of a guiding mind, ceased to be a bare record of
+slaughter and crime. Before her eyes filed, in a statelier pageant than
+they knew, the long procession of "simple great ones gone for ever and
+ever by," and the countless lesser ones whose names are quenched in the
+darkness of a night that shall know no dawn. She saw the "great world
+spin forever down the ringing grooves of change"; but amid all the
+change, the confusion, the chaos, she saw the finger of God ever
+pointing, and heard the sublime monotone of the Divine voice ever saying
+to the children of men, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And Ivy
+thought she saw, and rejoiced in the thought, that, even when this
+warning was unheeded,--when on the brow of the mournful Earth "Ichabod,
+Ichabod," was forever engraven,--when the First Man with his own hand
+put from him the cup of innocence, and went forth from the happy garden,
+sin-stained and fallen, the whole head sick, and the whole heart
+faint,--even then she saw within him the divine spark, the leaven of
+life, which had power to vitalize and vivify what Crime had smitten with
+death. Though sea and land teemed with strange perils, though night
+and day pursued him with mysterious terrors, though the now unfriendly
+elements combined to check his career, still, with unswerving purpose,
+undaunted courage, she saw him march constantly forward. Spirits of evil
+could not drive from his heart the prescience of greatness; and his soul
+dwelt calmly under the foreshadow of a mighty future.
+
+And as Ivy looked, she saw how the children of men became a great
+nation, and possessed the land far and wide. They delved into the bosom
+of the pleased earth, and brought forth the piled-up treasures of
+uncounted cycles. They unfolded the book of the skies, and sought to
+read the records thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible
+ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they plucked from hers.
+And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their
+restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the
+dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond
+their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests,
+there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of
+marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering of the
+feet of little children. Many a day and many a night she saw them wander
+on towards the setting sun, till the Unseen Hand led them to a fair
+and fruitful country that opened its bounteous arms in welcome. Broad
+rivers, green fields, laughing valleys wooed them to plant their
+household gods,--and the foundations of Europe were laid. Here were sown
+the seeds of those heroic virtues which have since leaped into luxuriant
+life,--seeds of that irresistible power which fastened its grasp on
+Nature and forced her to unfold the secret of her creation,--seeds of
+that far-reaching wisdom which in the light of the unveiled past has
+read the story of the unseen future.
+
+And still under Ivy's eye they grouped themselves. Some gathered on the
+pleasant hills of the sunny South, and the beauty of earth and sea and
+sky passed into their souls forever. They caught the evanescent gleam,
+the passing shadow, and on unseemly canvas limned it for all time in
+forms of unuttered and unutterable loveliness. They shaped into glowing
+life the phantoms of grace that were always flitting before their
+enchanted eyes, and poured into inanimate marble their rapt and
+passionate souls. They struck the lyre to wild and stirring songs whose
+tremulous echoes still linger along the corridors of Time. Some sought
+the icebound North, and grappled with dangers by field and flood. They
+hunted the wild dragon to his mountain-fastnesses, and fought him at
+bay, and never quailed. Death, in its most fearful forms, they met with
+grim delight, and chanted the glories of the Valhalla waiting for heroes
+who should forever quaff the "foaming, pure, and shining mead" from
+skulls of foes in battle slain. Some crossed the sea, and on
+
+  "that pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back tho ocean's swelling
+  tide,"
+
+they reared a sinewy and stalwart race, whose "morning drum-beat
+encircles the world."
+
+And History taught Ivy to reverence man.
+
+But there was one respect in which Ivy was both pupil and teacher.
+Never a word of Botany had fallen upon her ears; but through all the
+unconscious bliss of infancy, childhood, and girlhood, for sixteen happy
+years, she had lived among the flowers, and she knew their dear faces
+and their wild-wood names. She loved them with an almost human love.
+They were to her companions and friends. She knew their likings and
+dislikings, their joys and sorrows,--who among them chose the darkest
+nooks of the old woods, and who bloomed only to the brightest
+sunlight,--who sent their roots deep down among the mosses by the brook,
+and who smiled only on the southern hill-side. Around each she wove a
+web of beautiful individuality, and more than one had received from her
+a new christening. It is true, that, when she came to study from a
+book, she made wry faces over the long, barbarous, Latin names which
+completely disguised her favorites, and in her heart deemed a great many
+of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had strong faith in her
+teacher, and when the technical was laid aside for the real, then,
+indeed, "her foot was on her native heath, and her name was MacGregor."
+A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
+night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air,
+treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be
+otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship
+of a mind vigorous, cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen
+and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to
+the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her
+horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life
+dilate her whole being with a fine ecstasy.
+
+And what was the end of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She
+had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,--a buoyant, elastic
+gladness,--a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her
+sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth.
+Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her
+summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered
+down through the leafiness, only to span her with a rainbow in the glory
+of the setting sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains of
+her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The secret chord was to be
+smitten by a master-hand,--a chord which, once stirred, may never cease
+to quiver.
+
+At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the
+embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to
+see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell
+from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all
+the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
+Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the
+past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with
+him; and in fact, if these three men and Felix Clerron had all stood
+before her, and offered each a different opinion on any given subject, I
+have scarcely a doubt as to whose would have commended itself to her
+as combining the soundest practical wisdom and the highest Christian
+benevolence.
+
+So the summer passed on, and her shyness wore off,--and their intimacy
+became less and less that of teacher and pupil, and more and more that
+of friend and friend. With the sudden awakening of her intellectual
+nature, there woke also another power, of whose existence she had never
+dreamed. It was natural, that, in ranging the fields of thought so
+lately opened to her, she should often revert to him whose hand had
+unbarred the gates; she was therefore not startled that the image of
+Felix Clerron was with her when she sat down and when she rose up, when
+she went out and when she came in. She ceased, indeed, to think _of_
+him. She thought _him_. She lived him. Her soul fed on his life. And
+so--and so--by a pleasant and flowery path, there came into Ivy's heart
+the old, old pain.
+
+Now the thing was on this wise:--
+
+One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find Mr. Clerron in
+the library, where he usually awaited her. After spending a few moments
+in looking over her lessons, she rose and was about to pass to the door
+to ring, when Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her
+that Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come out. Ivy
+immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden. On the south side of the
+house was a piazza two stories high. Along the pillars which supported
+it a trellis-work had been constructed, reaching several feet above the
+roof of the piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which not
+only completely screened nearly the whole front of the piazza, but,
+reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by the aid of a few pieces
+of fine wire, and overran a part of the roof of the house. Thus the roof
+of the piazza was the floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and
+ceiling were broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
+innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
+
+From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried, "Hail to thee, my
+twining vine!" Ivy turned and looked up, with the uncertain, inquiring
+smile we often wear when conscious that, though unseeing, we are not
+unseen; and presently two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
+sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could come up there!" cried Ivy, clasping her hands with
+childish eagerness.
+
+"The wish is father to the deed."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Be sure you may."
+
+"But how shall I get in?"
+
+"Are you afraid to come up the ladder?"
+
+"No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where you are, after I am
+up?"
+
+"Oh, never fear! I'll draw you in safely enough."
+
+"Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?" cried Mrs. Simm, in
+terror.
+
+Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she stopped and
+answered, hesitatingly,--"He said I might."
+
+"He said you might, yes," continued Mrs. Simm,--talking _to_ Ivy, but
+_at_ Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared to remonstrate in a more
+direct way. "And if he said you might throw yourself down Vineyard
+Cliff, it don't follow that you are bound to do it. He goes into all
+sorts of hap-hazard scrapes himself, but you can't follow him."
+
+"But it looks so nice up there," pleaded Ivy, "and I have been twice as
+high at home. I don't mind it at all."
+
+"If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your life, it's none
+of my look-out, but I a'n't going to have you breaking your neck right
+under my nose. If you want to get up there, I'll show you the way in the
+house, and you can step right out of the window. Just wait till I've
+told Ellen about the dinner."
+
+As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to Ivy, "Come!"--and
+in a moment Ivy bounded up the ladder and through an opening in the
+vine, and stood by his side.
+
+"I'm ready now, Miss Ivy," said Mrs. Simm, reappearing. "Miss Ivy! Where
+is the child?"
+
+A merry laugh greeted her.
+
+"Oh, you good-for-nothing!" cried the good-natured old housekeeper,
+"you'll never die in your bed."
+
+"Not for a good while, I hope," answered Mr. Clerron.
+
+Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the great basket the
+finest cluster of grapes.
+
+"Is that reward enough for coming?"
+
+"Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you read
+yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, 'its own exceeding great reward.'"
+
+"And you don't want the grapes?"
+
+"I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them as a free
+gift. It was only the principle that I opposed."
+
+"Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half for the free
+gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little tendril, you look
+as fresh as the morning."
+
+"Don't I always?"
+
+"I should say there was a _little_ more dew than usual. Stand up and let
+me survey you, if perchance I may discover the cause."
+
+Ivy rose, made a profound curtsy, and then turned slowly around, after
+the manner of the revolving fashion-figures in a milliner's window.
+
+"I don't know," continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a couple of
+revolutions, resumed her seat. "You seem to be the same. I think it must
+be the frock."
+
+"I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve my style of
+beauty, if I did. Papa wears one sometimes."
+
+"And what kind of a frock, pray, does 'papa' wear?"
+
+"Oh, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his knees. Made of some
+kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!"
+
+"And what name do you give to that white thing with blue sprigs in it?"
+
+"This?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a dress."
+
+"No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash are your dress.
+This is a frock."
+
+Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"You know a great deal, I know."
+
+"So you informed me once before."
+
+"Oh, don't mention that!" said Ivy, blushing, and quickly added, "Do you
+know I have discovered the reason why you like me this morning?"
+
+"And every morning."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Go on. What is the reason?"
+
+"It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with my owny-dony
+hands; and that, you know, is the reason it looks nicer than usual."
+
+"Ah, me! I wish I wore dresses."
+
+"You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to hinder you."
+
+"Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have
+asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little
+speech all ready for you,--a veritable compliment"
+
+"It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve of compliments,
+and perhaps it would have made me vain."
+
+"Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech was, and thus give
+me an opportunity to relieve myself. Why, a body might die of a plethora
+of flattery, if he had nobody but you to discharge it against."
+
+"He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed the demand."
+
+"Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have next?"
+
+"Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally, indeed, prefer it to
+the other, I am told."
+
+"Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!"
+
+He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes. Ivy did not
+care to interrupt his thinking. Presently he said,--
+
+"Ivy, how old are you?"
+
+"I shall be seventeen the last day of this month."
+
+A short pause.
+
+"And then eighteen."
+
+"And then nineteen."
+
+"And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty."
+
+"Horrid old, isn't it?"
+
+He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what Ivy thought a
+curious kind of smile, but only said,--
+
+"You must not say 'horrid' so much."
+
+By-and-by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and watching the
+rustle of the leaves, which hid every other prospect; she turned her
+face a little so that she could look at him. He sat with folded arms,
+looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
+expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
+wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
+sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
+should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
+wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
+there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
+softly,--
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."
+
+"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"
+
+"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."
+
+"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
+atmosphere?"
+
+"Yes, Sir, I am ready."
+
+Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
+had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
+would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.
+
+He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
+through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,
+while he carried the grapes to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and
+proposed to walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went home.
+
+"You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the city to-morrow,
+on business, to be gone a week or two. So, as you must perforce take a
+vacation then, why, we may as well begin to vacate today, and enjoy it."
+
+"I am sorry you are going away."
+
+"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
+
+"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to
+you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without
+you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you,
+or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
+
+"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,--the last, for
+instance,--what would you do?"
+
+"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
+
+Mr. Clerron laughed.
+
+"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me
+well again?"
+
+"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving
+it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
+
+"So you love your papa and mamma better than"----
+
+He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
+
+"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems
+strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,--oh, you don't
+know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I
+have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."
+
+"Do you always pity people, when they love you very much?"
+
+"Oh, no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough to be pitied,
+except papa.--Isn't it pleasant here? How very green it is! It looks
+just like summer. Oh, Mr. Clerron, did you see the clouds this morning?"
+
+"There were none when I arose."
+
+"Why, yes, Sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise."
+
+"I am not prepared to contradict you."
+
+"Perhaps you were not up at sunrise."
+
+"I have an impression to that effect."
+
+He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying, though she was
+half afraid he might not be pleased,--
+
+"I wonder whether you are an early riser."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe I have been
+up every morning but one, this week, by nine o'clock."
+
+Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of "early to bed and early to
+rise" received a great shock, as her looks plainly showed. He laughed
+gayly at her amazed face.
+
+"You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer."
+
+"'Nine o'clock!'" repeated Ivy, slowly,--"'every morning but one!' and
+it is Tuesday to-day."
+
+"Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day, and excellent for
+sleeping."
+
+"But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up when I come. And
+when do you write?"
+
+"Always in the evening."
+
+"But the evenings are so short,--or have been."
+
+"Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is about long enough
+for one sitting."
+
+"I should think so. And you must be so tired!"
+
+"Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or six, and running
+round all day, become so tired that you have to go to bed by nine;
+of course you have no time for reflection and meditation. I, on the
+contrary, take life easily,--write in the night, when everything is
+still and quiet,--take my sleep when all the noise of the world's
+waking-up is going on,--and after creation is fairly settled for the
+day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely, and
+leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil."
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
+
+"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
+
+"What is the use of telling it, then?"
+
+"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising
+from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come
+to a better understanding. Go on."
+
+"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
+
+"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
+
+"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and
+wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
+
+"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and
+mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to
+extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate,
+destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture
+to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."
+
+"Now, Sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question. And I
+really wish you did not. Before I knew you, I thought it was almost as
+bad to smoke as it was to steal. I know, however, now, that it cannot
+be; still"--
+
+"Feminine logic."
+
+"I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to say, Sir,
+I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of subjection to
+anything."
+
+"Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often don't smoke
+for months together. To prove it, I promise you I won't smoke for the
+next two months."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad! Oh, I am so much obliged to you! And you are not in
+the least vexed that I spoke to you about it?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, Sir, I have been afraid
+of, the last few days. You know when I first knew you, or before I knew
+you, I supposed you did nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all
+day. But now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that you
+could not well spare two hours every day for me,--particularly in the
+morning, which are almost always considered the best. But if you like
+to write in the evening, you would just as soon I would come in the
+morning?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any time, hesitate
+to tell me. I have no claim on a moment,--only"--
+
+"My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to understand,
+henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into my house at any time
+when you are not wanted; nor stay any longer than I want you; nor say
+anything that will not please me;--well, I am not quite sure about
+that;--but, at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
+teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never hope to do you as
+much good as you do me every day of your blessed life."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Clerron!" exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of gratitude and
+happiness; "do I, can I, do _you_ any good?"
+
+"You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element that was wanting in
+my life. You make every day beautiful to me. The flutter of your robes
+among these trees brings sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in
+my garden as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you turn
+into the lane; and every day I watch you till you disappear. You are
+fresh and truthful and natural, and you give me new life. And now, my
+dear little trembling benefactor, because we are nearly through the
+woods, I can go no farther with you; and because I am going away
+to-morrow, not to see you again for a week, and because I hope you will
+be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think I must let you--kiss
+me!"
+
+Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression, at
+first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then gradually changing
+into waiting wonder; but when his sentence finally closed, she stood
+still, scarcely able to comprehend. He placed his hands on her temples,
+and, smiling involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
+sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back, kissed brow,
+cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, "Go now! God bless you for ever and
+ever, my darling!" and, turning, walked hastily down the winding path.
+As for Ivy, she went home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great
+joy.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+"IMPLORA PACE."
+
+  No more Joy-roses! their perfume
+  To this dull pain brings short surcease:
+  But tell me, if ye know, where bloom
+  The golden lily-bells of Peace.
+
+  Leap, winnowing all the air of light,
+  Ye wild wraiths of the waterfall!
+  But for that fabled fountain's sight,
+  That giveth sleep, I'd give you all.
+
+  Bound, gay barks, o'er the bounding main!
+  Shake all your white wings to the breeze!
+  My joy was erst the hurricane,
+  The plunging of the purple seas;
+
+  My hope to find the mystic marge
+  Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
+  But bear me now to yon still barge,
+  Calm cradled by a tideless shore!
+
+  Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
+  With May-time matins loud and long,
+  Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
+  Its pulses time not to your song!
+
+  But know ye where she hides her nest,
+  Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
+  The Dove that bears on her white breast
+  The sacred green of olive-leaves?
+
+  Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
+  From white foam of the Northern snows;
+  Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
+  The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:
+
+  But when amid the templed hills,
+  Deep drained from every purple vine,
+  Soft for her dying lips distils
+  The Summer's sacramental wine;
+
+  While all her woodland priests put on
+  Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
+  And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
+  A rhythmic silence holds the skies;
+
+  What time the Day-spring softly wells
+  From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
+  In long, melodious, tidal swells,
+  Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;--
+
+  Oh, open then my dungeon door!
+  Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
+  If haply I may _feel_ once more
+  The pillars of the steadfast skies;
+
+  If haply there may fall for me
+  Some strange assurance in my fears,--
+  As he who heard on Galilee,
+  That stormy night in wondrous years,
+
+  The "It is I," and o'er the foam
+  Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
+  Saw glory of the kingdom come,
+  The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+  "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
+   the end of the world."
+                           PSALMS, xix. 4.
+
+Among the impossibilities enumerated to convince Job of his ignorance
+and weakness, the Almighty asks,--
+
+"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here
+we are?"
+
+At the present day, every people in Christendom can respond in the
+affirmative.
+
+The lines of electric telegraph are increasing so rapidly, that the
+length in actual use cannot be estimated at any moment with accuracy. At
+the commencement of 1848, it was stated that the length in operation
+in this country was about 3000 miles. At the end of 1850, the lines in
+operation, or in progress, in the United States, amounted to 22,000. In
+1853, the total number of miles of wire in America amounted to 26,375.
+
+It is but fifteen years since the first line of electric telegraph was
+constructed in this country; and at the present time there are not less
+than 50,000 miles in successful operation on this continent, having over
+1400 stations, and employing upwards of 10,000 operators and clerks.
+
+The number of messages passing over all the lines in this country
+annually is estimated at upwards of 5,000,000, producing a revenue of
+$2,000,000; in addition to which, the press pays $200,000 for public
+despatches.
+
+In Europe there are lines rivalling those in America. The electric wire
+extends under the English Channel, the German Ocean, the Black and Red
+Seas, and the Mediterranean; it passes from crag to crag on the Alps,
+and runs through Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Russia.
+
+India, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and several of the South American States
+have also their lines; and the wires uniting the Pacific and Atlantic
+States will shortly meet at the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+The electric telegraph, which has made such rapid strides, is yet in its
+infancy. The effect of its future extension, and of new applications,
+cannot be estimated, when, as a means of intercourse at least, its
+network shall spread through every village, bringing all parts of our
+republic into the closest and most intimate relations of friendship and
+interest. In connection with the railroad and steamboat, it has
+already achieved one important national result. It has made possible,
+on this continent, a wide-spread, yet closely linked, empire of States,
+such as our fathers never imagined. The highest office of the electric
+telegraph, in the future, is thus to be the promotion of unity, peace,
+and good-will among men.
+
+In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland have the greatest number of miles
+of electric telegraph,--namely, 40,000. France has 26,000; Belgium,
+1600; Germany, 35,000; Switzerland, 2000; Spain and Portugal, 1200;
+Italy, 6600; Turkey and Greece, 500; Russia, 12,000; Denmark and Sweden,
+2000.
+
+In Italy, Sardinia has the largest share of lines, having about 1200
+miles; and in Germany, after Austria and Prussia, the largest share
+belongs to Bavaria, which has 1050. Saxony has 400 miles; Würtemberg,
+195.
+
+The distance between stations on lines of Continental telegraph is from
+ten to twelve miles on the average, and the number of them is about
+3800.
+
+In France the use of the electric telegraph has rapidly increased within
+the last few years. In 1851, the number of despatches transmitted
+was 9014, which produced 76,723 francs. In 1858, there were 463,973
+despatches transmitted, producing 3,516,634 francs. During the last four
+years, that is to say, since all the chief towns in France have been in
+electric communication with Paris, and consequently with each other,
+there have been sent by private individuals 1,492,420 despatches, which
+have produced 12,528,591 francs. Out of the 97,728 despatches exchanged
+during the last three months of 1858, 23,728 were with Paris, and 15,409
+with the thirty most important towns of France. These 15,409 despatches
+are divided, as to their object or nature, as follows:--Private and
+family affairs, 3102; journals, 523; commerce and manufactures, 6132;
+Bourse affairs, 5253; sundry affairs, 399.
+
+In Australia, the electric telegraph is in constant use, affording a
+remunerating revenue, and the amount of business has forced on the
+government the necessity of additional wires.
+
+Cuba has six hundred miles of wire in operation. Messages can be
+transmitted only in Spanish, and the closest surveillance is
+maintained by the government officials over all despatches offered for
+transmission. From the fact that no less than a dozen errors occurred in
+a dispatch transmitted by a Boston gentleman from Cardenas to Havana,
+we judge that the telegraphic apparatus, invented by our liberty-loving
+American, Professor House, rebels at such petty tyranny.
+
+Several hundred miles of electric telegraph have been constructed in
+Mexico; but the unfortunate condition of the country for the last few
+years has precluded the possibility of maintaining it in working order,
+and it has, like everything else in the land of Monteznma, gone to
+decay.
+
+The English and Dutch governments have come to an understanding upon a
+system of cables which will unite India and Australia, and eventually be
+extended to China. The arrangements between the governments are:--That
+the Indian and Imperial governments shall connect India with Singapore;
+that the Dutch government shall connect Singapore with the southeast
+point of Java; that the Australian governments shall connect their
+continent with Java. The cable for the Singapore-Java section was to
+have been laid during the last month; the Indian-Singapore section is
+to be laid this spring; and the connection with Australia will, it is
+believed, be completed in the course of next year.
+
+The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company have announced the arrangements
+under which they are prepared to transmit messages for the public
+between Alexandria and Aden. Messages for Australia and China will be
+forwarded by post from Aden. It is considered probable that a direct
+communication with Alexandria will be established through Constantinople
+in the course of a few weeks, and then the news from India will reach
+London in ten or eleven days.
+
+A late European steamer brings a report that two Russian engineers
+have proceeded to Pekin, China, to make preparations for a telegraphic
+connection between that place and the Russian territory.
+
+There is reason to believe that arrangements will soon be made at St.
+Petersburg, through private companies and government subsidies, for
+completing the line of telegraph from Novgorod to the mouth of the
+Amoor, and thence across the straits to Russian America. In the mean
+time, a company has already been formed and incorporated in Canada,
+under the name of the Transmundane Telegraphic Company, which will
+afford important aid in continuing the proposed line through British
+America. The plan is, to carry the wires from the mouth of the Amoor
+across Behring's Strait, to and through Russian and British America.
+From Victoria a branch will be extended to San Francisco, and another to
+Canada. The line from San Francisco to Missouri is under way, and Mr.
+Collins, who is engaged in the Russian and Canadian enterprise, thinks
+that by the time it is in operation he shall have extended his line to
+San Francisco.
+
+This is unquestionably the most feasible route for telegraphic
+communication between America and Europe; and, though the longest
+by several thousand miles, it would afford the most rapid means of
+communication, owing to the great superiority of aërial over subaqueous
+lines.
+
+No limit has yet been found to aërial telegraphing; for, by inserting
+transferrers into the more extended circuits, renewed energy can be
+attained, and lines of several thousands of miles in length can be
+worked, if properly insulated, as surely as those of a hundred. The
+lines between New York and New Orleans are frequently connected together
+by means of transferrers, and direct communication is had over a
+distance of more than, two thousand miles. No perceptible retardation of
+the current takes place; on the contrary, the lines so connected work as
+successfully as when divided into shorter circuits.
+
+This is not the case with subaqueous lines. The employment of submarine,
+as well as of subterranean conductors, occasions a small retardation in
+the velocity of the transmitted electricity. This retardation is not due
+to the length of the path which the electric current has to traverse,
+since it does not take place with a conductor equally long, insulated in
+the air. It arises, as Faraday has demonstrated, from a static reaction,
+which is determined by the introduction of a current into a conductor
+well insulated, but surrounded outside its insulating coating by a
+conducting body, such as sea-water or moist ground, or even simply by
+the metallic envelope of iron wires placed in communication with the
+ground. When this conductor is presented to one of the poles of a
+battery, the other pole of which communicates with the ground, it
+becomes charged with static electricity, like the coating of a Leyden
+jar,--electricity which is capable of giving rise to a discharge
+current, even after the voltaic current has ceased to be transmitted.
+
+Professor Wheatstone experimented upon the cable intended to unite La
+Spezia, upon the coast of Piedmont, with the Island of Corsica. It was
+one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires
+one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and
+each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in
+thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two
+ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as
+to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles
+in length, through which the electric current could circulate in the
+same direction. This current was itself furnished by an insulated
+battery formed of one hundred and forty-four Wheatstone's pairs, equal
+to fifty of Grove's. In the first series of experiments, it was proved,
+that, if one of the ends of the long wire, whose other end remained
+insulated, were made to communicate with one of the poles of the
+battery, the wire became charged with the electricity of that pole,
+which, so long as it existed, gave rise to a current which was made
+evident by a galvanometer: but, in order to obtain this result, the
+second pole of the battery must communicate with the ground, or with
+another long wire similar to the first.
+
+In a second series of experiments, Professor Wheatstone interposed three
+galvanometers in the middle and at the ends of the circuit, determining
+in this manner the progress of the current by the order which they
+followed in their deviation. If the two poles of the battery were
+connected by the long conductor of six hundred and sixty miles, the
+precaution having been taken to divide it into two portions of equal
+length, it was observed, on connecting the two free extremities of these
+two portions in order to close the circuit, that the galvanometer placed
+in the middle was the first to be deflected, whilst the galvanometers
+placed in the vicinity of the poles were not deflected until later.
+
+By a third series of experiments, Wheatstone, with the galvanometer, has
+shown that a continuous current may be maintained in the circuit of the
+long wire of an electric cable, of which one of the ends is insulated,
+whilst the other communicates with one of the poles of a battery whose
+other pole is connected with the ground. This current is due to the
+uniform and continual dispersion of the statical electricity with which
+the wire is charged along its whole length, as would happen to any other
+conducting body placed in an insulating medium.
+
+It was owing to the retardation from this cause that communication
+through the Atlantic Cable was so exceedingly slow and difficult, and
+not, as many suppose, because the cable was defective. It is true that
+there was a fault in the cable, discovered by Varley, before it left
+Queenstown; but it was not of so serious a character as to offer any
+substantial obstacle to the passage of the electric current.
+
+As everything pertaining to the actual operation of the Atlantic Cable
+has been studiously withheld from the public, until it has come to be
+seriously doubted whether any despatches were ever transmitted through
+it, we presume it will not be out of place here to give the actual
+_modus operandi_ of this great wonder and mystery.
+
+The only instrument which could be used successfully in signalling
+through the Atlantic Cable was one of peculiar construction, by
+Professor Thompson, called the marine galvanometer. In this instrument
+momentum and inertia are almost wholly avoided by the use of a needle
+weighing only one and a half grains, combined with a mirror reflecting a
+ray of light, which indicates deflections with great accuracy. By these
+means a gradually increasing or decreasing current is at each instant
+indicated at its due strength. Thus, when this galvanometer is placed
+as the receiving instrument at the end of a long submarine cable, the
+movement of the spot of light, consequent on the completion of a circuit
+through the battery, cable, and earth, can be so observed as to furnish
+a curve representing very accurately the arrival of an electric current.
+Lines representing successive signals at various speeds can also be
+obtained, and, by means of a metronome, dots, dashes, successive _A_-s,
+etc., can be sent with nearly perfect regularity by an ordinary Morse
+key, and the corresponding changes in the current at the receiving end
+of the cable accurately observed. The strength of the battery employed
+was found to have no influence on the results; curves given by batteries
+of different strengths could be made to coincide by simply drawing them
+to scales proportionate to the strengths of the two currents. It was
+also found that the same curve represented the gradual increase of
+intensity due to the arrival of a current and the gradual decrease due
+to the ceasing of that current. The possible speed of signalling was
+found to be very nearly proportional to the squares of the lengths
+spoken through. Thus, a speed which gave fifteen dots per minute in a
+length of 2191 nautical miles reproduced all the effects given by a
+speed of thirty dots in a length of 1500. At these speeds, with ordinary
+Morse signals, speaking would be barely possible. In the Red Sea, a
+speed of from seven to eight words per minute was attained in a length
+of 750 nautical miles. Mechanical senders, and attention to the
+proportion of the various contacts, would materially increase the speed
+at which signals of any kind could be transmitted. The best trained hand
+cannot equal the accuracy of mechanism, and the slightest irregularity
+causes the current to rise or fall quite beyond the limits required for
+distinct signals. No important difference was observed between signals
+sent by alternate reverse currents and those sent by the more usual
+method. The amount of oscillation, and the consequent distinctness of
+signalling, were nearly the same in the two cases. An advantage in the
+first signals sent is, however, obtained by the use of Messrs. Sieman's
+and Halske's submarine key, by which the cable is put to earth
+immediately on signalling being interrupted, and the wire thus kept at
+a potential half-way between the potentials of the poles of two
+counter-acting batteries employed, and the first signals become legible,
+which, with the ordinary key, would be employed in charging the wire.
+
+A system of arbitrary characters, similar to those used upon the Morse
+telegraph, was employed, and the letter to be indicated was determined
+by the number of oscillations of the needle, as well as by the length of
+time during which the needle remained in one place. The operator, who
+watched the reflection of the deflected needle in the mirror, had a key,
+communicating with a local instrument in the office, in his hand, which
+he pressed down or raised, as the needle was deflected; and another
+operator occupied himself in deciphering the characters thus produced
+upon the paper. As the operator at Trinity Bay had no means of arresting
+the operations at Valentia, and _vice versâ_, and as the fastest rate of
+speed over the cable could not exceed three words per minute, it will
+not surprise the reader that the operators were nearly two days in
+transmitting the Queen's despatch.
+
+However, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, there were
+transmitted from Ireland to Newfoundland, through the Atlantic Cable,
+between the 10th of August and the 1st of September, 97 messages,
+containing 1102 words; and from Newfoundland to Ireland, 269 messages
+and 2840 words, making a total of 366 messages, containing 3942 words.
+Among these were the message from the Queen to the President of the
+United States, and his reply; the one announcing the safety of the
+steamer Europa, her mails and passengers, after her collision with
+the Arabia; and two messages for Her Majesty's War-Office, which last
+effected a very large saving to the revenue of the English government.
+
+In Liverpool, £150,000 have already been subscribed to the project of
+completing or relaying the Atlantic Cable.
+
+A contract has been recently made by the English government for a cable
+to be laid from Falmouth to Gibraltar, 1200 miles, which is to be ready
+in June next. This will be succeeded by one from Gibraltar to Malta
+and Alexandria, thus giving England an independent line, free from
+Continental difficulties.
+
+Steamers were to have left Liverpool at the end of the last month, with
+the remainder of the cable to connect Kurrachee with Aden. The cable to
+connect Alexandria with England is now to be laid through the islands
+of Rhodes and Scio to Constantinople, and not by way of Candia, as
+previously intended; it is expected to be laid this season. Hellaniyah,
+one of the Kuria-Muria Islands, has been decided on as a station for the
+Red Sea Telegraph.
+
+The new electric cable between Malta and the opposite coast of Sicily at
+Alga Grande is safely laid. Two previous attempts had been made; but, in
+consequence of the late strong winds, nothing could be done. The
+shore end on the Malta side had been laid down and connected with the
+company's offices before the expedition started; the outer end, about
+one mile off the Marsamuscetto harbor, into which the cable has been
+taken, being buoyed ready to complete the communication from shore to
+shore the moment the cable was submerged. The operation of paying out
+the cable was completed without the least accident. The mid-portion of
+the cable is of great strength, being able to sustain a strain of ten
+or twelve tons without parting, and the shore ends are of nearly double
+that strength. The depth of water throughout is within eighty fathoms;
+so that, if any accident should ever occur, it may be remedied without
+much difficulty.
+
+A great change in the rates to Sicily and the Italian States will result
+from the completion of this new line, a reduction in some cases of
+seventy-five per cent. being made,--a great boon to the English
+merchants. Messages in French, English, or Italian will be transmitted,
+and we must congratulate the company upon their success in inducing the
+Neapolitan government to make this concession, and upon the exceedingly
+low tariff proposed.
+
+Mr. De Sauty is the electrician of this company. He will be remembered
+by the reader as the mysterious operator at Trinity Bay, from whom an
+occasional vague and exceedingly brief despatch was received in relation
+to the working of the cable. Nothing really satisfactory could ever be
+obtained, and, when visited by some officers connected with the United
+States Coast Survey, he would not permit them to enter the office or
+examine the apparatus. His name was published in the daily journals with
+several different varieties of spelling, and for this reason, and in
+consequence of his extreme reticence, one of them perpetrated the
+following:--
+
+  "Thou operator, silent, glum,
+  Why wilt them act so naughty?
+  Do tell us _what_ your name is,--come:
+  De Santy, or De Sauty?
+
+  "Don't think to humbug any more,
+  Shut up there in your shanty,--
+  But solve the problem, once for all,--
+  De Sauty, or De Santy?"
+
+Electric telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire has within a few months had
+a remarkable development. Several lines are already in course of
+construction. A direct line from Varna to Toultcha, passing by
+Baltschik. A line from Toultcha to Odessa, passing by Reni and joining
+the Russian telegraph at Ismail. The subaqueous cable from Toultcha to
+Reni, on the Danube, is the sixth in the Ottoman Empire. This line,
+which will place Constantinople in direct communication with Odessa,
+will not only have the advantage of increasing and accelerating the
+communications, but will very considerably reduce their cost.
+
+There is also to be a line from Rodosto to Enos and Salonica; and from
+Salonica to Monastir, Valona, and Scutari in Albania. The line from
+Salonica to Monastir and Valona will be joined by a submarine cable
+crossing the Adriatic to Otranto, and carried on to Naples. It will
+have the effect of placing Southern Italy in communication with
+Constantinople, and also of reducing the cost of messages. A convention
+to this effect has been signed by a delegate of the Neapolitan
+government and the director-general of the telegraphic lines of the
+Ottoman Empire, touching this line to Naples. The ratification of the
+two governments will shortly be given to this convention.
+
+A line from Scutari in Albania to Bar-Bournon, and thence to
+Castellastua, passing round the Montenegrin territory by a submarine
+cable. This line is already laid, and will begin working immediately on,
+the completion of the Austrian lines to the point where it ends.
+
+A line from Constantinople to Bagdad. Three sections of this are being
+simultaneously laid down. The first from Constantinople to Ismid,
+Angora, Yuzgat, and Sivas: the works on this have been already carried
+to Sabanja, between Ismid and Angora. The second section, from Sivas
+to Moussoul: the works on this line are in a state of favorable
+preparation, and the line will be actively gone on with. The third
+section, from Bagdad to Moussoul: for this also the preparations have
+been made, and the works will begin when the season opens, the materials
+being all ready along the line. From Bagdad this line will extend to
+Bassora, to join a submarine cable to be carried thence to British
+India.
+
+A projected line from Constantinople to Smyrna. For this, two routes
+are thought of: one, the shortest, but most difficult, would run from
+Constantinople to the Dardanelles, Adramyti, and Smyrna; the other,
+the longest, but offering fewest difficulties, would pass from
+Constantinople by Muhalitch, Berliek-Hissar, and Maneesa, to Smyrna.
+
+A line from Mostar to Bosna-Serai. Mostar is already connected with the
+Austrian telegraphs at Metcovich.
+
+Other lines have been in the mean time completed and extended, and will
+soon be opened to the public. Thus, a third and fourth wire are being
+laid on the line from Constantinople to Rodosto; from the latter point
+three wires have been carried to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, two of
+which are for messages from Gallipoli to the Dardanelles, and the third
+is to join the submarine cable connecting Constantinople, Candia, Syra,
+and the Piraeus. The communications between Constantinople and Candia
+would already have begun but for an accident to the engineer. Those
+with Syra and the Piraeus will begin as soon as the ratification of the
+convention entered into between the Ottoman and Greek governments on
+this subject shall have taken place. The laying of the cable between
+Candia and Alexandria, which has not yet succeeded, will be resumed this
+spring.
+
+Thus, after the completion of these lines, Constantinople will be in
+communication with nearly all the chief provinces and towns of the
+empire, with Africa, and with Europe, by five different channels,--by
+the Principalities, by Odessa, by Servia, by Dalmatia, and the Kingdom
+of the Two Sicilies. With such a development of the system, it will
+be imperatively necessary to increase the telegraphic working-staff.
+Already the number of despatches arriving every day renders the service
+very difficult, and occasions much confusion and many grievous mistakes.
+Nothing is easier than to remedy all this by increasing the number of
+the _employés_.
+
+The great distinguishing feature of the telegraphs used in Great Britain
+is, that they are of the class known as oscillating telegraphs,--that
+is, telègraphs in which the letters are denoted by the number of motions
+to the right or left of a needle or indicator. Those of France are of
+the class called dial telegraphs, in which an index, or needle, is
+carried around the face of a dial, around the circumference of which are
+placed the letters of the alphabet; any particular letter being
+designated by the brief stopping of the needle. A similar system has
+been used in Prussia; but, recently, the American, or recording
+instrument of Professor Morse, has been introduced into this, as well
+as every other European country; and even in England, the national
+prejudice is gradually giving way, and our American system is being
+introduced.
+
+In America none but recording instruments have ever been used. Of
+these we have many kinds, but only five are in operation at present,
+namely:--The electro-magnetic timing instrument of Professor Morse;
+the electro-magnetic step-by-step printing of Mr. House; the
+electro-magnetic synchronous printing of Mr. Hughes; the
+electro-chemical rhythmic of Mr. Bain; and the combination-printing,
+combining the essential parts of the Hughes instrument with portions of
+the House. The Morse apparatus is, however, most generally used in this
+country and every other. Out of the two hundred and fifty thousand
+miles of electric telegraph now in operation or in the course of
+construction in the world, at least two hundred thousand give the
+preference to it.
+
+Although the Morse apparatus is a recording one, yet, for the last six
+years, the operators in this country have discontinued the use of the
+paper, and confined themselves to reading by the ear, which they do
+with the greatest facility. By this means a great saving is made in the
+expense of working the telegraph, and far greater correctness insured;
+as the ear is found much more reliable in comprehending the clicks of
+the instrument, than the eye in deciphering the arbitrary alphabet of
+dots and lines.
+
+The rapidity of the several instruments in use may be given as
+follows:--Cooke and Wheatstone's needle telegraph of Great Britain, 900
+words per hour; Froment's dial telegraph, of France, 1200; Bregnet's
+dial telegraph, also French, 1000; Sieman's dial telegraph, formerly
+used upon the Prussian lines, 900; Bain's chemical, in use between
+Liverpool and Manchester, and formerly to a considerable extent in the
+United States, 1500; the Morse telegraph, in use all over the world,
+1500; the House printing, used in the United States to a limited extent,
+and in Cuba, 2800; Hughes's and the combination instruments, 2000. The
+three last systems are American inventions; thus it will be seen, that
+to our country is due the credit of inventing the most rapid and the
+most universally used telegraphic systems.
+
+But though we surpass all other nations in the value of our electric
+apparatus, we are far behind many, and indeed most countries, in the
+construction of our lines. This does not arise from want of knowledge or
+of means, but from the custom which obtains to a great extent among all
+classes and professions in this country, of providing something which
+will answer for a time, instead of securing a permanent success.
+
+"But to my mind,--though I am native here, And to the manner born,--it
+is a custom More honored it in the breach than the observance,"--
+especially in building lines of electric telegraph, where the best are
+always the cheapest.
+
+When Shakspeare made Puck promise to "put a girdle round about the earth
+in forty minutes," he undoubtedly supposed he would thereby accomplish a
+remarkable feat; but when the great Russo-American line _via_ Behring's
+Strait and the Amoor is completed, and the Atlantic Cable is again in
+operation, we can put an electric girdle round about the earth before
+Puck could have time to spread his wings!
+
+In view of what must actually take place at no distant day,--the
+girdling of the earth by the electric wires,--a singular question
+arises:--If we send a current of electricity east, it will lose
+twenty-four hours in going round the globe; if we send one west, it
+will gain twenty-four, or, in other words, will get back to the
+starting-place twenty-four hours before it sets out. Now, if we send
+a current half-way round the world, it will get there twelve hours in
+advance of, or twelve hours behind our time, according as we send it
+east or west; the question which naturally suggests itself, therefore,
+is, What is the time at the antipodes? is it _yesterday_ or _to-morrow?_
+LOVE AND SELF-LOVE.
+
+
+"Friendless, when you are gone? But, Jean, you surely do not mean that
+Effie has no claim on any human creature, beyond the universal one of
+common charity?" I said, as she ceased, and lay panting on her pillows,
+with her sunken eyes fixed eagerly upon my own.
+
+"Ay, Sir, I do; for her grandfather has never by word or deed
+acknowledged her, or paid the least heed to the letter her poor mother
+sent him from her dying bed seven years ago. He is a lone old man, and
+this child is the last of his name; yet he will not see her, and cares
+little whether she be dead or living. It's a bitter shame, Sir, and the
+memory of it will rise up before him when he comes to lie where I am
+lying now."
+
+"And you have kept the girl safe in the shelter of your honest home all
+these years? Heaven will remember that, and in the great record of good
+deeds will set the name of Adam Lyndsay far below that of poor Jean
+Burns," I said, pressing the thin hand that had succored the orphan in
+her need.
+
+But Jean took no honor to herself for that charity, and answered simply
+to my words of commendation.
+
+"Sir, her mother was my foster-child; and when she left that stern old
+man for love of Walter Home, I went, too, for love of her. Ah, dear
+heart! she had sore need of me in the weary wanderings which ended only
+when she lay down by her dead husband's side and left her bairn to me.
+Then I came here to cherish her among kind souls where I was born; and
+here she has grown up, an innocent young thing, safe from the wicked
+world, the comfort of my life, and the one thing I grieve at leaving
+when the time that is drawing very near shall come."
+
+"Would not an appeal to Mr. Lyndsay reach him now, think you? Might not
+Effie go to him herself? Surely, the sight of such a winsome creature
+would touch his heart, however hard."
+
+But Jean rose up in her bed, crying, almost fiercely,--
+
+"No, Sir! no! My child shall never go to beg a shelter in that hard
+man's house. I know too well the cold looks, the cruel words, that would
+sting her high spirit and try her heart, as they did her mother's. No,
+Sir,--rather than that, she shall go with Lady Gower."
+
+"Lady Gower? What has she to do with Effie, Jean?" I asked, with
+increasing interest.
+
+"She will take Effie as her maid, Sir. A hard life for my child! but
+what can I do?" And Jean's keen glance seemed trying to read mine.
+
+"A waiting-maid? Heaven forbid!" I ejaculated, as a vision of that
+haughty lady and her three wild sons swept through my mind.
+
+I rose, paced the room in silence for a little time, then took a sudden
+resolution, and, turning to the bed, exclaimed,--
+
+"Jean, I will adopt Effie. I am old enough to be her father; and she
+shall never feel the want of one, if you will give her to my care."
+
+To my surprise, Jean's eager face wore a look of disappointment as she
+listened, and with a sigh replied,--
+
+"That's a kind thought, Sir, and a generous one; but it cannot be as you
+wish. You may be twice her age, but still too young for that. How could
+Effie look into that face of yours, so bonnie, Sir, for all it is so
+grave, and, seeing never a wrinkle on the forehead, nor a white hair
+among the black, how could she call you father? No, it will not do,
+though so kindly meant. Your friends would laugh at you, Sir, and idle
+tongues might speak ill of my bairn."
+
+"Then what can I do, Jean?" I asked, regretfully.
+
+"Make her your wife, Sir."
+
+I turned sharply and stared at the woman, as her abrupt reply reached my
+ear. Though trembling for the consequences of her boldly spoken wish,
+Jean did not shrink from my astonished gaze; and when I saw the
+wistfulness of that wan face, the smile died on my lips, checked by the
+tender courage which had prompted the utterance of her dying hope.
+
+"My good Jean, you forget that Effie is a child, and I a moody, solitary
+man, with no gifts to win a wife or make home happy."
+
+"Effie is sixteen, Sir,--a fair, good lassie for her years; and you--ah,
+Sir, _you_ may call yourself unfit for wife and home, but the poorest,
+saddest creature in this place knows that the man whose hand is always
+open, whose heart is always pitiful, is not the one to live alone, but
+to win and to deserve a happy home and a true wife. Oh, Sir, forgive me,
+if I have been too bold; but my time is short, and I love my child so
+well, I cannot leave the desire of my heart unspoken, for it is my
+last."
+
+As the words fell brokenly from her lips, and tears streamed down her
+pallid cheek, a great pity took possession of me, the old longing to
+find some solace for my solitary life returned again, and peace seemed
+to smile on me from little Effie's eyes.
+
+"Jean," I said, "give me till to-morrow to consider this new thought. I
+fear it cannot be; but I have learned to love the child too well to see
+her thrust out from the shelter of your home to walk through this evil
+world alone. I will consider your proposal, and endeavor to devise some
+future for the child which shall set your heart at rest. But before you
+urge this further, let, me tell you that I am not what you think me.
+I am a cold, selfish man, often, gloomy, often stern,--a most unfit
+guardian for a tender creature like this little girl. The deeds of mine
+which you call kind are not true charities; it frets me to see pain,
+and I desire my ease above all earthly things. You are grateful for
+the little I have done for you, and deceive yourself regarding my true
+worth; but of one thing you may rest assured,--I am an honest man, who
+holds his name too high to stain it with a false word or a dishonorable
+deed."
+
+"I do believe you, Sir," Jean answered, eagerly. "And if I left the
+child to you, I could die this night in peace. Indeed, Sir, I never
+should have dared to speak of this, but for the belief that you loved
+the girl. What else could I think, when you came so often and were so
+kind to us?"
+
+"I cannot blame you, Jean; it was my usual forgetfulness of others which
+so misled you. I was tired of the world, and came hither to find peace
+in solitude. Effie cheered me with her winsome ways, and I learned to
+look on her as the blithe spirit whose artless wiles won me to forget a
+bitter past and a regretful present." I paused; and then added, with a
+smile, "But, in our wise schemes, we have overlooked one point: Effie
+does not love me, and may decline the future you desire me to offer
+her."
+
+A vivid hope lit those dim eyes, as Jean met my smile with one far
+brighter, and joyfully replied,--
+
+"She _does_ love you, Sir; for you have given her the greatest happiness
+she has ever known. Last night she sat looking silently into the fire
+there with a strange gloom on her bonnie face, and, when I asked what
+she was dreaming of, she turned to me with a look of pain and fear, as
+if dismayed at some great loss, but she only said, 'He is going, Jean!
+What shall I do?'"
+
+"Poor child! she will miss her friend and teacher, when I'm gone; and I
+shall miss the only human creature that has seemed to care for me for
+years," I sighed,--adding, as I paused upon the threshold of the door,
+"Say nothing of this to Effie till I come to-morrow, Jean."
+
+I went away, and far out on the lonely moor sat down to think. Like a
+weird magician, Memory led me back into the past, calling up the hopes
+and passions buried there. My childhood,--fatherless and motherless,
+but not unhappy; for no wish was ungratified, no idle whim denied. My
+boyhood,--with no shadows over it but those my own wayward will called
+up. My manhood,--when the great joy of my life arose, my love for
+Agnes, a midsummer dream of bloom and bliss, so short-lived and so
+sweet! I felt again the pang that wrung my heart when she coldly gave me
+back the pledge I thought so sacred and so sure, and the music of her
+marriage-bells tolled the knell of my lost love. I seemed to hear them
+still wafted across the purple moor through the silence of those fifteen
+years.
+
+My life looked gray and joyless as the wide waste lying hushed around
+me, unblessed with the verdure of a single hope, a single love; and as I
+looked down the coming years, my way seemed very solitary, very dark.
+
+Suddenly a lark soared upward from the heath, cleaving the silence with
+its jubilant song. The sleeping echoes woke, the dun moor seemed to
+smile, and the blithe music fell like dew upon my gloomy spirit,
+wakening a new desire.
+
+"What this bird is to the moor might little Effie be to me," I thought
+within myself, longing to possess the cheerful spirit which had power to
+gladden me.
+
+"Yes," I mused, "the old home will seem more solitary now than ever; and
+if I cannot win the lark's song without a golden fetter, I will give
+it one, and while it sings for love of me it shall not know a want or
+fear."
+
+Heaven help me! I forgot the poor return I made my lark for the sweet
+liberty it lost.
+
+All that night I pondered the altered future Jean had laid before me,
+and the longer I looked the fairer it seemed to grow. Wealth I cared
+nothing for; the world's opinion I defied; ambition had departed,
+and passion I believed lay dead;--then why should I deny myself the
+consolation which seemed offered to me? I would accept it; and as I
+resolved, the dawn looked in at me, fresh and fair as little Effie's
+face.
+
+I met Jean with a smile, and, as she read its significance aright,
+there shone a sudden peace upon her countenance, more touching than her
+grateful words.
+
+Effie came singing from the burn-side, as unconscious of the change
+which awaited her as the flowers gathered in her plaid and crowning her
+bright hair.
+
+I drew her to my side, and in the simplest words asked her if she would
+go with me when Jean's long guardianship was ended. Joy, sorrow, and
+surprise stirred the sweet composure of her face, and quickened the
+tranquil beating of her heart. But as I ceased, joy conquered grief and
+wonder; for she clapped her hands like a glad child, exclaiming,--
+
+"Go with you, Sir? Oh, if you knew how I long to see the home you have
+so often pictured to me, you would never doubt my willingness to go."
+
+"But, Effie, you do not understand. Are you willing to go with me as my
+wife?" I said,--with a secret sense of something like remorse, as I
+uttered that word, which once meant so much to me, and now seemed such
+an empty title to bestow on her.
+
+The flowers dropped from the loosened plaid, as Effie looked with a
+startled glance into my face; the color left her cheeks, and the smile
+died on her lips, but a timid joy lit her eye, as she softly echoed my
+last words,--
+
+"Your wife? It sounds very solemn, though so sweet. Ah, Sir, I am not
+wise or good enough for that!"
+
+A child's humility breathed in her speech, but something of a woman's
+fervor shone in her uplifted countenance, and sounded in the sudden
+tremor of her voice.
+
+"Effie, I want you as you are," I said,--"no wiser, dear,--no better.
+I want your innocent affection to appease the hunger of an empty heart,
+your blithe companionship to cheer my solitary home. Be still a child to
+me, and let me give you the protection of my name."
+
+Effie turned to her old friend, and, laying her young face on the pillow
+close beside the worn one grown so dear to her, asked, in a tone half
+pleading, half regretful,--
+
+"Dear Jean, shall I go so far away from you and the home you gave me
+when I had no other?"
+
+"My bairn, I shall not be here, and it will never seem like home with
+old Jean gone. It is the last wish I shall ever know, to see you safe
+with this good gentleman who loves my child. Go, dear heart, and be
+happy; and Heaven bless and keep you both!"
+
+Jean held her fast a moment, and then, with a whispered prayer, put her
+gently away. Effie came to me, saying, with a look more eloquent than
+her meek words,--
+
+"Sir, I will be your wife, and love you very truly all my life."
+
+I drew the little creature to my breast, and felt a tender pride in
+knowing she was mine. Something in the shy caress those soft arms gave
+touched my cold nature with a generous warmth, and the innocence of
+that confiding heart was an appeal to all that made my manhood worth
+possessing.
+
+Swiftly those few weeks passed, and when old Jean was laid to her last
+sleep, little Effie wept her grief away upon her husband's bosom, and
+soon learned to smile in her new English home. Its gloom departed when
+she came, and for a while it was a very happy place. My bitter moods
+seemed banished by the magic of the gentle presence that made sunshine
+there, and I was conscious of a fresh grace added to the life so
+wearisome before.
+
+I should have been a father to the child, watchful, wise, and tender;
+but old Jean was right,--I was too young to feel a father's calm
+affection or to know a father's patient care. I should have been her
+teacher, striving to cultivate the nature given to my care, and fit it
+for the trials Heaven sends to all. I should have been a friend, if
+nothing more, and given her those innocent delights that make youth
+beautiful and its memory sweet.
+
+I was a master, content to give little, while receiving all she could
+bestow.
+
+Forgetting her loneliness, I fell back into my old way of life. I
+shunned the world, because its gayeties had lost their zest. I did not
+care to travel, for home now possessed a charm it never had before. I
+knew there was an eager face that always brightened when I came, light
+feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every
+want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a
+pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite
+whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a
+picture or a flower,--a little better than my horse and hound,--but
+far less than I loved my most unworthy self.
+
+And she,--always so blithe when I was by, so diligent in studying
+my desires, so full of simple arts to win my love and prove her
+gratitude,--she never asked for any boon, and seemed content to live
+alone with me in that still place, so utterly unlike the home she had
+left. I had not learned to read that true heart then. I saw those happy
+eyes grow wistful when I went, leaving her alone; I missed the roses
+from her cheek, faded for want of gentler care; and when the buoyant
+spirit which had been her chiefest charm departed, I fancied, in my
+blindness, that she pined for the free air of the Highlands, and tried
+to win it back by transient tenderness and costly gifts. But I had
+robbed my lark of heaven's sunshine, and it could not sing.
+
+I met Agnes again. She was a widow, and to my eye seemed fairer than
+when I saw her last, and far more kind. Some soft regret seemed shining
+on me from those lustrous eyes, as if she hoped to win my pardon for
+that early wrong. I never could forget the deed that darkened my best
+years, but the old charm stole over me at times, and, turning from the
+meek child at my feet, I owned the power of the stately woman whose
+smile seemed a command.
+
+I meant no wrong to Effie, but, looking on her as a child, I forgot
+the higher claim I had given her as a wife, and, walking blindly on my
+selfish way, I crushed the little flower I should have cherished in my
+breast. "Effie, my old friend Agnes Vaughan is coming here to-day; so
+make yourself fair, that you may do honor to my choice; for she desires
+to see you, and I wish my Scotch harebell to look lovely to this English
+rose," I said, half playfully, half earnestly, as we stood together
+looking out across the flowery lawn, one summer day.
+
+"Do you like me to be pretty, Sir?" she answered, with a flush of
+pleasure on her upturned face. "I will try to make myself fair with the
+gifts you are always heaping on me; but even then I fear I shall not do
+you honor, nor please your friend, I am so small and young."
+
+A careless reply was on my lips, but, seeing what a long way down the
+little figure was, I drew it nearer, saying, with a smile, which I knew
+would make an answering one,--
+
+"Dear, there must be the bud before the flower; so never grieve, for
+your youth keeps my spirit young. To me you may be a child forever; but
+you must learn to be a stately little Madam Ventnor to my friends."
+
+She laughed a gayer laugh than I had heard for many a day, and soon
+departed, intent on keeping well the promise she had given. An hour
+later, as I sat busied among my books, a little figure glided in, and
+stood before me with its jewelled arms demurely folded on its breast. It
+was Effie, as I had never seen her before. Some new freak possessed her,
+for with her girlish dress she seemed to have laid her girlhood by. The
+brown locks were gathered up, wreathing the small head like a coronet;
+aerial lace and silken vesture shimmered in the light, and became her
+well. She looked and moved a fairy queen, stately and small.
+
+I watched her in a silent maze, for the face with its shy blushes and
+downcast eyes did not seem the childish one turned frankly to my own an
+hour ago. With a sigh I looked up at Agnes's picture, the sole ornament
+of that room, and when I withdrew my gaze the blooming vision had
+departed. I should have followed it to make my peace, but I fell into
+a fit of bitter musing, and forgot it till Agnes's voice sounded at my
+door.
+
+She came with a brother, and seemed eager to see my young wife; but
+Effie did not appear, and I excused her absence as a girlish freak,
+smiling at it with them, while I chafed inwardly at her neglect,
+forgetting that I might have been the cause.
+
+Pacing down the garden paths with Agnes at my side, our steps were
+arrested by a sudden sight of Effie fast asleep among the flowers. She
+looked a flower herself, lying with her flushed cheek pillowed on her
+arm, sunshine glittering on the ripples of her hair, and the changeful
+lustre of her dainty dress. Tears moistened her long lashes, but her
+lips smiled, as if in the blissful land of dreams she had found some
+solace for her grief.
+
+"A 'Sleeping Beauty' worthy the awakening of any prince!" whispered
+Alfred Vaughan, pausing with admiring eyes.
+
+A slight frown swept over Agnes's face, but vanished as she said, with
+that low-toned laugh that never seemed unmusical before,--
+
+"We must pardon Mrs. Ventnor's seeming rudeness, if she welcomes us with
+graceful scenes like this. A child-wife's whims are often prettier than
+the world's formal ways; so do not chide her, Basil, when she wakes."
+
+I was a proud man then, touched easily by trivial things. Agnes's
+pitying manner stung me, and the tone in which I wakened Effie was far
+harsher than it should have been. She sprang up; and with a gentle
+dignity most new to me received her guests, and played the part of
+hostess with a grace that well atoned for her offence.
+
+Agnes watched her silently as she went before us with young Vaughan, and
+even I, ruffled as my temper was, felt a certain pride in the loving
+creature who for my sake conquered her timidity and strove to do me
+honor. But neither by look nor word did I show my satisfaction, for
+Agnes demanded the constant service of lips and eyes, and I was only too
+ready to devote them to the woman who still felt her power and dared to
+show it.
+
+All that day I was beside her, forgetful in many ways of the gentle
+courtesies I owed the child whom I had made my wife. I did not see the
+wrong then, but others did, and the deference I failed to show she could
+ask of them.
+
+In the evening, as I stood near Agnes while she sang the songs we both
+remembered well, my eye fell on a mirror that confronted me, and in it
+I saw Effie bending forward with a look that startled me. Some strong
+emotion controlled her, for with lips apart and eager eyes she gazed
+keenly at the countenances she believed unconscious of her scrutiny.
+
+Agnes caught the vision that had arrested the half-uttered compliment
+upon my lips, and, turning, looked at Effie with a smile just touched
+with scorn.
+
+The color rose vividly to Effie's cheek, but her eyes did not fall,--
+they sought my face, and rested there. A half-smile crossed my lips;
+with a sudden impulse I beckoned, and she came with such an altered
+countenance I fancied that I had not seen aright.
+
+At my desire she sang the ballads she so loved, and in her girlish voice
+there was an undertone of deeper melody than when I heard them first
+among her native hills; for the child's heart was ripening fast into the
+woman's.
+
+Agnes went, at length, and I heard Effies sigh of relief when we were
+left alone, but only bid her "go and rest," while I paced to and fro,
+still murmuring the refrain of Agnes's song.
+
+The Vaughans came often, and we went often to them in the summer-home
+they had chosen near us on the riverbank. I followed my own wayward
+will, and Effie's wistful eyes grew sadder as the weeks went by.
+
+One sultry evening, as we strolled together on the balcony, I was
+seized with a sudden longing to hear Agnes sing, and bid Effie come with
+me for a moonlight voyage down the river.
+
+She had been very silent all the evening, with a pensive shadow on her
+face and rare smiles on her lips. But as I spoke, she paused
+abruptly, and, clenching her small hands, turned upon me with defiant
+eyes,--crying, almost fiercely--
+
+"No, I will not go to listen to that woman's songs. I hate her! yes,
+more than I can tell! for, till she came, I thought you loved me; but
+now you think of her alone, and chide me when I look unhappy. You treat
+me like a child; but I am not one. Oh, Sir, be more kind, for I have
+only you to love!"--and as her voice died in that sad appeal, she
+clasped her hands before her face with such a burst of tears that I had
+no words to answer her.
+
+Disturbed by the sudden passion of the hitherto meek girl, I sat down on
+the wide steps of the balcony and essayed to draw her to my knee, hoping
+she would weep this grief away as she had often done a lesser sorrow.
+But she resisted my caress, and, standing erect before me, checked
+her tears, saying, in a voice still trembling with resentment and
+reproach,--
+
+"You promised Jean to be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask
+for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a
+pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is
+not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will not bear it!"
+
+If she had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly
+pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her
+indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit
+of the man, and made me sternest when I should have been most kind.
+
+"Effie," I said, looking coldly up into her troubled face, "I have given
+you the right to be thus frank with me; but before you exercise that
+right, let me tell you what may silence your reproaches and teach you
+to know me better. I desired to adopt you as my child; Jean would not
+consent to that, but bid me marry you, and so give you a home, and win
+for myself a companion who should make that home less solitary. I could
+protect you in no other way, and I married you. I meant it kindly,
+Effie; for I pitied you,--ay, and loved you, too, as I hoped I had fully
+proved."
+
+"You have, Sir,--oh, you have! But I hoped I might in time be more to
+you than a dear child," sighed Effie, while softer tears flowed as she
+spoke.
+
+"Effie, I told Jean I was a hard, cold man,"--and I was one as those
+words passed my lips. "I told her I was unfitted to make a wife happy.
+But she said you would be content with what I could offer; and so I gave
+you all I had to bestow. It was not enough; yet I cannot make it more.
+Forgive me, child, and try to bear your disappointments as I have
+learned to bear mine."
+
+Effie bent suddenly, saying, with a look of anguish, "Do you regret that
+I am your wife, Sir?"
+
+"Heaven knows I do, for I cannot make you happy," I answered,
+mournfully.
+
+"Let me go away where I can never grieve or trouble you again! I will,--
+indeed, I will,--for anything is easier to bear than this. Oh, Jean, why
+did you leave me when you went?"--and with that despairing cry Effie
+stretched her arms into the empty air, as if seeking that lost friend.
+
+My anger melted, and I tried to soothe her, saying gently, as I laid her
+tear-wet cheek to mine,--
+
+"My child, death alone must part us two. We will be patient with each
+other, and so may learn to be happy yet."
+
+A long silence fell upon us both. My thoughts were busy with the thought
+of what a different home mine might have been, if Agnes had been true;
+and Effie--God only knows how sharp a conflict passed in that young
+heart! I could not guess it till the bitter sequel of that hour came.
+
+A timid hand upon my own aroused me, and, looking down, I met such an
+altered face, it touched me like a mute reproach. All the passion bad
+died out, and a great patience seemed to have arisen there. It looked so
+meek and wan, I bent and kissed it; but no smile answered me as Effie
+humbly said,--
+
+"Forgive me, Sir, and tell me how I can make you happier. For I am truly
+grateful for all you have done for me, and will try to be a docile child
+to you."
+
+"Be happy yourself, Effie, and I shall be content. I am too grave and
+old to be a fit companion for you, dear. You shall have gay faces and
+young friends to make this quiet place more cheerful. I should have
+thought of that before. Dance, sing, be merry, Effie, and never let your
+life be darkened by Basil Ventnor's changeful moods."
+
+"And you?" she whispered, looking up.
+
+"I will sit among my books, or seek alone the few friends I care to see,
+and never mar your gayety with my gloomy presence, dear. We must begin
+at once to go our separate ways; for, with so many years between us, we
+can never find the same paths pleasant very long. Let me be a father to
+you, and a friend,--I cannot be a lover, child."
+
+Effie rose and went silently away; but soon came again, wrapped in her
+mantle, saying, as she looked down at me, with something of her former
+cheerfulness,--
+
+"I am good now. Come and row me down the river. It is too beautiful a
+night to be spent in tears and naughtiness."
+
+"No, Effie, you shall never go to Mrs. Vaughan's again, if you dislike
+her so. No friendship of mine need be shared by you, if it gives you
+pain."
+
+"Nothing shall pain me any more," she answered, with a patient sigh. "I
+will be your merry girl again, and try to love Agnes for your sake. Ah!
+do come, _father_, or I shall not feel forgiven."
+
+Smiling at her April moods, I obeyed the small hands clasped about my
+own, and through the fragrant linden walk went musing to the river-side.
+
+Silently we floated down, and at the lower landing-place found Alfred
+Vaughan just mooring his own boat. By him I sent a message to his
+sister, while we waited for her at the shore.
+
+Effie stood above me on the sloping bank, and as Agnes entered the
+green vista of the flowery path, she turned and clung to me with sudden
+fervor, kissed me passionately, and then stole silently into the boat.
+
+The moonlight turned the waves to silver, and in its magic rays the face
+of my first love grew young again. She sat before me with water-lilies
+in her shining hair, singing as she sang of old, while the dash of
+falling oars kept time to her low song. As we neared the ruined bridge,
+whose single arch still cast its heavy shadow far across the stream,
+Agnes bent toward me, softly saying,--
+
+"Basil, you remember this?"
+
+How could I forget that happy night, long years ago, when she and I went
+floating down the same bright stream, two happy lovers just betrothed?
+As she spoke, it all came back more beautiful than ever, and I forgot
+the silent figure sitting there behind me. I hope Agnes had forgotten,
+too; for, cruel as she was to me, I never wished to think her hard
+enough to hate that gentle child.
+
+"I remember, Agnes," I said, with a regretful sigh. "My voyage has been
+a lonely one since then."
+
+"Are you not happy, Basil?" she asked, with a tender pity thrilling her
+low voice.
+
+"Happy?" I echoed, bitterly,--"how can I be happy, remembering what
+might have been?"
+
+Agnes bowed her head upon her hands, and silently the boat shot into the
+black shadow of the arch. A sudden eddy seemed to sway us slightly from
+our course, and the waves dashed sullenly against the gloomy walls;
+a moment more and we glided into calmer waters and unbroken light. I
+looked up from my task to speak, but the words were frozen on my lips
+by a cry from Agnes, who, wild-eyed and pale, seemed pointing to some
+phantom which I could not see. I turned,--the phantom was Effie's empty
+seat. The shining stream grew dark before me, and a great pang of
+remorse wrung my heart as that sight met my eyes.
+
+"Effie!" I cried, with a cry that rent the stillness of the night, and
+sent the name ringing down the river. But nothing answered me, and the
+waves rippled softly as they hurried by. Far over the wide stream went
+my despairing glance, and saw nothing but the lilies swaying as they
+slept, and the black arch where my child went down.
+
+Agnes lay trembling at my feet, but I never heeded her,--for Jean's
+dead voice sounded in my ear, demanding the life confided to my care. I
+listened, benumbed with guilty fear, and, as if summoned by that weird
+cry, there came a white flash through the waves, and Effie's face rose
+up before me.
+
+Pallid and wild with the agony of that swift plunge, it confronted me.
+No cry for help parted the pale lips, but those wide eyes were luminous
+with a love whose fire that deathful river could not quench.
+
+Like one in an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it.
+One instant the terror held me,--the next I was far down in those waves,
+so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind
+struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm,
+and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing
+waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the
+boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and we laid it
+down, a piteous sight for human eyes to look upon. Of that swift voyage
+home I can remember nothing but the still face on Agnes's breast, the
+sight of which nerved my dizzy brain and made my muscles iron.
+
+For many weeks there was a darkened chamber in my house, and anxious
+figures gliding to and fro, wan with long vigils and the fear of death.
+I often crept in to look upon the little figure lying there, to watch
+the feverish roses blooming on the wasted cheek, the fitful fire burning
+in the unconscious eyes, to hear the broken words so full of pathos to
+my ear, and then to steal away and struggle to forget.
+
+My bird fluttered on the threshold of its cage, but Love lured it back,
+for its gentle mission was not yet fulfilled.
+
+The _child_ Effie lay dead beneath the ripples of the river, but the
+_woman_ rose up from that bed of suffering like one consecrated to
+life's high duties by the bitter baptism of that dark hour.
+
+Slender and pale, with serious eyes and quiet steps, she moved through
+the home which once echoed to the glad voice and dancing feet of that
+vanished shape. A sweet sobriety shaded her young face, and a meek smile
+sat upon her lips, but the old blithesomeness was gone.
+
+She never claimed her childish place upon my knee, never tried the
+winsome wiles that used to chase away my gloom, never came to pour her
+innocent delights and griefs into my ear, or bless me with the frank
+affection which grew very precious when I found it lost.
+
+Docile as ever, and eager to gratify my lightest wish, she left no
+wifely duty unfulfilled. Always near me, if I breathed her name, but
+vanishing when I grew silent, as if her task were done. Always smiling a
+cheerful farewell when I went, a quiet welcome when I came. I missed the
+April face that once watched me go, the warm embrace that greeted me
+again, and at my heart the sense of loss grew daily deeper as I felt the
+growing change.
+
+Effie remembered the words I had spoken on that mournful night;
+remembered that our paths must lie apart,--that her husband was a
+friend, and nothing more. She treasured every careless hint I had given,
+and followed it most faithfully. She gathered gay, young friends about
+her, went out into the brilliant world, and I believed she was content.
+
+If I had ever felt she was a burden to the selfish freedom I desired,
+I was punished now, for I had lost a blessing which no common pleasure
+could replace. I sat alone, and no blithe voice made music in the
+silence of my room, no bright locks swept my shoulder, and no soft
+caress assured me that I was beloved.
+
+I looked for my household sprite in girlish garb, with its free hair
+and sunny eyes, but found only a fair woman, graceful in rich attire,
+crowned with my gifts, and standing afar off among her blooming peers.
+I could not guess the solitude of that true heart, nor see the captive
+spirit gazing at me from those steadfast eyes.
+
+No word of the cause of that despairing deed passed Effie's lips, and
+I had no need to ask it. Agnes was silent, and soon left us, but her
+brother was a frequent guest. Effie liked his gay companionship, and I
+denied her nothing,--nothing but the one desire of her life.
+
+So that first year passed; and though the ease and liberty I coveted
+were undisturbed, I was not satisfied. Solitude grew irksome, and
+study ceased to charm. I tried old pleasures, but they had lost their
+zest,--renewed old friendships, but they wearied me. I forgot Agnes,
+and ceased to think her fair. I looked at Effie, and sighed for my lost
+youth.
+
+My little wife grew very beautiful to me, for she was blooming fast into
+a gracious womanhood. I felt a secret pride in knowing she was mine,
+and watched her as I fancied a fond brother might, glad that she was so
+good, so fair, so much beloved. I ceased to mourn the plaything I
+had lost, and something akin to reverence mingled with the deepening
+admiration of the man.
+
+Gay guests had filled the house with festal light and sound one winter's
+night, and when the last bright figure had vanished from the threshold
+of the door, I still stood there, looking over the snow-shrouded lawn,
+hoping to cool the fever of my blood, and case the restless pain that
+haunted me.
+
+I shut out the keen air and wintry sky, at length, and silently ascended
+to the diverted rooms above. But in the soft gloom of a vestibule my
+steps were stayed. Two figures, in a flowery alcove, fixed my eye. The
+light streamed full upon them, and the fragrant stillness of the air was
+hardly stirred by their low tones.
+
+Effie was there, sunk on a low couch, her face bowed upon her hands; and
+at her side, speaking with impassioned voice and ardent eyes, leaned
+Alfred Vaughan.
+
+The sight struck me like a blow, and the sharp anguish of that moment
+proved how deeply I had learned to love.
+
+"Effie, it is a sinful tie that binds you to that man; he does not love
+you, and it should be broken,--for this slavery will wear away the life
+now grown so dear to me."
+
+The words, hot with indignant passion, smote me like a wintry blast, but
+not so coldly as the broken voice that answered them:--
+
+"He said death alone must part us two, and, remembering that, I cannot
+listen to another love."
+
+Like a guilty ghost I stole away, and in the darkness of my solitary
+room struggled with my bitter grief, my newborn love. I never blamed
+my wife,--that wife who had heard the tender name so seldom, she could
+scarce feel it hers. I had fettered her free heart, forgetting it would
+one day cease to be a child's. I bade her look upon me as a father; she
+had learned the lesson well; and now what right had I to reproach her
+for listening to a lover's voice, when her husband's was so cold? What
+mattered it that slowly, almost unconsciously, I had learned to love her
+with the passion of a youth, the power of a man? I had alienated that
+fond nature from my own, and now it was too late.
+
+Heaven only knows the bitterness of that hour;--I cannot tell it. But
+through the darkness of my anguish and remorse that newly kindled love
+burned like a blessed fire, and, while it tortured, purified. By its
+light I saw the error of my life: self-love was written on the actions
+of the past, and I knew that my punishment was very just. With a child's
+repentant tears, I confessed it to my Father, and He solaced me, showed
+me the path to tread, and made me nobler for the blessedness and pain of
+that still hour.
+
+Dawn found me an altered man; for in natures like mine the rain of a
+great sorrow melts the ice of years, and their hidden strength blooms
+in a late harvest of patience, self-denial, and humility. I resolved to
+break the tie which bound poor Effie to a joyless fate; and gratitude
+for a selfish deed, which wore the guise of charity, should no longer
+mar her peace. I would atone for the wrong I had done her, the suffering
+she had endured; and she should never know that I had guessed her tender
+secret, nor learn the love which made my sacrifice so bitter, yet so
+just.
+
+Alfred came no more; and as I watched the growing pallor of her cheek,
+her patient efforts to be cheerful and serene, I honored that meek
+creature for her constancy to what she deemed the duty of her life.
+
+I did not tell her my resolve at once, for I could not give her up so
+soon. It was a weak delay, but I had not learned the beauty of a perfect
+self-forgetfulness; and though I clung to my purpose steadfastly, my
+heart still cherished a desperate hope that I might be spared this loss.
+
+In the midst of this secret conflict, there came a letter from old Adam
+Lyndsay, asking to see his daughter's child; for life was waning slowly,
+and he desired to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven when the last hour
+came. The letter was to me, and, as I read it, I saw a way where-by I
+might be spared the hard task of telling Effie she was to be free. I
+feared my new-found strength would desert me, and my courage fail, when,
+looking on the woman who was dearer to me than my life, I tried to give
+her back the liberty whose worth she had learned to know.
+
+Effie should go, and I would write the words I dared not speak. She
+would be in her mother's home, free to show her joy at her release, and
+smile upon the lover she had banished.
+
+I went to tell her; for it was I who sought her now, who watched for her
+coming and sighed at her departing steps,--I who waited for her smile
+and followed her with wistful eyes. The child's slighted affection was
+atoned for now by my unseen devotion to the woman.
+
+I gave the letter, and she read it silently.
+
+"Will you go, love?" I asked, as she folded it.
+
+"Yes,--the old man has no one to care for him but me, and it is so
+beautiful to be loved."
+
+A sudden smile touched her lips, and a soft dew shone in the shadowy
+eyes, which seemed looking into other and tenderer ones than mine. She
+could not know how sadly I echoed those words, nor how I longed to tell
+her of another man who sighed to be forgiven.
+
+"You must gather roses for these pale cheeks among the breezy moorlands,
+dear. They are not so blooming as they were a year ago. Jean would
+reproach me for my want of care," I said, trying to speak cheerfully,
+though each word seemed a farewell.
+
+"Poor Jean! how long it seems since she kissed them last!" sighed Effie,
+musing sadly, as she turned her wedding-ring.
+
+My heart ached to see how thin the hand had grown, and how easily that
+little fetter would fall off when I set my captive lark at liberty.
+
+I looked till I dared look no longer, and then rose, saying,--
+
+"You will write often, Effie, for I shall miss you very much."
+
+She cast a quick look into my face, asking, hurriedly,--
+
+"Am I to go alone?"
+
+"Dear, I have much to do and cannot go; but you need fear nothing; I
+shall send Ralph and Mrs. Prior with you, and the journey is soon over.
+When will you go?"
+
+It was the first time she had left me since I took her from Jean's arms,
+and I longed to keep her always near me; but, remembering the task I had
+to do, I felt that I must seem cold till she knew all.
+
+"Soon,--very soon,--to-morrow;--let me go to-morrow, Sir. I long to be
+away!" she cried, some swift emotion banishing the calmness of her usual
+manner, as she rose, with eager eyes and a gesture full of longing.
+
+"You shall go, Effie," was all I could say; and with no word of thanks,
+she hastened away, leaving me so calm without, so desolate within.
+
+The same eagerness possessed her all that day; and the next she went
+away, clinging to me at the last as she had clung that night upon the
+river-bank, as if her grateful heart reproached her for the joy she felt
+at leaving my unhappy home.
+
+A few days passed, bringing me the comfort of a few sweet lines from
+Effie, signed "Your child." That sight reminded me, that, if I would do
+an honest deed, it should be generously done. I read again the little
+missive she had sent, and then I wrote the letter which might be my
+last;--with no hint of my love, beyond the expression of sincerest
+regard and never-ceasing interest in her happiness; no hint of Alfred
+Vaughan; for I would not wound her pride, nor let her dream that any eye
+had seen the passion she so silently surrendered, with no reproach to
+me and no shadow on the name I had given into her keeping. Heaven knows
+what it cost me, and Heaven, through the suffering of that hour, granted
+me an humbler spirit and a better life.
+
+It went, and I waited for my fate as one might wait for pardon or for
+doom. It came at length,--a short, sad letter, full of meek obedience to
+my will, of penitence for faults I never knew, and grateful prayers for
+my peace.
+
+My last hope died then, and for many days I dwelt alone, living over all
+that happy year with painful vividness. I dreamed again of those fair
+days, and woke to curse the selfish blindness which had hidden my best
+blessing from me till it was forever lost.
+
+How long I should have mourned thus unavailingly I cannot tell. A more
+sudden, but far less grievous loss befell me. My fortune was nearly
+swept away in the general ruin of a most disastrous year. This event
+roused me from my despair and made me strong again,--for I must hoard
+what could be saved, for Effie's sake. She had known a cruel want with
+me, and she must never know another while she bore my name. I looked my
+misfortune in the face and ceased to feel it one; for the diminished
+fortune was still ample for my darling's dower, and now what need had I
+of any but the simplest home?
+
+Before another month was gone, I was in the quiet place henceforth to be
+mine alone, and nothing now remained for me to do but to dissolve the
+bond that made my Effie mine. Sitting over the dim embers of my solitary
+hearth, I thought of this, and, looking round the silent room, whose
+only ornaments were the things made sacred by her use, the utter
+desolation struck so heavily upon my heart, that I bowed my head upon
+my folded arms, and yielded to the tender longing that could not be
+repressed.
+
+The bitter paroxysm passed, and, raising my eyes, the clearer for that
+stormy rain, I beheld Effie standing like an answer to my spirit's cry.
+
+With a great start, I regarded her, saying, at length, in a voice that
+sounded cold, for my heart leaped up to meet her, and yet must not
+speak,--
+
+"Effie, why are you here?"
+
+Wraith-like and pale, she stood before me, with no sign of emotion but
+the slight tremor of her frame, and answered my greeting with a sad
+humility:--
+
+"I came because I promised to cleave to you through health and sickness,
+poverty and wealth, and I must keep that vow till you absolve me from
+it. Forgive me, but I knew misfortune had befallen you, and, remembering
+all you had done for me, came, hoping I might comfort when other friends
+deserted you."
+
+"Grateful to the last!" I sighed, low to myself, and, though deeply
+touched, replied with the hard-won calmness that made my speech so
+brief,--
+
+"You owe me nothing, Effie, and I most earnestly desired to spare you
+this."
+
+Some sudden hope seemed born of my regretful words, for, with an eager
+glance, she cried,--
+
+"Was it that desire which prompted you to part from me? Did you think I
+should shrink from sharing poverty with you who gave me all I own?"
+
+"No, dear,--ah, no!" I said, "I knew your grateful spirit far too well
+for that. It was because I could not make your happiness, and yet had
+robbed you of the right to seek it with some younger and some better
+man."
+
+"Basil, what man? Tell me; for no doubt shall stand between us now!"
+
+She grasped my arm, and her rapid words were a command.
+
+I only answered, "Alfred Vaughan."
+
+Effie covered up her face, crying, as she sank down at my feet,--
+
+"Oh, my fear! my fear! Why was I blind so long?"
+
+I felt her grief to my heart's core; for my own anguish made me pitiful,
+and my love made me strong. I lifted up that drooping head and laid it
+down where it might never rest again, saying, gently, cheerily, and with
+a most sincere forgetfulness of self,--
+
+"My wife, I never cherished a harsh thought of you, never uttered a
+reproach when your affections turned from a cold, neglectful guardian,
+to find a tenderer resting-place. I saw your struggles, dear, your
+patient grief, your silent sacrifice, and honored you more truly than I
+can tell. Effie, I robbed you of your liberty, but I will restore it,
+making such poor reparation as I can for this long year of pain;
+and when I see you blest in a happier home, my keen remorse will be
+appeased."
+
+As I ceased, Effie rose erect and stood before me, transformed from a
+timid girl into an earnest woman. Some dormant power and passion woke;
+she turned on me a countenance aglow with feeling, soul in the eye,
+heart on the lips, and in her voice an energy that held me mute.
+
+"I feared to speak before," she said, "but now I dare anything, for I
+have heard you call me 'wife,' and seen that in your face which gives me
+hope. Basil, the grief you saw was not for the loss of any love
+but yours; the conflict you beheld was the daily struggle to subdue
+my longing spirit to your will; and the sacrifice you honor but the
+renunciation of all hope. I stood between you and the woman whom you
+loved, and asked of death to free me from that cruel lot. You gave me
+back my life, but you withheld the gift that made it worth possessing.
+You desired to be freed from the affection which only wearied you, and I
+tried to conquer it; but it would not die. Let me speak now, and then I
+will be still forever! Must our ways lie apart? Can I never be more to
+you than now? Oh, Basil! oh, my husband! I have loved you very truly
+from the first! Shall I never know the blessedness of a return?"
+
+Words could not answer that appeal. I gathered my life's happiness close
+to my breast, and in the silence of a full heart felt that God was very
+good to me.
+
+Soon all my pain and passion were confessed. Fast and fervently the tale
+was told; and as the truth dawned on that patient wife, a tender peace
+transfigured her uplifted countenance, until to me it seemed an angel's
+face.
+
+"I am a poor man now," I said, still holding that frail creature fast,
+fearing to see her vanish, as her semblance had so often done in the
+long vigils I had kept,--"a poor man, Effie, and yet very rich, for I
+have my treasure back again. But I am wiser than when we parted; for I
+have learned that love is better than a world of wealth, and victory
+over self a nobler conquest than a continent. Dear, I have no home but
+this. Can you be happy here, with no fortune but the little store set
+apart for you, and the knowledge that no want shall touch you while I
+live?"
+
+And as I spoke, I sighed, remembering all I might have done, and
+dreading poverty for her alone.
+
+But with a gesture, soft, yet solemn, Effie laid her hands upon my head,
+as if endowing me with blessing and with gift, and answered, with her
+steadfast eyes on mine,--
+
+"You gave me your home when I was homeless; let me give it back, and
+with it a proud wife. I, too, am rich; for that old man is gone and left
+me all. Take it, Basil, and give me a little love."
+
+I gave not little, but a long life of devotion for the good gift God had
+bestowed on me,--finding in it a household spirit the daily benediction
+of whose presence banished sorrow, selfishness, and gloom, and, through
+the influence of happy human love, led me to a truer faith in the
+Divine.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MUSE.
+
+  Whither? albeit I follow fast,
+  In all life's circuit I but find
+  Not where thou art, but where thou wast,
+  Fleet Beckoner, more shy than wind!
+  I haunt the pine-dark solitudes,
+  With soft, brown silence carpeted,
+  And think to snare thee in the woods:
+  Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled!
+  I find the rock where thou didst rest,
+  The moss thy skimming foot hath prest;
+  All Nature with thy parting thrills,
+  Like branches after birds new-flown;
+  Thy passage hill and hollow fills
+  With hints of virtue not their own;
+  In dimples still the water slips
+  Where thou hast dipped thy finger-tips;
+  Just, just beyond, forever burn
+  Gleams of a grace without return;
+  Upon thy shade I plant my foot,
+  And through my frame strange raptures shoot;
+  All of thee but thyself I grasp;
+  I seem to fold thy luring shape,
+  And vague air to my bosom clasp,
+  Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!
+
+  One mask and then another drops,
+  And thou art secret as before.
+  Sometimes with flooded ear I list
+  And hear thee, wondrous organist,
+  Through mighty continental stops
+  A thunder of strange music pour;--
+  Through pipes of earth and air and stone
+  Thy inspiration deep is blown;
+  Through mountains, forests, open downs,
+  Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns,
+  Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on,
+  From Maine to utmost Oregon;
+  The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum;
+  From brawling parties concords come;--
+  All this I hear, or seem to hear;
+  But when, enchanted, I draw near
+  To fix in notes the various theme,
+  Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam,
+  History a Swiss street-singer's thrum,
+  And I, that would have fashioned words
+  To mate that music's rich accords,
+  By rash approaches startle thee,
+  Thou mutablest Perversity!
+  The world drones on its old _tum-tum_,
+  But thou hast slipped from it and me,
+  And all thine organ-pipes left dumb.
+
+  Not wearied yet, I still must seek,
+  And hope for luck next day, next week.
+  I go to see the great man ride,
+  Ship-like, the swelling human tide
+  That floods to bear him into port,
+  Trophied from senate-hall or court:
+  Thy magnetism, I feel it there,
+  Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare,
+  Making the mob a moment fine
+  With glimpses of their own Divine,
+  As in their demigod they see
+  Their swart ideal soaring free;
+  'Tis thou that bear'st the fire about,
+  Which, like the springing of a mine,
+  Sends up to heaven the street-long shout:
+  Full well I know that thou wast here;
+  That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear;
+  But vainly, in the stress and whirl,
+  I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.
+
+  Through every shape thou well canst run,
+  Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun,
+  Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
+  As where Milan's pale Duomo lies
+  A stranded glacier on the plain,
+  Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
+  Melted in many a quaint device,
+  And sees, across the city's din,
+  Afar its silent Alpine kin;
+  I track thee over carpets deep
+  To Wealth's and Beauty's inmost keep;
+  Across the sand of bar-room floors,
+  'Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
+  Where drowse the hayfield's fragrant heats,
+  Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats;
+  I dog thee through the market's throngs,
+  To where the sea with myriad tongues
+  Laps the green fringes of the pier,
+  And the tall ships that eastward steer
+  Curtsy their farewells to the town,
+  O'er the curved distance lessening down;--
+  I follow allwhere for thy sake,--
+  Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,--
+  Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
+  Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,--
+  But thou another mask hast donned,
+  And lurest still, just, just, beyond!
+
+  But here a voice, I know not whence,
+  Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
+  Saying, "See where she sits at home,
+  While thou in search of her dost roam!
+  All summer long her ancient wheel
+  Whirls humming by the open door,
+  Or, when the hickory's social zeal
+  Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
+  Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
+  It modulates the household mirth
+  With that sweet, serious undertone
+  Of Duty, music all her own;
+  Still, as of old, she sits and spins
+  Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
+  With equal care she twines the fates
+  Of cottages and mighty states;
+  She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
+  The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
+  The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
+  The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
+  The piping west-wind's snowy care
+  For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
+  Or from the thorns of evil times
+  She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
+  Morning and noon and eve supply
+  To her their fairest tints for dye,
+  But ever through her twirling thread
+  There spires one strand of warmest red,
+  Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
+  The stamp and warrant of her art;
+  With this Time's sickle she outwears,
+  And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.
+
+  "Harass her not; thy heat and stir
+  The greater coyness breed in her:
+  Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
+  Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
+  Learning at last that Stygian Fate
+  Supples for him that knows to wait.
+  The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
+  Her love to him who pules and plains;
+  With proud, averted face she stands
+  To him who wooes with empty hands.
+  Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
+  Pull down thy barns and greater build;
+  The wood, the mountain, and the plain
+  Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
+  Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
+  Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
+  From fireside lone and trampling street
+  Let thy life garner daily wheat;
+  The epic of a man rehearse,
+  Be something better than thy verse,
+  Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
+  Shall court thy precious interviews,
+  Shall take thy head upon her knee,
+  And such enchantment lilt to thee,
+  That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow
+  From farthest stars to grass-blades low,
+  And find the Listener's science still
+  Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!"
+
+
+
+SCREW-PROPULSION:
+
+
+ITS RISE AND PROGRESS.
+
+The earliest conception of an auxiliary motive power in navigation
+is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the
+inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of
+ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the
+paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced
+to play the secondary part of an auxiliary.
+
+Scarce was man in possession of this means of _impressing_ the wind, and
+resting his weary oar, than, scorning longer confinement to the coast,
+he boldly ventured upon the conquest of the main. Under the same
+impulse, the tiny skiff, in which he hardly dared to quit the river's
+bank, was enlarged, and made fit companion of his distant emprise. These
+footprints of the infant steps of navigation may all still be traced
+among the maritime tribes of the Pacific.
+
+From that period sails became the chief motor, and the paddle and the
+sweep auxiliaries,--which position they still hold to some extent, even
+in vessels of considerable burden. But as the proportions of naval
+architecture enlarged, these puny instruments were thrown aside;
+although the importance and necessity of some such auxiliary in the
+ordinary exigencies of marine life have always been felt and it has long
+been earnestly sought.
+
+From the first successful application of steam to navigation--by Fulton,
+in 1803--it was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world to
+provide ships with an auxiliary motor; but the result has shown the
+fallacy of this conception.
+
+For more than twenty years steam-navigation has advanced with giant
+strides, overstepping several times the limits which science had
+assigned it; but the paddle-wheel, by which the agency of steam has
+been applied, forms so bad an alliance with canvas, and supplies so
+indifferently the requirements of a man-of-war, that it has been
+impossible by this intermediary to render steam the efficient coadjutor
+of sails; and it is for this reason that steam so speedily took rank
+as a primary motor upon the ocean; for, in all the successful marine
+applications of steam by means of the paddle, steam is the dominant
+power, and sails the accessory, or almost superfluous auxiliary. It is
+the screw alone, in some of its modifications, which offers the means of
+a successful and economical adaptation of steam to ships of war or of
+commerce; for it is susceptible of a more complete protection than, the
+paddle, and of an easy and advantageous combination with canvas.
+
+The screw-propeller, in fact, has assumed so important a part in all
+naval enterprise, that it may not be without interest to trace briefly
+its rise and progress to the consideration it now commands, and
+to review, in general terms, the various experiments by which the
+screw-frigate has been brought to its present high state of efficiency,
+excelling, for purposes of war, all other kinds of vessels.
+
+As early as 1804, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, engaged in
+experiments to devise some means of driving a vessel through the water
+by applying the motive power at the stern, and with a screw-propeller
+and a defective boiler attained for short distances a speed of seven
+knots; and it is surprising, that, with the genius and determination so
+characteristic of his race, he should have abandoned the path on which
+he appears to have so fairly entered.
+
+Within the last half-century numerous attempts of a similar character
+have been made in Europe and America; but although many of the
+contrivances for this purpose were exceedingly ingenious, and the
+success of some of the experiments sufficient, one would suppose, to
+excite the interest of the public and encourage perseverance in the
+undertaking, yet in no instance were they followed by any practical and
+useful results until the year 1836, when both Captain Ericsson and
+Mr. F. P. Smith so fully demonstrated the speed and safety with which
+vessels could be moved by the screw-propeller, as to convince every
+intelligent and unprejudiced mind of the importance of their inventions,
+and immediately to attract the attention of the principal naval powers
+of the world.
+
+Captain Ericsson is a native of Sweden, but for some years previous to
+1836 he had resided in England, where he had become known as an engineer
+and mechanician of distinguished ability.
+
+In July, 1836, he took out a patent in England for his method of
+propelling vessels; and during that year the results of his experiments
+with a small boat were so satisfactory, that in the following year he
+built a vessel forty-five feet long, with eight feet beam, and drawing
+three feet of water, called the Francis B. Ogden, in compliment to the
+gentleman then consul of the United States at Liverpool, who was the
+first person to appreciate the merits of his invention, and to encourage
+him in his efforts to perfect it. This vessel was tried upon the Thames
+in April, 1837, and succeeded admirably. She made ten knots an hour, and
+towed the American ship Toronto at the rate of four and a half knots an
+hour; and in the following summer, Sir Charles Adam, one of the Lords
+of the Admiralty, Sir William Symonds, the Surveyor of the Navy, and
+several other scientific gentlemen and officers of rank, were towed by
+her in the Admiralty barge at the speed of ten miles an hour.
+
+Notwithstanding this demonstration of the powers of his vessel, Captain
+Ericsson did not succeed in exciting the interest of any of the persons
+who witnessed the performance; and it seems almost incredible that no
+one of them had the intelligence to perceive or the magnanimity to admit
+the importance of his invention. But, fortunately for Ericsson and the
+reputation of our country, he soon after met with Captain Stockton, of
+the United States navy, who at once took the deepest interest in
+his plans. The result of one experiment with Ericsson's steamer was
+sufficient to convince a man of Stockton's sagacity of the immense
+advantages which the new motor might confer upon the commerce and upon
+the navy of his country, and forthwith he ordered an iron steamer to be
+built and fitted with Ericsson's propeller. This vessel was named the
+Stockton, and was launched in July, 1838, and, after being thoroughly
+tested and her success demonstrated, she was sent under sail to the
+United States in April of the next year, and was soon after followed by
+Captain Ericsson; when, in consequence of the representations of Captain
+Stockton, the government ordered the Princeton to be built under
+Ericsson's superintendence, and to be fitted with his propeller.
+
+The Princeton, of 673 tons, was launched in April, 1842, and her
+propeller, of six blades, of thirty-five feet pitch, and of fourteen
+feet diameter, was driven by a semi-cylinder engine of two hundred and
+fifty horse-power, and all her machinery placed _below_ the water-line.
+Her smoke-stack was so arranged that the upper parts could be let into
+the lower, so as not to be visible above the rail; and as the anthracite
+coal which she used evolved no smoke, she could not, at a short
+distance, be distinguished from a sailing-ship.
+
+Her best speed under steam alone, _at sea_, was 8.6, and under sail
+alone, 10.1 knots; her mean performance under steam and sail, 8.226; and
+considering the imperfect form of boiler employed, and the small
+amount of fuel consumed, it may be doubted if this has since been much
+excelled. She worked and steered well under canvas or steam alone, or
+under both combined; was dry and weatherly, but pitched heavily, and was
+rather deficient in stability.
+
+[Footnote: For a particular account of the Princeton, by B. F.
+Isherwood, U. S. N., see _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ for June,
+1853. Taking everything into consideration, the Princeton was a most
+successful experiment, and, in her day, the most efficient man-of-war of
+her class. By her construction the government of the United States had
+placed itself far in advance of all the world in the path of naval
+improvement, and it is deeply to be regretted that it did not avail
+itself of the advantage thus gained; that it did not immediately order
+the construction of other vessels, in which successively the few defects
+of the Princeton might have been corrected; that it did not persist in
+that path of improvement into which it had fortunately been directed,
+instead of suffering our great naval rivals to outstrip us in the race,
+and compel us at last to resort to them for instruction in that science
+the very rudiments of which they had learned from us.]
+
+The success of the Princeton was followed by the general adoption in
+America of the screw-propeller. When Ericsson left England, he confided
+his interests to Count Rosen, who, in 1843, placed an Ericsson propeller
+in the French frigate Pomone, and soon afterwards the British Admiralty
+determined to place it in the Amphion. Not only was the performance of
+these vessels highly satisfactory, but they were the first ships in the
+navies of Europe in which the great desideratum was secured of placing
+the machinery below the load-line. Ericsson's propeller having been the
+first introduced into France, it was generally adopted; but afterwards,
+in consequence of the accounts of Smith's screw received from England,
+it underwent various modifications.
+
+Such was the result of Ericsson's labors; it now remains to relate the
+success of Smith. The efforts of either had been sufficient to have
+secured to navigation the inestimable advantages of screw-propulsion,
+but their rivalry probably hastened the solution of the problem.
+
+In May, 1836, Mr. F. P. Smith, a farmer of Hendon, in England, took out
+a patent for his screw-propeller, and exhibited some experiments with it
+attached to a model boat, and in the following autumn built a boat of
+six tons' burden, of ten horse-power, and fitted with a wooden screw.
+This vessel was kept running upon the Thames for nearly a year, and her
+performance was so satisfactory, that Mr. Smith determined to try her
+qualities at sea; and in the course of the year 1837, he visited in her
+several ports on the coast of England, and proved that she worked well
+in strong winds and rough water.
+
+These trials attracted much attention, and at last awakened the interest
+of the Admiralty, who requested Mr. Smith to try his propeller on a
+larger vessel, and the Archimedes, of ninety horse-power and 237 tons,
+built for this purpose, was launched in October, 1838, and made her
+experimental trip in 1839. It was thought that her performance would be
+satisfactory, if she could make four or five knots an hour; but she
+made nearly ten! In May, 1839, she went from Gravesend to Portsmouth,
+a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, and made the run in twenty
+hours.
+
+In April, 1840, Captain Chappel, R. N., and Mr. Lloyd, Chief Engineer of
+Woolwich Dockyard, were appointed by the Admiralty to try a series
+of experiments with her at Dover. The numerous trials made under the
+superintendence of these officers fully proved the efficiency of the new
+propeller, and their report was entirely favorable.
+
+The Archimedes next circumnavigated Great Britain under command of
+Captain Chappel, visiting all the principal ports: she afterwards
+went to Oporto, Antwerp, and other places, and everywhere excited the
+admiration of engineers and seamen.
+
+Up to this period, the British engineers were nearly unanimous in the
+opinion that the use of the screw involved a great loss of power, and
+they had concluded that it could not be adopted; but it was impossible
+any longer to resist the impressions made on the public by the
+demonstration which had been given both by Smith and Ericsson; and
+although the engineers were still unwilling to admit the screw to a
+comparison with the paddle, it was evident that their first conclusions
+regarding it were erroneous, and thereafter it was viewed by them with
+less disdain and spoken of more hopefully. One of the great objections
+by engineers to the use of the screw was their inability, at the time of
+its introduction, to construct properly a screw engine,--that is to say,
+a direct-acting horizontal engine, working at a speed of from sixty to
+one hundred revolutions per minute,--all their experience having been in
+paddle-wheel engines, working from ten to fifteen revolutions per
+minute. The peculiar mechanical details required in the screw engine,
+the necessity for accurate counterbalancing, etc., were then unknown,
+and had to be learned from a long succession of expensive failures. In
+England, the first machines applied to the screw were paddle-wheel
+engines, working it by gearing; there were consequently lost all the
+advantages of the reduced cost, bulk, and weight of the screw engine
+proper, including, for war purposes, the important feature of its being
+placed below the water-line. At first, the screw had not only to contend
+with physical difficulties, but to struggle against nearly universal
+prejudice; many inventors had succumbed to these obstacles, and
+therefore too much applause cannot be bestowed upon those who,
+unsustained by public sympathy, and in defiance of a prevailing
+skepticism, maintained their faith and courage unshaken, and gallantly
+persisted in their efforts, until crowned with a world-wide success.
+
+Ericsson, before interesting himself with the screw, was, as has been
+seen, an engineer and mechanician of distinguished ability; whereas
+Smith, in commencing his new vocation, had all to acquire but his first
+conception. Ericsson could rely upon the fertility of his own genius,
+was his own draughtsman, and designed his own engines, accommodating
+them to the new propeller by dispensing with gearing, and adapting
+them to a speed of from thirty to forty revolutions,--a great and bold
+advance for an initiative step. Smith, on the contrary, not being an
+engineer, had to intrust the execution of his plans to others, whose
+knowledge of construction was in the routine of paddle-wheel engines;
+and this accounts for the fact, that all the earliest British
+screw-steamers were driven by gearing. This want of mechanical resources
+on the part of Smith added to the difficulties of his career; but his
+resolution and perseverance rose superior to all obstacles, and carried
+him to the goal in triumph. Briefly, then, these were the respective
+merits of Smith and Ericsson, in the introduction of screw-propulsion;
+and it is much to their honor, that, throughout their career, no
+narrow-spirited jealousies dimmed the lustre of a noble rivalry.
+
+Such was the origin of the new motor,--the mighty engine by which
+armadas are marshalled in battle-array, the burdens of commerce borne to
+distant marts, the impatient emigrant transferred to the promised land,
+and by which the breathings of affection, the pangs of distress, and the
+sighs of love are wafted to far-off continents.
+
+In consequence of the success of the Archimedes, the Admiralty ordered
+the Rattler to be fitted with a screw, and it was no small satisfaction
+to find that her double-cylinder engines could be easily adapted to the
+new propeller. She is of 888 tons, and two hundred horse-power, and was
+launched in the spring of 1843, being the first screw-vessel in the
+British navy.
+
+In the course of the two succeeding years, she was tried with a great
+many different screws, and numerous experiments were made to discover
+the length, diameter, pitch, and number of blades of the screw, most
+effective in all the various conditions of wind and sea. A screw of two
+blades, each equal to one-sixth part of a convolution, and of a uniform
+pitch, was, on the whole, found to be the most efficient, and this is
+the screw now adopted in most of the ships of all classes in the British
+navy.[1]
+
+A propeller of very different construction, which had given great
+results in a ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and
+was afterwards exhibited in the docks at Southampton, here claims a
+passing notice. This propeller is so constructed as to enable the
+engineer to regulate the speed of the piston; for _the pitch of the
+screw can be increased or diminished at pleasure_. Thus, with a fair
+wind, by increasing the pitch, without increasing the revolutions, the
+full power of the engine is effectually exerted in driving the ship,
+instead of consuming fuel in driving the engine to no purpose; and with
+a headwind, by diminishing the pitch, the engines are made to do their
+utmost duty; and when the ship is under canvas only, the blades of the
+propeller may be placed in line with the stern-post, and thus offer
+little resistance. Another advantage claimed for this propeller (known
+as Griffith's) is, that, in the event of breaking a blade, it may be
+readily replaced by "tipping the ship"; which method merits careful
+consideration by engineers, as does especially every new propeller which
+promises a more perfect alliance with canvas.
+
+To resume the narrative,--the speed of the Rattler was afterwards tested
+by a trial with the Alecto, a paddle-wheel steamer of equal power,
+built from the same moulds; and the result was so favorable, that the
+Admiralty ordered the construction or conversion of _twenty-three_
+vessels as screw-steamers, and thus was laid the foundation of the
+present formidable steam-navy of England.
+
+The superiority which has been asserted for the Princeton was
+established during the Mexican War by her performance before Vera Cruz
+as a blockading ship of unprecedented efficiency, which, having been
+displayed under the admiring observation of a British squadron, tended
+more than any other single event to confirm the Admiralty in the
+conclusions to be drawn from the experiments just related, and to decide
+them in the adoption of the screw as the best auxiliary of sail, the
+best mechanical motor upon the ocean. Thus did England, in embracing at
+once the practical demonstration of the Princeton, display that forecast
+by which she won her ascendency at sea, and the vigilance with which
+she maintains it; whilst our own government awaited, in unbecoming
+hesitation, the results which England's more extended trials with the
+screw might develop.
+
+This cautious policy, rather than the bold and liberal course which the
+maritime genius of the country demands, condemned us for long years to
+inaction, until, at length, the absolute necessity for the renewal of a
+portion of our naval force produced the "Minnesota" class of frigates.
+Although they developed little that was absolutely new, they are very
+far from being imitations; but in model, capacity, equipment, and above
+all in their armament, they have challenged admiration throughout the
+world, and called from a distinguished British admiral in command the
+significant declaration, that, until he had seen them, he had never
+realized his ideal of a perfect man-of-war.
+
+A leading idea in the conception of these ships was to reduce the number
+of gun-decks from two and three to a single deck, and, consequently, the
+space in which shells could be lodged. This is a consideration which
+must, it is believed, sooner or later govern in naval construction;
+although France and England, long accustomed to measure the power of
+ships by the number of gun-decks, may be more slow in following our lead
+in this respect than in imitating the increased calibre of our ordnance.
+
+The new classes of steamers preparing for sea, of which the Hartford and
+Iroquois are types, promise to be most efficient ships, and to reflect
+much credit upon our naval authorities for their bold, yet judicious
+departure from traditions which had long hampered the administration of
+this important branch of the public service. Although the reflection is
+seldom made, it is nevertheless true, that much of the reputation
+enjoyed and of the influence exercised by the United States is due to
+the efficiency of her navy; and if these are to remain undiminished,
+then it is of the utmost consequence that the national ships should
+always represent the highest advancement of nautico-military science.
+
+[Footnote 1: A series of experiments with the screw were made on board
+the Dwarf in 1845, and on board the Minx in 1847 and 1848, but the
+results did not materially differ from those previously obtained. In the
+Rattler, Dwarf, and Minx twenty-nine different propellers were tried.]
+
+The efficiency of the screw having been demonstrated, it was seen that
+the next requirement for a war-steamer was to place her machinery below
+the waterline; and hence arose a demand for an entirely new description
+of engines, which it was clear would make a great change in all the
+labors of the engineer and machinist. Such change it was evident would
+greatly enhance the risk of failure, and therefore it was determined by
+the Admiralty to insure success in this very difficult task by enlisting
+all the best talent of the country. Accordingly, for the twenty-three
+ships an equal number of screw engines were ordered; and as with the
+constructors, so with the engineers, each was required to comply
+with certain conditions, yet each was permitted to put forth his own
+individuality, and each has illustrated his views of what was required
+by a distinct plan of engine.
+
+The wise and liberal action of the British Admiralty, which faltered at
+no expense, and made trial of every improvement in machinery that gave
+assurance of good performance and promised in any way to increase
+the efficiency of the fleet, produced no less than fourteen distinct
+varieties of the screw engine. Among them all, Penn's horizontal
+trunk-engine appears to be the favorite, and had performed so well
+in the Encounter of fourteen guns, the Arrogant of forty-six, the
+Impérieuse of fifty, and the Agamemnon of ninety, that two years ago
+it had been placed, in about equal proportions of two hundred, four
+hundred, six hundred, and eight hundred horse-power, on board of forty
+ships and many smaller vessels of the British navy; it had fulfilled all
+the promises made for it, without in any instance requiring repairs.
+These engines comply with all the conditions reasonably demanded in
+the machinery of a man-of-war; they lie very low, and the fewness and
+accessibility of their parts leave scarcely anything to be desired;--a
+lighter, more compact, or more simple combination has yet to be
+conceived.[1]
+
+In all the ships above referred to the connection of the engines is
+direct, and many of them are driven at rates varying from fifty to
+seventy-five revolutions. This point is dwelt upon because it is
+observed that many engineers find difficulty in freeing themselves from
+early impressions made by long-stroke engines, express apprehensions at
+fifty and sixty revolutions, and stand ready to obviate the difficulty
+by gearing,--which it is hoped may not henceforth be adopted in our
+national ships. Geared engines are much heavier than those of direct
+connection, and occupy more space,--a great consideration in ships where
+room for fuel is in such demand, besides making it more difficult to
+place them below the waterline,--a consideration which in men-of-war
+should be regarded of paramount importance, as the engines of a
+war-steamer should be as secure from shot as her magazine. Experience
+has shown that the apprehensions entertained from the quick stroke of
+direct engines were without foundation; and that, in auxiliary ships,
+with a properly modelled propeller, there will be no necessity for a
+very high speed of piston.
+
+The form of engine generally adopted with great success in the later
+screw-ships.
+
+[Footnote 1: "Its large amount of friction" is an objection often
+speciously urged against the trunk-engine, although the friction diagram
+shows it to be actually less in this than in most other engines.] of
+the United States navy is the "horizontal direct action," with the
+connecting-rod returning from a cross-head towards the cylinder;
+these engines make from sixty to eighty revolutions per minute.
+The steam-valve is a packed slide with but little lap, and the
+expansion-valve is an adjustable slide working on the back of the
+steam-valve. The boilers are of the vertical water-tube type, with the
+tubes above the furnaces, and are supplied with fresh water by tubular
+surface-condensers, which, together with the air-pumps, are placed
+opposite the cylinders.
+
+While the vessels ordered by the Admiralty were on the stocks, it was
+suggested by Mr. Lloyd that the model of their after-bodies was not that
+most favorable to speed,--that they were too "full," and that a "finer
+run" would be preferable. To settle this question, the Dwarf, a vessel
+of fine run, was taken into dock, and her after-body filled out by three
+separate layers of planking, so as to give it the form and proportions
+of the vessels then building. These layers of planking could be removed
+in succession, and the effects of a fuller or finer run upon the speed
+of the vessel easily ascertained. A trial was then made, and the result
+proved the correctness of Mr. Lloyd's opinion; the removal of the
+different layers of planking increasing the speed from 3.75 to 5.75,
+to 9, and finally to 11 knots. A trial between the Rifleman and the
+Sharpshooter, vessels of four hundred and eighty tons and two hundred
+horse-power, and the Minx and Teaser, of three hundred tons and one
+hundred horse-power, gave similar results,--the speed in each trial
+being twenty-four per cent. in favor of the finer run.
+
+Although great efficiency and economy had now been attained, there was
+still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to
+speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller;
+which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into
+which the propeller can be raised at pleasure; and there is no longer
+anything to prevent the construction of a screw-frigate which shall be
+fit to accompany, under canvas only, a fleet of fast sailers, with the
+assurance that she may arrive at the point of destination in company
+with her consorts, having in reserve all her steam-power.
+
+The mechanism by which the emersion of the screw is effected is as
+follows:--There are two stern-posts; between these, and connecting them
+with each other and with the keel, is a massive metallic frame, in which
+rests another frame, or _châssis_, in which the screw is suspended; near
+the water-line, the deck and wales are extended to the after stern-post,
+and through an opening or trunk in this overhanging stern the frame
+suspending the screw is raised by worms, working in a rack secured to
+the frame, and operated from the deck, as shown in the accompanying
+drawing,--or by a tackle, as is now most common. In the British ship
+Agamemnon, of ninety guns, the propeller is raised by a hydrostatic
+pump,--a neat arrangement, but liable to get out of order. When it is
+desirable to raise the propeller, the blades are first placed in a
+vertical position, and the operation of lifting is performed in a few
+minutes.
+
+The relative advantages of the propeller fitted to lift, and that which
+is permanently fixed, have long been the subject of much discussion.
+
+For merchant steamers, having an established route to perform, on which
+the aid of steam is in constant demand, it is generally conceded that
+the position of the screw should be permanent. The construction of the
+ship is then less costly, while greater strength is preserved; and as
+these vessels are out of port but for short intervals, should repairs be
+needed, they have access to the docks. But for men-of-war the case is
+widely different. Having frequently to keep the sea for long periods,
+much under canvas, and often far distant from a dock-yard, they should
+be provided with the means of lifting the screw to repair or to clear
+it, or to be relieved from the impediment it offers to sailing and to
+evolution, and also from the injurious "shake" occasioned by a dragging
+propeller.
+
+[Illustration: MODE OF LIFTING SCREW.]
+
+On the other hand, the construction of a trunk or well impairs the
+solidity of the stern, renders it much more vulnerable, and weakens its
+defences, while it opposes to speed the very considerable resistance of
+the after stern-post.[*] Nevertheless, no modern ship of the British
+navy is without the means of raising her propeller, and the best opinion
+of commanders and engineers of that service, of longest experience in
+screw-ships, goes to establish the conviction, that, for men-of-war, the
+advantages of being able to lift the propeller far more than outweigh
+the objections urged against lifting. In this connection we mention the
+fact, that all screw-ships "by the wind" have a strong tendency to
+gripe. Would not this be obviated by having a gate or slide to fill out
+the dead-wood when the screw is lifted?
+
+[Footnote *: Might not a metallic stern-post, combining strength,
+lightness, and little resistance, be introduced?]
+
+The best illustration of the effects of a dragging propeller was
+afforded on the departure of a Russian squadron from Cronstadt, bound to
+the Amoor, in 1857-'58, consisting of three sloops of war bark-rigged,
+and three three-masted schooners, under the flag of Commodore
+Kouznetsoff. The vessels of each class were built from the same
+moulds, and at the time of the experiment were of the same draft and
+displacement. On clearing the land, signal was made to lift screws and
+make sail. Soon after, all the squadron reported the execution of the
+order, except the Voyerada sloop, which had the misfortune to break a
+key in the couplings, and therefore could not lift her screw. Every
+effort was tried to get out the key, and meanwhile a very instructive
+example was presented to the squadron of the effect of a dragging
+propeller on the speed of the vessel. The circumstances were as
+follows:--The wind, a gentle breeze, right aft; the Voyerada carrying
+all sail but the main course; the other two sloops holding way with
+her with their topsails on the cap, and the schooners with their peaks
+dropped. Under these conditions, the Voyerada, having her screw-blades
+fixed horizontally, could scarcely keep her position, running two and a
+half and three knots. The Voyerada next succeeded in getting her screw
+vertical, when, without any change in the wind, the speed increased to
+four and a half knots. The other sloops then mastheaded their topsails,
+and the schooners peaked their gaffs. At length the Voyerada succeeded
+in lifting her screw, when immediately all the sloops under the same
+canvas continued their course, making six to six and a half knots. A
+better example of the obstruction offered by a dragging propeller could
+not have been afforded.[1]
+
+The "shake," to which reference has been made, is the tremulous or
+vibratory motion communicated to the after-body of the ship, and
+particularly to the stern, by the revolution of the propeller, often
+opening the seams, and in old ships sometimes starting the butts and
+causing dangerous leaks. This movement arises from two causes,--one
+inherent in the screw, the other due to its position in the deadwood.
+The first cause is the difference in the propelling efficiency of the
+upper and lower blades when in any other position than horizontal. The
+centre of pressure of the lower blade, being at a greater depth below
+the surface than the centre of pressure of the upper blade, acts upon a
+medium of greater resistance to displacement, and the differential of
+the pressures of the two blades produces inevitably a vibratory motion
+in the stern of the vessel. This effect is greatly increased when the
+clearance given to the screw in the dead-wood is too small; for the
+reduction of the hydrostatic pressure at the stern-post, and the
+increase of it at the rudder-post, on each passage of the blades, must
+be followed by concussion. Therefore, if the "well," or distance between
+the posts, be made sufficiently long in proportion to the screw, the
+"shake" due to the latter cause can be almost entirely obviated.
+
+In 1851, the British Admiralty selected three auxiliary screw-ships, of
+different classes and qualities, for an experimental cruise, namely:--
+
+[Footnote 1: _Russian Nautical Magazine_, No. XLI., December, 1857.]
+
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  | Guns. | Horse  | Screw. | Speed. | Day's |    Sail
+  |       | Power. |        |        | Fuel. |  Equipment
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |   9    |   8   |
+  Arrogant  |  46   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship full rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |  11    |  11   |
+  Dauntless |  24   |  580   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship light rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    | 10-1/2 |   6   |
+  Encounter |  14   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Barque
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+They were ordered to pass round the Azores, each ship holding
+her course, and using sail or steam, or both, as was deemed most
+advantageous. An officer was sent on board each ship to keep a record of
+her performance, and to note the time when and the position where, the
+coal being entirely consumed, the contest ended. In this trial, the
+Arrogant was found superior to the Dauntless, and both of them far
+excelled the Encounter; indeed, no very different result was expected,
+the object of the trial being to ascertain their relative as well as
+positive value. These ships afterwards formed a part of the experimental
+squadron stationed at Lisbon in the same year, which was composed of the
+finest ships in the British navy.
+
+It was believed by many officers, that a fast-sailing frigate, in a
+reefed-topsail breeze, would be able to get away from any screw-ship;
+but in a trial that took place between the Arethusa and the Encounter,
+and the Phaëton and Arrogant, under circumstances the most favorable to
+the sail-ships, it was found that the screw-ships, using both steam and
+sail, had decidedly the superiority,--and that in fresh gales, with one,
+two, or three reefs in the topsails, either "by the wind," or "going
+free," the Phaëton and the Arethusa, the fastest sail-frigates in
+the navy, were always beaten by the Arrogant. This result operated
+powerfully in removing the repugnance to steam existing among all
+classes of seamen; and the vast superiority of well-organized
+screw-ships for the purposes of war is now so apparent, as to render
+them the most important and indispensable part of every navy.
+
+While the English were engaged in the trials here related, their rivals
+on the opposite coast were not indifferent spectators. The French
+were nearly as soon in the field of modern screw experiment as their
+neighbors; and did the limits of this paper permit, it would be
+instructive, as well as interesting, to trace the ingenious and
+persevering steps by which they also approached the solution of that
+difficult problem, the construction of a screw-man-of-war.
+
+The first result of their efforts, La Pomone, screw-frigate, was shown
+to the world in 1844, and after careful inspection, (in 1853,) it is
+affirmed, such was the perfection of her general organization, that she
+has hardly been excelled by any of her younger sisters.
+
+The most complete course of experiments ever made, perhaps, with the
+new motor, was that carried out by MM. Bourgois and Moll, of the French
+navy, in 1847 and '48, which they verified by a second series in 1849.
+These experiments were instituted to ascertain the relative efficiency
+of all varieties of the screw-propeller, upon vessels of different
+models and dimensions, and under all the varying conditions of wind and
+sea, in order to determine the propeller best adapted to each particular
+description of ship.[*]
+
+Necessarily brief as is the notice of Gallic ingenuity and skill, the
+acknowledgment must be made, that, for the invention of the trunk or
+well, with its attendant advantages, navigation is indebted to Commander
+Labrousse, of the French navy; and for a novel arrangement of the screw-
+propeller, which has not attracted all the notice it deserves,
+obligations are due to M. Allix, a distinguished engineer of that
+service; and the propeller more recently introduced by M. Mangin, of the
+same corps, if it performs all that is claimed for it, namely, that it
+does away with the "shake," will be of great value.
+
+[Footnote *: For a most interesting and instructive memoir upon these
+experiments, the reader is referred to that admirable work, by Captain
+E. Paris, of the French navy, _L'Hélice Propulsive_.]
+
+In concluding this recognition of the contributions by France to
+screw-propulsion, it is desired to submit a few general observations on
+the French navy; for, although upon every sea the tri-color waves
+over ships proudly comparing with those under any other flag, it is
+nevertheless too commonly believed that the docks of France are crowded
+and her navy-list swollen with hulks which are but the mouldering
+mementos of the vast armaments hastily created during the Consulate and
+the Empire; an illusion most hazardous to our interests abroad and our
+security at home.
+
+At the period of _the coup d'état_ of 1851, a Committee of Inquiry,
+composed of the most experienced and intelligent officers and
+distinguished legislators, had visited all departments of the navy, and
+made the most careful investigations into every branch of the service.
+Upon the evidence thus obtained, a report was submitted, providing for
+the improvement of the condition of the officers and seamen, and the
+increase, renewal, and remodelling of the _matériel_,--in fine, for the
+correction of every abuse, the remedy of every evil, and the development
+of all good existing in the navy. This report, stamped on every page
+with patriotism and intelligence, commanded, even in the midst of
+revolution, the support of all parties, the adhesion of every faction;
+and has since, through all changes in the Ministry of the Marine, formed
+the basis of the action of that department.
+
+Under these auspices, France has in the last seven years organized the
+means of promptly putting to sea a numerous fleet, composed of the most
+modern and most powerful steamers, manned by efficient crews, commanded
+by skilful officers; and now worthily maintains a position as a naval
+power second only to that of Great Britain. At this moment, whilst
+the British fleet includes but thirty-six screw line-of-battle ships,
+mounting 3,400 guns, and propelled by 19,759 horse-power, that of France
+may boast of forty such ships, mounting 3,700 guns, propelled by 27,500
+horse-power; and while England has but thirty-eight screw-frigates,
+France has forty-two.
+
+In thus briefly summing up the forces of our ocean rivals, we cannot
+avoid making some reflections suggested by the unpreparedness of this
+country to meet any sudden burst of hostility. This not only involves
+the risk of national humiliation, but paralyzes our diplomacy; since it
+deprives us of that influence among the nations, which otherwise--from
+the breadth of our territory, the value of our products, the activity
+of our industry, the importance of our commerce, and the extent of our
+maritime resources--we of right should hold.
+
+No country is more interested than the United States in the maintenance
+of peace; yet, even on the principle of economy, we may argue in favor
+of a degree of preparation for war; for that calamity may best be
+averted by taking from foreign powers the temptation to interfere with
+us: all history showing that the justice and friendship of military
+states are but slender guaranties for the peace of a nation unprepared
+for attack.
+
+It is vain to talk of husbanding financial resources for war, without
+other preparation. When once embarked in hostilities, and in a position
+to maintain our ground, large finances, judiciously used, will
+ultimately command success; but no accumulation of funds can provide a
+timely remedy for that weakness which cannot resist the first blow.
+
+The national safety should no longer be left to chance, but be
+established on a basis of certainty. A navy cannot be manufactured nor a
+fortress built to meet an emergency, but should be kept ready-made.
+
+In considering the auxiliary screw-frigate under the views already
+offered, and in determining the canvas with which she should be
+supplied, it will be well to refer, as the best guide, to the fastest
+sail-ships,--the class which presents the greatest similarity in form to
+that demanded in screw-ships. In these ships the great length of deck
+offers every facility for the most advantageous spread of canvas;
+consequently the centre of effort may he kept low, and the requisite
+power and stability combined.
+
+Intimately connected with her sailing-power is another branch of the
+equipment of a screw-ship, which requires the most earnest, patient, and
+intelligent consideration. Prepared to endure all the wear and tear of a
+sail-ship, she should at the same time be ready for transmutation into
+a steam-ship; namely, when, for any urgent service, her best powers of
+steaming are required, she should be able to divest herself speedily of
+yards and top-masts, and, the special service completed, resume all her
+perfection as a sail-ship.
+
+It would be out of place here to enter into details of equipment. In
+naval affairs nothing is improvised, and a satisfactory conclusion upon
+these points can be arrived at only through long experiment, and perhaps
+frequent disappointment. Yet it is not doubted that the same ship may
+exhibit a handy and efficient rig, develop a high velocity canvas, and,
+without great power, a sufficient speed under steam.
+
+In our navy, away from our own coast, sail must of necessity be the
+rule, and steam the reserve or special power; and without abandonment of
+our anti-colonial policy--with the depots of our rivals upon every sea,
+yet not a ton of coal upon which we can rely--we should not dare to send
+abroad a single ship which, whenever she gets up her anchor, must needs
+also get up her steam.
+
+Fortunately, in the creation of a steam-fleet, the United States will
+not have to encounter tedious and costly experiments, nor to incur the
+risk of failure.[1] The best form of hull, model of propeller, and plan
+of engine are already so well established, that it is not easy to fall
+into error; that which is most to be guarded against is the popular
+demand, the prevailing mania for high speed,--for which single advantage
+there is such a proneness to sacrifice every other warlike quality. That
+measure of speed or power which will enable a ship to stem the currents
+of rivers, to enter or leave a port in the face of a moderate gale, or
+to meet the dangers of a lee-shore, should, it is conceived by many, be
+sufficient; and for these exigencies a ship, which, with four months
+supplies on board, can in calm weather and smooth water make nine to ten
+knots under steam, has ample power. This moderate rate is far below the
+popular mark; but, in considering this important question, it should not
+be forgotten, that, unlike the paddle, the screw will always coöperate
+with sail,--and that, if a ship would go far under steam, she must be
+content to go gently. The natural law regulating the speed of a ship
+is, that the power requisite to propel her varies as the cube of the
+velocity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The constructors and engineers of the navy are unsurpassed
+in professional art or science, and when conjoined with naval
+officers--who should always determine the war-like essentials of
+ships--they are capable of producing a steam-fleet that would meet the
+requirements of all reasonable conditions. We venture to say, that
+the failures with which they have been charged would be found,
+on investigation, to be solely attributable to undue extraneous
+influences.]
+
+Let it be distinctly understood what power is here meant. As the power
+applied to the propulsion of a vessel is only that which acts upon her
+in the direction of the keel,--and as, of the gross indicated power
+developed by her engine, one portion is absorbed in working the organs
+of its mechanism, another in overcoming the friction of the load, while
+still other proportions are expended in the slip of the propeller and
+in the friction of its surfaces on the water,--only that portion of
+the gross power which remains is applied to propulsion; and it is this
+remainder which varies in the ratio of the cube of the speed.
+
+Hence a steamer, that with five hundred horse-power can make eight knots
+per hour, will require rather more than one thousand horse-power to
+drive her at the speed of ten knots,--the law being thus modified by the
+increased resistance consequent upon the greater weight of the large
+engines; and thus a limit to speed is imposed, depending upon the weight
+of machinery which, relative to her dimensions, a ship can carry. A
+ship, that at the rate of ten knots under steam may run twelve hundred
+miles, can, at the speed of eight knots, and with the expenditure of
+rather less fuel, run the distance of eighteen hundred miles; and
+therefore it is, many contend, that a man-of-war for distant service
+should not be laden with large engines, whose full power can rarely be
+wanted, and which monopolize so great a space and displacement as to
+render it impossible to carry fuel for their proper development.
+
+It is true, that, with large power of engine, the vessel may command,
+so long as her coals last, the advantage of high speed, and her large
+cylinders will enable her, by working the steam very expansively, to use
+her fuel with great economy; but there still remains the disadvantage of
+the increased first cost of the machinery, and its greater weight and
+bulk, to be permanently carried, whether used or not, and which, by
+increasing the displacement of the vessel, proportionally diminishes her
+speed.
+
+The last great improvement in connection with the screw remains to
+be noticed, namely, lining the "bushings" and "bearings" with
+lignum-vitae,--the invention of Mr. Penn, of Greenwich, near London.
+
+The lignum-vitae is introduced in the manner shown in the drawing. In
+connection therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of
+bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years.
+The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger
+than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of
+the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any
+number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of
+spare strips becomes a short and simple operation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Strange as it appears, these wooden bearings are far more durable than
+those of metal, and in some ships they have endured for years without
+any perceptible wear in those parts which, previously to this invention,
+had occasioned so much trouble and expense. But for this important
+discovery, it is thought by some of the most competent engineers that
+they would have been compelled to abandon the use of the screw in heavy
+ships.
+
+The Napoléon, the type of the new steam-ships of the line in the French
+navy, is a good illustration of a first-class, full-powered steamer.
+
+  Her dimensions are as follows:--
+
+  FT.  IN.
+  Length extreme.                          262 6.40
+  Length at load-line.                     234 0.94
+  Beam.                                     53 8.38
+  Height between decks.                      6 8.72
+  Height of lower port sill.                 7 2.63
+  Depth of hold.                            26 9.34
+  Deep-load draft.                          25 3
+  Immersed cross section, sq. ft. 1063.48
+  Displacement.                tons. 6050
+  Diameter of cylinders.                     8 2.45
+  Length of stroke.                          5 3.06
+  Diameter of propeller. (4 bladed)         19 0.70
+  Pitch    "     "            mean)         37 11
+
+She has eight boilers, each having five furnaces, consuming, at full
+speed, (12.14 knots,) 143 tons of coal per day, for which she stows five
+days' supply. The boilers and engines occupy eighty-two feet in the
+length of the ship.
+
+The trial of this ship has established the practicability of adapting a
+propeller to a ship of the largest class, so as to insure great speed,
+and constitute a most effective man-of-war for certain purposes and
+in certain situations; but when the great weight of the engines is
+considered, and the large space they occupy in the vessel,--thereby
+diminishing the stowage of supplies,--and further, that, after the coal
+is exhausted, the ninety-gun ship has but the sail of a sixty-gun ship
+to rely upon, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion, that, however
+useful such a vessel may be for short passages,[1] and in those seas in
+which her supplies of coal and provisions may be constantly replenished,
+her sphere of action must be very limited, and she could not be relied
+upon for the long cruises and various services on which an ordinary
+line-of-battle ship is employed.
+
+[Footnote 1: For debarking a regiment or two of Zouaves on the shores of
+the Adriatic or upon the coast of Ireland.]
+
+A ship constructed on the plan of the Napoléon, for the sake of gaining
+a speed of twelve knots per hour for the distance of about two thousand
+two hundred miles, is compelled to sacrifice a great part of her
+efficiency in several most important particulars.
+
+In time of war, at short distances from port, for the defence of bays or
+harbors or the Florida channel, for the speedy transport of troops to an
+adjacent coast, or to force a blockade, such a vessel would undoubtedly
+be a most valuable addition to our navy: but her employment must
+necessarily be confined to such circumstances and such situations; for
+should she unluckily fall in with an enemy's squadron, with her coal
+expended, or her machinery rendered useless by any of the numerous
+accidents to which steam-machinery is so constantly exposed, with her
+comparatively light rig, and want of stability in consequence of losing
+so great a weight of coals, she would hardly prove a very formidable
+opponent.
+
+Therefore, while admitting the importance and necessity of providing
+for special service a small class of fast, full-power steamers, it is
+submitted that the auxiliary screw-steamer is the description of ship to
+which the largest and best consideration should be devoted; for to the
+nation possessing the most efficient fleet of such vessels must belong
+the dominion of the sea. And while their cost is counted, let it at the
+same time be remembered that their value can be estimated only by the
+character of the service they may render, and that their capacity for
+aggression abroad makes them the best defence at home.
+
+Having briefly referred to the various views entertained in regard to
+the steam-power with which the navy should be furnished, it will be
+seen that a difference of opinion on this important subject may most
+reasonably be entertained.
+
+None can doubt the advantages of celerity to a man-of-war, yet many
+believe it would be too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of space to
+such an extent as would require supplies to be often replenished; as
+this necessity would in war confine the operations of the navy to our
+own shores.
+
+On the other hand, it is admitted, that, without high speed, a ship of
+war cannot exercise many of her most important functions,--that she can
+neither choose an engagement, protect a convoy, nor enforce a blockade.
+
+The best experience affirms the policy of giving to our cruisers as
+large steampower as is consistent with a due development of all other
+warlike qualities; for what would avail the superior armament of a ship,
+if the option of fighting or flying remain with her adversary, which
+must be the case when the latter commands higher speed? The introduction
+of improved ordnance, throwing heavy shells with great precision at
+long ranges, gives increased importance to celerity; for in any future
+fleet-fight, victory should belong to that flag having at command a
+steam-squadron of superior speed, which may thereby be concentrated upon
+any point without having been long under fire.
+
+May not the command of a maximum speed of thirteen knots be obtained
+from the machinery now employed for a maximum speed of ten knots? It
+evidently may, and with great economy, too, by the simple introduction
+of artificial draft, and the use of steam of higher pressure, when
+requiring the highest speed. At present, in our men-of-war, the boilers
+are proportioned for natural draft, burning about twelve pounds of coal
+per square foot of grate per hour, and for a steam-pressure of fifteen
+pounds per square inch. If, then, the boilers be proportioned to burn at
+the maximum, with blowers, say twenty-two pounds of coal to the square
+foot of grate, and to generate steam of forty pounds to the square inch,
+we shall double the power developed by the machinery, and consequently
+derive from it the same speed that could be attained without blowers
+from double the machinery; while the natural draft and the usual
+pressure of fifteen pounds would give sufficient speed for ordinary
+service. The inconvenience of the higher pressure with blowers could
+well be endured for the short and occasional periods during which they
+would be required.
+
+To create a perfect screw-frigate, a ship with sail-power complete, and
+efficient for any service that may be required, the endeavor should be
+made--by getting rid of every dispensable article of weight or bulk, and
+without reducing supplies below three months' provisions and six weeks'
+water--to find space and displacement for an engine of sufficient force
+to drive her thirteen knots an hour, together with at least ten
+days' full consumption of fuel; and this, it is believed, might be
+successfully accomplished in ships of the dimensions of the Wabash,
+beginning with a judicious reduction of spare spars, spare sails, and
+spare gear, and by the addition of blowers to their present machinery: a
+subject which should immediately receive the earnest consideration of a
+commission of the most intelligent officers.
+
+Having fixed upon the proportions of hull and spars, the form of
+propeller, and the plan of engine, a cautious discrimination should be
+exercised in multiplying the types of either. Besides economy, many
+other advantages would flow from a judicious regard to similarity in
+build; as it would permit us to relieve our ships of many of the spare
+spars with which they are incumbered, and we should probably not again
+hear of suspending the operations of a frigate thousands of miles away,
+until a crank or rod could be sent to her; because, when ships of the
+same class are cruising together, by a careful distribution of spare
+spars and machinery among them, it is hardly probable that damage would
+be sustained, or loss of spars or "break down" occur, which might not be
+remedied by the resources of the squadron.
+
+On the other hand, this system not be carried to a Chinese extreme, lest
+we follow too long a false direction,--thus losing the advantage of
+improvements constantly being made. For such is the change in all things
+pertaining to maritime war, that neither model of hull, plan of engine,
+nor mould of ordnance is best, unless of the latest creation. True
+progress will be most judiciously sought in not departing too suddenly
+and widely from the established order.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE MICE.
+
+
+A great many circumstances led me to decide on leaving the convenient
+boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail: a house correctly described as
+containing several "modern improvements": improperly, as being "in the
+immediate vicinity of all the places of public amusement." For, as the
+Central Park of New York is a place of public amusement, so likewise is
+Barnum's Museum; and these two places being at a distance of about five
+miles from each other, how could any one house be in the immediate
+vicinity of both? But it was not upon this incompatibility that any of
+my objections were founded.
+
+If I have a prejudice, it is against being talked _at_ instead of _to_.
+Now Mrs. Silvernail, who, like the katydid of the poplar-tree, if small,
+was shrill, had a way of conveying instructions to her boarders by
+means of parables ostensibly directed at Catharine, the tall Irish
+serving-maid, but in reality meant for the ear of the obnoxious boarder
+who had lately transgressed some important statute of the house, made
+and provided to meet a case or cases.
+
+A landing-place on the stairs was usually the platform selected for the
+delivery of a monologue, in which Catharine was always assumed to be
+the person addressed; although I have known instances in which that
+"excellent wench" was, at the time of being so conferred with, in the
+grocery at the corner, about half a block distant, as I could see from
+the window where I sat and viewed her protracting her doorway dalliance
+with Jeremiah Tomaters, the grocer's efficient young man.
+
+"Catharine," my landlady would say in a loudish whisper, close by a
+malefactor's chamber-door, and probably when Catharine was yet far down
+the street,--"Catharine, who let the water in the bathroom run over just
+now? If the slippers he left behind him a'n't Mr. Jennings's, I declare!
+Boarders must be warned an' watched, elseways we shall hev all in the
+house afloat, 'cepting the stoves an' flat-irons, by-'n'-by. Somebody at
+Mrs. Moyler's acted so, and the house was like a roarin' sea, with the
+baby adrift in his little cradle, and the roaches a-swimmin' round. Oh,
+dear!"
+
+Now Mr. Jennings was the serious boarder, who lodged in the room just
+over mine: a man who, from general indications, had never had a bath in
+his life; certainly he had never troubled the waters in that house. I
+was the supposed delinquent, and at me the parable was levelled.
+
+"Catharine, whose pass-key was that you found in the door? It's a mussy
+we wasn't all a-murdered and a-plundered in cold blood, by the light
+o' the moon! Mr. Jennings's night-key it must have been, to be sure!
+Boarders must be warned and watched. When Mrs. Toyler's nephew's
+night-key was found in the door of Number Forty-Seven, the boarders all
+went off at daylight in an omnibus, takin' away custom and character
+from the house forever."
+
+Now Mr. Jennings, the serious boarder, was always in bed and asleep long
+before latch-key time came round; and even supposing he ever _had_ let
+himself in by means of that mischievous little convenience, he would as
+soon have thought of taking the door up to bed with him as of leaving
+the key in it. The parable was intended for the hearing of a young man
+who occupied the room opposite mine, and who, being connected with
+clubs, came home nobody ever knew when or in what condition, but had red
+eyes o' mornings and a general odor of the convivial kind.
+
+Then, again, Mrs. Silvernail had a way of being always about the doors
+of the rooms, and a faculty, as I thought, of hovering near several of
+them at one and the same moment. There are men who will turn the least
+promising circumstance to advantage,--even that of being listened at
+through a keyhole, while they discourse to themselves about affairs
+connected with their most cherished and secret designs. One Captain
+Dunnitt, who lived in the house before I came, adroitly made his account
+of this eavesdropping propensity of the landlady, by settling his weekly
+bill with a silver-mounted pistol, instead of the dollars justly due.
+He had been a tragedian as well as a captain, and was saturated with
+Shakspeare and other bards to a far greater amount than with money; and
+when his week came round, he used to stride up and down his room with
+much gnashing of teeth and other stage indications of distress, finally
+settling down into a chair before the table, on which he would place and
+replace a packet of letters and a wisp of unromantic-looking hair. Then
+he would take the little silver pistol from his breast, and, after the
+usual soliloquy of "To be or not to be," or something equally to the
+purpose, would point it at his temples just as the landlady came
+bursting into the room, begging him for all sakes not to "ruin the
+character of her second-best room, and the walls newly painted at that!"
+Remorse would then double up the manly form of Captain Dunnitt, who
+would fall on his knees before the landlady,--"his benefactress! his
+better angel!"--and then arrangements would be entered into by which he
+was not to commit suicide for the present, but could avail himself of
+the landlady's indulgence and wait for "that remittance," which was
+always coming, but which never came.
+
+But there were more serious objections, even than a landlady of shrill
+parables and an inquiring turn of mind, to my prolonging the delights of
+a residence at the first-class boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail. Not
+the least of these was the fact of its _being_ a boarding-house,--a
+community. In such communities, from the inevitable intercourse over
+the social board, your circle of acquaintance is always liable to be
+extended rather than improved. In them there is no escape from the
+disinterested offers of those who would be your perpetual friends. I am
+still under lasting obligations to a man who, at a boarding-house in
+which I sojourned for but three days, forced on me a pipeful of an
+extremely choice and luxurious kind of tobacco, to dilate on the
+properties of which he came and smoked about a quarter of a pound of it
+in my room that very evening, and far on into the morning light. His
+goodness is the more impressed upon my memory, because, on the same
+occasion, he drank the greater part of the contents of a large
+willow-bound bottle of old St. Croix rum, which I had just received
+from a friend who had imported it direct. Then, in boarding-house
+communities, one's magnetism is as much at fault as that of a ship
+sailing up a river whose rock-bound shores are impregnated with iron
+elements. I knew a man who was over-magnetized to the extent of
+matrimony by the lady of the house,--a widow, and a shrew. He hated, or
+at least professed to hate her, and had ridiculous stories about her to
+no end; but she married him, and he still lives. Another, of a
+rather unsociable turn, rejected the proffered civilities of all his
+fellow-boarders who ever came to offer him rations of curious
+tobacco or to assist him in performing a libation of old and valuable
+Hollands. The only one of the party to whom he ever "cottoned" was the
+latest comer, a smoothed-out, blandulose kind of man, who smoked up all
+his cunning cigars, made sad havoc among his Hollanders of gin, departed
+from that house in an unexpected manner and his friend's best trousers,
+in the pockets of which he had bestowed that friend's rarest gems and
+gold, and is now serving out a term allotted to him in the State Prison,
+in recognition of the remarkable abilities displayed by him in the
+character of what the police call a "confidence man."
+
+And yet there are more objectionable boarding-house acquaintances than
+people who insist upon sharing with you their friendship, be they
+"confidence men" or not. I suppose we may allow, in these advanced
+times, that it is something like magnetism which decides the question of
+affinity and its reverse. But, in granting this, I will take the liberty
+of observing that external and palpable facts have a considerable effect
+in directing the currents of magnetism. For example, and to adopt the
+language of scientific men, the insignificant circumstance of a person
+habituating himself to the partial deglutition of his knife, while
+partaking of food, may produce antipathetic emotions on the part of
+others, whom prejudice or superstition has led to regard the knife as
+an article designed for cutting only. This kind of outrage I allude
+to merely for the purpose of illustrating a case. In first-class
+boarding-houses, like that of Mrs. Silvernail, such rusticities have
+long since become traditional, and of the things that have passed away;
+and, indeed, so particular was that lady with regard to her knives,
+that, had a boarder swallowed even a part of one, he would undoubtedly
+have heard the deed alluded to through the keyhole of his chamber-door
+on the following day, in the form of a parable having for its hero the
+justified Mr. Jennings, our serious young man.
+
+If external and palpable circumstances, then, are admitted to have a
+decided effect upon streams of magnetism, I suppose we may assume that
+they have also a certain power of determining impressions by themselves,
+without the intervention of any of the more subtile agencies whatever.
+The granting of this postulate will put me on quite easy terms with
+regard to the very positive objection entertained by me towards
+a certain Mr. Désolé Arcubus, who, by provision of an immutable
+Medo-Persic edict promulgated by Mrs. Silvernail, occupied the
+chair next mine at the first-rate table of that rigid expounder of
+boarding-house law.
+
+Mr. Désolé Arcubus, a young man of some three or four and twenty, had no
+special nationality about him from which one could guess how he came by
+his rather uncommon names. He was reputed to be learned, particularly
+in the modern languages; had a profusion of long, wild hair of a
+greenish-drab hue, which matched his complexion exactly,--this prevalent
+tint being infused also into the _cornea_ or "white" of his eye,--and,
+in physical proportions, was of weedy and unwholesome growth. He was not
+a young man of cheerful disposition. On the contrary, his deportment at
+table, where alone his fellow-boarders had any opportunity of observing
+him, was such as to induce a very general belief that his mind must have
+been affected by some terrible calamity; and his presence, indeed, was
+looked upon as undesirable by many of the guests, whose health had begun
+to suffer seriously from the manner in which Arcubus used to groan
+between his instalments of food. Sometimes, in the interval between
+the soup and the solids, he would lean his elbows upon the table, and,
+burying his face in his hands, so that his long, sad hair swept the
+board, would abandon himself for a brief space to private despondency,
+until the boiled leg of mutton brought with it a necessity for renewed
+action.
+
+Nor was the social feeling of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed
+when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that
+Mr. Désolé Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that
+the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no
+romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of
+science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting his
+mind. For fourteen hours a day he worked assiduously in the laboratory
+of an eminent analytical chemist, whose practice in connection with the
+coroner was of a flourishing and increasing kind, owing to the growing
+taste for suicide, and the preference given to poisons over any other
+means for accomplishing that irrevocable wrong. In this chamber of
+horrors,--a court of which the tests were the stern, incorruptible
+ordinances of Nature,--he had already gone steadily through a course
+which gave him a mastery over the secrets of the relative poisons, with
+which he laughed secretly now, and played as securely as a child might
+with a dog-rose of whose thorns he had been made aware. But of late, his
+haggard features, and the start with which he would wake into life when
+a guest haply plucked a flower from the bouquets on the table, or when
+the handmaiden came round to him with a dish of leguminous vegetables,
+could readily have been traced by a clairvoyant to associations
+connected with the ghastly belladonna and with the deadly bean of
+St. Ignatius the Martyr. For Mr. Arcubus had now arrived at the
+investigation of the positive poisons,--a fact which might have revealed
+itself to the man of science by the general narcotico-acrid expression
+into which he had settled down bodily; while the most casual observer
+might have gathered from his incoherent contributions to the table-talk
+that some noxious drug was envenoming the cup of his life.
+
+He had a way of thinking aloud, and, as his thoughts always ran on the
+subject of his studies, the expression of them sometimes dovetailed
+curiously with the general conversation.
+
+"Miss Rocket will not come down to dinner, poor thing!" said Mrs.
+Silvernail, in her choicest table-manner. "She has lost her beautiful
+Angola kitten. It slipped into the glass globe, this morning, among the
+gold-fishes, and was drowned."
+
+"Digested in water, several of its constituents are dissolved," said Mr.
+Arcubus, in a husky voice, looking wildly at the picture on his plate.
+
+"You have a _spécialité_ for puddings, I perceive, Madam," remarked a
+smiling old gentleman, a new-comer, addressing himself to the hostess;
+"may I ask now of what this very excellent one is composed?"
+
+"Sulphate of lime, potash, oil, resin, extractive matter, gluten, _et
+cetera, et cetera_," put in Mr. Arcubus, still following out his train
+of thought.
+
+"During the process of evaporation, a black substance is precipitated,"
+continued he; and at that very moment, the small colored boy, running
+to pour out some water for the wild boarder, who had just arrived in an
+excited condition from a rowing match, caught his foot in the carpet,
+and came to the floor with a crash.
+
+"Black oxide of Mercury, called _Ethiops per se_," pursued Mr. Arcubus,
+grappling with his tangled hair.
+
+"Do just try a drop or two of this Hollands of mine in that iced water;
+it is positively dangerous to drink it so," said an attentive boarder to
+Mrs. Silvernail, who certainly _did_ look warm.
+
+"Absorbs oxygen readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus,
+abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints
+crack.
+
+"Who is the tall lady who dined here yesterday with Miss Rocket, and
+talked so enthusiastically about woman's rights?" inquired the serious
+boarder of Mrs. Silvernail.
+
+"Prepared by deflagration in a crucible, one part of nitre with two of
+powdered tartar," proceeded Mr. Arcubus.
+
+"What do you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?"
+asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of
+with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of
+a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably
+affecting the nose and eyes."
+
+"I hope you are not going to bring another dog into the house, Mr.
+Puglock," remonstrated Mrs. Silvernail, addressing the wild boarder, to
+whose conversation she had been lending a sharp ear. "Re'lly now, I must
+restrict the number of dogs; we have three here already, I believe."
+
+"There is a strong analogy between the virus injected into wounds made
+by the teeth of a rabid dog and that found in the poison-apparatus of
+venomous snakes," brought in Mr. Arcubus, diving his fork truculently
+into a ripe tomato.
+
+This last observation of Mr. Arcubus, together with the fact that the
+blade of his knife had manifestly turned black, while all the other
+blades at table were as bright as silver, decided me. I packed up my
+portmanteau and writing-case that evening, and, having settled with
+my wondering landlady, to whom I accounted for my sudden departure
+by pleading expediency as to important affairs, took leave of that
+estimable widow, and drove away to a distant hotel, from which I sallied
+forth early next morning to look for lodgings,--furnished lodgings for
+single gentlemen, without board,--for against boarding-houses I had set
+my face forever.
+
+A peculiar feature of life in lodgings in New York, as in other large
+cities, is the incomparable solitude attainable in that blessed state of
+deliverance from promiscuous "board." One may dwell for a twelvemonth
+in lodgings for single gentlemen, without incurring the obligation of
+knowing by sight, or even by name, the lodger who occupies the very
+room opposite to his, on the same landing. Fifty lodgers may have
+successively lived in those "apartments" during the twelve months, on
+the same terms of perfect isolation from one who would rather mind his
+own business than make any inquiries regarding theirs. And so it is,
+that, of all the stage-pieces which have achieved popularity in our day,
+none is more faithful to the facts than the often-repeated one of "Box
+and Cox"; yet, but for the exigencies of the drama, which, of course,
+has for its principal object the development of a plot, there would have
+been no necessity whatever for bringing Box on a footing of acquaintance
+with Cox,--still less for attributing to either of them an idea of his
+landlady's name.
+
+For several months I lived contentedly in the house selected by me, up
+one pair of stairs, in a room looking out into a busy street,--a street
+so narrow, that the trees at one side of it, whenever a reviving breeze
+brought with it a subject for greeting and congratulation, shook hands
+in quite a friendly manner with those at the other. To illustrate the
+isolation of a residence in these lodgings, I may as well state,
+that, during all the time of my sojourn there, I never arrived at the
+knowledge of my landlady's name. It was not graven upon the house-door,
+and, as a knowledge of it was of no immediate consequence to any of my
+occupations, nor likely to be, I never asked about it from the old woman
+who kept the rooms in order, and to whom I seldom spoke, except upon the
+weekly occasion of handing to her the amount due to the landlady, with
+whom I never had any interview after the day I agreed with her for the
+lodgings. I believe there was a landlord,--if that be the proper term to
+apply to a man who is the husband of a landlady, and nothing else. From
+my window I once observed a man who might have been the landlord, a man
+of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church.
+Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the
+same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a
+cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative
+manner with one word, the only one I ever heard him utter,--
+
+"Owasyerelthbin?"
+
+To which, as I supposed him to be a foreigner, unacquainted with the
+English tongue, I replied at random in the only word of German of which
+I happen to be master,--
+
+"Yaw!"
+
+And this was the only communication I ever had with people of the house,
+excepting occasional conversations with the dust-colored old woman who
+cleaned the windows and swept the floors; while, with regard to a dozen
+or two of lodgers who succeeded each other from time to time in the
+other disposable rooms of the house, I never saw one of them, nor was
+acquainted with them otherwise than by footstep,--and that rather
+infelicitously at one time, in the case of something which went either
+upon crutches or wooden legs, and which occupied the room immediately
+over mine. This was in charming contrast with life at Mrs. Silvernail's,
+in its freedom from parables, and from the uncared-for society of Miss
+Rocket's guests; likewise from that of the serious and vicious boarders,
+and above all of the poisonous young man.
+
+A day came for cleaning my windows, and, as it rained heavily, I could
+not give the old woman a clear stage by going out for a couple of hours,
+but told her to clean away and be as lively as she could, while I
+sat there and wrote. Lodgers, she told me, as she polished up the
+brightening panes, came and went week after week, so fast that she
+forgot one when another came, and never knew any of their names. She had
+an eye for character, though, and told me the peculiarities of some of
+them in a quaint way, nailing her sentences, now and then, with odd,
+hard words, put in independently of the general text.
+
+"And who lives in the room just under mine? Somebody who raises plants,
+I see,--unless the green things on the balcony belong to the house."
+
+"A gentleman as keeps emself quite _to_ emself. Lonesome and friendless,
+I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all
+the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder
+tea of 'em, or root-drink. Decoctifies."
+
+"And who in the room opposite, on this floor?"
+
+"Empty now. Two dark-featured little gentlemen had it for a fortnight,--
+Jews, I reckon,--and as like one another as two spots of dirt on
+this 'ere pane of glass. Spoke a hard-biled kind of tongue, and was
+furriners, I guess. Polyanders."
+
+The vacant room would just suit De Vonville, who had arrived a few days
+before from abroad. I told him of it, and he came in the next day, bag
+and baggage, a portion of which latter was curious and uncommon.
+
+De Vonville, with whom I had lived in lodgings two or three years
+previously, was a Belgian and a _savant_, and a man of rare
+companionable qualities besides. Professionally, I believe, he called
+himself a naturalist. He had already roamed over the greater part
+of America, North and South, investigating the mysteries of Nature,
+especially of the animal kingdom, and contributing, as he went, many
+specimens of rare animals to the principal collections of Europe. His
+latest adventures took him through Africa and the East, whence he
+brought to New York a number of living creatures of many species, all
+of which, however, he had shipped for Havre before I met him, with the
+exception of two or three of the least disreputable kinds, which he
+meant to keep about him as pets. The most valued of these treasures were
+a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of
+white mice.
+
+These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the
+rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of
+a perfect jet black. They were quite tame and familiar; but, on the
+approach of a cat, or any other cause for alarm, the whole family would
+concentrate their energies in a very remarkable way into one piercing
+squeak.
+
+The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly
+allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and
+active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog
+to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes
+for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner
+of the room. There were personal reminiscences connected with Mungo
+which rendered him particularly valuable to De Vonville, whom he had
+often saved from the stings of the noxious vermin to be encountered by
+those who dwell in tents. His instinct was for creeping things, though
+he looked as if he could have dined contentedly on a brace of white
+mice. One piece of mischief he committed, during the few days he was
+allowed to run about the rooms: he gnawed holes at the bottom of all the
+doors, through which he could let himself in and out. He used to lie in
+the sun, on my table, as I sat reading; and was generally companionable
+and trustworthy, notwithstanding his insidious look.
+
+Seeing the interest I took in his small menagerie, De Vonville begged me
+to undertake the superintendence of it, on his being called away for a
+brief tour to Baltimore and elsewhere, in pursuance of an engagement to
+deliver a course of traveller's tales. Numerous were the directions I
+had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to
+the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence
+expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly
+confined to his cage. There were parrots to be looked after, also,
+including an extremely vituperative old macaw, any verbal communication
+with whom laid the advancing party open to all manner of insult and
+objurgation.
+
+The very first day of my menagerial experience, the Mangouste got out of
+his cage while I was feeding him, and glided away into dark nooks and
+garrets unknown. I failed of recovering him by a stalking process among
+the giddy passes of the upper stairs; nor did he return that day to my
+often-repeated call; for I vociferated at intervals throughout the
+day the word "Mungo!" in a manner that must have led the mysterious
+inhabitants of that silent house to the conclusion that I was a
+spiritual medium, inviting revelations from the shade of the mighty
+Park.
+
+A hot, clammy night. No balmy essences arise from the kennels of this
+hollow street in which I live; whatever comes from that quarter must be
+malarious, if anything. The windows are thrown open as far as they were
+made to be thrown, and I get as far out of one of them as I safely can,
+by tilting my chair back, and extending my legs out into that undefined
+everywhere called the wide, wide world. The only newspaper within reach
+of my hand is one I have already looked over, but I glance at it again,
+reading backwards from the end an account of a terrible poisoning case
+lately brought to light in England, which I had already read forwards
+from the beginning. Throwing it away from me in disgust, I reach out
+my other hand for a book. The one I lay hold of is "Laurel-Water,"
+the melancholy drama of Sir Theodosius Boughton by insidious poisoner
+killed. I dashed it away, backwards, over my head, and, turning off the
+gas, abandoned myself to the strange influences that breathed hotly upon
+me from the clammy vegetation festering in the ropy night-air.
+
+Why do civic wood-rangers choose the ailantus-tree for a bouquet-holder
+to the close-pent inhabitants of towns? Nothing can be more graceful,
+certainly, than the ellipses arched by the boughs from its taper stem.
+Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long,
+feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are
+times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but
+a diluted upas-antiar of Macassar, tainting, albeit with no deadly
+essence, the muggy air that rocks its slumbering branches and rolls
+away thence along the parapets and in at the windows of the sleepers.
+Dead-horse chestnut it might reasonably be called, because of its heavy,
+carrion smell, which, under the influences of a July night, is but too
+perceptible to the dwellers of streets where it abides. The tree at
+my window was an ailantus, of stately dimensions, and bounteous in a
+proportionate enormity of smell; yet it had never before affected me so
+much as on this night, when I lay dozing in the ghastly gloom. Sleep
+must have overcome me, for I had a troublous dream or vision of which
+Poison was the predominant nightmare,--a dream and slumber broken by the
+convulsive sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination
+to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of
+half-and-half--half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane--handed
+to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in
+the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly
+be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony
+beneath,--the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter
+sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, with a weird watering-pot
+held forth in a fawn-colored hand?
+
+In a particular condition of the nerves,--say, when a man feels
+"shaky,"--it takes but little to convince him that anything which may
+possibly not be all right is to a moral certainty all wrong. To sleep
+another night in that room, with the windows open,--and who would shut
+his windows in July?--directly exposed to the exhalations of a rising
+forest of upas-antiars of Macassar, nurtured by the unwholesome hand
+of a mysterious vegetarian for purposes unavowed, was no longer to be
+thought of. De Vonville's room, which was at the back of the house, and
+had no fuming ailantus by its windows on which to browse nightmares
+of skunkish flavor, afforded a better climate for a night's rest,
+notwithstanding the singular ideas which these travelled men, especially
+naturalists, have of comfort, in a civilized sense. He invariably slept
+on the floor, converting his room, indeed, into the general semblance
+of a tent, by divesting it of all the appliances dear to a Christian
+gentleman, and one who loves to repose as such. Yet there was
+comparative freshness in that tent-like apartment, as I entered it that
+night, shutting the door of mine after me, to prevent ailantus and
+upas-antiar from following in my wake. The little beasts were all
+sleeping tranquilly in their cages, and the birds on their perches
+rested quietly, too,--excepting the old macaw, who cursed me in his
+sleep, as I lit up the gas. But the Mangouste had not returned, nor did
+I quite regret his absence for the present; because, although highly
+approving of the culture of four-footed beasts, be they large or small,
+I have a prejudice against having my jugular vein breathed, at midnight,
+by small animals of the weasel tribe,--an act of which Mungo, probably,
+would have been incapable. His relations _will_ do such things, however,
+and newspapers recording appalling instances of it may be found.
+
+Shutting the door, I turned the gas down to a mere spark, and stretched
+my weary limbs on the mat which served the travelled man for a bed,
+drawing over me a gauze-like fabric, which, I suppose, answers in
+tropical countries all the purposes of the more voluminous "bed-clothes"
+of ours. Sleep soon came upon me,--a heavy, but unquiet sleep, in which
+the same influences haunted me as those I felt when slumbering at the
+window. The malaria from the trees was there, and the planter of the
+balcony watering henbane and hellebore with boiling aquafortis; likewise
+the demon-waiter, with his leaden salver and poisoned tankard, wearing
+an ophidian smile on his features and a fresh sprig of hemlock in his
+third buttonhole.
+
+How long I slept thus I know not. Once I had a vague sense of the
+Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was
+still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a
+piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood
+upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.
+
+The sound which followed this was one which the man is not likely to
+forget who has once heard it,--whether beneath his foot, as he steps
+upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand,
+when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is
+clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and
+hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke up the obedient
+gas, which flashed tremulously on the scales of an enormous rattlesnake
+coiled round the mice's cage, tightening his folds as he whizzed his
+infernal warning, and darting out his lightning tongue with baffled fury
+at the trembling group in the middle of the cage. This I saw by the
+first flash. Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the
+walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the
+Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the
+serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing,
+headless mass.
+
+In the heavy dreams which haunted me during the sleep from which I had
+just been roused, I had a vision of the planter of the balcony with
+a snake coiled round his naked arm. Who so dull as to require an
+interpreter for such plain speakings? Rushing down-stairs, I burst open
+the door of that person's room with one kick, and there, in the middle
+of the floor, half-dressed and bending over a censer of red-hot
+charcoal, knelt Mr. Désolé Arcubus, the poison-man of Mrs. Silvernails
+boarding-house. His features were collapsed and livid, and he held his
+left arm, which was much swollen and discolored, close over the red-hot
+coals, basting it wildly, the while, with ladlefuls of some hot liquid,
+while he crammed into his mouth, at intervals, a handful of herb-fodder
+of some kind from a salad-bowl on the floor beside him. He was rapidly
+growing faint and sinking, but indicated his wishes by signs, and one
+of several strangers who now entered the room continued the fomenting
+treatment, while another ran for medical assistance.
+
+There was an open letter on the table, which I had no hesitation in
+reading, when I saw at a glance that it threw light on the matter. The
+following is an exact copy of it:--
+
+"Hollow Rock----County. N. Y. 17 Jewly. 18--
+
+MR. HARKABUS dear Sir.
+
+a cording to promis i send the sneak by Xpress. He is the Largest and
+wust Sneak we have ketched In these parts. Bit a cow wich died in 2.40
+likeways her calf of fright. Hope the sneak weed growed up strong and
+harty. By eting and drinking of that wede the greatest sneak has no
+power. Smeling of it a loan will cure a small sneak ader or the like. I
+go in upon the dens tomorough and if we find any Pufing Aders will Xpres
+them to you per Xpress.
+
+Yr. oblgd. servt. SILENUS CLUCK."
+
+Here was the whole story in a nutshell. For his experiments in septic
+poisons, Mr. Arcubus had hired this apartment, with its convenient
+balcony for the cultivation of his antidotes. Having prepared his
+decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake,
+which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed
+with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the
+animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste
+underneath the doors. A cold shudder seized me when I guessed the
+reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The
+hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice,
+whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had
+fortunately roused me from my lethargy,--for the rattle of the snake is
+but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste
+came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might
+have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I
+missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room
+was lumbered.
+
+And these were the delights of lodgings,--of lodgings without board!
+And who could see the end of it all?--for, if snake-poison lurked on the
+stairs, probably hydrophobia was tied up in the cupboard. Brief time
+I expended in making my arrangements to quit, having first seen Mr.
+Arcubus carted away to a hospital, where by skilful treatment he
+slowly recovered. For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and
+the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a
+bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that
+I had departed from lodgings forever,--lodgings for single gentlemen,
+without board.
+
+But, on leaving the house, I did not forget the dust-colored old
+woman, whose last words to me, as I tipped her with a gratuity, were
+oracular:--"Forty long years and more have I lived in lodgin'-houses and
+never before seen a sarpint. It behooves all on us, now, to be watchful
+for what may be coming next, and wakeful. Circumspectangular."
+
+I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But
+what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar
+idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic
+ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the
+style and title of St. Mungo; and if ever surplus funds are discovered
+to my credit in any solvent bank, at present unknown to me, I will
+certainly devote a moiety of them to the foundation of a neat row of
+alms-cages, for the reception of decayed members of the family of White
+Mice.
+
+
+
+
+FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE.
+
+  Upon us falls the shadow of night,
+  And darkened is our day:
+  My love will greet the morning light
+  Four hundred miles away.
+  God love her, torn so swift and far
+  From hearts so like to break!
+  And God love all who are good to her,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  I know, whatever spot of ground
+  In any land we tread,
+  I know the Eternal Arms are round,
+  That heaven is overhead;
+  And faith the mourning heart will heal,
+  But many fears will make
+  Our spirits faint, our fond hearts kneel,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Good bye, dear! be they kind to you,
+  As though you were their ain!
+  My daisy opens to the dew,
+  But shuts against the rain.
+  Never will new moon glad our eyes
+  But offerings we shall make
+  To old God Wish, and prayers will rise
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Four years ago we struck our tent;
+  O'er homeless babes we yearned;
+  Our all--three darlings--with us went,
+  But only two returned!
+  While life yet bleeds into her grave,
+  Love ventures one more stake;
+  Hush, hush, poor hearts! if big, be brave,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  Like crown to most ambitious brows
+  Was Christie to us given,
+  To make our home a holy house
+  And nursery of heaven.
+  Oh, softer was her bed of rest
+  Than lily's on the lake!
+  Peace filled so deep each billowy breast,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  To music played by harps and hands
+  Invisible were we drawn
+  O'er charmèd seas, through faëry lands,
+  Under a clearer dawn:
+  We entered our new world of love
+  With blessings in our wake,
+  While prospering heavens smiled above,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  We gazed with proud eyes luminous
+  On such a gift of grace,--
+  All heaven narrowed down to us
+  In one dear little face!
+  And many a pang we felt, dear wife,
+  With hurt of heart and ache
+  All shut within like clasping knife,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  I would no tears might e'er run down
+  Her patient face, beside
+  Such happy pearls of heart as crown
+  Young mother, new-made bride!
+  For 'tis a face that, looking up
+  To passing heaven, might make
+  An angel stop, a blessing drop,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  If Love in that child's heart of hers
+  Should breathe and break its calm,
+  With trouble sweet as that which stirs
+  The brooding buds of balm,--
+  Listening at ear of peeping pearl,
+  Glistening in eyes that shake
+  Their sweet dew down,--God bless our girl,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  But, Father, if our babe must mourn,
+  Be merciful and kind!
+  And if our gentle lamb be shorn,
+  Attemper thou the wind!
+  Across the Deluge guide our Dove,
+  And to thy bosom take
+  With arm of love, and shield above,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  We have had sorrows many and strange:
+  Poor Christie I when I'm gone,
+  Some of my words will weirdly change,
+  If she read sadly on!
+  Lightnings, from what was dark of old,
+  With meanings strange will break
+  Of sorrows hid or dimly told,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Wife, we should still try hard to win
+  The best for our dear child,
+  And keep a resting-place within,
+  When all without grows wild:
+  As on the winter graves the snow
+  Falls softly, flake by flake,
+  Our love should whitely clothe our woe,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  For one will wake at midnight drear
+  From out a dream of death,
+  And find no dear head pillowed near,
+  No sound of peaceful breath!
+  May no weak wailing words arise,
+  No bitter thoughts awake
+  To see the tears in Memory's eyes:
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  And There, where many crownless kings
+  Of earth a crown shall wear,
+  The martyrs who have borne the pangs
+  Their palm at last shall bear,--
+  When with our lily pure of sin
+  Our heavenward way we take,
+  There may we walk with welcome in,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+
+
+
+THE NURSERY BLARNEY-STONE.
+
+
+Where is it kept? We have often longed for a sight of that precious bit
+of aërolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to
+which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must be religiously
+pressed.
+
+In vain have we searched in the closet, where the headless dolls and
+tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away.
+We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have
+surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by
+disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did
+not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the
+coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the
+Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad
+was wrecked, as the meteor which fell into the State of Connecticut and
+the volcanic island which rose out of the Straits of Messina, as the
+rock of Plymouth, or the philosopher's stone,--yet we have sought in
+vain for it, and only know of it as of the Great Carbuncle, by the light
+it sheds.
+
+"Pray, my good Sir," ask legions of fond parents, "what do you mean? Is
+it Dalby's Carminative, Daffy's Elixir, Brown's Syrup of Squills, or
+White's Magnetic Mixture? Is it of the soothing or the coercing system?
+a substitute for lollipops or for birch? rock candy or rock the cradle?"
+
+"Look" not "into your heart," responds our Muse, but into your nursery,
+and write!
+
+We invite a general review of all infantry divisions. We may be, for
+aught you know, Mrs. Ellis _incog_., warning the mothers of America, as
+of yore the Cornelias of England. What is the Nursery Blarney-Stone?
+You have none in your own airy and southern-exposed first-pair-back,
+(_Nov-Anglicè>_, "the keeping-room chamber,") where you daily water
+and rake your young olive-sprouts? upon your word of honor, Madam, you
+have not? You never tell nursery-tales of ghosts or fairies; you have
+conscientiously stripped from the dark closet every vestige of a legend;
+you have permitted juvenile inspection of the chimney, to prove that
+Santa Claus could not descend its sooty flue without grievous nigritude
+of the anticipated doll's frock, and have logically appealed to Miss
+Bran Beeswax's satin silveriness in proof of the non-existence of
+the saint beloved of Christmas-tide. Nay, more, you tell us you have
+actually invited inspection of the overnight process of filling the
+stockings, (you brute!) and you appropriately label each gift, "From
+Papa," "From Uncle Edward," "From Sister Kate," "From dear Mamma," lest
+a figment of the supernatural untruth should linger in the infantile
+brain. The "Arabian Nights'" (and "Arabian Days'") "Entertainments" are
+on your _Index Expurgatorius_. You have banned Bluebeard, and treated
+Red Ridinghood as no better than the Bonnet Rouge of domestic
+Jacobinism.
+
+You are a model mother, with whom even the late Mr. Gradgrind might be
+satisfied. "Truth, crushed to earth" by the whole race of nurses of the
+good old time, rises again triumphant at your hearth-stone. Then answer
+us,--Why did you tell your little ones to-night, as the sparrows were
+making an unusually loquacious preparation for their dormitories,
+that the little birds were singing their evening hymns, and exhort,
+thereupon, your unwilling nestlings to a rival performance of the verses
+of Dr. Watts? You ought to be prepared to explain, also, for the benefit
+of any sucking Socrates, why it is that these feathered choristers
+have their "revival seasons," and are terrible backsliders during the
+moulting period. When you looked out of the nursery-window, into the
+poultry-yard, and heard the noisy confabulation of the motherly hens
+and pert pullets, you should be prepared to state upon what theological
+principles it is that psalmody is not the wont of the Gallinacae. Are
+the Biddies given over to a reprobate mind, because you don't happen to
+like their vocalization? Is it only the Piccolomini and Linds of the
+feathered kingdom who have a right to practise sacred music?
+
+And how about that other stupendous fiction of the harvest-moon? Tell
+us, since you are voluntarily in the confessional, tell us why you
+kept back that explanation of its dependence on the Precession of the
+Equinoxes, which, at Professor Cram's finishing examination, in your
+school-girl days, you so glibly recited before your admiring papa and
+mamma? Do you really believe that the solar and stellar system was
+arranged to accommodate "the reapers reaping early" of the little island
+of Great Britain?
+
+We think you said angels! When little Isabel Montgomery, with her long,
+sunny curls, and sweet, blue eyes, was taken away, you made a very
+touching application of her decease, to illustrate what all good people
+were to become in the unknown world. How did you get out of the scrape
+which followed the remark of your downright eldest, remembering also the
+departure of a good-natured, obese, elderly neighbor,--"Then I thpothe
+Mithter Thimmonth ith a big angel"? So he probably is; but Simmons's two
+hundred pounds of earthliness did not suit your sentimentality quite as
+readily as the little fairy who always wore such clean pantalets and
+never tore her pretty white frocks in a game of romps. Is beatification
+dependent upon the platform-balance? and what amount of flesh will turn
+the scale in favor of the _Avvocato del Diavolo?_
+
+Once upon a time, a little boy was allowed to ramble in the woods. Being
+an adventurous little boy, he saw and coveted, and also conquered, (in
+the good old English sense of the word,) a pretty bird's-nest and its
+contents, to wit, several shiny, speckled eggs. He brought them home for
+triumphant display. He set them out upon the drawing-room table, and
+called a family conclave to admire and exult. What was the surprise
+and grief of the infant Catiline, to find himself received, not with
+applause, but horror! He was accused of robbery, was threatened with
+Solomonic penalties, was finally condemned to penance at a side-table
+upon dry bread and water, while his innocent brothers and sisters were
+regaling upon chickens and custards. He was edified over his scanty meal
+by melting descriptions of the mother-bird returning to the desolated
+home, of her positive sorrow and her probable pining to death. And
+the same little boy, looking out through the prison-bars of the
+nursery-window, saw his mother take by the hand his weeping sister (much
+cast down by the fraternal wickedness) and lead her to the nest of
+another mother-bird, and then and there encourage her to perform the
+same act of spoliation. True, the eggs were not speckled and small, but
+of a very pretty white, and quite a handful for the juvenile fingers.
+But the bereaved "parient" was not slender and active,--in fact, was
+rather a tame, confiding, dumpy and dull, pepper-and-salt-colored dame.
+Her complaints were not touching, but rather ludicrous,--so much so,
+indeed, as to suggest to the human hen-bird that "Biddy was laughing to
+think what a nice breakfast little Carrie would have off her nice eggs!"
+The young Trenck, from aloft beholding, could not but stumble upon
+certain "glittering generalities," as, that "eggs was eggs," and that
+the return of them on the fowl's part, in consideration of an advance of
+corn, was not altogether a voluntary barter,--quite, in short, after the
+pattern of Coolie apprenticeship. And thus the high moral lesson of the
+morning was sadly shaken. Of course this boy did not belong to any of
+the model mammas, for whom we are writing.
+
+A large fragment of the Nursery Blarney-Stone has been made over, to
+have and to hold, to the writers of the Children's Astor-Place
+Library. We yawn over poetical justice in novels, and only tolerate it
+as an amusing absurdity in genteel comedy, for the sake of getting
+the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the
+virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very
+different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the
+heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain
+to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical
+domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as
+for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and if we did
+not know it to be so, and if we did not know that they know that we know
+it, we should perhaps feel very differently.
+
+Why must we, then, be conscientiously constrained to mark out such a
+very different plan for our children at home? Why is the life of little
+boys and girls in books always pictured on the foot-lights pattern? We
+remember that we were of those good little boys and girls,--quite as
+good as that one who saved his pennies for the missionary-box, or that
+other who hemmed a tiny pocket-handkerchief against the nasal needs of a
+forlorn infant in Burmah; but we don't remember ever (then or since) to
+have encountered any of those delightful (and strong-minded) mothers or
+those sensible and always well-informed fathers of whom we read. Neither
+in our own particularly pleasant home, nor in any where we went, (at
+three, P.M., to take an early tea with preparatory barmecidal rehearsals
+on doll's china,) did we ever meet them. Perhaps they were the
+progenitors of the authors of the books. Mr. Thackeray has introduced us
+to sundry gentlemen and ladies bearing a faint likeness to them; but
+he also permitted us to behold Lady Beckie Crawley _née_ Sharpe boxing
+little Rawdon's ears, and to meet Mrs. Hobson Newcome at one of her
+delightful "at homes," where Runmun Loll, of East Indian origin, was the
+lion of the evening.
+
+We couldn't get through five pages of Hannah More, on a wet day, at the
+dreariest railway-station, when the expected train was telegraphed as
+"not due under two hours." What have the innocent heirs of our name
+done, that Hannah should continue under numberless _noms-de-plume_ to
+cater for them?
+
+We know there must have been a large lump of the Blarney-Stone,
+conglomerate probably, kept in the desk of our reverend instructor in
+the ways of syntax and the dismal paths of numbers. We have a lively
+recollection of the countless tables of foreign coins which we committed
+to memory, and of the provoking additions and subtractions we underwent
+to reduce to dollars and cents of the Federal denomination the
+fortunes of a score of Rothschilds. But when, under the shadow of the
+Drachenfels, we attempted to reimburse the Teutonic waiter for a cup of
+_café noir_, we were ignominiously constrained to hold forth a handful
+of coin and to await the white-jacketed and bearded one's pleasure, as
+he helped himself.
+
+We have a strong impression that we should never have attained to our
+present proud position of being allowed to write for (and be printed
+in) the "Atlantic Monthly," without much previous polish, through the
+companionship of the fairer sex. Why was it made a crime worthy of
+Draconian sternness to address our she-comrades in the pleasant paths of
+learning? Why did we behold the severe Magister Morum himself, in utter
+forgetfulness of his own rule, mingle in the mazy dance on an evening
+occasion, at which we were allowed to sit up? Did the girls of a larger
+growth lose their dangerous qualities on arriving at belle-hood? Why were
+our primary _billets-doux_ confiscated, and our offending palms, like
+Cranmer's, visited with the first penalty, though we had been obliged to
+walk blushingly the gauntlet of fifty pairs of maiden eyes and deliver
+to the "female principal" of the girls' school across the entry notes
+which we have since but too much reason to conclude bore no reference
+to the affairs of the school-realm? There is a bit of the Blarney-Stone
+(always of the nursery formation) which we are sure is discoverable to
+the true geologic eye in the underpinning of the Fifth Congregational
+Society's house of worship,--then called a meeting-house, now, we
+believe, styled a church. For all sermons therein delivered were
+supposed to be for our personal edification; albeit we were not, by
+reason of our tender years, specifically exposed to the heresies of
+Origen or Pelagius. It must have been on some afternoon when we were
+absent, then, that Dr. Baxter delivered the discourse of which we
+found a commentary written on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book in our
+pew,--"Terribly tedious this P.M., isn't he?" We have always felt that
+a great opportunity was lost to us. We should doubtless have been
+permitted to indulge unchecked in the solution of that lost mystery of
+our boyhood, as to the exact number of little brass rods in the front of
+the gallery, to scratch our initials with a pin upon the pew-side, or,
+propped by the paternal arm, to sweetly slumber till nineteenthly's
+close. No such sermon was ever pronounced in our hearing. Oh, golden
+time of youth! precious season thus lost! We intend yet revisiting that
+ancient and time-worn edifice, and, borrowing the keys of the sexton,
+we mean to revel in all and sundry those delights of "boyhood's breezy
+hour" from which we were debarred by that untimely absence. Like the
+old gentleman who visited nightly Van Amburg's exhibition of the
+head-in-the-lion's-mouth feat, in the moral certainty that a single
+absence would fall inevitably upon the one night when Leo would vary the
+programme by decapitation,--so we lost the one afternoon when that
+dull discourse diversified the pious eloquence of Jotham Baxter, D.D.,
+disciple of Dr. Hopkins and believer in Cotton Mather. Many a refreshing
+slumber has sealed our eyes under subsequent outpourings of divinity,
+but never with that entire sense of permissible indulgence which
+then would certainly have been ours. Why was it--except for the
+Blarney-Stone--that we were always checked in any Sabba'day notes and
+queries of what we had noticed in the sanctuary? Why was it wicked and
+deserving of a double infliction of catechism (Assembly's) for us to
+have seen that Bob Jones had a new jacket, and that he took five marbles
+and a jack-knife (in aggravating display) out of its pockets, while our
+mother and sisters were enabled, without let or hindrance to the most
+absorbing devotion, to chronicle every bonnet and ribbon within the
+walls of the temple?
+
+Certainly, the family-physician carried--as well he might--a bit of the
+precious rock in his waistcoat-pocket; for all our subsequent experience
+of _materia medica_ has never revealed to us the then patent fact, that
+all our bodily ailments were the consequence of those particular sports
+which damaged clothes and disturbed the quiet of the household. Surely,
+the connection between the measles and sailing on the millpond was about
+as obvious as that between Macedon and Monmouth; and whooping-cough must
+have had a very long road to travel, if it originated in our nutting
+frolic, when we returned home with a ghastly gash in our trousers-knee.
+
+The Blarney-Stone got into our "Manual of History"; for either it or
+the "Boston Centinel" must have made some egregious mistakes as to the
+character of some famous men who nursed our country's fortunes. So, too,
+did the author of "Familiar Letters on Public Characters"; for he was
+anything but an indorser of the History-Book, with its wood-cuts (after
+Trumbull and West) of the death of General Wolfe, exclaiming, "They
+run who run the French then I die happy," and of General Warren at the
+Battle of Bunker's Hill, with its amazing portraits of the first six
+Presidents, and the death of Tecumseh. Nay, we have found hard work to
+reconcile our faith, as per History-Book, in the loveliness of those
+gentlemen whom stress of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon
+Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a
+certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just
+after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the
+other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the
+Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed)
+the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of
+Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in
+Plutarch's Lives, the Charter Oak, and the existence of the Maelström
+all sliding away from under us. "Think," we said, "if New York had been
+Boston, how it would have fared with the good Knickerbockers!"
+
+Who was our geographer? Why did he insist upon our believing that all
+French men and women passed their time in mutual bows and "curchies,"
+and that all Italians were on their knees to fat priests, clean and
+rosy-looking? Why did he palm upon us that outrageous fiction of three
+kings (like those of Cologne) sitting in full ermine robes, with gold
+crowns on their heads, all alone in a sort of summer-parlor, where the
+heat, must have been at 80° in the shade, engaged in disparting Poland?
+We have seen, say, a million of Frenchmen, and nearly the same of
+Italians, since then, with a dozen or so of kings and emperors,--but
+never the faintest likeness to those deluding pictures. We learned
+at the same time, by painful rote, the population of various capital
+cities; but we cannot find in any statistic-book gazetteer, neither in
+McCulloch nor in Worcester, any of the old, familiar numbers. Also in
+that same Wonder-Book of Malte-Brun, edited by Pietro il Parlatore, we
+recall a sketch of a boy running for life down a slope of at least 45°,
+just before a snowball some five hundred times as big as the one our
+school-boys unitedly rolled up in the back-yard. It was a snowball,
+round, symmetrical, just such a magnified copy of the backyard one as
+might be expected to follow a boy in dreams after too much Johnny-cake
+for supper. And that was an avalanche. We have stood since then under
+the shadow of the Jungfrau, on the Wengern Alp, at the selfsame spot
+where Byron beheld the fall of so many. We had the noble lord's luck,
+(as most people have.) and saw dozens, but not one big snowball.
+
+We believe there has been reform since that day. Thanks to the London
+"Illustrated News" and the "Penny Magazine," juster ideas visit the
+ingenious youth of the present age. But we solemnly declare that we
+grew up in the belief that the President of the United States was
+daily ushered to his carriage by a long array of bareheaded and bowing
+menials, and that his official dress was a cocked hat and knee-breeches.
+We furthermore make affidavit that we supposed all the nobility of
+Europe to be in the habit of driving four-in-hand over wooden-legged
+beggars. And we also depose and say, that we had no other idea of
+royalty than as continually clad in coronation-robes, with six peers in
+the same, with huge wigs, as attendants. All this upon the faith of
+that same Malte-Brun, _à la_ P.P. Wasn't this a pretty dish to set
+before--not a king-but a young republican, who fancied himself the
+equal of kings? And lastly, upon the same authority, we held that "the
+horrible custom of eating human flesh does not belong exclusively to any
+nation." We have seen, we repeat, men and cities. We have dined at
+the Rocher de Cancale, the Maison Dorée, at Delmonico's, at German
+Gasthauses, at Italian Trattorias, at "Joe's" in London, the Trosachs
+Inn in the Highlands, and upon all peculiar and national dishes, from
+the _sardines au gratin_ of Naples to the _sauer kraut_ of Berlin, from
+the "one fish-ball" of Boston to the hog and hominy of Virginia,--but
+never yet upon any _carte_ did we encounter "Cold Missionary" or
+"_Enfans en potage Fijien_."
+
+Where, we repeat, is the Nursery Blarney-Stone? or rather, where is it
+not?
+
+The gentle reader (prepared to corroborate with many a juvenile
+reminiscence) must by this time be prepared for our moral; and it is
+very briefly this:--Is it not time to consider the budding brain as
+entitled to fair play? We, the dear middle-aged people, must surely
+remember that it has taken us much toil and trouble to unlearn many
+things. We know, that, when we pen anything for our coevals, it is with
+due attention to such facts as we can command,--that we have a wholesome
+fear of criticism,--that, if we make blunders in our seamanship, even
+though professedly land-lubbers, some awful Knickerbocker stands by with
+the Marine Dictionary in hand to pounce upon us. But for the poor little
+innocents at home any cast-off rags of knowledge are good enough. We
+hand down to them the worn-out platitudes of history which we have
+carefully eschewed. We humbug their inexperience with the same nursery
+fables beneath whose leonine hide our matured vision detects the ass's
+ears.
+
+We have been writing lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as
+may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many
+other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising
+generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There
+is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave
+our pupils to disavow it when they can. History is still taught in our
+public and private schools, seasoned with all the exploded blunders of
+the past. Men grow up to full manhood with ideas of foreign lands as
+ridiculous and unfounded as the pictures over which we have been amusing
+ourselves just now in our old Geography. Young America is ignorant
+enough, Heaven knows, of a great deal he ought to learn; but what shall
+we say of our persistently cramming him with what he ought not to learn?
+No exploding process is strong enough, it would seem, to blow away the
+countless pretty stories with which juvenile histories are embroidered.
+Niebuhr and Arnold have forever finished Romulus and Remus and the
+Livian legends, for maturer beliefs; but childhood goes on in the same
+track. Lord Macaulay's Romance of English History has been riddled by
+the acute reviewers; but he will be abridged for the use of schools, and
+not a fiction about William Penn, or John of Marlborough, or Grahame of
+Claverhouse, be left out.
+
+Can you plant a garden with weeds and then pull them up again in secure
+trust that no lurking burdocks and Canada thistle shall remain? Dear
+model mothers and prudent papas, be not afraid of wholesome fiction,
+as such, duly labelled and left uncorked. It will be far better to
+administer plenty of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" and "Arabian
+Nights," good ringing old ballads with a healthy sentiment at bottom of
+manly honor and womanly affection, fairy stories and ancient legends,
+than all the mince-meat histories and biographies that nurse-wise have
+been chewed soft for the use of tender gums. Let us all, for the benefit
+of ourselves, keep clear of cant; but if cant we must, why let it be for
+those who will cant back again, laughing in their sleeves the while, and
+not for the dear little faces so solemnly upturned to ours, whose
+honest blue eyes (black or green, if you please, as you take your tea)
+confidingly meet ours.
+
+American education, especially home education, is wanting not in
+quantity so much as quality; in that it _is_ fearfully lacking, and we,
+the educators, are the ones to blame for it.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER.
+
+It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with
+residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some
+breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with
+two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation.
+Rockland was such a place.
+
+Some of the natural features of the town have been described already.
+The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed
+it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary
+country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which
+belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it
+dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it brooded
+than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate by
+cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat like a
+garden-wall. Peach-trees, which, on the northern side of the mountain,
+hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in Rockland.
+
+But there was still another relation between the mountain and the town
+at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and
+which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. Those
+high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would have
+called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had
+always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as
+if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare,
+precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide
+like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so
+sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled
+over on the valley of Goldau.
+
+Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short
+residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the thought
+of this awful green wall piled up into the air over their heads. They
+would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the muffled snapping of
+roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side were tugging to break
+away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees were
+clinging with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel
+away and crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by
+one of those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human
+nature, there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or
+forty years after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening
+mountain-side, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls.
+The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the
+mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they ought
+to be there. It was a fascination like that which the rattlesnake is
+said to exert.
+
+This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other source
+of danger which was an element in the everyday life of the Rockland
+people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a joke against
+them, that a Rocklander couldn't hear a bean-pod rattle without saying,
+"The Lord have mercy on us!" It is very true, that many a nervous old
+lady has had a terrible start, caused by some mischievous young rogue's
+giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy vegetable products in her
+immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons missed the
+excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite in other regions, where
+there were nothing but black and green and striped snakes, mean
+ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent without his venom,--
+poor crawling creatures, whom Nature would not trust with a poison-bag.
+Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably experience a certain
+gratification in this infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that
+the old people retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some
+said it was the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to
+the habit of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through
+the grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is
+often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their _crème de noyau_ with a
+peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that it
+may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case they
+will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into the earth
+through their brain and marrow.
+
+But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special
+character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its chief
+glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its elms made
+a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its extent. No
+natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that formed by two
+American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot across each
+other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of green.
+When one looks through a long double row of these, as in that lovely
+avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well,--
+
+  "Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear
+  As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!"--
+
+he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, with
+all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone.
+
+Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of its
+elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other vegetable
+creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is modest and
+patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in everywhere and
+makes arrangements for coming up by-and-by. So, in spring, one finds a
+crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very weak and small
+compared to those, succulent vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of
+them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, as meekly as
+Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has
+established a kind of right to stay. Three generations of carrot and
+parsnip-consumers have passed away, yourself among them, and now let
+your great-grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean
+girth, three hundred and sixty feet in the line that bounds its leafy
+circle, it covers the boy with such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed
+oak nor insect-haunted linden ever lifted into the summer skies.
+
+Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its
+Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, or
+"mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this street,
+also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were chiefly
+congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland dignitary to have a
+house in Elm Street.
+
+A New England "mansion-house" is naturally square, with dormer windows
+projecting from the roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round
+it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner
+shows a respectable expanse of clean shirt-front. It has a lateral
+margin beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white
+wrist-bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can
+properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate.
+Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of
+any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to button itself up
+tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin, will be advertising
+for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the New England
+mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas Abney's
+place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the family, and
+wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into consciousness in
+our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single verses, between the
+momenta of wandering and of stupor, when we lie dying, and sound over
+us when we can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears to the hot,
+aching eyes beneath the thick, black veils, and carrying the holy calm
+with them which filled the good man's heart, as he prayed and sung under
+the shelter of the old English mansion-house.
+
+Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story, trim, white-painted,
+"genteel" houses, which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred,
+crowded close up to the street, instead of standing back from it with
+arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very
+commonly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed
+to smother the lower story almost to the exclusion of light and air, so
+that, what with small windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness
+made by these choking growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of
+these houses were the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be
+found anywhere among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt
+to assist this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look
+discontented in little rooms, hair-cloth furniture, black and shiny as
+beetles' wing-cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the
+kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,--these
+things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged the
+current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance Documents,
+unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines with worn-out
+steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a
+distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to mention, a volume
+of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according to the tastes of the
+family, and the Good Book, which is always Itself in the cheapest and
+commonest company. The father of the family with his hand in the breast
+of his coat, the mother of the same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a
+print of the Last Supper, by no means Morghen's, or the Father of his
+Country, or the old General, or the Defender of the Constitution, or an
+unknown clergyman with an open book before him,--these were the usual
+ornaments of the walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the others
+according to politics and other tendencies.
+
+This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New
+England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They
+have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the
+farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The
+mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open
+to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a good
+warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with the
+rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These lesser
+country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent
+subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. The
+chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the
+warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, happy, and
+cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, plenty of it,
+and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't afford this, don't
+try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to the ways of the honest
+farm-house.
+
+There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about Rockland.
+The best of them were something of the following pattern, which is too
+often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but infinitely less
+pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back from the road,
+seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden building, two
+stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to within a few
+feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is copied from an
+old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be seen in Lancashire,
+for instance, always with the same honest, homely look, as if their
+roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil out of which they
+sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by the slow action of sun
+and air and rain to a quiet dove- or slate-color. An old broken mill-
+stone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing like a finger to the heavens,
+which the shining round of water beneath looked up at like a dark
+unsleeping eye,--a single large elm a little at one side,--a barn twice
+as big as the house,--a cattle-yard, with
+
+        "The white horns tossing above the wall,"--
+
+some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round them,--a
+row of beehives,--a garden-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and
+many-hued holly-hocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, seedling
+onions, and marigolds, and flower-de-luces, and lady's-delights, and
+peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the borders,
+and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they got a
+chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born children
+remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the
+recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling
+yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape;
+and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born
+merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm
+with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises,
+as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
+
+Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and
+looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in
+the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow
+out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes
+with their sharp-pointed weathercocks.
+
+The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England
+meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square
+tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs,
+out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at
+its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery
+running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the
+pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached
+the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., successor, after a number of
+generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus
+Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged
+heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and occasionally
+delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard-headed
+theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter fully and
+finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid down for
+the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform of his
+demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of preaching
+plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and showing his
+Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It was noticed by
+some few of his flock, not without comment, that the great majority of
+his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and more as he became
+interested in various benevolent enterprises which brought him into
+relations with ministers and kind-hearted laymen of other denominations.
+The truth is, that he was a man of a very warm, open, and exceedingly
+_human_ disposition, and, although bred by a clerical father, whose
+motto was "_Sit anima mea cum Puritanis_," he exercised his human
+faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such freedom that
+the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere greatly with the
+circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once in a while he
+seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand doctrinal sermon,
+and then he would lapse away for while into preaching on men's duties to
+each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at some of the actual
+vices of the time and place, and insist with such tenderness and
+eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian love and
+charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he had
+shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on
+Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was
+sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council
+held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which
+expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding
+officer, he did not vote, to be sure, but there was no doubt that he was
+all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't
+very well let him go wrong.
+
+The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern
+style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England
+model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its
+old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so,
+and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in
+what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and
+crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of
+pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked,
+and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed
+in imitation of stone,--first a dark-brown square, then two light-brown
+squares, then another dark-brown square, and so on, to represent the
+accidental differences of shade always noticeable in the real stones of
+which walls are built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting
+his party-colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those
+of a chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and
+serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural clumps
+know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and
+symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of
+throwing up into the air a peck of potatoes and sticking in a tree
+wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were
+the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together with a ledge
+before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to occasional
+contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, and a
+place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be
+deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by boots
+or crickets.
+
+In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a
+divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at that
+famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years ago, to
+have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms of heresy.
+His ministrations were attended with decency, but not followed with
+enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old story at last.
+"The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite a thrill of
+satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to be a dull
+business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, while he
+knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards and
+empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that the
+drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the statistics
+and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, however,
+the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against his
+neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; but it was a
+languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away from meeting in
+the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening services. The
+minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the way, was a
+down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching as he had been
+taught to preach, but he bad misgivings at times. There was a little
+Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill where his own was placed,
+which he always had to pass on Sundays. He could never look on the
+thronging multitudes that crowded its pews and aisles or knelt
+bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to get in among them and
+go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of devotional contact which
+makes a worshipping throng as different from the same numbers praying
+apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of scattered cinders.
+
+"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and
+working-women!" he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that
+atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies,
+and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of
+droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!"
+The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all the
+terrible things to natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to a
+minority. No person that looked at his thin and sallow cheek, his sunken
+and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who heard
+his querulous, though not unmusical voice, could fail to see that his
+life was an uneasy one, that he was engaged in some inward conflict. His
+dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed,
+and was all the more striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a
+belief which made him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was
+yet a most good-humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on
+week-days did one as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever
+delivered on a Sunday.
+
+A few miles from Rockland was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a
+roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained window, and
+a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral depth of
+utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his own
+mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had not
+ironed his surplice and put it on with her own hands.
+
+There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name
+of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city-people in the summer
+months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct
+ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a _table d'hôte_ of some
+pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a
+two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a
+great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored
+elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the
+bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and
+coffee,--where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early
+passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and
+coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere,
+and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the
+neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the
+news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which
+the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the
+Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related
+by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and
+story-telling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was when there
+were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a hissing vessel
+of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four _loggerheads_ (long
+irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold
+season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of
+flip,---a goodly compound, speaking according to the flesh, made with
+beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a
+little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed to
+sizzle, there results a peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as
+a warning to remove themselves at once out of the reach of temptation.
+
+But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old
+attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. In
+place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they were
+commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a few
+lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long exposure,
+but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the whole ornamented
+by festoons of yellow and blue cut fly-paper. On the front shelf of the
+bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, and scattered about
+were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that always wanted picking, which
+burned red and smoked a good deal, and were apt to go out without any
+obvious cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the
+circumambient air.
+
+The common school-houses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of the
+Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk he was
+taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at the rows of
+desks and recalled his late experiences. He could not help laughing, as
+he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins.
+
+            "'A little _science_ is a dangerous thing.'
+
+as well as a little 'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's
+dangerous to the fellow you try it on." And he cut him a good stick and
+began climbing the side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous
+Rattlesnake Ledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
+the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
+one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
+their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
+not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
+indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
+you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
+A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
+Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to
+get good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management,
+he recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere
+among the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at
+the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual
+authority, the sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear
+answers to the pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the
+force without the form of a command, and the young man could not doubt
+that the good genius of the school stood before him in the person of
+Helen Darley.
+
+It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies and leaves a widow
+and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
+bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep
+a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
+herself the _prima donna_ in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas
+Peckham's educational establishment.
+
+What a miserable thing it is to be poor! She was dependent, frail,
+sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping,
+thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared
+for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have
+his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's
+worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English,
+overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,--sadder a
+great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much more fertile
+in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of
+headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera
+into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with half her brain while
+the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,--sometimes tightening
+round the brows as if her cap-band were Luke's iron crown,--and then her
+neuralgias, and her back-aches, and her fits of depression, in which she
+thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which
+men speak slightingly of as hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only
+not commonly fatal ones,--so many trials which belong to her fine and
+mobile structure,--that she is always entitled to pity, when she is
+placed in conditions which develop her nervous tendencies. The poor
+teacher's work had, of course, been doubled since the departure of Mr.
+Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the weariness of instruction
+is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin to be overtasked, but those
+who have tried it. The _relays_ of fresh pupils, each new set with its
+exhausting powers in full action, coming one after another, take out
+all the reserved forces and faculties of resistance from the subject of
+their draining process.
+
+The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she
+sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or
+compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the
+pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill
+stair of labor she was daily climbing.
+
+How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She
+was conscientious in her duties and would insist on reading every
+sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar or
+bad spelling. There might but have been twenty or thirty of these themes
+in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the leading
+sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the accidents
+of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence uncertain; that
+virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like the dew-drop
+from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; that life was
+o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue instilled by our
+beloved teachers were to be our guides through all our future career.
+The imagery employed consisted principally of roses, lilies, birds,
+clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated comparison of wayward genius to
+a meteor. Who does not know the small, slanted, Italian hand of these
+girls'-compositions,--their stringing together of the good old
+traditional copy-book phrases, their occasional gushes of sentiment, the
+profound estimates of the world, sounding to the old folks that read
+them as the experience of a bantam-pullet's last-hatched young one
+with the chips of its shell on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's
+chicken, who knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes?
+Yet every now and then one is liable to be surprised with strange
+clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, except by the
+mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a young girl and
+exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the
+sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and the
+Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. In the
+midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read over so
+carefully were two or three that had something of individual flavor
+about them, and here and there there was an image or an epithet which
+showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a fallen scarlet feather
+marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden.
+
+The young lady teacher read them with a certain indifference of manner,
+as one reads proofs,--noting defects of detail, but not commonly
+arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann Wood's poem,
+beginning
+
+  "How sweet at evening's balmy hour,"
+
+did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and
+Yankee beginners, _morn_ and _dawn_, and tossed the verses on the pile
+of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them
+in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was getting sleepy in
+spite of herself,--when she came to one which seemed to rouse her
+attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment
+before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and
+slid it off from the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it,
+or had some undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd
+fancies are common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of
+these young people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble
+the tips of their fingers in water, after touching the most inoffensive
+objects.
+
+This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long,
+slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something
+strangely suggestive about the look of it,--but exactly of what, Miss
+Darley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the
+paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive
+rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage
+scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have
+threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as
+well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind
+of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this strange
+paper she did not know what to make of. There was something in its
+descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not say
+what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not help
+reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her that the
+tired and overwearied girl's self-control left her entirely. She sobbed
+once or twice, then laughed convulsively, and flung herself on the bed,
+where she worked out a set hysteric spasm as she best might, without
+anybody to rub her hands and see that she did not hurt herself.
+By-and-by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a
+volume of Coleridge and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep and
+wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams.
+
+Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition
+which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state
+that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and
+it was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which
+made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance.
+The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, _E.
+Venner_, and was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had
+excited the master's curiosity and prompted his question, as before
+mentioned.
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher looked pale and wearied, naturally
+enough, but she was in her place at the usual hour, and Master Langdon
+in his own. The girls had not yet entered the schoolroom.
+
+"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard.
+
+"I was not well yesterday," she answered. "I had a worry and a kind of
+fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls
+and bodies! Every young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm in arm,
+between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought
+of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants--Tell me,
+are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural
+law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?"
+
+Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his
+profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with which
+individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, therefore, with
+a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very familiar class of
+facts.
+
+"Why, of course. Each of us is only footing-up of a double column of
+figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells,--and some of
+them are _plus_, and some _minus_. If the columns don't add up right, it
+is commonly because we can't make out all the figures. I don't mean to
+say that something may not be added by Nature to make up for losses and
+keep the race to its average, but we are mainly nothing but the answer
+to a long sum in addition and subtraction. No doubt there are people
+born with impulses at every possible angle to the parallels of Nature,
+as you call them. If they happen to cut these at right angles, of course
+they are beyond the reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are
+what we have most to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane
+asylums take care of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have
+put it too much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know.
+Pray, what set you--"
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher took to asking me this? "Any strange
+cases among the scholars?"
+
+The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with the
+question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that that she
+was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never
+rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies,
+amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses
+them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families.
+And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of
+the common multitude, they seek each other's company at once by the
+natural law of elective affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know
+their peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of two ship-wrecked
+vessels, were cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once
+address the other as "Our Royal Sister."
+
+Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering
+with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as those
+foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she look into
+them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm,
+steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, as she read his
+expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but exhausting glance.
+"A lady," he said to himself, as he met her questioning look,--so brief,
+so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had taught to read
+faces quickly without offence, as children read the faces of parents,
+as wives read the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was but a few
+seconds' work, and yet the main point was settled. If there had been any
+vulgar curiosity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression,
+she would have detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face
+so softly and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly,
+he would not have said to himself, "She is a _lady_," for that word
+meant a good deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the
+scholarly Langdons.
+
+"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I
+don't think our school-room is an exception. I am glad you believe in
+the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I did
+not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but
+God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my negligence or
+incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have
+charge of. Yet there, are mysteries I do not know how to account for."
+She looked all round the school-room, and then said, in a whisper, "Mr.
+Langdon, we had a girl that _stole_, in the school, not long ago. Worse
+than that, we had a girl that tried to set us on fire. Children of good
+people, both of them. And we have a girl now that frightens me so"----
+
+The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three
+types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have
+been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in
+the school.--_Hannah Martin_. Fourteen years and three months old.
+Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead,
+large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression.
+Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking her
+provisions in school-hours.--_Rosa Milburn_. Sixteen. Brunette, with
+a rare ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes
+wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be passionate,
+if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back and
+walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, with a slight rocking
+movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,--a
+hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to
+read in school-time.--_Charlotte Ann Wood_. Fifteen. The poetess before
+mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate
+child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go
+much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry,
+underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast,
+not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the
+accustomed phrases. Undervitalized. Sensibilities not covered with their
+normal integuments. A negative condition, often confounded with genius,
+and sometimes running into it. Young people that _fall_ out of line
+through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those
+that _step_ out of it through strength of the intellectual ones.
+
+The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups,
+until the school-room was nearly full. Then there was a little pause,
+and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes
+turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same
+direction.
+
+A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but
+rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes
+sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of
+graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the
+very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a
+splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth that
+was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered
+dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little
+fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a
+short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing
+listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling
+it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her
+long, delicate fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes,
+not large,--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley
+bust,--black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not
+help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from
+for something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes.
+They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own away,
+and let them wander over the other scholars. But they could not help
+coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. The diamond
+eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books,
+as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited
+long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl.
+The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her kerchief to her
+forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost
+shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse,
+which she could not resist, she left her place and went to the young
+girl's desk.
+
+_"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?_" It was a strange question to
+put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come
+to her.
+
+"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke
+in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her
+articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect.
+
+"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a rare
+alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The
+Mountain.
+
+"Where it grew," said Elsie Venner. "Take it." The teacher could not
+refuse her. The girl's finger-tips touched hers as she took it. How cold
+they were for a girl of such an organization!
+
+The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting the
+school-room soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling the
+flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second was to
+wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. A
+poor, overtasked, nervous creature,--we must not think too much of her
+fancies.
+
+After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which had
+been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which may
+prove interesting by-and-by, but there are other matters we must first
+attend to. IS THE RELIGIOUS WANT OF THE AGE MET?
+
+
+To answer this question intelligently, we must first glance at the
+characteristics of the age. It is an age of remarkable activity. There
+have been industrious men in other days; there have been nations of whom
+it might be truly said, They were an industrious people, they lost no
+time in idleness: but their rate of speed was low. Such a people could
+hardly be deemed enterprising. They might continue uncomplainingly in
+their accustomed round of labors, but would lack impulse to attempt
+anything new. Circumstances did not compel them to unwonted efforts,
+and their capabilities lay dormant. The world was wide, the population
+comparatively sparse, and the means of subsistence not difficult of
+attainment.
+
+Our age is very unlike to that. People begin to crowd one another. There
+is competition. The more active and ingenious will have the advantage;
+they do have the advantage; and this fact is a constant stimulus. It has
+been operating for thirty years past with ever-increasing power. We seem
+to be approaching a climax,--a point beyond which flesh and blood cannot
+go. The enterprise of the more active spirits of our day is astounding;
+we begin to ask, "Will they stop at anything? What will they not
+undertake?" There are a great many unsuccessful attempts; but these are
+not necessarily observed, they pass quietly into obscurity, while we
+hasten to observe the successes, which are wonderful, and so numerous
+as to keep us ever on tiptoe, looking for new wonders. Having seen the
+railways, the magnetic telegraph, and Hoe's press, in full operation,
+and having been brought to accept these as a common measure of time and
+motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older usages. We find our
+age an age of daring and of doing. We are ready to discard the word
+_impossible_; from our vocabulary; we deny that anything is the less
+probable because of being unprecedented. For doing new things we look
+about for new means,--being full charged with the belief that for all
+worthy or desirable ends there must be adequate and available means.
+In this regard, it is an age of unprecedented faith, of expectation of
+success; and we all know the natural and necessary influence of such
+an expectation. Sanguine expectation lights up the fires of genius;
+invention is quickened for the attainment of the highest speed and the
+greatest momentum. In no former age has there been anything to compare
+in rapidity and power of movement with the every-day achievements of
+this age. The relation of books to men, and the sphere assigned to
+books, are materially modified by the characteristics of the age. Books,
+as books, are no longer a charm to conjure with. The few really superior
+books have a wider and greater influence than ever before; while
+the great mass of common books have less, and pass more easily into
+oblivion. Good books may and must help us; but books cannot make us men
+of the nineteenth century, and a power in it. A thorough knowledge of
+the world within us, as it stands related to the world without us, is
+something quite different from mere book-knowledge. This is an element
+of influence not only not confined to the bookmen, but often possessed
+in a transcendent degree by those whose devotion to books is altogether
+subordinate to other avocations. Our common-school education may be said
+to bring the entire people upon a common plane. We are no longer the
+esoteric and the exoteric; we understand our rights in the common fund
+of sense and truth very well. We are not very patient with those who
+affect to know better than ourselves what we want and what we ought to
+desire. Most men are exceedingly in earnest, and determined to be heard
+in their own cause, and well able to make themselves understood. Scribes
+and Pharisees compassing sea and land to make one proselyte are
+a good and bad type of our activity in the pursuit of our own ends.
+Innumerable and infinitely varied are the shifts employed to secure
+attention, to effect the sale of merchandise, and to increase income.
+Nor are the learned professions much behind the men of merchandise. The
+contest of life thickens. Competition for the fruits of labor waxes
+continually more fierce. Mother Earth is too moderate in her labors; the
+ranks of the producers suffer from desertion; the plough is forsaken;
+the patient ox is contemned; silence, seclusion, and meditation are a
+memory of the past. The world's axis is changed; there is more heat in
+the North. The world has advanced, in our age, from a speed of five
+miles an hour, to twenty or thirty, or more.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the advantages and disadvantages accruing
+from these movements, there can be no question of the fact, that they
+have greatly affected the position and the relations of speakers and
+hearers. The million have been driven to do so much for themselves, that
+they are in no little danger of jumping to the conclusion, that they no
+longer need teachers of religion. A conclusion so fraught with mischief
+to the race will not be arrested by a pertinacious adhesion to modes of
+preaching which men under the old-time training could be made to endure,
+but which latter-day contrasts have rendered intolerable.
+
+It is just here, if anywhere, that a special backwardness on the part of
+the clergy to meet the religious wants of the age may, without injustice
+or unkindness, be alleged. It comes about very naturally; the training
+of the clergy is not in harmony with the exigencies of the position they
+are intended to occupy. The endeavors of the preparatory schools are
+not to be depreciated. It is scarcely possible to say too much of the
+fundamental importance of thoroughness and of minute accuracy in the
+rudiments of learning. But that extreme zeal in this behalf has produced
+an unnatural divorce of the practical from the critical, it is vain
+to deny. The devotion to the latter, which is inaugurated in the
+preparatory school, is by the college inflamed to the utmost, and
+the young man reaches his climax when he receives the appointment of
+valedictorian; that is his end; he reaches it, and we may say it is
+the death of him. He may, indeed, enter the theological seminary,
+industriously resolved on more of the same supremacy; but, in most
+instances, the great practical ends of a Christ-like life of doing good
+have been already lost from his view, and the ways and means by which
+alone such ends can be reached have become offensive to him. The
+student, as he delights in calling himself, has become greatly more
+interested in knowledge than in the people for whom he is to use his
+knowledge. A certain unknown God, an idol, in short, quite unsuspected,
+whose name is _Critical Dignity_, is installed in his heart, in
+the place of the Son of God. And the man endures the trials of his
+ministerial life under the mistaken impression that he is a martyr for
+Christ. He compels himself to be satisfied with a measure of attention
+to his utterances, which would content no sane and sensible man in any
+other department of teaching. He will tell you that it is one of the
+inevitable infelicities of his vocation, that to nothing are men such
+unwilling listeners as to religious truth; than which nothing can
+be more untrue; for to nothing are men so prepared to listen as to
+religious truth, properly presented.
+
+In order to a more generally happy and successful prosecution of the
+duties of a minister of Christ, a preliminary fact requires to be
+considered. That a man is found or finds himself in any calling is no
+evidence whatever that he is fitted for that calling. This is just as
+true of the ministry as of any other vocation. Every man-of-business
+knows this. The clergy seem to us behind the age in being astonishingly
+blind to it. Men-of-business know that only a very small fraction of
+their number can ever attain eminent success. They know, that, in a term
+of twenty years, ninety-seven men in a hundred _fail_. Here and there
+one develops a remarkable talent for the specific business in which he
+is engaged. The ninety-and-nine discover that they have a weary contest
+to maintain with manifold contingencies and combinations which no
+foresight can preclude.
+
+The application of this general truth to their profession the clergy are
+backward to perceive. The consequences of this backwardness are very
+hurtful to their interests. Because of this, we have an indefinite
+amount of puerile and undignified complaint from disappointed men, of
+disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered
+upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake
+their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and
+they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of
+incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their
+flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural
+splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for
+something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have
+been put forward, as a screen, by many an unsuccessful preacher, who
+failed,--simply failed,--not in selling horns or hides, shirtings or
+sugars,--but failed to recommend Christ and his gospel,--failed for want
+of head, or heart, or industry, or all three.
+
+The man who embarks his all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk
+of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster,
+work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might
+suffice for both. This unalterable fact every business-man accepts.
+
+Do you inquire, To what good purpose do you thrust the possibility of
+failure upon the attention of the candidate for the ministry? Would you
+utterly discourage those who are already more alive to the perils of
+their undertaking than we could wish them?
+
+We answer, It is no kindness to encourage men to enter a ministry whose
+inexorable requirements and whose incidental possibilities they may
+not look in the face. It is no kindness to represent to them that the
+qualities which they possess _ought_ to engage attention; and that
+their talents will command respect, or else it will be the fault of the
+people.
+
+Men go into business in the face of a possibility of failure through
+uncontrollable circumstances; not in defiance of an ascertainable,
+insufferable incompetency. They toil on, accepting adversity with such
+equanimity as God gives them, so long as they are permitted to believe
+that their misfortunes are not chargeable upon their incapacity or
+self-indulgence. But when it is made apparent that they are not in their
+proper sphere, they think it no shame to say so, to withdraw, and
+to apply their energies to something suited to their tastes and
+capabilities. And it should be with the ministry; but as things now are,
+with the conceptions of the ministry now entertained, pride interposes
+to forbid the rectification of the most serious mistakes. It is a
+question of dignity and of scholarship; whereas it should be a question
+of love to God and man, and of real ability and conscious power to bring
+them together,--to reconcile man to God.
+
+Our age is an age of great devotion to secular affairs,--of men who are
+great in the conduct of such affairs,--in every department in life. To
+counterbalance this, our ministry must be filled with an equally earnest
+devotion to God and salvation. In real ability our ministers ought to be
+not a whit behind. But ability is not necessarily scholarship; though it
+may, and as far as possible should, include that, and a great deal more.
+Let it be fully understood, once for all, that we have no disparaging
+remark to make of scholarship; a man must be foolish beyond expression,
+who pretends to argue that the highest scholarship is less than a most
+important and almost indispensable auxiliary to the minister of Christ.
+All our concern in the matter, just here, is, that it shall be fully
+understood that piety and real ability make the minister of Christ,
+and not scholarship; in the words of Augustine, "the heart makes the
+minister";--but we may safely assume that he meant the heart of a really
+able man; otherwise we can accord but a qualified respect to this
+remark.
+
+The prevailing impression among the ministry appears to be, that the man
+who cannot write "an able doctrinal discourse" is but an inferior man,
+fit only to preach in an inferior place; and that it would be a great
+gain to the Church, if scholarship were only so general that the
+standard of the universities could be applied, and only Phi-Beta-Kappa
+men allowed to enter the ministry. No doubt, those who incline to this
+view are quite honest, and not unkindly in it. But those who think this
+grievously misunderstand the necessities of the age in which we live.
+Reading men know where to find better reading than can possibly be
+furnished by any man who is bound to write two sermons weekly, or
+even one sermon a week; and to train any corps of young men in the
+expectation that any considerable fraction of them will be able to win
+and to maintain a commanding influence in their parishes mainly by the
+weekly production of learned discourses is to do them the greatest
+injury, by cherishing expectations which never can be realized. Why
+do our educated men of other professions so seldom and so reluctantly
+contribute to the addresses in our religious assemblies? Precisely
+because they understand the difficulty of meeting the popular
+expectation which is created by the prevailing theory; a theory which
+demands that sermons, and not only that sermons, but also that all
+religious addresses, should be chiefly characterized as learned, acute,
+scholastic even. An Irish preacher is reported in an Edinburgh paper as
+saying lately, that "he had been led to think of his own preaching and
+of that of his brethren. He saw very few sermons in the New Testament
+shaped after the forms and fashion in which they had been accustomed to
+shape theirs. He was not aware of a sermon there, in which they had
+a little motto selected, upon which a disquisition upon a particular
+subject was hung. The sort of sermons which the people in his locality
+were desirous to hear were sermons delivered on a large portion of the
+Word of God, carrying through the ideas as the Spirit of God had done."
+And it is, in part at least, because of the prevailing disregard of this
+most reasonable desire, that parishes so soon weary of their ministers.
+
+It need not discourage ministers to accept the fact that there will be
+failures in the ministry,--and a great many failures among those who
+rely for their success mainly upon the weekly production of learned
+disquisitions. Discouragement is not in accepting a fact that accords
+with all just theories of truth, but in adopting a theory which is sure
+to be invalidated by the almost universal experience of men in, as well
+as out of, the ministry. A right-minded minister _may_ have many falls
+in struggling up his Hill of Difficulty; but the Lord will lift him
+up, and will save him from adding to the temperate grief proper to any
+measure of short-coming the intolerable poignancy that comes of cheating
+by false pretences,--of assuming to do what he knows or should know that
+he cannot do, namely, produce any considerable number of great sermons.
+
+Let it, then, be frankly owned, that men, very good men, very capable
+men, have failed in the ministry. A. failed, because he did not study;
+B., because he did not visit his people; C., because he could not talk;
+D., because he was too grave; E., because he was too frivolous; F. could
+not, or would not, control his temper; G. alienated by exacting more
+than he received; and all of them because of not having what Scougal
+calls "the life of God in the soul of man."
+
+It is not worth while for any man to go into the ministry who cannot
+relish the Apostle's invitation, running thus:--"I beseech you,
+therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
+bodies _a living sacrifice_, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
+reasonable service." If that seem not reasonable, ay, and exceedingly
+inviting too, better let it alone. All men cannot do all things. Better
+raise extraordinary potatoes than hammer out insignificant ideas. You do
+not see the connection? you were a Phi-Beta-Kappa man in college, and
+know that you can write better than many a man in a metropolitan pulpit?
+Very likely; but we of the few go to church to be made better men, and
+not by fine writing, but by significant ideas, which may come in a
+homely garb, so they be only pervaded with affectionate piety, but which
+can come to us only from one who has laid all ambitious self-seeking on
+the altar of God. There is a power of persuasion in every minister who
+follows God as a dear child, and who walks in love, as Christ loved
+us, which the hardest heart cannot long resist,--which will win the
+congregation, however an individual here and there may be able to harden
+himself against it. You think that the great power of the pulpit is in
+high doctrine, presented with metaphysical precision and acuteness. We
+have no disparagement to offer of your doctrinal knowledge, nor of your
+ability to state it with metaphysical precision and hair-splitting
+acuteness. But we know, from much experience, that there is a divine
+truth, and a fervor and power in imparting it, with which God inspires
+the man who is wholly devoted to Him, in comparison with which the
+higher achievements of the man who lacks these are trumpery and rubbish.
+Many, _many_ men have failed in the ministry, are failing in the
+ministry every day, because their principal reliance has been upon what
+they deem their thorough mastery of the soundest theories of doctrine
+and of duty. They were confident they could administer to minds and
+hearts diseased the certain specific laid down in the book, admeasured
+to the twentieth part of a scruple. Confident in their theoretical
+acquisitions, they could not comprehend the indispensable necessity of a
+large experience in actual cases of mental malady. And for the want of
+such experience, it was absolutely impossible that they should be _en
+rapport_ with the souls they honestly desired to benefit. Can you heal a
+heart-ache with a syllogism? There is no dispensing with the precept and
+prescription,--"Weep with those that weep!" "Be of the same mind one
+toward another!"
+
+Theories of doctrine and of practice are not without their value; but
+the minister who is merely or chiefly a theorist, whether in doctrines
+or in measures, is an adventurer; and the chances against him are as
+many as the chances against the precise similarity of any two cases
+presented to his attention,--as many as the chances against the
+education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every
+particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be
+solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician;
+"_surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows._" Theories
+shirk that. "_In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and
+in His pity, He redeemed them._" And precisely in this way his ministers
+are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less
+tolerant of formality,--less and less willing to accept metaphysical
+disquisition in place of a warm-hearted, loving, fervent expansion of
+the Word of God, recommended to the understanding and to the sensibility
+by lively illustrations of spiritual truth, derived from all the
+experience of life, from all observation, from all analogies in the
+natural world,--in short, from every manner of illumination, from the
+heavens above, from the earth beneath, and from the waters which are
+under the earth. God is surely everywhere, and hath made all things, and
+all to testify of Him; and the innumerable voices all agree together.
+
+And when this is both understood and felt, what rules shall be given to
+guide and control the construction and the delivery of discourses? Shall
+we say, The people must be brought back to the old-time endurance--ay,
+_endurance_, that is the word--of long-drawn, laborious ratiocinations,
+wherein the truth is diligently pursued for its own sake, with an
+ultimate reference, indeed, to the needs and uses of the hearer, but so
+remote as rarely to be noticed, except by that very small fraction of
+any customary congregation who may chance to have an interest in
+such doings,--some of whom watch the clergyman as they would the
+entomologist, running down a truth that he may impale it, and add one
+more specimen to his well-ordered collection of common and of uncommon
+bugs? Our neighbors in the South do better than this; for they hunt with
+the lasso, and never throw the noose except to capture something which
+can be harnessed to the wheels of common life.
+
+No, the people are not going back to the endurance of any such misery.
+They have found out that still-born rhetoric is by no means the one
+thing needful, and care far less for the _art_ of speech than for the
+_nature_ of a holy heart. They want a man to speak less of what he
+believes and more of what he feels. The expectation of bringing the
+people again to endure prolonged metaphysical discriminations, spun out
+of commonplace minds, cobwebs to cloak their own nakedness and universal
+inaptitude, if indulged, is absurdly indulged. The whole Church is sick
+of such trifling. She knows well that it has made her most unsavory to
+those who might have found their way into the temples of God, or kept
+their places there, but for the memory of an immense amount of wearisome
+readings from the pulpit,--too often a vocabulary of words seldom or
+never found out of sermons,--a manner of speech which, when tried by the
+sure test of natural, animated conversation, must be pronounced absurd
+and abominable. It is a wonder of wonders, that, in spite of such
+drawbacks, an individual here and there has been reclaimed from
+worldliness to the love and service of God.
+
+The student-habits of the clergy most naturally lead them to prefer the
+formal statement, the studied elaboration of ideas, which their own
+training cannot but render facile and dear to them. And there is here
+and there a man who, in virtue of extraordinary genius, can infuse new
+life into worn-out phrases,--a man or two who can for a moment or for an
+hour, by the very weight and excellence of their thoughts, and because
+they truly and deeply feel them, arrest the age, and challenge and
+secure attention, in spite of all the infelicities of an antiquated
+style and an unearthly delivery. But in this age, more than ever before,
+we are summoned to surrender our scholastic preferences and esoteric
+honors to the exigencies of the million. And the men of this generation
+have, without much conference, come with great unanimity to the
+determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the
+pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of
+words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or
+lack of sympathies,--and especially that they will not endure dull
+declamation from the pulpit.
+
+If any man really wish to know how he is preaching, let him imagine
+himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted,
+but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger
+children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an
+eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused
+sensibilities of his hearers?
+
+How long ought a sermon to be? As long as you can read in the eye of
+seven-eighths of your audience, _Pray, go on_. If you cannot read that,
+you have mistaken your vocation; you were never called to the ministry.
+The secret of the persuasive power of our favorite orators is in their
+constant recognition of the ebb and flow of the sensibilities they are
+acting upon. Their speech is, in effect, an actual conversation,
+in which they are speaking for as well as to the audience; and the
+interlocutors are made almost as palpably such as at the "Breakfast-
+Table" of our dramatic "Autocrat" In contrast with this, the dull
+preacher, falling below the dignity and the privilege of his office,
+addresses himself, not to living men, but to an imaginary sensibility
+to abstract truth. The effect of this is obvious and inevitable; it
+converts hearers into doubters as to whether in fact there be any such
+thing as a religion worth recommending or possessing, and preachers into
+complainers of the people as indifferent and insensible to the truth,--a
+libel which ought to render them liable to fine and punishment. God's
+truth, _fairly presented_, is never a matter of indifference or of
+insensibility to an intelligent, nor even to an unintelligent audience.
+However an individual here and there may contrive to withdraw himself
+from the sphere of its influence, truth can no more lose her power than
+the sun can lose his heat.
+
+The people, under the quickening influences characteristic of our age,
+are awaking to the consciousness, that, on the day which should be the
+best of all the week, they have been defrauded of their right, in having
+solemn dulness palmed upon them, in place of living, earnest, animated
+truth. Let not ministers, unwisely overlooking this undeniable fact,
+defame the people, by alleging a growing facility in dissolving the
+pastoral relation,--a disregard of solemn contracts,--a willingness to
+dismiss excellent, godly, and devoted men, without other reason than the
+indisposition to retain them. Be it known to all such, that capable men
+very department of life were never in such request as at this very hour;
+and never, since the world began, was there an audience so large and so
+attentive to truth, well wrought and fitted to its purpose, as now.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph
+Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.
+
+
+FIRST NOTICE.
+
+
+Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any
+satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried,
+(1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by
+Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often
+of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical
+publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of
+information respecting the great master, and the history of his works,
+available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen"
+are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's
+"Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed
+to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or
+in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal
+knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,--perhaps
+has given sufficient occasion for it,--but we must bear this testimony
+to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries
+give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some
+twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always
+careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written
+anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but
+have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are
+constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we
+find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New
+American," published by the Appletons.
+
+A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers,
+combined with the materials scattered through other publications,--even
+though no original researches were made,--was still a desideratum,
+when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander
+Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German
+musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven
+into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that
+now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something
+worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and
+articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's
+history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.
+
+Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two
+works,--"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg,
+1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A
+very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works--in
+French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,--consists principally of
+an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are
+indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has
+plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the
+critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took
+only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique,
+chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great
+industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the
+principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the
+pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the
+"Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."
+
+The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben
+des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the
+"Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a
+biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much
+original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected;
+but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which
+he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a
+logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is
+not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;--at
+all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him
+and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,--apropos of
+nothing,--has called--out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical
+journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation.
+In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his
+"Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single
+work.
+
+Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against
+Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title,
+"Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig,
+1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions
+to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's
+life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of
+Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,--not in real life,--as
+to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction
+is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first
+twenty-five years of the present century,--a supplement to his famous
+view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of
+Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled,
+save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer
+Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy.
+Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. _We_ can
+forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in
+seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.
+
+But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the
+public--at all events, our public--demands. We wish his biography,--the
+history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite.
+We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored,
+and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers
+above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their
+publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when
+he shall appear.
+
+It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we
+saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the
+head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very
+careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice,
+granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in
+any German publication which has come under our notice, because out
+of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at
+home,--whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without
+honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.
+
+Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving
+that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in
+a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from
+Schilling's "Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft,"
+Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,--a work which deserves to be better known in
+our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart
+fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and
+a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and
+a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.
+
+Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many
+of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He
+studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his
+profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,--the
+well-known contrapuntist, Türk, being his instructor in musical theory
+and composition. "He [Türk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told
+Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."[1]
+
+Soon after finishing his legal studies, Marx removed to Berlin, as the
+place where he could best enjoy the means of artistic culture. "For one
+quite without fortune, merely to live in a strange city demands great
+strength of character; but to go farther and fit one's self for a career
+and for a position in the future, which even under the best auspices
+is of very difficult attainment, and, beside all this, to have others
+dependent upon him for the necessaries of life,--what a burden to bear!
+..... By a very intellectual system of instruction in singing and in
+composition, and, at a later period, (1824-81,) by editing the 'Berliner
+Allgemeine Musikzeitung,' and several theoretical and practical musical
+works, he earned the means of subsistence. Never was a periodical more
+conscientiously edited. It was for Marx like an official station, and
+his seven years upon that paper were in fact a preparation for the
+position of Public Teacher, to which in 1830 he was appointed, in the
+University at Berlin, after having declined a judicial position offered
+to him, with a fair salary, in one of the provinces. Honorably has he
+since that period filled his station, however great the pains which
+have been taken in various quarters that it should not be said of him,
+'Virtus post nummos!'"[2]
+
+"The diploma of Doctor of Music Marx received from the University at
+Marburg; and thereupon (?) obtained the greatest applause for a course
+of lectures, in part strictly scientific for the musician, and in part
+upon the history of music, its philosophy, etc.; also, as Music-Director
+of the University, he has brought (1841,) the academic choir into such
+a flourishing state, both as to numbers and skill, as to be adequate to
+the most difficult music."[3]
+
+Again we read,--"We remember, that, some time since, Fetis, at Paris,
+pointed out Marx as the one who had introduced the philosophy of Kant
+into music." Were this so, so much the more credit to Marx, who, at that
+time, we are informed, had never studied the works of the philosopher
+of Königsberg, and his basing music upon the Kantian philosophy is
+therefore but a proof of the profundity of his genius.
+
+From the same article we extract the following list of his
+productions:--1. A work on Singing, in three parts; the second and third
+of which "contain throughout admirable and novel remarks." 2. "Maigruss"
+(Maygreeting). "This pamphlet, humorous and delicate, yet powerfully
+written," calls attention to certain novel views of its author in regard
+to music. 3. Articles in the "Cäcilia," a musical periodical. 4. Essay
+on Handel's works. 5. A work on Composition. 6. Several biographies and
+other articles in Schilling's Encyclopædia,--"indeed, all the articles
+signed A. B. M." 7. Editions of several of Bach's and Handel's works.
+To these we may now add his extensive treatise upon Musical Science, in
+four volumes, his "Music in the Nineteenth Century," and the work which
+is now before us.
+
+Of musical compositions we find the
+
+[Footnote 1: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 2: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.] following noticed:--1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und
+Bätely,"--which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly _damned_;--but
+then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische
+Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of
+revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance
+waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at
+the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was
+the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture
+and _entr'actes_, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and
+profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given
+in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the
+work _did not succeed_." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouqué, with
+a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present
+Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,--but then, it was badly
+executed! 4. Symphony,--"The Fall of Warsaw,"--still manuscript. "The
+music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character
+of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their
+terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange
+soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to
+add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,--preferring
+Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,--"one of Marx's
+most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"--a series of songs, the music of
+which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the
+Baptist," an oratorio,--twice performed by the University choir in one
+of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar
+sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos
+and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,--the
+music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed
+vigorously after the sense of the text,--are distinguished from those
+in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public
+preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer,
+Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the
+list of his works at that time.
+
+"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an
+oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in
+its profound conception of character will have but few equals."
+
+The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several
+places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares
+no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.
+
+We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in
+Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the
+basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England
+and the United States;--for, singular as the fact may appear, we are
+unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and
+gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach,
+whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from
+the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna
+and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,--a
+writer upon music.
+
+There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article
+from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of
+Marx,--modesty, the ornament of true greatness,--may (or may not) add
+weight to the extracts we have made from it,--namely, that the article
+was written for Schilling by Marx himself.
+
+We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood
+fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician
+by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and
+musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path
+of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for
+thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor
+of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both
+social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of
+information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical
+libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven
+papers are preserved,--a city, moreover, in which more than in any
+other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly
+performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so
+much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.
+
+We have no extravagant ideas of the value of the so-called
+Conversation-Books of Beethoven. We are aware that they seldom contain
+anything from the hand of the master himself,--being made up, of course,
+of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such
+books--though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled
+together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his
+brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper,
+upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists,
+poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases even from
+England, and in one from America--must contain a great mass of matter,
+which places one amidst those by whom the master was surrounded, makes
+one to "know his goings-out and his comings-in," and occasionally facts
+of high importance in the study of his character, and the circumstances
+in which he spent his last years. For some twelve years these books
+have been in Berlin and at the disposal of Marx. The numerous files of
+musical periodicals and the mass of musical biography and recent musical
+history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to
+the writer on Beethoven,--a value which Marx must fully appreciate,
+both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as
+contributor of biographical articles to Schilling's Encyclopedia.
+
+As we take up this new life of Beethoven, then, the measure of our
+expectations is the reputation of the author, plus the means, the
+materials, at his command. And certainly the first impression made
+by these two goodly volumes is a very favorable one; for, making due
+allowance for the music scattered through them with not too lavish a
+hand, by way of examples, we have still some six hundred solid pages of
+reading matter,--space enough in which to answer many a vexed question,
+clear up many a dark point, give us the results of widely extended
+researches, and place Beethoven the Man and the Composer before us in
+"Leben und Schaffen,"--in his life and his labors.
+
+In the first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an
+apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have
+taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion
+really exists. We find that in the first volume, four works,--the First,
+Second, and Third Symphonies and the opera "Leonore" or "Fidelio" occupy
+136 of the 875 pages; in the second, that the other five Symphonies and
+the "Missa Solemnis" fill out 123 of the 330 pages. Bearing in mind that
+the works of Beethoven which have _Opus_ numbers--not to speak of the
+others--amount to 137, and that, in some cases, three and even six
+compositions, so important as the Rasoumowsky Quartetts, for instance,
+are included in a single _Opus_, the disproportion really appears
+very great. We notice, moreover, that just those works which are most
+familiar to the public, which have for thirty years or more been
+subjects of never-ending discussion, and which one would naturally
+suppose might be dismissed in fewest words,--that these are the works
+which occupy so much space. What is there so new to be said of the
+"Heroic Symphony" that fifty pages should be allotted to it, while the
+ballet "Prometheus," still strange to nearly every reader, should be
+dismissed in three?
+
+We find it also somewhat remarkable that Marx thinks it necessary to
+give his own notions of musical form to the extent of nineteen pages,
+(Vol. I. pp. 79 _et seq_.,) preparatory to his discussion of the
+greater works of the master, and yet is able to condense the history of
+Beethoven's first twenty-two years--the period, in our view, the most
+important in making him what he was--in sixteen! We have not space to
+follow this out farther, and only add, that, were this work a mere
+catch-penny affair by an unknown writer, we should suspect him of
+"drawing out the thread of his verbosity" on topics where materials are
+plenty and talk is easy, in preference to the labor of original research
+on points less known.
+
+In reading the work carefully, two points strike us in relation to his
+printed authorities: first, that the list of those quoted by Lenz in his
+"Catalogue" and "Leben des Meisters" comprises nearly all those cited by
+Marx; the principal additions being the works of Lenz, Oulibichef, and
+A. B. Marx,--the latter of which he exhibits great skill in finding
+and making opportunities to advertise;--and secondly, that, where the
+Russian writer, through haste, carelessness, or the want of means
+to verify facts and correct errors, falls into mistakes, the Berlin
+Professor generally agrees with him. As it is impossible to suppose that
+a gentleman who for nearly thirty years "writes himself, in any bill,
+warrant, quittance, or obligation," Extraordinary Professor of a great
+German University, should simply adopt the labors of an obscure Russian
+writer without acknowledgment, we can only suppose these resemblances to
+be coincidences. These coincidences are, nevertheless, so numerous,
+that we may say in general, what Lenz knew of the history of the man
+Beethoven and his works is known to Marx,--what was unknown to the
+former is equally unknown to the latter. Marx, however, occasionally
+quotes passages from Schindler, Wegeler, and Ries at length, to which
+Lenz only gives references. We will note a few of the coincidences
+between the two writers.
+
+Here is the first sentence of the biography:--
+
+"Ludwig van Beethoven was born to his father, a singer in the chapel of
+the _Elector Max Franz_, Archbishop of Cologne, Dec. 17, 1770." (Marx,
+Vol. I. p. 4.) Beethoven was fourteen years old when this Elector
+came to Bonn. Max Franz is confounded with Max Friedrich,--a singular
+mistake, since Wegeler writes the name in full. It may, however, be a
+typographical error, or a _lapsus pennae_ on the part of Marx. We give
+him all the benefit of the doubt; but, unluckily, we read on p. 12, that
+the Archbishop, "brother of Joseph II.," called the Protestant Neefe
+from the theatre to the organ-loft of the Electoral Chapel,--this
+appointment having in fact been made four years before the "brother of
+Joseph II." had aught to do with appointments in that part of the world.
+Lenz confounds the two Electors in precisely the same manner.
+
+Both Lenz and Marx (p. 9) relate the old exploded story of the child
+Beethoven and the spider. The former found it in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," and probably had not authorities
+at hand to correct it. Had Marx sent to the Library for Disjouval's
+"Arachnologie," the work which he gives as _his_ authority, he would
+have found, that, not Beethoven, but the French violinist Berthaume, was
+the hero of the anecdote,--as, indeed, is also related in Schilling's
+Encyclopaedia, not many pages after Marx's own article on Beethoven in
+that work.
+
+That Lenz should misdate Beethoven's visit to Berlin is not strange;
+that Marx, a Berliner, should, is. Nor is it remarkable that Lenz knows
+nothing of Beethoven's years of service as member of the Electoral
+orchestra at Bonn; but how Marx should have overlooked it, in case he
+has made _any_ researches into the composer's early history, is beyond
+our comprehension.
+
+Schindler has mistaken the date of certain letters written by Beethoven
+long before he had any personal intercourse with him,--the notes to
+Julia Guicciardi,--which he dates 1806. Both Lenz and Marx follow him
+in the date; both quote Beethoven's words, that the lady in question
+married Count Gallenberg before the departure of the latter to Italy;
+both coincide in overlooking the circumstance related in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," that, _before_ June, 1806, a grand
+performance of music, composed and directed by Gallenberg, took place at
+Naples in honor of Joseph Bonaparte;--proof sufficient that Beethoven
+could not in July of that year have addressed the lady in these terms:
+"Mein Engel, mein Alles, mein Ich!"
+
+Both Marx and Lenz relate the following anecdote. Haydn, meeting
+Beethoven, praised the Septett of the latter; upon which the young man
+exclaimed, deprecatingly, "Ah, it is far from being a 'Creation'!" To
+which Haydn replied, "_That_ you could not have written, for you are an
+atheist!"
+
+That the absurdity of making Beethoven, then a man of thirty and
+supposed to be possessed of common sense, hint at any comparison of a
+piece of chamber-music with one of the grandest of oratorios, and that,
+too, to the author himself, should not have struck Marx, is strange; nor
+is it less so, that, in the course of his researches, he has not met
+with the correction of the story, by the late Alois Fuchs of Vienna.
+
+In fact, the ballet "Prometheus," in which the progress of man from a
+state of rude nature to the highest culture and refinement is depicted,
+and the "Creation," were both given for the first time within a few
+weeks of each other. The affinity of the subjects is clear, and the
+remark of the young man, "Ah, dear papa, it is far from being a
+'Creation'!" is only natural. "No," said Haydn, "it is indeed not a
+'Creation,' nor do I think its author will ever reach that!"
+
+In the dates given by Marx to Beethoven's compositions he generally
+coincides with Lenz, in his "Catalogue," particularly when the latter is
+wrong,--and when he differs from him, he is as apt to be wrong as right.
+Any person who has both works at command may easily verify this remark.
+
+But we cannot dwell longer on this point.
+
+
+
+_Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, The Great American Advocate_. By EDWARD
+G. PARKER. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.
+
+
+We think it our duty to state our judgment of this book, because it
+professes to give personal reminiscences, by a familiar friend, of a
+remarkable and distinguished man of our own time and country, has been
+much read and discussed, and has gained a good deal of popularity of a
+certain sort; it therefore belongs _somewhere_ in the literature of the
+day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if
+we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign
+justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary
+and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to
+some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman
+among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the
+extraordinary alacrity with which this book was produced the author got
+a little the start of criticism, perhaps; but we should fail in our duty
+as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound,
+for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has
+exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate,
+the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task.
+
+For the purposes of the bookseller, nothing could have been happier than
+the publication, within a few months after the death of Mr. Choate, of
+such a book as this promised to be. Throughout the country his name had
+been generally accounted the synonyme of all that was most original,
+mysterious, and fascinating, in the arts of the advocate and the
+scholar. Perhaps we have none of us ever known a man in regard to whom
+a greater degree of _curiosity_ existed among his countrymen. Those
+who saw him every day never ventured to believe that they quite ever
+understood him, so various and so peculiar were the aspects he exhibited
+even here at home. Those who attempted to study him were as much
+perplexed as charmed. The avidity with which a cheap book, easily read,
+professing to give personal recollections of such a man, would be seized
+upon by the mass of reading people, was not overestimated.
+
+It is not the purpose of this notice to discuss Mr. Choate,--his
+eloquence, his wit, his scholarship, or his personal characteristics.
+Our office is simply to examine the manner of Mr. Parker's performing
+what he set out to perform. Our business is with the book, not with the
+subject of it. And, in our judgment, the book is the very worst that
+could well be written on such a subject. It is done with bad taste, bad
+judgment, bad style, It is precisely the book to mortify and disgust Mr.
+Choate's admirers, and to fix more firmly than ever such unfavorable
+notions of him as may have existed in the minds of others.
+
+Mr. Parker does not appear to have considered what he undertook, when he
+stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man.
+We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating
+account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of
+perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of
+scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that
+he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his
+enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been _said_, as well as
+how little was _known_ about Mr. Choate; what wonderfully loose and idle
+notions of him had got abroad; how the most essential and notable points
+of his character and genius had been so clumsily handled by flippant or
+careless critics, that the popular impression of him was, to a great
+degree, extravagant and absurd. Remembering all this, and properly
+_respecting_ the subject in which he appears to have interested himself
+so ardently, Mr. Parker should have applied to his task a somewhat
+gentle hand; gratifying, if that must be done, the curiosity of his
+readers as far as he safely could, but refraining altogether from those
+aspects of Mr. Choate's mind and character which he must have known
+could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly
+executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled
+off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called
+indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected.
+We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious
+talk about Mr. Choate,--and that is the whole of it. For our own
+part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little
+amusement it has afforded us was probably not exactly designed by the
+author.
+
+We would fain be excused from the duty of remarking upon the merely
+literary character of the book, but that may not be. As we said before,
+the book is somewhere in the literature of the day, and its place must
+be ascertained. The following gems of rhetoric it will be useful, for
+that end, to notice:--"With me, as with every young man of a taste
+that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh
+topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains";
+"newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor";
+"severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the
+maiden-mother,"--alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a
+mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, _facile
+princeps_"; not to forget an extraordinary quotation from the title,
+which the author says he found at the head of one of Mr. Choate's
+manuscript plans for daily study, in these words, "_faciundo ad munus
+nuper impositum_." Now it must really in justice be said that to write
+a biography of Mr. Choate in such a lingo as this is an insult to the
+subject. We believe we are fair with Mr. Parker's style. Indeed, where
+it is not relieved by such barbarisms as we have quoted, it purls along
+with a certain weak smartness which is inexpressibly tiresome.
+
+A much more tolerable book, however, would be spoiled by such arrant
+egotism as our author displays on every page. We are never rid of _Mr.
+Parker_ for a moment. Wherever Mr. Choate is visible, Mr. Parker is
+strutting by his side. He exhibits, indeed, all the intrusiveness of
+Boswell, without any of that honest, self-forgetting, simple-hearted
+admiration of his distinguished friend which makes Boswell positively
+respectable. A single illustration of this weakness is so apt that we
+quote it. "Mr. Choate said, 'Some one should write a History of the
+Ancient Orators. There is no book in all my library where I can find
+all there is extant about any ancient orator.' He earnestly advised
+the author to undertake it. In pursuance of the idea, an article
+on 'Hortensius' appeared in a Review as a beginning. He spoke with
+enthusiasm of the satisfaction it gave him; saying it was a new
+revelation to him, for he never _knew_ Hortensius before."
+
+Again, Mr. Parker is continually assuring us, in more or less direct
+terms, of the intimacy which existed between himself and Mr. Choate. In
+a matter of this sort, once telling is enough; and then it should
+be done with modesty, and so as simply to assure the reader of the
+genuineness of the reminiscences. All beyond that is vulgar. One more
+remark upon Mr. Parker's _behavior_ as an author. He permits himself to
+speak of individuals of decided personal and public dignity with quite
+too much familiarity. This is, of course, nothing more than an offence
+against good taste. But it is so prevalent in his pages that we cannot
+omit it from anything like a summary of the faults which they display.
+And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere
+else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one
+can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice.
+
+We have yet to notice Mr. Parker's book in respect to its success as an
+attempt at biography. We suppose he intended to draw the portrait of
+a man of wit, eloquence, and scholarship. He constantly assures us in
+terms that Mr. Choate _was_ such a man; an assurance which certainly
+was not necessary to so extensive and brilliant a reputation. If he
+had stopped there, he would at least have done no harm. But the
+illustrations which he gives us are so very far from satisfactory, that,
+unless Mr. Choate's reputation in these particulars be surrendered, for
+which we are not quite prepared, it must be upon the ground that his
+biographer has failed entirely to appreciate him. That Mr. Choate was,
+for instance, a man of singularly keen and delicate wit, everybody
+knows. But we believe that any brother advocate who ever sat at the same
+courtroom table with him for three days, or any cultivated person who
+ever passed an evening in his company, was likely to hear from his lips,
+in that space of time, more real wit than Mr. Parker repeats in his
+whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in
+the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which
+Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert
+a sullen juror,--such turns of speech as _he_ certainly never thought
+were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,--to which
+he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the
+business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire
+to have forgotten,--make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's
+illustrations in the matter of wit. One faculty which Mr. Choate
+possessed in a remarkable degree, that of ready, elegant, and telling
+quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every
+one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have
+furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions.
+As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would
+seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up
+and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon
+these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as
+mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which they
+were charmed with his graceful and truly vigorous speech, his biographer
+loves to dwell. He has much to say of the length and complexity of
+the sentences, but nothing of the often exquisite elegance of their
+structure; much of the number and size of the words of which they
+consisted,--nothing of the extreme delicacy and dexterity of their use,
+the wonderful completeness with which they were made to express every
+particle of the orator's meaning. As to Mr. Choate's scholarship, we
+certainly learn nothing satisfactory from this unfortunate book. In the
+conversations which the author, clumsily, indeed, but, we are bound to
+believe, faithfully, details, we should expect to find something of
+the rich fruitage of a life-long cultivation in letters. But so poor a
+result does Mr. Parker show in this part of his work, that he drives us
+to the dilemma either of placing Mr. Choate in quite an unworthy rank as
+a scholar, or of concluding, that, in the case of these conversations,
+he bestowed upon his listener very little of any particular
+preciousness, or that what else was bestowed was not understood or
+remembered so as to be recorded.
+
+We cannot dismiss this book without noticing the extremely unhappy
+treatment which the personal and professional character of Mr. Choate
+has received at the author's hands. That he should have introduced into
+it, as he has done, such stories, or jokes, or anecdotes, or whatever
+else they may be called, as the commonest good taste or good sense
+should have told him to exclude, we suppose ought in charity to be
+attributed to mere uncontrollable garrulity. But he has also completely
+missed some of the most obvious and familiar characteristics of Mr.
+Choate, and his description of others which he professes to have
+perceived he spoils by unseemly and unintelligent illustration. We have
+not the patience to follow him through this part of his performance. It
+is enough to say that none who knew Mr. Choate would ever recognize the
+portrait.
+
+We regret extremely that Mr. Parker felt himself called upon to write
+and print his "Reminiscences." He has done himself no credit whatever;
+but that is comparatively a small matter. The book is in every way an
+injurious and indecorous one. And if he really respects the fame of the
+distinguished man whom he has attempted to describe, he must agree with
+us in the hope that his own work may be forgotten as soon as possible.
+
+
+
+
+_A History of the Whig Party_. By R. Mc KINLEY ORMSBY. Boston: Crosby
+Nichols, & Co.
+
+
+The duties of an historian, always difficult, are peculiarly so when he
+attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose
+mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him
+utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of
+judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid
+and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr.
+Ormsby, we propose to inquire.
+
+We are at first favorably impressed. Mr. Ormsby's Preface is most
+striking,--uniting not only touching candor, but innocence absolutely
+refreshing. The duties of historian, which we just now called so
+weighty, rest lightly upon his conscious strength. The historian
+remarks, that "he is aware that his outlines are very imperfect, and
+in many things may be erroneous. He has had no access to libraries or
+public documents; and his statistics are sometimes given from general
+recollection, and are but approximations to accuracy. But, feeling
+that some history of the parties of this country is needed, he has the
+temerity to offer this, till its place shall be supplied by one more
+reliable and satisfactory."
+
+Any man's apology for deficiencies in his book may be accepted, provided
+he be able to make good the suppressed premise upon which, after all,
+the whole depends, namely,--that there was need of his writing at all.
+Mr. Ormsby seems to think there was, but gives no reasons in support of
+his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated
+whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over
+the man so unlucky as not to possess it.
+
+We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
+scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
+nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
+smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
+is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
+these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
+introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
+description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
+rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.
+
+The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
+is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
+institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
+warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
+the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
+mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
+ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
+in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
+etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
+philanthropy,"--etc., etc.
+
+Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
+legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
+distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
+in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
+given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
+States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
+but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
+to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
+is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
+incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.
+
+We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
+pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
+instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
+Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
+their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
+Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
+acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
+March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
+not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
+anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
+Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
+South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
+principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
+did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
+is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
+evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
+by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
+disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
+If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
+leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
+of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
+was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
+has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
+refunding the pay.
+
+Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
+many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
+he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
+1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
+gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
+Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
+Democracy.
+
+It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
+from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
+swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
+and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
+alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
+other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
+party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
+North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
+that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
+Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
+assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
+carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
+slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
+Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
+endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
+thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
+admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
+gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
+denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
+the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
+that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
+blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.
+
+On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
+to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
+do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
+the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
+not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
+a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
+is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
+two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
+servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
+bondage" and "negro servitude!"
+
+Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
+assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
+arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
+refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
+have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
+irrelevant.
+
+"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
+them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
+ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
+He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
+necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
+of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
+_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
+they think?
+
+Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
+efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
+been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
+been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
+increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
+decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
+in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
+consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
+would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
+showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
+of Providence!
+
+"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
+the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
+best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
+based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
+any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.
+
+There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
+champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
+dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
+slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
+is the good of being opposed to it?
+
+The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
+to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
+Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
+Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
+the surviving Whigs?
+
+"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
+party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
+national party." p. 355.
+
+"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
+condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
+ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
+the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
+if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
+party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
+sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
+a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
+be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
+small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
+existence_." pp. 363-4.
+
+This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
+resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
+beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
+Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
+to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
+so obliging as to supply!
+
+After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
+books?
+
+
+
+_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
+"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
+8vo. pp. 395.
+
+This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
+England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
+of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
+taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
+style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
+shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
+Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
+and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
+much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
+real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
+and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
+he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
+him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
+Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
+gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
+varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
+the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
+but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
+merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
+parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
+has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
+conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
+he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
+may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
+to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.
+
+The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
+present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
+questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
+1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
+being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
+great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
+exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
+both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
+comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
+If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
+disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
+then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
+done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
+be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
+devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
+will have proved injurious.
+
+As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
+accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
+differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
+aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
+towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
+may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
+observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
+partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
+main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
+shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
+was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
+I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
+emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
+nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
+for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
+such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
+condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
+to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
+was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
+of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
+expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
+commencement of a struggle."
+
+This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
+suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
+satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
+the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
+from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
+temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
+to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
+regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
+in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
+little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
+work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
+is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
+Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
+and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
+causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
+especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
+the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
+a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
+expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
+full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
+work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
+labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
+means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.
+
+A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
+but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
+drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
+recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
+seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
+the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
+but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
+hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
+very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
+blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
+idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
+in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
+a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.
+
+But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
+neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
+and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
+its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
+occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
+of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
+as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
+mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
+thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
+thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
+degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
+still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
+sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
+equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
+their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
+There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
+sentence.
+
+But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
+to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
+has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preëxisting
+slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
+emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
+"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
+the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
+this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
+has now fallen back into wilderness?"
+
+Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
+disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
+in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
+there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
+work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
+a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
+negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
+laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
+of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
+1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
+Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]
+
+Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
+and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
+in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
+the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
+Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
+demand for labor.
+
+In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
+brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
+depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
+freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
+ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
+India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
+prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
+so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
+immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
+Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
+the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
+of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
+of the immigration by yearly instalments.
+
+[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
+were and are_.]
+
+They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
+reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
+hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
+salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
+Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
+end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
+and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
+home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
+learned to husband their means, and put money together."
+
+We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
+animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
+part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
+which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
+negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
+to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
+population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
+or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
+himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
+to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
+the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
+but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
+improvement in the race.
+
+How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
+blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
+them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
+obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
+which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
+the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
+solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
+reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
+reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
+giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.
+
+There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
+other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
+readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
+country far more thorough and not less entertaining.
+
+Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
+transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
+Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
+must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
+venture over the same ground.
+
+
+
+
+_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
+Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.
+
+
+It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
+has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
+responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
+"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
+viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
+narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
+as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
+shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
+admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.
+
+There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
+one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
+to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
+thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
+newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
+his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
+him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
+a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
+excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
+in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
+him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
+of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
+biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
+most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
+entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
+its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
+of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
+and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
+and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
+have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
+would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
+Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
+pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
+previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
+partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
+statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
+continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
+his materials.
+
+The truth is, that a life of Brown was not now needed for those who
+already admired the stalwart nature of the man, even though they might
+deplore his course,--for those who had had their hearts touched and
+stirred by his manliness, his truth, his courage, and his unwavering
+fidelity to conscience and faith in God; but it was greatly needed for
+that much larger class,--the mass of the Northern community,-whose
+timidity had been startled at his rash attempt, whose sympathy had been
+more or less awakened by his bearing and his death, but who were and are
+in a painful state of perplexity, in the endeavor to reconcile their
+abhorrence, or at least their disapproval, of his attack on Virginia,
+with their sense of the admirable nature of the qualities he displayed.
+It was needed also for the very large class who received from the
+newspapers but a confused and imperfect account of the events which took
+place in Virginia from October to December, and who, according to their
+political predilections, condemn or applaud the course of Captain Brown.
+And, above all, it was needed for the men who have disgraced themselves
+by denying to Brown the possession of any virtues, and who have
+outstripped his Southern enemies in applying to him the most opprobrious
+and the falsest epithets. Now, none of these classes will Mr. Redpath's
+book reach with effect. Its tone is such, it is so violent, so
+extravagant, that it will offend all right-thinking men. Even those who
+have known how to hold a steady and clear opinion, in the midst of the
+confusion of the popular mind,--who have not applauded Brown's acts of
+violence, and have condemned his judgment, but who have, nevertheless,
+honored what was noble in him, and sympathized with him in his strong
+love of liberty,--who, while acknowledging him guilty under the law,
+mourned that the law should not be tempered with mercy,--and who
+have recognized in him at once the excellences and the errors of an
+enthusiast,--those who have most faithfully endeavored to find the truth
+concerning him, though they will obtain some interesting information
+from Mr. Redpath's book, will be the most dissatisfied with it.
+
+It has always been among the offences of the out-and-out Abolitionists,
+to abuse the force of words, and to make exclusive pretensions to virtue
+and the love of liberty. This book is written in the spirit and style
+of an Abolition tract. In representing John Brown as little more than a
+mere hero of the Abolitionists, the author has done essential disservice
+to the cause of freedom, and to the memory of a man who was as free from
+party-ties as he was from personal ambitions.
+
+Although John Brown's character was a simple one, a long time must pass
+before it will be generally understood, and justice be done to it. The
+passion and the prejudice which the later acts of his life have excited
+cannot die away for years. Mr. Redpath has done his best to perpetuate
+them. In seasons of excitement, and amid the struggles of political
+contention, the men who use the most extravagant and the most violent
+words have, for a time, the advantage; but, in the long run, they damage
+whatever cause they may adopt; and the truth, which their declamations
+have obscured or their falsehoods have violated, finally asserts itself.
+In our country, the worth and the strength of temperance and moderation
+of speech seem to be peculiarly forgotten. Words, which should stand
+for things, are too commonly used with no respect to their essential
+meaning. Political debates are embittered, personal feeling wounded,
+the tone of manners lowered, and national character degraded, by this
+disregard of words as the symbol and expression of truth. Moderation is
+brought into disrepute, and justice, fairness, and honesty of opinion
+tendered as rare as they are difficult of attainment. The manner in
+which John Brown has been spoken of affords the plainest illustration
+of these facts. Extravagance in condemnation has been answered by
+extravagance in praise of his life and deeds.
+
+The most interesting and the most novel part of Mr. Redpath's book is
+the letter written by John Brown in 1857, giving some account of his
+early life. It is, in all respects, a remarkable composition. It
+exhibits the main influences by which his character was formed; it
+affords a key to the history of his life; it illustrates the nature of
+the social institutions under which such a man could grow up; and it
+shows his natural traits, before they had become hardened and trained
+under the discipline of later experience and circumstance. Nothing has
+been more marked in the various exhibitions of his character, as they
+have come successively to view, than their complete consistency. This
+letter, this account of his youth, squares perfectly with what we
+know of his manhood. The whole of it should be read by all who would
+understand the man, with his native faculty of command, with his mingled
+sternness and tenderness, with his large heart, his steadfast will. The
+base of his soul was truth; and the motive power of his life, faith in
+the justice of God.
+
+He was a man of a rare type,--so rare in our times as to seem like a
+man of another age. He belonged to the same class with the Scottish
+Covenanters and the English Regicides. He belonged to the great company
+of those who have followed the footsteps of Gideon, and forgot that the
+armory of the Lord contained other weapons than the sword. He belonged
+to those who from time to time have adopted some cause,--the good old
+cause,--and have shrunk from no sacrifice which it required at their
+hands. "I have now been confined over a month," wrote John Brown to
+his children, in one of that most affecting series of letters from his
+prison, "with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as fair in the
+face as I am capable of doing, and I now feel most grateful that I am
+counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth."
+"Suffering is a gift not given to every one," wrote one of the
+Covenanters, who was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, in
+1684,--"and I desire to bless God's name with my whole heart and soul,
+that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of
+suffering."
+
+That John Brown was wrong in his attempt to break up slavery by
+violence, few will deny. But it was a wrong committed by a good
+man,--by one who dreaded the vengeance of the Almighty and forgot His
+long-suffering. His errors were the result of want of patience and want
+of imagination, and he paid the penalty for them. He had faith in the
+Divine ordering of the affairs of this world; but he forgot that
+the processes by which evils like that of slavery are done away are
+thousand-year-long,--that, to be effectual, they must be slow,--that
+wrong is no remedy for wrong. He was an anachronism, and met the fate of
+all anachronisms that strive to stem and divert the present current by
+modes which the world has outgrown. But now that he and those dearest
+to him have so bitterly expiated his faults, both charity and justice
+demand that his virtues should be honored, and he himself mourned. It
+will be a gloomy indication of the poor, low spirit of our days, if fear
+and falsehood, if passion or indifference, should cause the lesson of
+John Brown's life to be neglected, or should check a natural sympathy
+with the noble heart of the old man. That lesson is not for any one part
+of the country more than another; that sympathy may be given by the
+South as well as by the North. It is not sympathy for his acts, but
+for the spirit of his life and the heroism of his death. The lesson of
+manliness, uprightness, and courage, which his life teaches, is to be
+learned by us, not merely as lovers of liberty, not as opponents of
+slavery, but as men who need more manliness, more uprightness, more
+courage and simplicity in our common lives.
+
+All that is possible of apology for John Brown is to be found in his
+letters and in his speech to the court before his sentence. It is,
+perhaps, too soon to hope that these letters and this speech will be
+read with candor and a feeling of human brotherhood by those who now
+look with abhorrence or with indifference on his memory. But the time
+will come when they will be held at their true worth by all, as the
+expressions of a large, tender soul,--when they will be read with
+sympathetic pity, even by those who still find it difficult to forgive
+their author for his offence against society. These letters appeal to
+the better nature of every man and woman in America; and it will be a
+sad thing, if their appeal be disregarded.
+
+We trust, that, before long, a fairer and fuller biography than that by
+Mr. Redpath will remove the obstacle which this book now presents to the
+general appreciation of the character and life of John Brown.
+
+
+
+
+_Poems_. By SYDNEY DOBELL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
+
+
+Many of Mr. Dobell's poems have passages which are musical, vigorous,
+and peculiar, and hardly in any part can he be justly charged with
+prolonging an echo. He is not one of the many mocking-birds that infest
+the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be
+wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a
+heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep
+the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of
+that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity
+of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate
+master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping,
+and turn away from colors, however exquisite, that are strewn, as it
+were, on a palette, rather than wrought into picture and harmonized
+to the tone of life. The truth is, that the grandly designing hand is
+nowhere completely visible in the poetry of Young England. Many of her
+more youthful poets show a mass of rich materials, but they appear to
+have been upheaved by convulsions, half-blinding us with their splendor,
+while, like lava pouring from a volcano's crater, they take no
+prescribed channel, they flow into no immortal mould. It is this fiery
+gleam on the surface of matter hot from chaos, which the multitude honor
+as the highest manifestation of genius. But this is to desecrate a word
+which implies constructive power of the first order. Form is its highest
+expression. Without the shaping faculty, which artistically rounds
+to perfection, no glitter of decoration, nor even force and fire of
+expression, can keep the work from falling into ruins. If the beautiful,
+as Goethe said, includes in it the good, then perfect beauty alone is
+everlasting. This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made,
+but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is
+not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in
+"The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt
+out of the memory.
+
+
+
+
+_A Good Fight, and other Tales_. By CHARLES KEADE. New York: Harper &
+Brothers. 1859.
+
+About the middle of the fifteenth century, a youth named Gerard, a
+native of Tergou, in Holland, loved Margaret, the daughter of Peter,
+a learned man of the neighboring village of Zevenbergen. Expecting
+immediate marriage, their intimacy was restrained by no limits. The
+interference of Gerard's relations, however, separated them for a time,
+during which the young man visited Rome, and gained some distinction as
+a transcriber of ancient manuscripts. Learning, after a while, that he
+was about to return, his kindred caused a false report of Margaret's
+death to be conveyed to him, and, by thus crushing all the hopes of
+his young life, had the final satisfaction of seeing him take priestly
+orders, which threw his patrimony into their hands. Having broken two
+hearts, and brought a world of shame upon an innocent girl to get it, it
+is only fair to suppose they enjoyed it with tranquillity.
+
+Margaret, left alone, gave birth to a child, the greatness of whose
+manhood might have softened the remembrance of her earlier sorrows, had
+she lived to witness it. But she died when he was thirteen years old.
+Gerard, her true husband, who had never rejoined her while living, also
+died within a brief space. The son they left was the famous Erasmus.
+
+Mr. Reade has taken this little record, which would never have become
+historical but for the accidental consequence of the loves of Gerard and
+Margaret, and wrought it into a story of exquisite grace and delicacy.
+A dead and half-forgotten fact, he has warmed it into fresh life, and
+given it all the beauties with which his brilliant imagination could
+endow it. Though shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly inferior
+to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit.
+The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest
+books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is
+for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its
+power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents
+follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the
+interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the
+entire story. On the contrary, it follows pretty closely the old formula
+of troubled true-love until the closing chapter, when triumphant virtue
+sets in. But this takes nothing from the effect. All is so clear and
+vivid in description, so glittering with gleams of wit, relieved by soft
+shadows of purest pathos, so full of the spirit of tender humanity,
+that the reader finds no reason to complain, except that the end is so
+speedily reached.
+
+The author has sacrificed history, in his conclusion, to satisfy a
+natural feeling. No one will object because the "Good Fight" terminates
+victoriously in the right direction. The parents of Erasmus suffered;
+but it would be a pity, if readers, after the lapse of four hundred
+years, must mourn their woes to the extent that would inevitably be
+necessary, if Mr. Reade had not arranged it otherwise. And his object,
+which was to prove--if proof were needed--that all human lives, however
+obscure, have their own share of romance, is not disturbed by this
+variation from the severity of the chronicle.
+
+
+
+
+_The Undergraduate_. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and
+Professional Students in the United States and Europe. [Greek:_'Ekasto
+onmachoi pantos_]; January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New
+Haven, Conn.
+
+We are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have
+commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two
+or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes,
+a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a
+few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and
+jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would
+he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the
+opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A
+freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its
+promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not
+something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect the youth, and
+be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining
+the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three
+or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that
+many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will
+hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased,
+therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest
+pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and
+dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.
+
+But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor
+than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has
+almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that,
+promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and
+apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College,
+and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions.
+Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and
+Introduction. They are briefly these:--"To record the history, promote
+the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize
+the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and
+Professional Students, and their Institutions."
+
+The name, "Undergraduate," shows by whom it is to be managed; but its
+contributors are, and will doubtless continue to he, in part, of a more
+advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we
+have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they
+were contributed to a students' journal. The first paper, for instance,
+"German Student-Life and Travel," is not only well written, but full of
+excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of
+good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. "A Student's
+Voyage to Labrador" is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new
+to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account
+of the two ancient societies of Yale College, "Brothers in Unity" and
+"Linonia," rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their
+protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will
+interest all students, and many outside of the student-world, "The
+Undergraduate" would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them
+somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful
+character. Perhaps it might be safe to lay it down as a law, that, the
+tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the
+older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of
+discussion. It is safe to say that a young man's essay is most likely
+to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or
+experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions
+on "Virtue," "Honesty," "Shakspeare," "Human Nature," and such large
+subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.
+
+On the whole, "The Undergraduate" is most creditable to the enterprise
+that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If
+we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be,
+that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism
+should not be spelt Calv_a_nism, Thackeray Thack_a_ray, nor Courvoisier
+_Corvosier_,--neither should traveller be spelt _traveler_, nor theatre
+_theater_. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a
+place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking
+world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in
+the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring
+University, it should be a condition that the English standard of
+spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.
+
+With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical
+which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our
+educational institutions.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year
+1860. Boston, Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 399. $1.00.
+
+The New American Cyclopedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge.
+Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. VIII. Fugger-Haynau.
+New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 788, vii. $3.00.
+
+Life Without and Life Within: or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
+Poems. By Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth
+Century," "At Home and Abroad," etc. Edited by her Brother, Arthur B.
+Fuller. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & Chase. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.00.
+
+Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. With Narrative
+Illustrations. By Robert Dale Owen, formerly Member of Congress, and
+American Minister to Naples. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp.
+528. $1.25.
+
+Title-Hunting. By E. L. Llewellyn. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.
+pp. 357. $1.00.
+
+The Rivals. A Tale of the Times of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
+By Hon. Jere. Clemens, Author of "Bernard Lite" and "Mustang Gray."
+Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 286. 75 cts.
+
+Poems. By Sydney Dobell. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. 544. 75
+cts. An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco, in the Summer
+of 1859. By Horace Greeley. New York. Saxton, Barker, & Co. 12mo. pp.
+386. $1.00.
+
+Morphy's Games: a Selection of the Best Games played by the
+Distinguished Champion in Europe and America. With Analytical and
+Critical Notes by J Löwenthal. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp.
+xviii., 473. $1.25.
+
+Compensation: or, Always a Future. By Anne M. H. Brewster. Philadelphia.
+Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 297. 75 cts.
+
+The Eighteen Christian Centuries. By the Rev. James White, Author of a
+"History of France." With a Copious Index. From the Second Edinburgh
+Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 538. $1.25.
+
+An Appeal to the People in Behalf of their Rights as Authorized
+Interpreters of the Bible. By Catherine E. Beecher, Author of "Common
+Sense Applied to Religion," "Domestic Economy," etc. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. x., 380. $1.00.
+
+On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The
+Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles
+Darwin, M. A., Fellow of the Royal Geological, Linnæan, etc., Societies;
+Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round
+the World." New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.25.
+
+Life in Spain, Past and Present. By Walter Thornbury, Author of "Every
+Man his own Trumpeter," "Art and Nature," etc. With Illustrations. New
+York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 383. $1.00.
+
+Poems. By the Author of "A Life for a Life," "John Halifax, Gentleman,"
+etc. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp.270. 75 cts.
+
+The Female Skeptic: or, Faith Triumphant, New York. R. M. DeWitt. 12mo.
+pp. 449. $1.00.
+
+Report on Weights and Measures, read before the Pharmaceutical
+Association, at their Eighth Annual Session, held in Boston, September
+15, 1859. By Alfred B. Taylor, of Philadelphia, Chairman of the
+Committee of Weights and Measures. Boston. Press of Rand & Avery. 8vo.
+pamphlet, pp. 104. 50 cts.
+
+The Adopted Heir. By Miss Pardoe, Author of "The Confessions of a Pretty
+Woman," "Life of Maria de Medicis." etc. Complete and unabridged.
+Philadelphia. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.25.
+
+A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and
+his Companions, by Captain M'Clintock, R. N., LL.D. With Maps and
+Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 375. $1.50.
+
+The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By Peter
+H. Burnett. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xiv., 741. $2.50.
+
+Sermons on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. Delivered at Trinity
+Chapel, Brighton. By the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, M.A., the Incumbent.
+Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xii., 425. $1.00.
+
+Trinitarianism not the Doctrine of the New Testament. Two Lectures,
+delivered, partly in Review of Rev. Dr. Huntington's Discourse on the
+Trinity, in the Hollis Street Church, January 7 and 14,1860. By T. S.
+King. Printed by Request. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 8vo. pamphlet,
+pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Lyrics and other Poems. By S. J. Donaldson, Jr. Philadelphia. Lindsay &
+Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 208. 75 cts.
+
+Twenty Years Ago, and Now. By T. S. Arthur. Philadelphia. G. G. Evans.
+12mo. pp. 307. $1.00.
+
+The Water Witch: or, The Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale. By J. Fenimore
+Cooper. Illustrated from Designs by F. 0. C. Darley. New York. Townsend
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.50.
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29,
+March, 1860, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860
+       A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9389]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 28, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, MARCH 1860 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, David Widger and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. V.--MARCH, 1860.--NO. XXIX.
+
+
+
+THE FRENCH CHARACTER.
+
+The American character is now generally acknowledged to be the most
+cosmopolitan of modern times; and a native of this country, all things
+being equal, is likely to form a less prescriptive idea of other nations
+than the inhabitants of countries whose neighborhood and history unite
+to bequeathe and perpetuate certain fixed notions. Before the frequent
+intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we
+derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian
+skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest
+association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous.
+All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism,
+strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a
+Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner
+stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice;
+for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to
+our childhood proved a poor _emigre_ who gained a precarious livelihood
+as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of
+smiles, shrugs, bows, and compliments, prided himself on _la belle
+France_, played the fiddle, and took snuff. A more dignified view
+succeeded, when we read "Telemaque," so long an initiatory text-book
+in the study of the language, blended as its crystal style was in our
+imaginations with the pure and noble character of Fenelon. Perhaps the
+next link in the chain of our estimate was supplied by the bust of
+Voltaire, whose withered, sneering physiognomy embodies the wit and
+indifference, the soulless vagabondage that forms the worst side of
+the national mind. As patriotic sentiment awakened, the disinterested
+enthusiasm of Lafayette, woven, as it is, into the record of the
+struggle which gave birth to our republic, yielded another and more
+attractive element to the fancy portrait. Then, as our reading expanded,
+came the tragic chronicle of the first French Revolution and the
+brilliant and dazzling melodrama of Napoleon, the traditions so pathetic
+and sublime of gifted women, the _tableaux_ so exciting to a youthful
+temper of military glory. And thus, by degrees, we found ourselves
+bewildered by the most vivid contrasts and apparently irreconcilable
+traits, until the original idea of a Frenchman expanded to the widest
+range of associations, from the ingenious devices of a mysterious
+_cuisine_ to the brilliant manoeuvres of the battle-field; infinite
+female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable _bon-mots_,
+exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined
+profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,--Ude, Napoleon, Madame Recamier,
+Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and
+desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical
+and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we
+first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. The society of one of those
+benign _savans_ who attract the sympathy and win the admiration of
+young students may yield a delightful and noble association to our
+future reminiscences; or an unmodified experience of cynical hearts
+joined to scenical manners may leave us nothing to regret, upon our
+departure, save the material advantages there enjoyed. But whoever knows
+life in Paris, unrelieved by some consistent and individual purpose,
+will find it a succession of excitements, temporary, yet varied,--full
+of the agreeable, yet barren of consecutive interest and satisfactory
+results,--admirable as a recreative hygiene, deplorable as a permanent
+resource; their inevitable consequence being a faith in the external, a
+dependence on the immediate, and a habit of vagrant pleasure-seeking,
+which must at last cloy and harden the manly soul. For this very reason,
+however, the scenes, characters, and society there exhibited are
+prolific of suggestion to the philosophic mind.
+
+In every phase of life, manners, and action, we see a characteristic
+excellence in detail and process, and an equally remarkable deficiency
+in grand practical idea and consistent moral sentiment. The French
+chemists have the art to extract quinine from Peruvian bark and conserve
+the juices of meats; but one of their most patriotic writers calls
+attention to the wholly diverse motives addressed by Napoleon and Nelson
+to their respective followers. "Soldiers," exclaimed the former, "from
+the summit of those Pyramids forty ages are looking down upon you."
+"England," said the latter, "expects every man to do his duty." In
+Paris, the science of dissection is perfect; in London, that of
+nutrition;--Dumas has reduced plagiarism to a fine art; Cobbett made
+common-sense a social lever;--a British merchant or statesman attaches
+his name to a document in characters of such individuality that the
+signature is known at a glance; a French official invents a flourish
+so intricate that the forger's ingenuity is baffled in the attempt to
+imitate it;--government, on one side of the Channel, employs a taster to
+detect adulteration in wine whose sensitive palate is a fortune; on
+the other, the hereditary fame of a brewery is the guaranty of the
+excellence of ale.
+
+This minute observance of detail has made the French leaders in fashion;
+it directs invention to the minutiae of dress, and confirms the sway of
+the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an
+extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as
+characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with
+their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so
+imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as
+every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick,
+"nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and
+lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your
+clothes."
+
+The superiority of the French in the minor philosophy of life was
+curiously exemplified during our Revolutionary War. The octogenarians of
+Rhode Island used to expatiate on the remarkable difference between the
+troops of France and those of England when quartered among them. The
+former speedily made a series of little arrangements, and fell naturally
+into a pleasant routine, making the best of everything, adapting
+themselves to the ways and prejudices of the inhabitants, and, in a
+word, becoming assimilated at once to a new mode of life and form of
+society; their wit, cheerfulness, and gallantry are yet proverbial
+in that region. The English, on the other hand, even when in full
+possession of the country, made but an awkward use of their privileges,
+were ill-at-ease, failed to recognize anything genial in the habits and
+manners even of the Tory families. While the French officers introduced
+the mysteries of their _cuisine_, and brightened many a rustic
+household with song, anecdote, dance, and conversation, the English
+complained of the simple viands, regretted London fogs and beer,
+and made themselves and their hosts, whether forced or voluntary,
+uncomfortable. They exhibited no tact or facility in improving the
+resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We
+beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and
+impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic
+allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and
+ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off,
+meantime, chagrin and _ennui_ with as much alacrity as they did
+Cossacks.
+
+_Finesse_ characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the
+cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as
+the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of
+intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it
+more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English,
+shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is _finesse_,
+which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal
+attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to
+an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims,
+of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the
+tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted.
+To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in
+France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated
+woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days
+the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order
+to learn the _savoir vivre_ of the metropolis. Itineraries of other
+cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs,
+the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these
+curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century
+ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, _Gouvernantes,
+Emeutes, Reves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit_,
+--corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, _femmes de
+quarante ans_, with their "_deux ressources, la devotion et le bel
+esprit"; Contre Poisons_,--indispensable in those days of jealousy
+and assassination; _Pots de Fleurs_ form an item of the most limited
+establishment; emblems, such as _Rubans_ and _Bonnets Rouges_, are
+described as essential to the intelligent conduct of the visitor; and a
+chapter is devoted to Gallantry, of which a modern author in the same
+department pensively remarks, "_Cette ancienne galanterie qui vivait
+d'esprit et d'infidelites est comptletement denaturee_."
+
+It is curious how municipal, economical, and social life are thus
+simultaneously daguerreotyped and indicate their mutual and intricate
+association in the French capital. Its history involves that of
+churches, congresses, academies, prisons, cemeteries, and police, each
+of which represents domestic and royal vicissitudes. What other city
+furnishes such a work as the Duchess D'Abrantes' "Histoire des Salons
+de Paris"? The _salons_ of Madame Necker, Polignac, De Beaumont, De
+Mazarin, Roland, De Genlis, of Condorcet, of Malmaison, of Talleyrand,
+and of the Hotel Rambouillet, etc., embrace the career of statesmen
+and soldiers, the literary celebrities, the schools of philosophy,
+the revolutions, the court, the wars, diplomacy, and, in a word, the
+veritable annals of France. Society, according to this lively writer, in
+the proper acceptation of the term, was born in France in the reign of
+the Cardinal de Richelieu; and thenceforth, in its history, we trace
+that of the nation.
+
+Throughout the most salient eras of this history, therefore, is visible
+female influence. Cousin has just revived the career of Madame de
+Longueville, which is identified with the cabals, financial expedients,
+and war of the Fronde; tournaments, which formed so striking a feature
+in the diversions of Louis XIV.'s court, owed their revival to the whim
+of one of his mistresses; Montespan fostered a brood of satirists,
+and Maintenon one of devotees, while that extraordinary religious
+controversy which initiated the sect of the Quietists had its origin in
+the example and agency of Madame Guyon. Even now, although, as a late
+writer has quaintly observed, "no lady brings her distaff to the
+council-chamber," the influence of the sex on political opinion, in
+its operation as a social principle, is recognized. A friend of mine,
+returning from a dinner-party, described the free and witty sarcasm with
+which a fair Legitimist assailed the Imperial rule; a week afterwards,
+meeting her at the same table, she related, that, a few days after her
+imprudent conversation, she received a courteous invitation from the
+chief of police. "When they were seated alone in his bureau,--Madame,"
+said he, "you have position, conversational talent, and wield the pen
+effectively; are you disposed to exert this influence, henceforth, in
+behalf of, instead of against the government?" Before her indignant
+negative was fairly uttered, he opened a drawer that seemed full of
+Napoleons, and glanced at them and her significantly. Thus Montesquieu's
+observation continues true:--"The individual who would attempt to judge
+of the government by the men at the head of affairs, and not by the
+women who sway those men, would fall into the same error as he who
+judges of a machine by its outward-action, and not by its secret
+springs"; and the old base system of espionage is revived under the new
+despotism.
+
+It has become proverbial in France, that the life of woman has three
+eras,--in youth a coquette, in middle-life a wit, and in age a
+_devote_,--which is but another mode of expressing that economy of
+personal gifts, that shrewd use of the most available social power,
+which distinguishes the Gallic from the Saxon woman, the worldly from
+the domestic instincts. There only can we imagine a royal favorite
+admitting her indebtedness to a royal wife. "To her," wrote Madame de
+Maintenon of the Queen of Louis; "I owe the King's affection. Picture
+a sovereign worn out with state affairs, intrigues, and ceremonies,
+possessed of a _confidante_ always the same, always calm, always
+rational, equally able to instruct and to soothe, with the intelligence
+of a confessor and the winning gentleness of a woman." It is peculiar
+to the sex there to escape outward soil, whatever may be their moral
+exposure; for one instinctively recognizes a Frenchwoman by her clean
+boots, even in the muddiest thoroughfare, her spotless muslin cap,
+kerchief, and collar. She retains also her individuality after marriage
+better than the fair of other nations, not only in character, but in
+name, the maiden appellative being joined to her husband's, so that,
+although a Madame, she keeps the world informed that she was _nee_ of a
+family whose title, however modest, she will not drop. The maxims, so
+prevalent in France, which declare matrimony the tomb of love, are
+the legitimate result of a superficial theory of life and the mutual
+independence of the sexes thence arising; accordingly we are assured,
+"C'est surtout entre mari et femme que l'amour a le moins de chance de
+succes. Ils vieillirent ensemble comme deux portraits de famille, sans
+aucune intimite, aucun profit pour l'esprit, et arrives au dernier
+relais de leur existence, le souvenir n'avait rien a faire entre eux."
+
+It is a curious illustration at once of the mobility and the isolation
+of the French mind, that, while it assimilates elements within its
+sphere which in other nations are kept comparatively apart, it rejects
+the process in regard to foreign material. Thus, in no other capital are
+politics and literature so interwoven with society; the love-affairs of
+a minister directly influence his policy; the tone of the _salon_
+often inspires and moulds the author; the social history of an epoch
+necessarily includes the genius of its statesmanship and of its letters,
+because they are identified with the intrigues, _the bon-mots_, and the
+conversation of the period; more is to be learned at a lady's morning
+reception or evening _soiree_ than in the writer's library or the
+official's cabinet. On the other hand, how few threads from abroad can
+be found in this mingled web of civic, literary, and social life! The
+vicinity of England and the influx of Englishmen have scarcely brought
+the ideas or the sentiment of that country into nearer recognition at
+Paris than was the case a century ago. Notwithstanding an occasional
+outbreak of Anglomania, the best French authors spell English proper
+names no better, the best French critics appreciate Shakspeare as
+little, and the majority of Parisians have no less partial and fixed a
+notion of the characteristics of their insular neighbors, than before
+the days of journalism and steam. The attempts to represent English
+manners and character are as gross caricatures now as in the time of
+Montaigne. However apt at fusion within, the national egotism is
+as repugnant to assimilation from without as ever. The stock seems
+incapable of vital grafting, as has been remarkably evidenced in all the
+colonial experiments of France.
+
+The excellence of the French character, intellectually speaking,
+consists in routine and detail. How well their authors describe and
+their artists depict peculiarities! how exact the evolutions of a French
+regiment, and the statements of a French naturalist! how apt is a
+Parisian woman in raising gracefully her skirts, throwing on a shawl, or
+carrying a basket! In loyalty to a method they are unrivalled, in the
+triumph of individualities weak; their artisans can make a glove fit
+perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a coat; their authors,
+like their soldiers, can be marshalled in groups; means are superior
+to ends; manners, the exponent of Nature in other lands, there color,
+modify, and characterize the development of intellect; the subordinate
+principle in government, in science, and in life, becomes paramount;
+drawing, the elemental language of Art, is mastered, while the standard
+of expression remains inadequate; the laws of disease are profoundly
+studied, while this knowledge bears no proportionate relation to the
+practical art of healing; the ancient rules of dramatic literature are
+pedantically followed, while the "pity and terror" they were made to
+illustrate are unawakened; the programme of republican government is
+lucidly announced, its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded,
+while its spirit and realization continue in abeyance: and thus
+everywhere we find a singular disproportion between formula and fact,
+profession and practice, specific knowledge and its application. The
+citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions,
+the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he
+aspire to be a courtier or a chemist, a soldier or a _savant_, a dancer
+or a doctor; and yet, for complete equipment, he must temper each weapon
+he there acquires, or it will break in his hand.
+
+In every epoch a word rules or illustrates the dominant spirit:
+_citoyen_ in the Revolution, _moustache_ during the Consulate,
+_victoire_ under the Empire, to-day _la Bourse_. "To a Frenchman," says
+Mrs. Jameson, "the words that express things seem the things themselves,
+and he pronounces the words _amour, grace, sensibilite_, etc., with a
+relish in his mouth as if he tasted them, as if he possessed them. They
+talk of "_le sentiment du metier_"; in travelling, Paris is the eternal
+theme. A sagacious observer has remarked in their language the "short,
+aphoristic phrase, the frequent absence of the copulative, avoidance of
+dependent phrases, and disdain of modifying adverbs. _Naivete, abandon,
+ennui_, etc., are specific terms of the language, and designate national
+traits. When Beaumarchais ridiculed a provincial expression, the
+Dauphiness, we are told, composed a head-dress expressly to give it a
+local habitation and a name."
+
+The mania for equality, in the first Revolution, De Tocqueville shows
+was not so much the result of political aspiration as the fierce protest
+against those exclusive rights once enjoyed by the nobility, (shown by
+Arthur Young to have been the primary impulse to revolution,) to hunt,
+keep pigeons, grind corn, press grapes, etc. For a long period, the man
+of letters was never combined with the statesman, as in England. In
+France, speculation in government ran wild, because the thinkers,
+suddenly raised to influence in affairs, had enjoyed no ordeal of public
+duty. Hence certain imaginary fruits of liberty were sought, and its
+absolute worth misunderstood. And now that experience, dearly bought,
+has modified visionary and moulded practical theories, how much of the
+normal interest of the French character has evaporated! Even the love
+of beauty and the love of glory, proverbially its distinctions, are
+eclipsed by the sullen orb of Imperialism; the Bourse is more attractive
+than the battle-field, material luxury than artistic distinction.
+
+One of their own philosophers has summed up, with justice, the anomalous
+elements of the versatile national character:--
+
+"Did there ever appear on the earth another nation so fertile in
+contrasts, so extreme in its acts,--more under the dominion of
+feeling, less ruled by principle; always better or worse than was
+anticipated,--now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people
+so unchangeable in its leading features that it may be recognized by
+portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in
+its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to
+itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it
+has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet, when once driven
+forth and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles to
+any lengths and to dare anything; indocile by disposition, but better
+pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a sovereign than
+with a free and regular government under its chief citizens; now fixed
+in hostility to subjection of any kind, now so passionately wedded to
+servitude that nations made to serve cannot vie with it; led by a thread
+so long as no word of resistance is spoken, wholly ungovernable when the
+standard of revolt is raised,--thus always deceiving its masters,
+who fear it too much or too little; never so free that it cannot be
+subjugated, never so kept down that it cannot break the yoke; qualified
+for every pursuit, but excelling in nothing but war; more prone to
+worship chance, force, success, _eclat_, noise, than real glory; endowed
+with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better
+adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of
+great enterprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation
+of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred,
+terror, or pity, but never indifference?"[1]
+
+What other social sphere could afford room for the vocation so aptly
+described in the following sketch of his "ways and means," given in a
+recent picture of life in Paris by a sycophant of millionnaires, at
+a period when interests, not rights, are the watchwords of the
+nation?--"Mon role de familier dans une veritable population d'enrichis
+me donnait du credit dans les boudoirs, et mon credit dans les boudoirs
+ajoutait a ma faveur pres ces pauvres diables de millionaires, presque
+tous vieux et blases, courant toujours en chancelant apres un plaisir
+nouveau. Les marchands de vin me font la cour comme les jolies femmes,
+pour que je daigne leur indiqner des connaisseurs assez riches pour
+payer les bonnes choses le prix qu'elles valent. Mon metier est de tout
+savoir,--l'anecdote de la cour, le scandale de la ville, le secret des
+coulisses." And this species of adventurer, we are told, has always the
+same commencement to his memoirs,--"_Il vint a Paris en sabots._"
+
+[Footnote 1: De Tocqueville.]
+
+The numerous avocations of women in the French capital explain, in a
+measure, their superior tact, efficiency, and force of character. This
+is especially true of females of the middle class, who have been justly
+described as remarkable for good sense and appropriate costumes. The
+participation of women in so many departments of art and industry
+affects, also, the social tone and the manners. Sterne, long ago,
+remarked it of the fair shopkeepers. "The genius of a people," he says,
+"where nothing but the monarchy is _Salique_, having ceded this
+department totally to the women, by a continual higgling with customers
+of all ranks and sizes, from morning to night, like so many rough
+pebbles in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but
+will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant."
+
+How distinctly may be read the political vicissitudes of France in her
+literature,--classic, highly finished, keen, and formal, when a monarch
+was idolized and authors wrote only for courts and scholars: Bossuet,
+with his rhetorical graces; La Bruyere, with his gallery of characters,
+not one of which was moulded among the people; De la Rochefoucauld's
+maxims, drawn from the arcana of fashionable life; Racine, whose heroes
+die with an immaculate couplet and speak the faint echoes of Grecian or
+Roman sentiment! When politics became common property, and the walls of
+a prescriptive and conventional system fell, how wild ran speculation
+and sentiment in the copious and superficial Voltaire and the vague
+humanities of Rousseau! When an era of military despotism supervened
+upon the reign of license, how destitute of lettered genius seemed the
+nation, except when the pensive enthusiasm of Chateaubriand breathed
+music from American wilds or a London garret, and Madame de Stael gave
+utterance to her eloquent philosophy in exile at Geneva! "_Napoleon eut
+voulu faire manoeuvrer l'esprit humain comme il faisait manoeuvrer ses
+vieux bataillons_." Yet more emphatic is the reaction of political
+conditions upon literary development after the Restoration. The tragic
+horrors and protracted fever of the Revolution, and the passion for
+military glory exaggerated by the victories of Napoleon, legitimately
+initiated the intense school, which during the present century has
+signalized French literature. The _prestige_ of the scholar revived, and
+literary eclipsed warlike fame; but with the revival of letters came
+the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and
+in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the
+melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in
+dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Beranger;
+fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly
+artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the chaos and the
+earthquakes that laid bare and upheaved life and society in the
+preceding epochs; the journal became an intellectual gymnasium and
+Olympic game, where the first minds of the nation sought exercise and
+glory; the _feuilleton_ almost necessitated the novelist to concentrate
+upon each chapter the amount of interest once diffused through a volume;
+criticism, from tedious analysis, became a brilliant ordeal; egotism
+inspired a world of new confessions, political questions a new school
+of popular writing, the love of effect and the passion for excitement a
+multitude of dramatic, narrative, and biographical books, wherein the
+serenity of thought, the tranquil beauty of truth, and the healthful
+tone of nature were sacrificed, not without dazzling genius, to
+immediate fame, pecuniary reward, and the delight _d'eprouver une
+sensation_. Even in the history of the fine arts, we find the political
+element guiding the pencil and ruling the fortunes of genius. David was
+the government painter, and regarded Gros and Girodet as _suspects_.
+He effected a revolution in Art by going back to severe anatomical
+principles in design. There were conspiracies against him in the
+studios, and war was declared between color and design; the palette
+and the pencil were in conflict; David, the Napoleon of the
+former,--Prud'hon, Gericault, Delacroix, and others, leaders in the
+latter faction. Each party was surrounded by its respective corps of
+amateurs; and military terms were in vogue in the _atelier_ and academy.
+"_S'il est permis_" says Delacroix, speaking of his Sardanapalus,
+"de comparer les petites choses aux grandes, ce fut mon Waterloo. Je
+devenais l'abomination de la peinture; il fallait me refuser l'eau et
+le sel." "If you wish to share the favors of the government," said an
+official to another artist, "you must change your manner." From the
+tyranny of external influences have arisen the incongruities of the
+French schools of painting, and especially what has been well called
+"that meretricious breed which continue to depict the Magdalen with
+the united attractions of Palestine and the Palais Royal." The large
+pictures which Gros painted during the Empire were consigned to
+long obscurity at the Restoration. The lives, too, of many of these
+cultivators of the arts of peace had a tragic close. Haydon's fate made
+a deep impression in England, because it was an exceptional case; while,
+of the modern painters of France, whose career was far more harmonious
+and successful than his, Gros drowned himself, Robert cut his throat,
+Prud'hon died in misery, and Greuze was buried in Potter's Field. The
+side of life we naturally associate with tranquillity thus offers, in
+this dramatic realm, scenes of excitement and pity. It is the same in
+literature. Witness the fierce struggle between the Romantic and Classic
+schools,--the early victories of the _enfant sublime_, Victor Hugo.
+And we must acknowledge that "_les lettres et les arts ont aussi leurs
+emeutes et leurs revolutions_," and accept the inference of one of the
+_Parisian literati_,--that "_l'esprit a toujours quelque chose de
+satanique_." Every revolution is identified with some musical air: when
+Louis XVIII. first appeared at the theatre, after his long exile, he was
+greeted with the "Vive Henri IV.," and the new constitution of 1830 was
+ushered in by the "Marseillaise." The Vaudeville theatre, we are told,
+during the Revolution and under the Empire, was essentially political.
+An imaginary resemblance between _la chaste Suzanne_ and Marie
+Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which
+Cambaceres took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it
+his official protection.
+
+In the family of nations France is the child of illusions, and excites
+the sympathy of the magnanimous because her destinies have been marred
+through the errors of the imagination rather than of the heart.
+Government, religion, and society--the three great elements of civil
+life--have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact.
+Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and
+literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness
+in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a
+thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety,
+gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without
+the solid foundation of principles and the efficient development in
+practice, either of polity, a social system, or religious belief,--the
+theory and the sentiment of each being at the same time luxuriant,
+attractive, and prolific.
+
+The popular writers are eloquent in abstractions, but each seems
+inspired by a thorough egotism. Descartes, their philosopher, drew all
+his inferences from consciousness; Madame de Sevigne, the epistolary
+queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love
+of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of
+self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the
+lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society
+through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyere elaborated
+generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial
+society; Boileau established a classical standard of criticism suggested
+by personal taste, which ignored the progress of the human mind.
+
+The redeeming grace of the nation is to be found in its wholesome sense
+of the enjoyable and the available in ordinary life, in its freedom
+from the discontent which elsewhere is born of avarice and unmitigated
+materialism. The love of pleasing, the influence of women, and a
+frivolous temper everywhere and on all occasions signalize them. "Why,
+people laugh at everything here!" naively exclaimed the young Duchess of
+Burgundy, on her arrival at the French court.
+
+The amount of commodities taken by French people on a journey, and the
+cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion
+demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The
+_pate_, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff,
+and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory
+and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an
+interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to
+which the humblest of Dutch pictures are refined and elegant.
+
+The intrinsic diversity and the national relations between the French
+and English are curiously illustrated by their respective history and
+literature. Compare, for instance, the plays of Shakspeare, which
+dramatize the long wars of the early kings, with the account given in
+the journals of the reception of Victoria at Paris and of Louis Napoleon
+in London; imagine the royal salutation and the official recognition of
+the once anathematized Napoleon dynasty; General Bonaparte becomes in
+his tomb Napoleon I. No wonder "Punch" affirmed that the statue of Pitt
+shook its bronze head and the bones of Castlereagh stirred in protest.
+
+"The English," says a celebrated writer, "like ancient medals, kept more
+apart, preserve the first sharpness which the fair hand of Nature has
+given them; they are not so pleasant to feel, but, in return, the legend
+is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and
+superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth
+the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and
+assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,--a vital difference, which
+no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can essentially
+change.
+
+A century ago there were few better tests of popular sentiment in
+England than the plays in vogue. As indications of the state of the
+public mind, they were what the ballads are to earlier times, and the
+daily press is to our own,--generalized casual, but emphatic proofs of
+the opinions, prejudices, and fancies of the hour. Now a large English
+colony is domesticated in France; it is but a few hours' trip from
+London to Paris; newspapers and the telegraph in both capitals make
+almost simultaneous announcements of news; the soldiers of the two
+nations fight side by side; the French shopman declares on his sign that
+English is spoken within; the "Times," porter, and tea are obtainable
+commodities in Paris; and _fraternite_ is the watchword at Dover and
+Calais. Yet the normal idea which obtains in the conservative brain of a
+genuine _Anglais_, though doubtless expanded and modified by intercourse
+and treaties, may be found still in that once popular drama, Foote's
+"Englishman in Paris." "A Frenchman," says one of the characters, "is a
+fop. Their taste is trifling, and their politeness pride. What the deuse
+brings you to Paris, then? Where's the use? It gives Englishmen a true
+relish for their own domestic happiness, a proper veneration for their
+national liberties, and an honor for the extended generous commerce of
+their country. The men there are all puppies, the women painted dolls."
+Monsieur Ragout and Monsieur Rosbif bandy words; the former is said to
+"look as if he had not had a piece of beef or pudding in his paunch for
+twenty years, and had lived wholly on frogs,"--and the latter pines to
+leap a five-barred gate, and is afraid of being entrapped by "a rich
+she-Papist." His fair countrywoman is invited by a French marquis to
+marry him, with this programme,--"A perpetual residence in this paradise
+of pleasures; to be the object of universal adoration; to say what you
+please,--go where you will,--do what you like,--form fashions,--hate
+your husband, and let him see it,--indulge your gallant,--run in debt,
+and oblige the poor devil to pay it."
+
+As a pendant, take the description of one of the last French novels:--"A
+Paris tout s'oublie, tout se pardonne. Par convenance, par decence,
+quelquefois par crainte, on s'absente, ou fait un entr'acte: puis le
+rideau se releve pour le spectacle de nouvelles fautes et de nouvelles
+folies; toute la question est de savoir s'y prendre."
+
+Comedy is native to French genius and appreciation; it follows the
+changes of social life with marvellous celerity; it is the best school
+of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both
+in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The
+prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of
+invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic
+Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital
+affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like
+Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein
+novelty of combination, significance of dialogue, and artistic
+felicities quite unrivalled elsewhere, are exhibited.
+
+It is quite the reverse with the serious drama. In England this is a
+form of literature which goes nearest to the normal facts and conditions
+of human nature; it teaches the highest and deepest lessons, wins the
+most profound sympathy, and is remarkable and interesting through its
+subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters
+of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French
+tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of
+a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or
+melodramatic invention,--not to the universal and existing passions.
+There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies--those of
+modern civilization--with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas
+or Grecian mantles rehearse the sentiments of fatalism, the creed of
+ancient mythology, or Gallic rhetoric in a classic dress; and these
+disguises so envelope the love, ambition, despair, hate, or patriotism,
+that we are always conscious of the theatrical, and it requires the
+extraordinary gifts of a Rachel to enlist other than artistic interest.
+
+The French have manuals for breathing and composing the features
+to secure artistic effects; they offer academic prizes for every
+conceivable achievement; their very lamp-posts are designed with taste;
+a huckster in the street will exhibit dramatic tact and wonderful
+mechanical dexterity. "Quand il parait un homme de genie en France,"
+says Madame de Stael, "dans quelque carriere que ce soit, il atteint
+presque toujours a un degre de perfection sans exemple; car il reunit
+l'audace qui fait sortir de la route commune au tact du bon gout." And
+yet in vast political interests they are victims,--in the more earnest
+developments of the soul, children. A new artificial lake in the Bois de
+Boulogne, a grand military reception, news of a victory in some distant
+corner of the globe, the distribution of eagles to brave survivors,--in
+a word, an appeal to the love of amusement, of display, and of
+glory,--quiets the murmur about to rise against interference with human
+rights or usurpation of the national will. Political interests of the
+gravest character are treated with flippancy: one writer calls the
+formation of a new government Talleyrand's table of whist; and another
+casually observes that "_tous les gouvernements nouveaux ont leur lune
+de miel_."
+
+That great principle of the division of labor, which the English carry
+into mechanical and commercial affairs, the French also apply to the
+economy of life and to Art; but, as these latter interests are more
+spontaneous and unlimited, the result is often a perfection in detail,
+and a like deficiency in general effect. Thus, there are schools of
+painting in France more distinct and apart than exist elsewhere; usually
+the followers of such are distinguished for excellence in the mechanical
+aptitudes of their vocation; the figure is admirably drawn, the costume
+rightly disposed, and sometimes the degree of finish quite marvellous;
+but, usually, this superiority is attained at the expense of the
+sentiment of the picture. French historic Art, like French life, is
+apt to be extravagant and melodramatic, or over-refined in unimportant
+particulars; it often lacks moral harmony,--the grand, simple, true
+reflection of Nature in its nicety. Delaroche, who, of all French
+painters, rose most above the adventitious, and gave himself to the soul
+of Art, to pure expression, was, for this very reason, thought by his
+brother artists to be cold and unattractive. There is one sphere,
+however, where this exclusiveness of style and partition of labor are
+productive of the most felicitous results: namely, the minor drama. In
+England and America the same theatre exhibits opera, melodrama, tragedy,
+comedy, rope-dancing, and legerdemain; but in Paris, each branch and
+element of histrionic art has its separate temple, its special corps of
+actors and authors, nay, its particular class of subjects; hence their
+unrivalled perfection. Ingenuity, science, and Art are concentrated by
+thus assigning free and individual scope to the dramatic niceties and
+phases of life, of history, of genius, and of society. At the Opera
+Comique you find one kind of musical creation; at the Italiens the
+lyrical drama of Southern Europe alone; at the Varietes a unique order
+of comic dialogue; and at the Porte St. Martin yet another species of
+play. One theatre gives back the identical tone of existing society and
+current events; another deals with the classical ideas of the past.
+Satire and song, the horrible and the brilliant, the graceful and the
+highly artistic, pictorial, elocutionary, pantomimic, tragic, vocal,
+statuesque, the past and present, all the elements of Art and of life,
+find representation in the plot, the language, the sentiment, the
+costume, the music, and the scenery of the many Parisian theatres.
+
+Yet how much of this superiority is fugitive! how little in the whole
+dramatic development takes permanent hold upon popular sympathy! Much
+of its significance is purely local, and of its interest altogether
+temporary. Scholars and the higher classes can talk eloquently of
+Corneille and Racine; the beaux and _spirituelle_ women of the day can
+repeat and enjoy the last hit of Scribe, or the new _bon-mot_ of
+the theatre: but contrast these results with the national love and
+appreciation of Shakspeare,--with the permanent reflection of Spanish
+life in Lope de Vega,--the patriotic aspirations which the young Italian
+broods over in the tragedies of Alfieri. The grace of movement, the
+triumph of tact and ingenuity, the devotion to conventionalism, either
+pedantry or the genius of the hour, also rules the drama in Paris. With
+all its brilliancy, entertainment, grace, wit, and popularity,--there
+exists not a permanently vital and universally recognized type of this
+greatest department of literature, familiar and endeared alike to
+peasant and peer, a representative of humanity for all time,--like the
+bard around whose name and words cluster the Anglo-Saxon hearts and
+intelligence from generation to generation.
+
+But nowhere do life and the drama so trench upon each other; nowhere is
+every incident of experience so dramatic. Miss H.M. Williams told the
+poet Rogers that she had seen "men and women, waiting for admission at
+the door of the theatre, suddenly leave their station, on the passing of
+a set of wretches going to be guillotined, and then, having ascertained
+that none of their relations or friends were among them, very
+unconcernedly return to the door of the theatre." A child is born at the
+Opera Comique during the performance, and it is instantly made an event
+of sympathy and effect by the audience; a subscription is raised, the
+child named for the dramatic heroine of the moment, and the fortunate
+mother sent home in a carriage, amid the plaudits of the crowd. You are
+listening to a play; and a copy of the "Entr'acte" is thrust into your
+hand, containing a minute account of the death of a statesman two
+squares off whose name fills pages of history, or a battle in the East,
+where some officer whom you met two months before on the Boulevard has
+won immortal fame by prodigies of valor. So do the actualities and the
+pastimes, the real and the imaginary drama, miraculously interfuse at
+Paris; the comedy of life is patent there, and often the spectator
+exclaims, "_Arlequin avait bien arrange les choses, mais Colombine
+derange tout!_"
+
+The Parisian females are "unexceptionably shod,"--but the agricultural
+instruments now in use in the rural districts of France are of a form
+and mechanism which, to a Yankee farmer, would seem antediluvian; the
+cooks, gardeners, and other working-people, have annually the most
+graceful festivals,--but the traveller sees in the fields women so
+bronzed and wrinkled by toil and exposure that their sex is hardly to be
+recognized. When the Gothamite passes along Pearl or Broad Street,
+he beholds the daily spectacle of unemployed carmen reading
+newspapers;--there may be said to be no such thing as popular literature
+in France; mental recreation, such as the German and Scotch peasantry
+enjoy, is unknown there. The Art and letters of the kingdom flourished
+in her court and were cultivated as an aristocratic element for so long
+a period, that neither has become domesticated among the lower classes;
+we find in them the sentiment of military glory, of religion in its
+superstitious phase, of music perhaps, of rustic festivity,--but not the
+enjoyments which spring from or are associated with thought and poetic
+sympathies such as national writers like Burns inspired. An exception
+comparatively recent may be found in the popular appreciation of
+Beranger and Souvestre.
+
+There is not a natural object too beautiful or an occasion too solemn
+to arrest the French tendency to the theatrical. Even one of their most
+ardent eulogists remarks,--"All that can be said against the French
+sublime is this,--that the grandeur is more in the word than in the
+thing; the French expression professes more than it performs"; and old
+Montaigne declares that "lying is not a vice among the French, _but a
+way of speaking_." Both observations admit too much; and indicate an
+habitual departure from Nature and simplicity as a national trait.
+Who but Frenchmen ever delighted in reducing to artificial shapes the
+graceful forms of vegetable life, or can so far lay aside the sentiment
+of grief as to engage in rhetorical panegyrics over the fresh graves
+of departed friends? Compare the high dead wall with its range of
+flower-pots, the porches undecked by woodbines or jessamine, the formal
+paths, the proximate kitchen, stables, and ungarnished _salon_ of
+a French villa, with the hedges, meadows, woodlands, and trellised
+eglantine of an English country-house; and a glance assures us that
+to the former nation the country is a _dernier ressort_, and not an
+endeared seclusion. Yet they romance, in their way, on rural subjects:
+"_A la campagne_," says one of their poets, "_ou chaque feuille qui
+tombe est une elegie toute faite_." Through an avenue of scraggy poplars
+we approach a dilapidated _chateau_, whose owner is playing dominoes
+at the cafe of the nearest provincial town, or exhausting the sparse
+revenues of the estate at the theatres, roulette-tables, or balls of
+Paris. People leave these for a rural vicinage only to economize, to
+hide chagrin, or to die. So recognized is this indifference to Nature
+and inaptitude for rural life in France, that, when we desire to
+express the opposite of natural tastes, we habitually use the word
+"Frenchified." The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a
+convenient appendage to a lamp. The traveller never sees artificial
+light reflected from green leaves, without thinking of his evening
+promenades in the French capital, or a dance in the groves of
+Montmorency. The old verbal tyranny of the French Academy, the
+painted wreaths sold at cemetery-gates, the colored plates of fashions,
+powdered hair, and rouged cheeks, typify and illustrate this irreverent
+ambition to pervert Nature and create artificial effects; they are but
+so many forms of the theatrical instinct, and proofs of the ascendency
+of meretricious taste. It is this want of loyalty to Nature, and
+insensibility to her unadulterated charms, which constitute the real
+barrier between the Gallic mind and that of England and Italy, and
+which explain the fervent protest of such men as Alfieri and Coleridge.
+Simplicity and earnestness are the normal traits of efficient character,
+whether developed in action or Art, in sentiment or reflection; and
+manufactured verse, vegetation, and complexions indicate a faith in
+appearances and a divorce from reality, which, in political interests,
+tend to compromise, to theory, and to acquiescence in a military
+_regime_ and an embellished absolutism.
+
+It is this incompleteness, this comparative untruth, that gives rise to
+the dissatisfaction we feel in the last analysis of French character.
+It is delusive. The promise of beauty held out by external taste is
+unfulfilled; the fascination of manner bears a vastly undue proportion
+to the substantial kindness and trust which that immediate charm
+suggests. "Just Heaven!" exclaims Yorick, "for what wise reasons hast
+thou ordered it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance
+in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?" The
+bearing of an Englishman seldom awakens expectation of courtesy
+or entertainment; yet, if vouchsafed, how to be relied on is the
+friendship! how generous the hospitality! The urbane salutation with
+which a Frenchman greets the female passenger, as she enters a public
+conveyance, is not followed by the offer of his seat or a slice of his
+reeking _pate_,--while the roughest backwoodsman in America, who never
+touched his hat or inclined his body to a stranger, will guard a
+woman from insult, and incommode himself to promote her comfort, with
+respectful alacrity. It is so in literature. How often we eagerly follow
+the clear exposition of a subject in the pages of a French author, to
+reach an impotent conclusion! or suffer our sympathies to be enlisted by
+the admirable description of an interior or a character in one of their
+novels, to find the plot which embodies them an absurd melodrama!
+Evanescence is the law of Parisian felicities,--selfishness the
+background of French politeness,--sociability flourishes in an inverse
+ratio to attachment; we become skeptical almost in proportion as we are
+attracted. If we ask the way, we are graciously directed; but if we
+demand the least sacrifice, we must accept volubility for service. Thus
+the perpetual flowering in manners, in philosophy, in politics, and in
+economy, is rarely accompanied by fruit in either. To enjoy Paris, we
+must cease to be in earnest;--to pass the time, and not to wrest from it
+a blessing or a triumph, is the main object. The badges, the gardens,
+the smiles, the agreeable phrase, the keen repartee, the tempting dish,
+the ingenious _vaudeville_, the pretty foot, the elegant chair and
+becoming curtain, the extravagant gesture, the pointed epigram or
+alluring formula, must be taken as so many agreeabilities,--not for
+things performed, but imaginatively promised. The folly of war has been
+demonstrated to the entire sense of mankind; at best, it is now deemed
+a painful necessity; yet the most serious phase of life in France is
+military. Depth and refinement of feeling are lonely growths, and can no
+more spring up in a gregarious and festal life than trees in quicksands;
+citizenship is based on consistent acts, not on verbosity; and
+brilliant accompaniments never reconcile strong hearts to the loss of
+independence, which some English author has acutely declared the first
+essential of a gentleman. The civilization of France is an artistic and
+scientific materialism; the spiritual element is wanting. Paris is the
+theatre of nations; we must regard it as a continuous spectacle, a
+boundless museum, a place of diversion, of study,--not of faith, the
+deepest want and most sacred birthright of humanity.
+
+The want of directness, the absence of candor, the non-recognition of
+truth in its broad and deep sense, is, indeed, a characteristic phase
+of life, of expression, and of manners in France. A lover of his nation
+confesses that even in "_galantes aventures l'esprit prenait la place
+du coeur, la fantaisie celle du sentiment_." Voltaire's creed was, that
+"_le mensonge n'est un vice que quand il fait du mal; c'est une grande
+vertu quand il fait du bien_." "_L'exageration_" says De Maistre, "_est
+le mensonge des honnetes gens_."
+
+In every aspect the histrionic prevails,--by facility of association and
+colloquial aptitude in the common intercourse of life,--by the inventive
+element in dress, furniture, and material arrangements, plastic to the
+caprice of taste and ingenuity,--by the habitudes of out-of-door life,
+giving greater variety and adaptation to manners,--and by a national
+temperament, susceptible and demonstrative. The current vocabulary
+suggests a perpetual recourse to the casual, a shifting of the
+life-scene, a recognition of the temporary and accidental. Such
+oft-recurring words as _flaneur_, _liaison_, _badinage_, etc., have no
+exact synonymes in other tongues. All that is done, thought, and felt
+takes a dramatic expression. Lamartine elaborates a "History of
+the Restoration" from two reports,--the one monarchical, the other
+republican,--and, by making the facts picturesque and sentimental, wins
+countless readers. Comte elaborates a masterly analysis of the sciences,
+proclaims a fascinating theory of eras or stages in human development;
+but the positive philosophy, of which all this is but the introduction,
+to be applied to the individual and society, eludes, at last, direct and
+complete application. A popular _savant_ dies, and students drag the
+hearse and scatter flowers over the grave; a philosopher lectures, and
+immediately his disciples form a school, and advocate his system with
+the ardor of partisans; a disappointed soldier commits suicide by
+throwing himself from Napoleon's column, while a _grisette_ and her
+lover make their exit through a last embrace and the fumes of charcoal;
+a wit seeks revenge with a clever repartee instead of his fists or cane.
+A lady is the centre of attraction at a reception, and, upon inquiry, we
+are gravely informed that the charm lies in the fact, that, though now
+fat and more than forty, as well as married to an old noble, in her
+youth she was the mistress of a celebrated poet. Notoriety, even when
+scandalous, is as good a social distinction as birth, fame, or beauty.
+Rousseau wrote a love-story, and sentiment became the rage. An artisan
+has a day to spare, and takes his family to a garden or a dance. Human
+existence, thus embellished, impulsive, and caricatured, becomes
+a continuous melodrama, with an occasional catastrophe induced by
+political revolutions. Louis XIV., the most characteristic king France
+ever had, is a genuine representative of this theatrical instinct and
+development.
+
+Herein may we find a key to the riddle of governmental vicissitudes
+in France. People so easily satisfied with illusions, so fertile in
+superficial expedients, are like children and savages in their sense of
+what is novel and amusing, and their love of excitement,--and make
+no such demands upon reality as full-grown men and educated citizens
+instinctively crave. Their powers, in this regard, have not been
+disciplined,--their wants but vaguely realized. Accustomed to look out
+of themselves for a law of action, to consult authority upon every
+occasion, to defer to official sources for guidance in every detail of
+municipal and personal affairs,--the lesson of self-dependence,
+the courage and the knowledge needful for efficiency are wanting.
+"_Savez-vous_," asks an epicure, "_ce qui a chasse la gaite? C'est la
+politique_." They rally at the voice of command, submit to interference,
+and take for granted a prescribed formula, partly because it is
+troublesome to think, and partly on account of inexperience in assuming
+responsibility. De Tocqueville has remarked, that, in every instance
+of attempted colonization, they have adapted themselves to, instead of
+elevating savage tribes. They have never gone through the process of
+state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the
+Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability
+realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow
+reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things
+that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and
+will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of
+political training. But those who look deeper know that this political
+inefficiency is but the external manifestation or the latent cause of
+more serious defects: by impeding healthful development in one way, it
+occasions a morbid development in another. If citizenship in its most
+free and active privilege were enjoyed, there would be less devotion to
+amusement, a more virile national character, and the sanctities of
+life would have observance. Public spirit and a political career are
+incentives to manly ambition,--to an employment of mind and feeling
+that wins men from trifling pursuits and vain diversion; they are the
+national basis of private usefulness; to thwart them is to condemn
+humanity to perpetual childhood,--to render members of a state machines.
+
+The social evils and kinds of crime in France are referable in no
+small degree to the absence of great motives,--the limited spheres and
+hopeless routine involved in arbitrary government, unsustained by any
+elevated sentiment. Such a rule makes literature servile, enterprise
+mercenary, and manners profligate: all history proves this. It is not,
+therefore, rational to infer, from the apparent want of ability in the
+nation to take care of its own affairs, that a military despotism is
+justifiable; when the truth is equally demonstrated, that such a sway,
+by indefinitely postponing the chance to acquire the requisite training,
+keeps down and throws back the national impulse and destiny. The man who
+thus abuses power is none the less a traitor and a parricide.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+"Mr. Geer!"
+
+Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.
+
+This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently warm appreciation of Mrs.
+Geer's social charms; but the enormity of the offence will be greatly
+modified by a brief review of the attending circumstances. If you will
+but consider that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
+stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies,--that the cushion of a
+capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted as if with a single eye
+to a delicious dose, nay, to a long succession of doses, is a powerful
+temptation to a sleepy soul,--that the regular, and, it must be
+confessed, somewhat monotonous _click, click, click_ of Mrs. Geer's
+knitting-needles only served to measure, without disturbing the
+silence,--and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife for thirty
+years,--you will not cease to wonder that Mr. Geer
+
+  "was glorious,
+  O'er all the ills of life victorious."
+
+To most men, an interruption at such a time would have been particularly
+annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or
+awake, always made a point of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned
+his round, honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his bosom,
+who went on,--
+
+"Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall."
+
+"Possible?" replied Mr. Geer. "Who'd 'a' thunk it?"
+
+Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker, or rather, a
+free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact, he tyrannized over
+all parts of speech: wrested nouns and verbs from their original shape,
+till you could hardly recognize their distorted faces; and committed
+that next worst sin to murdering one's mother, namely,--murdering one's
+mother-tongue, with an _abandon_ that was absolutely fascinating. Having
+delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he at once subsided, closed
+his placid eyes, and retired into his inner world of--thought, perhaps.
+
+"_Mr. Geer!_"
+
+This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about him scared,
+blinking eyes.
+
+"Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time so?"
+
+"Sleep? I--I--am sure, I was never wider awake in my life."
+
+"Well, then, tell me what I said."
+
+"Said? Eh,--eh,--something about Ivy, wasn't it?"
+
+And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced
+his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had
+been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her
+own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; so she answered,--
+
+"Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?"
+
+"Lud, lud! What's the matter?" asked Mr. Geer, wildly.
+
+"Matter? Why, she'll be seventeen, come fall, and doesn't know a thing."
+
+"O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'."
+
+And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair once more.
+He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of smallpox, cholera, and
+throat-distemper, the worst evils that he could think of and dread for
+his darling, had been conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found
+the real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly fallen on
+his heart, was as suddenly lifted.
+
+"But I tell you it _is_ something," continued Mrs. Geer, energetically.
+"Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been ten miles from home in her
+life, and to no school but our little district"----
+
+"And she's as pairk a gal," interrupted Mr. Geer, "as any you'll find in
+all the ten miles round, be the other who she will."
+
+"She's well enough in her way," replied Mrs. Geer, in all the humility
+of motherly pride; "and so much the more reason why she shouldn't be let
+go so. There's Mr. Dingham sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's
+seminary. (I wonder if he expects they'll ever turn out anything.) And
+here's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well able to maintain
+her like a lady, and have done nothing but turn her out to grass all her
+life, till she's fairly run wild. I declare it's a shame. She ought to
+be sent to school to-morrow."
+
+"Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' lo have no such doin's.
+Sha'n't go off to school. What's the use havin' her, if she can't stay
+at home with us? Let Mr. Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to.
+All the book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy with
+only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin' up high-falutin'
+notions. She's all gold now. She don't need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge
+an inch. Sha'n't stir a step."
+
+"But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us some time. We
+can't have her always."
+
+"Why can't we?" exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides you and me, I
+suppose, that thinks she's pairk. What's John Herricks and Dan Norris
+hangin' round for all the time?"
+
+"And they may hang round till the cows come home! Nary hair of Ivy's
+head shall they touch,--nary one on em!"
+
+Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question bounded into
+the room.
+
+"Come here, Ivy," said the old man; "your mother's been a-slanderin'
+you; says you don't know nothin'."
+
+Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and turned upon him
+a pair of palpably roguish eyes.
+
+"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."
+
+"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
+Herricks, do you?"
+
+"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"
+
+"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"
+
+"Never a one, father."
+
+"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
+for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
+You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
+to go away, Ivy."
+
+"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
+syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
+live."
+
+"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"
+
+And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
+with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
+parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
+She had said she would not, and of course she would not."
+
+"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
+could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his
+everlasting smirk, and his diddling walk, and take care of all the
+Herricks' sisters and mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and
+horses and pigs--and--hens--and--and"----
+
+But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer than ever before
+in her life; and ere she had finished the inventory of John Herricks's
+personal property and real estate, the blue eyes were closed in the
+sweet, sound sleep of youth and health.
+
+Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments, was partly
+right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been "finished" at Mrs. Porter's
+seminary, and was consequently in a highly unfinished condition. "Small
+Latin and less Greek" jostled each other in her head. German and French,
+Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy. She could not dance,
+nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor work little dogs on footstools.
+
+What, then, could she do?
+
+_Imprimis_, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. _Secundo_, she could
+walk across the great beam in the barn like a year-old kitten. In the
+pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold,
+from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
+under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some
+inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure.
+With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly
+and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer
+consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
+behind. Without saddle or bridle she could
+
+  "Ride a black horse
+  To Banbury Cross."
+
+(N.B.--I don't say she actually did. I only say she could; and under
+sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt she would.) She knew
+where the purple violets and the white innocence first flecked the
+spring turf, and where the ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs.
+All the little waddling, downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and
+faint-hearted, desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and
+shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the
+morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool,
+and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True
+Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
+Legion!
+
+From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have faithfully
+reported, a casual observer, particularly if young and inexperienced,
+might infer that the question of Miss Ivy's education was definitively
+settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof.
+I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and
+intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
+a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that
+appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something,
+and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow
+over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
+does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman
+can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to
+tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything
+will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,--one to his
+farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs
+just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor of her way
+unmoved:
+
+  "Beware! beware!
+  Trust her not; she is fooling thee."
+
+Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like Napoleon, she was
+never more elated than after a defeat. Before consulting her husband
+at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had
+deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the
+senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
+and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
+notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the
+next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly,
+as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that departure had been
+fixed.
+
+Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time. She had a sublime
+faith in herself. She felt in her soul the divine afflatus, and pressed
+forward gloriously to her goal. Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to
+say obstinacy, as falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more;
+and as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, "A woman in
+the very house has such deused opportunities!" so Farmer Geer grumbled,
+and squirmed, and remonstrated, and--yielded.
+
+Mrs. Geer was _not_ right. She had reckoned without her host. Her
+affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way of prosperity in a
+chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders, when, presto! they turned
+a sharp and unexpected corner, and over went the whole establishment
+into a mirier mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.
+
+To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira was announced to
+Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady, to the ill-concealed vexation of
+her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed exultation of her
+father, expressed decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she
+was the chief _dramatis persona_, the very Hamlet of the play, this
+unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All
+the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one
+point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty
+were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any
+allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only
+hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own
+will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth.
+One last resort, one forlorn hope,--one expedient, which had never
+failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her
+parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst
+into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father
+and mother by going away from them. This drove the nail into her old
+father's heart, and then the little vixen clenched it by throwing
+herself into his arms, and sobbing, "Oh, papa! would you turn your Ivy
+out of doors and break her heart?"
+
+Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she was the only and
+beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy passed unchallenged; the
+strong arms closed around the naughty girl; and the soothing voice
+murmured, "There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you sha'n't
+be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!" and the _status quo_ was
+restored.
+
+  "It is not in the sea nor in the strife
+  We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
+  But in the after silence on the shore,
+  When all is lost, except a little life,"
+
+said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
+fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
+be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
+her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
+been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
+authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
+emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
+disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
+miserable.
+
+"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
+were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
+decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
+care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
+a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
+be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
+heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
+if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
+would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
+_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
+and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
+just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
+whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
+Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
+B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
+enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
+Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be
+sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric, and I don't believe he knows
+much, either; and there's nobody else in town that knows any more than
+anybody else; and there's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I
+am ever to know anything." (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted for several
+minutes.) "There's Mr. Clerron!" (A sudden cessation.) "I suppose he
+knows more than the whole town tumbled into one; and writes books,
+and--mercy! there's no end to his knowledge; and he's rich, and does
+everything he likes, all day long. Oh, if I only _did_ know him! I would
+ask him straight off to teach me. I should be scared to death. I've a
+great mind to ask him, as it is. I can tell him who I am. He never will
+know any other way, for he isn't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
+as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would rather ask
+him than go to school. He might just as well do something as not. I am
+sure, if God had made me him, and him me, I should be glad to help him.
+I'll go straight to him the first thing to-morrow morning."
+
+Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow vanished.
+Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did she sing about the
+house that night; for she was summoning all her powers to prepare an
+introductory speech to Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar.
+Her elocutionary attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
+she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she took heart of
+grace, slung her broadbrimmed hat over her arm, and began her march
+"over the hills and far away," in search of her--fate.
+
+"And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on such an errand,
+to a perfect stranger?"
+
+Humanly speaking, nothing was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a
+prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such
+an--to use the mildest term--unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact
+is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of the plan.
+
+"Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without leave? without even
+informing her parents?"
+
+I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life, one
+cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper, not to say
+indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres generally. Duty
+compels me to adhere closely to the truth; and for whatever of obloquy
+may be heaped upon me, or upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the
+words of the illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious
+Taylor; I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
+Washington:--"Do right, and let the consequences take care of
+themselves." I am therefore obliged to say, that Ivy's departure in
+pursuit of knowledge was entirely unknown to her respected and beloved
+parents. But you must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
+child,--spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents, somewhat
+advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do not defend Ivy. On
+the contrary, notwithstanding my regard for her, I hand her over to the
+reprobation of an enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
+persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take warning by the
+fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any important undertaking, until
+they have, to say the least, consulted those who are their natural
+guides, their warmest friends, and their most experienced counsellors.
+
+While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart, fleet of foot,
+and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and
+across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron,
+Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that
+enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
+breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat
+stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance
+of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; but
+in her excitement she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the
+door-step, as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before, (not
+in the same place,) with the "wind blowing her fair hair about her
+beautiful cheeks."
+
+There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague rumor, that,
+instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian, with your own good
+knuckles, for such case made and provided, modern fashion had introduced
+"the ringing and the dinging of the bells." This vague rumor found
+a local habitation, when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
+established himself, his men and women and horses and cattle; but as
+Ivy stood on his door-step, looking upward, downward, sidewise, with
+earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and no sign of bell, was visible;
+nothing unusual, save a little door-knob at the right-hand side of the
+door,--a thing which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
+deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must be inside,
+and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So she tried to twist it,
+first one way, then the other; but twist it would not. In despair she
+betook herself to her fingers and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again.
+No use. Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled path,
+selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her station before the
+door, and began to pound away. In a moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown
+and smoking-cap, with a cigar between his fingers, came round the
+corner. Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
+bowed, and, with a polite "allow me," stepped to the door, pulled the
+bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not so confused at being
+detected in her assault and battery on the door of a respectable,
+peaceable, private gentleman, as not to make the silent reflection,
+"Pulled the knob, instead of twisting it. How easy it is to do a
+thing, if you only know how!"
+
+The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into
+a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully
+fresh and _green_-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,--then a step in
+the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
+the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single glance showed her
+that he was the person who had rung the bell for her, though the gay
+dressing-gown had been changed for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed.
+Ivy, hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, "I am Ivy Geer." A
+half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered behind the heavy beard, and
+gleamed beneath the heavy eyebrows, as he answered, "I am happy to
+make your acquaintance"; but another glance at the trembling form, the
+frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile into one
+that was very good-natured, and even kind; and he added, playfully,--
+
+"I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service."
+
+"You write books and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly,
+never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her
+hat-strings.
+
+There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing a little
+diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct bit of information. She
+made the assertion with the air of one who has a disagreeable piece of
+business on hand, and is determined to go through with it as soon as
+possible. He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily,--since, as I
+have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed on the carpet. A
+slight pause for breath and she pitched ahead again.
+
+"I am very ignorant, and I am growing old. I am almost seventeen. I
+don't know anything to speak of. Mamma wishes me to go to school. Papa
+did not, but now he does. I won't go. I would rather be stupid all my
+life long than leave home. But mamma is vexed, and I want to please
+her, and I thought,--Mr. Brownslow is so busy,--and you,--if you have
+nothing to do,--and know so much,--I thought"------
+
+She stopped short, utterly unable to proceed. Wonderfully different did
+this affair seem from the one she had planned the preceding evening. My
+dear Sir, Madam,--have not we, too, sometimes found it an easier thing
+to fight the battle of life in our own chimney-corner, by the ruddy and
+genial firelight, than in broad day on the world's great battle-field?
+
+Mr. Clerron, seeing Ivy's confusion, kindly came to her aid. "And you
+thought my superfluous time and wisdom might be transferred to you, thus
+making a more equal division of property?"
+
+"If you would be so good,--I,--yes, Sir."
+
+"May I inquire how you propose to effect such an exchange?"
+
+He really did not intend to be anything but kind, but the whole matter
+presented itself to him in a very ludicrous light; and in endeavoring to
+preserve proper gravity, he became severe. Ivy, all-unused to the world,
+still had a secret feeling that he was laughing at her. Tears, that
+would not be repressed, glistened in her downcast eyes, gathered on the
+long lashes, dropped silently to the floor. He saw that she was entirely
+a child, ignorant, artless, and sincere. His better feelings were
+roused, and he exclaimed, with real earnestness,--
+
+"My dear young lady, I should rejoice to serve you in any way, I beg you
+to believe."
+
+His words only hastened the catastrophe which seems to be always
+impending over the weaker sex. Ivy sobbed outright,--a perfect tempest.
+Felix Clerron looked on with a bachelor's dismay. "What in thunder?
+Confound the girl!" were his first reflections; but her utter
+abandonment to sorrow melted his heart again,--not a very susceptible
+heart either; but men, especially bachelors, are so--_green!_ (the word
+is found in Cowper.)
+
+He sat down by her side, stroked the hair from her burning forehead, as
+if she had been six instead of sixteen, and again and again assured her
+of his willingness to assist her.
+
+"I must go home," whispered Ivy, as soon as she could command, or rather
+coax her voice.
+
+His hospitality was shocked.
+
+"Indeed you must not, till we have at least had a consultation. Tell me
+how much you know. What have you studied?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, Sir. I am very stupid."
+
+"Ah! we must begin with the Alphabet, then. Blocks or a primer?"
+
+Ivy smiled through her tears.
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, Sir."
+
+"You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even count, and spell your
+name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten me."
+
+Ivy grew calm as he became playful.
+
+"I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's Large."
+
+"House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you please."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's large. You did
+not designate what."
+
+He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and genial, and she
+joined.
+
+"My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew that. Everybody
+calls it so."
+
+"Time is short. Yes. We are an abbreviating nation. Do you like
+Arithmetic?"
+
+"Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial Payments. But I
+can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and such things."
+
+"Positions are occasionally embarrassing. And Grammar?"
+
+"I think it's horrid. It's all 'indicative mood, common noun, third
+person, singular number, and agrees with John.'"
+
+"_Bravissima!_ A comprehensive sketch! _A multum in parvo!_ A bird's-eye
+view, as one may say,--and not entertaining, certainly. What other
+branches have you pursued? Drawing, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, no, Sir!"
+
+"Nor Music?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Good, my dear! excellent! An overruling Providence has saved you and
+your friends from many a pitfall. Shall we proceed to History? Be so
+good as to inform me who discovered America."
+
+"I believe Columbus has the credit of it," replied Ivy, demurely.
+
+"Non-committal, I see. Case goes strongly in his favor, but you reserve
+your judgment till further evidence."
+
+"I think he was a wise and good and enterprising man."
+
+"But are rather skeptical about that San Salvador story. A wise course.
+Never decide till both sides have been fairly presented. 'He that
+judgeth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto
+him,' said the wise man. Occasionally his after-judgment is
+equally discreditable. That is a thousand times worse. Exit Clio.
+Enter--well!--Geographia. My young friend, what celebrated city has
+the honor of concentrating the laws, learning, and literature of
+Massachusetts, to wit, namely, is its capital?"
+
+"Boston, Sir."
+
+"My dear, your Geography has evidently been attended to. You have
+learned the basis fact. You have discovered the pivot on which the world
+turns. You have dug down to the ante-diluvian, ante-pyrean granite,--the
+primitive, unfused stratum of society. The force of learning can no
+farther go. Armed with that fact, you may march fearlessly forth to do
+battle with the world, the flesh, and--the--ahem--the King of Beasts!
+Do you think you should like me for a teacher?"
+
+"I can't tell, Sir. I did not like you as anything awhile ago."
+
+"But you like me better now? You think I improve on acquaintance? You
+detect signs of a moral reformation?"
+
+"No, Sir, I don't like you now. I only don't dislike you so much as I
+did."
+
+"Spoken like a major-general, or, better still, like a brave little
+Yankee girl, as you are. I am an enthusiastic admirer of truth. I
+foresee we shall get on famously. I was rather premature in sounding the
+state of your affections, it must be confessed,--but we shall be rare
+friends by-and-by. On the whole, you are not particularly fond of
+books?"
+
+"I like some books well enough, but not studying-books," said Ivy, with
+a sigh, "and I don't see any good in them. If it wasn't for mamma, I
+never would open one,--never! I would just as soon be a dunce as not; I
+don't see anything very horrid in it."
+
+"An opinion which obtains with a wonderfully large proportion of our
+population, and is applied in practice with surprising success. There is
+a distinction, however, my dear young lady, which you must immediately
+learn to make. The dunce subjective is a very inoffensive animal,
+contented, happy, and harmless; and, as you justly remark, inspires no
+horror, but rather an amiable and genial self-complacency. The dunce
+objective, on the contrary, is of an entirely different species. He is a
+bore of the first magnitude,--a poisoned arrow, that not only pierces,
+but inflames,--a dull knife, that not only cuts, but tears,--a cowardly
+little cur, that snaps occasionally, but snarls unceasingly; whom,
+which, and that, it becomes the duty of all good citizens to sweep from
+the face of the earth."
+
+"What is the difference between them? How shall one know which is
+which?"
+
+"The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point of view,--the
+dunce with his eyes turned inward,--confining his duncehood to the bosom
+of his family. The dunce objective is the dunce butting against his
+neighbor's study-door,--intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid
+folly and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He is a
+creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's angels, in one
+respect at least: you may thrust him through and through with the
+two-edged sword of your satire, and at the end he shall be as intact and
+integral as at the beginning. Am I sufficiently obvious?"
+
+"It is very obvious that I am both, according to your definition."
+
+"It is very obvious that you are neither, I beg to submit, but a
+sensible young girl,--with no great quantity of the manufactured
+article, perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being wrought
+into fabric of the finest quality."
+
+"Do you really think I can learn?" asked Ivy, with a bright blush of
+pleasure.
+
+"Demonstrably certain."
+
+"As much as if I went to school?"
+
+"My dear miss, as the forest oak, 'cabined, cribbed, confined' with
+multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby, and dwarfed, but,
+brought into the open fields alone, stretches out its arms to the blue
+heavens and its roots to the kindly earth, so that the birds of the air
+lodge in the branches thereof, and men sit under its shadow with great
+delight,--so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care, flourish
+like a green bay-tree; that is, if I am to have the honor."
+
+"Yes, Sir, I mean--I meant--I was thinking as if you were teaching me--I
+mean were going to teach me."
+
+"Which I also mean, if time and the favoring gods allow, and your
+parents continue to wish it."
+
+"Oh, they won't care!"
+
+"Won't care?"
+
+"No, Sir, they will be glad, I think. Papa, at least, will be glad to
+have me stay at home."
+
+"Did not they direct you to come to me to-day?"
+
+Ivy blushed deeply, and replied, in a low voice, "No, Sir; I knew mamma
+would not let me come, if I asked her."
+
+"And to prevent any sudden temptation to disobedience, and a consequent
+forfeiture of your peace of mind, you took time by the forelock and came
+on your own responsibility?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Very ingenious, upon my word! An accomplished casuist! A born Jesuit!
+But, my dear Miss Geer, I must confess I have not this happy feminine
+knack of keeping out of the way of temptation. I should prefer to
+consult your friends, even at the risk of losing the pleasure of your
+society."
+
+"Oh, yes, Sir! I don't care, now it is all settled."
+
+And so, over hill-side, along wood-path, and through meadow-land, with
+light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy back again. To Mrs. Geer
+shelling peas in the shady porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with
+his straw hat on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her
+adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was
+lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase;
+Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed
+the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron
+rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the points of his
+Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's scarlet verbena, and assured
+them he should be very glad to refresh his own early studies, and also
+to form an acquaintance with the family,--he knew very few in the
+village,--and if Mrs. Geer would drive over when Ivy came to recite,--or
+perhaps they would rather he should come to their house. Oh, no! Mrs.
+Geer could not think of that. Just as they pleased. Mrs. Simm, the
+housekeeper, would be very glad of Mrs. Geer's company while Miss Ivy
+was reciting, in case Mrs. Geer should not wish to listen; and the house
+and grounds would be shown by Mrs. Simm with great pleasure. By the way,
+Mrs. Simm was a thrifty and sensible woman, and he was sure they would
+be mutually pleased.--When, in short, all this and much more had been
+said, it was decided that Ivy should be regularly installed pupil of Mr.
+Felix Clerron.
+
+"_Eureka!_" cries the professional novel-reader, that far-sighted and
+keen-scented hound that snuffs a _denouement_ afar off; and anon there
+rises before his eyes the vision of poor little Stella drinking in love
+and learning, especially love, from the divine eyes of the anything but
+divine Swift,--of Shirley, the lioness, the pantheress, the leopardess,
+the beautiful, fierce creature, sitting, tamed, quiet, meek, by the side
+of Louis Moore, her tutor and master,--and of all the legends of all the
+ages wherein Beauty has sat at the feet of Wisdom, and Love has crept
+in unawares, and spoiled the lesson while as yet half-unlearnt;--so
+he cries, "She is going the way of all heroines. The man and the
+girl,--they will fall in love, marry, and live happily all the rest of
+their days."
+
+Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should not? If any man
+can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
+him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.
+
+I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should,
+in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall
+in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital
+principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye
+sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning
+words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling
+work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a
+weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and
+heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not?
+Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming,
+floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid _soupcon_ of
+curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite
+distress, Adolphus and Miranda have made
+
+  "One of the very best matches,
+  Both well mated for life:
+  She's got a fool for her husband,
+  He's got a fool for his wife."
+
+Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry that gilds
+with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of many a prosaic life.
+"Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime"; tramp behind the plough,
+hammer on the lapstone, beat the anvil, drive the plane, "from morn till
+dewy eve"; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams soft and
+golden over the far-off pinetrees, but
+
+  "The star that lightens your bosom most,
+  And gives to your weary feet their speed,
+  Abides in a cottage beyond the mead."
+
+It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare. Threadbare
+it may be to you, enervated and _blase_ man of pleasure, worn and
+hardened man of the world; but it is not for you I write. The fountain
+which leaps up fresh and living in every new life can never be exhausted
+till the springs of all life are dry. Tell me, O lover, gazing into
+those tender eyes uplifted to yours, twining the silken rings around
+your bronzed finger, pressing reverently the warm lips consecrated to
+you,--does it abate one jot or tittle of your happiness to know that
+eyes just as tender, curls just as silken, lips just as red, have
+stirred the hearts of men for a thousand years?
+
+Love, then, is a _sine qua non_ in stories; and if love, why not
+marriage? What pleasure can a humane and benevolent man find in
+separating two individuals whose chief, perhaps whose sole happiness,
+consists in being together? For certain inscrutable reasons, Divine
+Benevolence permits evil to exist in the world. All who have a taste for
+misery can find it there in exhaustless quantities. Johns are every day
+falling in love with Katys, but marrying Isabels, and Isabels the same,
+_mutatis mutandis_. We submit to it because there is no alternative; and
+we believe that good shall finally be wrought and wrested from evil.
+Don't, for heaven's sake, let us in mere wantonness introduce into
+our novel-world the work of our own hand, an abridged edition, a
+daguerreotype copy of the world without, of which we know so little and
+so much. I always do and always shall read the last page of a novel
+first; and if I perceive there any indications that matters are not
+coming out "shipshape," my reading invariably terminates with the last
+page.
+
+For the rest, please to remember that I am not writing about a princess
+of the blood, nor of the days of the bold barons, but only the life of
+a quiet little girl in a quiet little town in the eastern part of
+Massachusetts; and so far as my experience and observation go, men and
+women in the eastern part of Massachusetts are not given to thrilling
+adventures, hairbreadth escapes, wonderful concatenations of
+circumstances, and blood and thunder generally,--but pursue the even
+tenor of their way, and of their love, with a sober and delightful
+equanimity. If you want a plot, go to the "Children of the Abbey,"
+"Consuelo," and myriads of that kin, and help yourself. As for me, I
+must confess I hate plots. I see no pleasure in stumbling blindfolded
+through a story, unable to see a yard ahead, fancying every turn to be
+the last, and the road to go straight on to a glorious goal,--and,
+lo! we are in a more hopeless labyrinth than ever. I have a sense of
+restraint. I want to breathe freely, and can't. I want to have leisure
+to observe the style, the development of character, the author's tone of
+thought, and not be galloped through on the back of a breathless desire
+to know "how they are coming out."
+
+But, my dear plot-loving friend, be easy. I will not leave you in
+the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and woman out of hand. An
+obstacle, of which I suppose you have never heard,--an obstacle entirely
+new, fresh, and unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let patience
+have her perfect work.
+
+Wonderful was the new world opened to Ivy Geer. It was as if a corpse,
+cold, inert, lifeless, had suddenly sprung up, warm, invigorated,
+informed with a spirit which led her own spell-bound. Grammar,--Grammar,
+which had been a synonyme for all that was dry, irksome, useless,--a
+beating of the wind, the crackling of thorns under a pot,--Grammar even
+assumed for her a charm, a wonder, a glory. She saw how the great and
+wise had shrined in fitting words their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow,
+and suffering, and penitence; and how, as this generation passed away,
+and another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket became dim,
+and the memory of its priceless gem faded away; but how, at the touch of
+a mighty wand, the obedient lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought
+"sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and
+freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the
+poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged
+for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect
+mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod
+with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul
+of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself
+in words. Roaming in the dense forest with the stern and bloody
+Druid,--bounding over the waves with the fierce pirates who supplanted
+them, and in whose blue eyes and beneath whose fair locks gleamed indeed
+the ferocity of the savage, but lurked also, though unseen and unknown,
+the tender chivalry of the English gentleman,--gazing admiringly on the
+barbaric splendor of the cloth-of-gold, whereon trod regally, to the
+sound of harp and viol, the beauty and bravery of the old Norman
+nobility, she delighted to see how the mother-tongue, our dear
+mother-tongue, had laid all the nations under contribution to enrich
+her treasury,--gathering from one its strength, from another its
+stateliness, from a third its harmony, till the harsh, crude, rugged
+dialect of a barbarous horde became worthy to embody, as it does, the
+love, the wisdom, and the faith of half a world.
+
+So Grammar taught Ivy to reverence language.
+
+History, in the light of a guiding mind, ceased to be a bare record of
+slaughter and crime. Before her eyes filed, in a statelier pageant than
+they knew, the long procession of "simple great ones gone for ever and
+ever by," and the countless lesser ones whose names are quenched in the
+darkness of a night that shall know no dawn. She saw the "great world
+spin forever down the ringing grooves of change"; but amid all the
+change, the confusion, the chaos, she saw the finger of God ever
+pointing, and heard the sublime monotone of the Divine voice ever saying
+to the children of men, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And Ivy
+thought she saw, and rejoiced in the thought, that, even when this
+warning was unheeded,--when on the brow of the mournful Earth "Ichabod,
+Ichabod," was forever engraven,--when the First Man with his own hand
+put from him the cup of innocence, and went forth from the happy garden,
+sin-stained and fallen, the whole head sick, and the whole heart
+faint,--even then she saw within him the divine spark, the leaven of
+life, which had power to vitalize and vivify what Crime had smitten with
+death. Though sea and land teemed with strange perils, though night
+and day pursued him with mysterious terrors, though the now unfriendly
+elements combined to check his career, still, with unswerving purpose,
+undaunted courage, she saw him march constantly forward. Spirits of evil
+could not drive from his heart the prescience of greatness; and his soul
+dwelt calmly under the foreshadow of a mighty future.
+
+And as Ivy looked, she saw how the children of men became a great
+nation, and possessed the land far and wide. They delved into the bosom
+of the pleased earth, and brought forth the piled-up treasures of
+uncounted cycles. They unfolded the book of the skies, and sought to
+read the records thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible
+ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they plucked from hers.
+And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their
+restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the
+dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond
+their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests,
+there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of
+marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering of the
+feet of little children. Many a day and many a night she saw them wander
+on towards the setting sun, till the Unseen Hand led them to a fair
+and fruitful country that opened its bounteous arms in welcome. Broad
+rivers, green fields, laughing valleys wooed them to plant their
+household gods,--and the foundations of Europe were laid. Here were sown
+the seeds of those heroic virtues which have since leaped into luxuriant
+life,--seeds of that irresistible power which fastened its grasp on
+Nature and forced her to unfold the secret of her creation,--seeds of
+that far-reaching wisdom which in the light of the unveiled past has
+read the story of the unseen future.
+
+And still under Ivy's eye they grouped themselves. Some gathered on the
+pleasant hills of the sunny South, and the beauty of earth and sea and
+sky passed into their souls forever. They caught the evanescent gleam,
+the passing shadow, and on unseemly canvas limned it for all time in
+forms of unuttered and unutterable loveliness. They shaped into glowing
+life the phantoms of grace that were always flitting before their
+enchanted eyes, and poured into inanimate marble their rapt and
+passionate souls. They struck the lyre to wild and stirring songs whose
+tremulous echoes still linger along the corridors of Time. Some sought
+the icebound North, and grappled with dangers by field and flood. They
+hunted the wild dragon to his mountain-fastnesses, and fought him at
+bay, and never quailed. Death, in its most fearful forms, they met with
+grim delight, and chanted the glories of the Valhalla waiting for heroes
+who should forever quaff the "foaming, pure, and shining mead" from
+skulls of foes in battle slain. Some crossed the sea, and on
+
+  "that pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back tho ocean's swelling
+  tide,"
+
+they reared a sinewy and stalwart race, whose "morning drum-beat
+encircles the world."
+
+And History taught Ivy to reverence man.
+
+But there was one respect in which Ivy was both pupil and teacher.
+Never a word of Botany had fallen upon her ears; but through all the
+unconscious bliss of infancy, childhood, and girlhood, for sixteen happy
+years, she had lived among the flowers, and she knew their dear faces
+and their wild-wood names. She loved them with an almost human love.
+They were to her companions and friends. She knew their likings and
+dislikings, their joys and sorrows,--who among them chose the darkest
+nooks of the old woods, and who bloomed only to the brightest
+sunlight,--who sent their roots deep down among the mosses by the brook,
+and who smiled only on the southern hill-side. Around each she wove a
+web of beautiful individuality, and more than one had received from her
+a new christening. It is true, that, when she came to study from a
+book, she made wry faces over the long, barbarous, Latin names which
+completely disguised her favorites, and in her heart deemed a great many
+of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had strong faith in her
+teacher, and when the technical was laid aside for the real, then,
+indeed, "her foot was on her native heath, and her name was MacGregor."
+A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
+night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air,
+treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be
+otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship
+of a mind vigorous, cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen
+and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to
+the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her
+horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life
+dilate her whole being with a fine ecstasy.
+
+And what was the end of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She
+had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,--a buoyant, elastic
+gladness,--a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her
+sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth.
+Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her
+summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered
+down through the leafiness, only to span her with a rainbow in the glory
+of the setting sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains of
+her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The secret chord was to be
+smitten by a master-hand,--a chord which, once stirred, may never cease
+to quiver.
+
+At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the
+embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to
+see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell
+from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all
+the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
+Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the
+past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with
+him; and in fact, if these three men and Felix Clerron had all stood
+before her, and offered each a different opinion on any given subject, I
+have scarcely a doubt as to whose would have commended itself to her
+as combining the soundest practical wisdom and the highest Christian
+benevolence.
+
+So the summer passed on, and her shyness wore off,--and their intimacy
+became less and less that of teacher and pupil, and more and more that
+of friend and friend. With the sudden awakening of her intellectual
+nature, there woke also another power, of whose existence she had never
+dreamed. It was natural, that, in ranging the fields of thought so
+lately opened to her, she should often revert to him whose hand had
+unbarred the gates; she was therefore not startled that the image of
+Felix Clerron was with her when she sat down and when she rose up, when
+she went out and when she came in. She ceased, indeed, to think _of_
+him. She thought _him_. She lived him. Her soul fed on his life. And
+so--and so--by a pleasant and flowery path, there came into Ivy's heart
+the old, old pain.
+
+Now the thing was on this wise:--
+
+One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find Mr. Clerron in
+the library, where he usually awaited her. After spending a few moments
+in looking over her lessons, she rose and was about to pass to the door
+to ring, when Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her
+that Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come out. Ivy
+immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden. On the south side of the
+house was a piazza two stories high. Along the pillars which supported
+it a trellis-work had been constructed, reaching several feet above the
+roof of the piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which not
+only completely screened nearly the whole front of the piazza, but,
+reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by the aid of a few pieces
+of fine wire, and overran a part of the roof of the house. Thus the roof
+of the piazza was the floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and
+ceiling were broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
+innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
+
+From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried, "Hail to thee, my
+twining vine!" Ivy turned and looked up, with the uncertain, inquiring
+smile we often wear when conscious that, though unseeing, we are not
+unseen; and presently two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
+sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could come up there!" cried Ivy, clasping her hands with
+childish eagerness.
+
+"The wish is father to the deed."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Be sure you may."
+
+"But how shall I get in?"
+
+"Are you afraid to come up the ladder?"
+
+"No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where you are, after I am
+up?"
+
+"Oh, never fear! I'll draw you in safely enough."
+
+"Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?" cried Mrs. Simm, in
+terror.
+
+Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she stopped and
+answered, hesitatingly,--"He said I might."
+
+"He said you might, yes," continued Mrs. Simm,--talking _to_ Ivy, but
+_at_ Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared to remonstrate in a more
+direct way. "And if he said you might throw yourself down Vineyard
+Cliff, it don't follow that you are bound to do it. He goes into all
+sorts of hap-hazard scrapes himself, but you can't follow him."
+
+"But it looks so nice up there," pleaded Ivy, "and I have been twice as
+high at home. I don't mind it at all."
+
+"If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your life, it's none
+of my look-out, but I a'n't going to have you breaking your neck right
+under my nose. If you want to get up there, I'll show you the way in the
+house, and you can step right out of the window. Just wait till I've
+told Ellen about the dinner."
+
+As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to Ivy, "Come!"--and
+in a moment Ivy bounded up the ladder and through an opening in the
+vine, and stood by his side.
+
+"I'm ready now, Miss Ivy," said Mrs. Simm, reappearing. "Miss Ivy! Where
+is the child?"
+
+A merry laugh greeted her.
+
+"Oh, you good-for-nothing!" cried the good-natured old housekeeper,
+"you'll never die in your bed."
+
+"Not for a good while, I hope," answered Mr. Clerron.
+
+Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the great basket the
+finest cluster of grapes.
+
+"Is that reward enough for coming?"
+
+"Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you read
+yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, 'its own exceeding great reward.'"
+
+"And you don't want the grapes?"
+
+"I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them as a free
+gift. It was only the principle that I opposed."
+
+"Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half for the free
+gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little tendril, you look
+as fresh as the morning."
+
+"Don't I always?"
+
+"I should say there was a _little_ more dew than usual. Stand up and let
+me survey you, if perchance I may discover the cause."
+
+Ivy rose, made a profound curtsy, and then turned slowly around, after
+the manner of the revolving fashion-figures in a milliner's window.
+
+"I don't know," continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a couple of
+revolutions, resumed her seat. "You seem to be the same. I think it must
+be the frock."
+
+"I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve my style of
+beauty, if I did. Papa wears one sometimes."
+
+"And what kind of a frock, pray, does 'papa' wear?"
+
+"Oh, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his knees. Made of some
+kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!"
+
+"And what name do you give to that white thing with blue sprigs in it?"
+
+"This?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a dress."
+
+"No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash are your dress.
+This is a frock."
+
+Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"You know a great deal, I know."
+
+"So you informed me once before."
+
+"Oh, don't mention that!" said Ivy, blushing, and quickly added, "Do you
+know I have discovered the reason why you like me this morning?"
+
+"And every morning."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Go on. What is the reason?"
+
+"It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with my owny-dony
+hands; and that, you know, is the reason it looks nicer than usual."
+
+"Ah, me! I wish I wore dresses."
+
+"You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to hinder you."
+
+"Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have
+asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little
+speech all ready for you,--a veritable compliment"
+
+"It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve of compliments,
+and perhaps it would have made me vain."
+
+"Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech was, and thus give
+me an opportunity to relieve myself. Why, a body might die of a plethora
+of flattery, if he had nobody but you to discharge it against."
+
+"He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed the demand."
+
+"Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have next?"
+
+"Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally, indeed, prefer it to
+the other, I am told."
+
+"Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!"
+
+He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes. Ivy did not
+care to interrupt his thinking. Presently he said,--
+
+"Ivy, how old are you?"
+
+"I shall be seventeen the last day of this month."
+
+A short pause.
+
+"And then eighteen."
+
+"And then nineteen."
+
+"And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty."
+
+"Horrid old, isn't it?"
+
+He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what Ivy thought a
+curious kind of smile, but only said,--
+
+"You must not say 'horrid' so much."
+
+By-and-by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and watching the
+rustle of the leaves, which hid every other prospect; she turned her
+face a little so that she could look at him. He sat with folded arms,
+looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
+expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
+wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
+sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
+should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
+wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
+there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
+softly,--
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."
+
+"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"
+
+"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."
+
+"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
+atmosphere?"
+
+"Yes, Sir, I am ready."
+
+Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
+had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
+would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.
+
+He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
+through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,
+while he carried the grapes to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and
+proposed to walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went home.
+
+"You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the city to-morrow,
+on business, to be gone a week or two. So, as you must perforce take a
+vacation then, why, we may as well begin to vacate today, and enjoy it."
+
+"I am sorry you are going away."
+
+"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
+
+"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to
+you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without
+you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you,
+or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
+
+"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,--the last, for
+instance,--what would you do?"
+
+"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
+
+Mr. Clerron laughed.
+
+"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me
+well again?"
+
+"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving
+it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
+
+"So you love your papa and mamma better than"----
+
+He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
+
+"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems
+strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,--oh, you don't
+know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I
+have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."
+
+"Do you always pity people, when they love you very much?"
+
+"Oh, no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough to be pitied,
+except papa.--Isn't it pleasant here? How very green it is! It looks
+just like summer. Oh, Mr. Clerron, did you see the clouds this morning?"
+
+"There were none when I arose."
+
+"Why, yes, Sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise."
+
+"I am not prepared to contradict you."
+
+"Perhaps you were not up at sunrise."
+
+"I have an impression to that effect."
+
+He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying, though she was
+half afraid he might not be pleased,--
+
+"I wonder whether you are an early riser."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe I have been
+up every morning but one, this week, by nine o'clock."
+
+Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of "early to bed and early to
+rise" received a great shock, as her looks plainly showed. He laughed
+gayly at her amazed face.
+
+"You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer."
+
+"'Nine o'clock!'" repeated Ivy, slowly,--"'every morning but one!' and
+it is Tuesday to-day."
+
+"Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day, and excellent for
+sleeping."
+
+"But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up when I come. And
+when do you write?"
+
+"Always in the evening."
+
+"But the evenings are so short,--or have been."
+
+"Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is about long enough
+for one sitting."
+
+"I should think so. And you must be so tired!"
+
+"Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or six, and running
+round all day, become so tired that you have to go to bed by nine;
+of course you have no time for reflection and meditation. I, on the
+contrary, take life easily,--write in the night, when everything is
+still and quiet,--take my sleep when all the noise of the world's
+waking-up is going on,--and after creation is fairly settled for the
+day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely, and
+leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil."
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
+
+"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
+
+"What is the use of telling it, then?"
+
+"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising
+from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come
+to a better understanding. Go on."
+
+"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
+
+"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
+
+"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and
+wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
+
+"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and
+mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to
+extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate,
+destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture
+to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."
+
+"Now, Sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question. And I
+really wish you did not. Before I knew you, I thought it was almost as
+bad to smoke as it was to steal. I know, however, now, that it cannot
+be; still"--
+
+"Feminine logic."
+
+"I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to say, Sir,
+I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of subjection to
+anything."
+
+"Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often don't smoke
+for months together. To prove it, I promise you I won't smoke for the
+next two months."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad! Oh, I am so much obliged to you! And you are not in
+the least vexed that I spoke to you about it?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, Sir, I have been afraid
+of, the last few days. You know when I first knew you, or before I knew
+you, I supposed you did nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all
+day. But now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that you
+could not well spare two hours every day for me,--particularly in the
+morning, which are almost always considered the best. But if you like
+to write in the evening, you would just as soon I would come in the
+morning?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any time, hesitate
+to tell me. I have no claim on a moment,--only"--
+
+"My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to understand,
+henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into my house at any time
+when you are not wanted; nor stay any longer than I want you; nor say
+anything that will not please me;--well, I am not quite sure about
+that;--but, at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
+teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never hope to do you as
+much good as you do me every day of your blessed life."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Clerron!" exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of gratitude and
+happiness; "do I, can I, do _you_ any good?"
+
+"You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element that was wanting in
+my life. You make every day beautiful to me. The flutter of your robes
+among these trees brings sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in
+my garden as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you turn
+into the lane; and every day I watch you till you disappear. You are
+fresh and truthful and natural, and you give me new life. And now, my
+dear little trembling benefactor, because we are nearly through the
+woods, I can go no farther with you; and because I am going away
+to-morrow, not to see you again for a week, and because I hope you will
+be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think I must let you--kiss
+me!"
+
+Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression, at
+first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then gradually changing
+into waiting wonder; but when his sentence finally closed, she stood
+still, scarcely able to comprehend. He placed his hands on her temples,
+and, smiling involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
+sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back, kissed brow,
+cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, "Go now! God bless you for ever and
+ever, my darling!" and, turning, walked hastily down the winding path.
+As for Ivy, she went home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great
+joy.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+"IMPLORA PACE."
+
+  No more Joy-roses! their perfume
+  To this dull pain brings short surcease:
+  But tell me, if ye know, where bloom
+  The golden lily-bells of Peace.
+
+  Leap, winnowing all the air of light,
+  Ye wild wraiths of the waterfall!
+  But for that fabled fountain's sight,
+  That giveth sleep, I'd give you all.
+
+  Bound, gay barks, o'er the bounding main!
+  Shake all your white wings to the breeze!
+  My joy was erst the hurricane,
+  The plunging of the purple seas;
+
+  My hope to find the mystic marge
+  Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
+  But bear me now to yon still barge,
+  Calm cradled by a tideless shore!
+
+  Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
+  With May-time matins loud and long,
+  Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
+  Its pulses time not to your song!
+
+  But know ye where she hides her nest,
+  Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
+  The Dove that bears on her white breast
+  The sacred green of olive-leaves?
+
+  Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
+  From white foam of the Northern snows;
+  Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
+  The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:
+
+  But when amid the templed hills,
+  Deep drained from every purple vine,
+  Soft for her dying lips distils
+  The Summer's sacramental wine;
+
+  While all her woodland priests put on
+  Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
+  And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
+  A rhythmic silence holds the skies;
+
+  What time the Day-spring softly wells
+  From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
+  In long, melodious, tidal swells,
+  Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;--
+
+  Oh, open then my dungeon door!
+  Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
+  If haply I may _feel_ once more
+  The pillars of the steadfast skies;
+
+  If haply there may fall for me
+  Some strange assurance in my fears,--
+  As he who heard on Galilee,
+  That stormy night in wondrous years,
+
+  The "It is I," and o'er the foam
+  Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
+  Saw glory of the kingdom come,
+  The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+  "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
+   the end of the world."
+                           PSALMS, xix. 4.
+
+Among the impossibilities enumerated to convince Job of his ignorance
+and weakness, the Almighty asks,--
+
+"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here
+we are?"
+
+At the present day, every people in Christendom can respond in the
+affirmative.
+
+The lines of electric telegraph are increasing so rapidly, that the
+length in actual use cannot be estimated at any moment with accuracy. At
+the commencement of 1848, it was stated that the length in operation
+in this country was about 3000 miles. At the end of 1850, the lines in
+operation, or in progress, in the United States, amounted to 22,000. In
+1853, the total number of miles of wire in America amounted to 26,375.
+
+It is but fifteen years since the first line of electric telegraph was
+constructed in this country; and at the present time there are not less
+than 50,000 miles in successful operation on this continent, having over
+1400 stations, and employing upwards of 10,000 operators and clerks.
+
+The number of messages passing over all the lines in this country
+annually is estimated at upwards of 5,000,000, producing a revenue of
+$2,000,000; in addition to which, the press pays $200,000 for public
+despatches.
+
+In Europe there are lines rivalling those in America. The electric wire
+extends under the English Channel, the German Ocean, the Black and Red
+Seas, and the Mediterranean; it passes from crag to crag on the Alps,
+and runs through Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Russia.
+
+India, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and several of the South American States
+have also their lines; and the wires uniting the Pacific and Atlantic
+States will shortly meet at the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+The electric telegraph, which has made such rapid strides, is yet in its
+infancy. The effect of its future extension, and of new applications,
+cannot be estimated, when, as a means of intercourse at least, its
+network shall spread through every village, bringing all parts of our
+republic into the closest and most intimate relations of friendship and
+interest. In connection with the railroad and steamboat, it has
+already achieved one important national result. It has made possible,
+on this continent, a wide-spread, yet closely linked, empire of States,
+such as our fathers never imagined. The highest office of the electric
+telegraph, in the future, is thus to be the promotion of unity, peace,
+and good-will among men.
+
+In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland have the greatest number of miles
+of electric telegraph,--namely, 40,000. France has 26,000; Belgium,
+1600; Germany, 35,000; Switzerland, 2000; Spain and Portugal, 1200;
+Italy, 6600; Turkey and Greece, 500; Russia, 12,000; Denmark and Sweden,
+2000.
+
+In Italy, Sardinia has the largest share of lines, having about 1200
+miles; and in Germany, after Austria and Prussia, the largest share
+belongs to Bavaria, which has 1050. Saxony has 400 miles; Wuertemberg,
+195.
+
+The distance between stations on lines of Continental telegraph is from
+ten to twelve miles on the average, and the number of them is about
+3800.
+
+In France the use of the electric telegraph has rapidly increased within
+the last few years. In 1851, the number of despatches transmitted
+was 9014, which produced 76,723 francs. In 1858, there were 463,973
+despatches transmitted, producing 3,516,634 francs. During the last four
+years, that is to say, since all the chief towns in France have been in
+electric communication with Paris, and consequently with each other,
+there have been sent by private individuals 1,492,420 despatches, which
+have produced 12,528,591 francs. Out of the 97,728 despatches exchanged
+during the last three months of 1858, 23,728 were with Paris, and 15,409
+with the thirty most important towns of France. These 15,409 despatches
+are divided, as to their object or nature, as follows:--Private and
+family affairs, 3102; journals, 523; commerce and manufactures, 6132;
+Bourse affairs, 5253; sundry affairs, 399.
+
+In Australia, the electric telegraph is in constant use, affording a
+remunerating revenue, and the amount of business has forced on the
+government the necessity of additional wires.
+
+Cuba has six hundred miles of wire in operation. Messages can be
+transmitted only in Spanish, and the closest surveillance is
+maintained by the government officials over all despatches offered for
+transmission. From the fact that no less than a dozen errors occurred in
+a dispatch transmitted by a Boston gentleman from Cardenas to Havana,
+we judge that the telegraphic apparatus, invented by our liberty-loving
+American, Professor House, rebels at such petty tyranny.
+
+Several hundred miles of electric telegraph have been constructed in
+Mexico; but the unfortunate condition of the country for the last few
+years has precluded the possibility of maintaining it in working order,
+and it has, like everything else in the land of Monteznma, gone to
+decay.
+
+The English and Dutch governments have come to an understanding upon a
+system of cables which will unite India and Australia, and eventually be
+extended to China. The arrangements between the governments are:--That
+the Indian and Imperial governments shall connect India with Singapore;
+that the Dutch government shall connect Singapore with the southeast
+point of Java; that the Australian governments shall connect their
+continent with Java. The cable for the Singapore-Java section was to
+have been laid during the last month; the Indian-Singapore section is
+to be laid this spring; and the connection with Australia will, it is
+believed, be completed in the course of next year.
+
+The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company have announced the arrangements
+under which they are prepared to transmit messages for the public
+between Alexandria and Aden. Messages for Australia and China will be
+forwarded by post from Aden. It is considered probable that a direct
+communication with Alexandria will be established through Constantinople
+in the course of a few weeks, and then the news from India will reach
+London in ten or eleven days.
+
+A late European steamer brings a report that two Russian engineers
+have proceeded to Pekin, China, to make preparations for a telegraphic
+connection between that place and the Russian territory.
+
+There is reason to believe that arrangements will soon be made at St.
+Petersburg, through private companies and government subsidies, for
+completing the line of telegraph from Novgorod to the mouth of the
+Amoor, and thence across the straits to Russian America. In the mean
+time, a company has already been formed and incorporated in Canada,
+under the name of the Transmundane Telegraphic Company, which will
+afford important aid in continuing the proposed line through British
+America. The plan is, to carry the wires from the mouth of the Amoor
+across Behring's Strait, to and through Russian and British America.
+From Victoria a branch will be extended to San Francisco, and another to
+Canada. The line from San Francisco to Missouri is under way, and Mr.
+Collins, who is engaged in the Russian and Canadian enterprise, thinks
+that by the time it is in operation he shall have extended his line to
+San Francisco.
+
+This is unquestionably the most feasible route for telegraphic
+communication between America and Europe; and, though the longest
+by several thousand miles, it would afford the most rapid means of
+communication, owing to the great superiority of aerial over subaqueous
+lines.
+
+No limit has yet been found to aerial telegraphing; for, by inserting
+transferrers into the more extended circuits, renewed energy can be
+attained, and lines of several thousands of miles in length can be
+worked, if properly insulated, as surely as those of a hundred. The
+lines between New York and New Orleans are frequently connected together
+by means of transferrers, and direct communication is had over a
+distance of more than, two thousand miles. No perceptible retardation of
+the current takes place; on the contrary, the lines so connected work as
+successfully as when divided into shorter circuits.
+
+This is not the case with subaqueous lines. The employment of submarine,
+as well as of subterranean conductors, occasions a small retardation in
+the velocity of the transmitted electricity. This retardation is not due
+to the length of the path which the electric current has to traverse,
+since it does not take place with a conductor equally long, insulated in
+the air. It arises, as Faraday has demonstrated, from a static reaction,
+which is determined by the introduction of a current into a conductor
+well insulated, but surrounded outside its insulating coating by a
+conducting body, such as sea-water or moist ground, or even simply by
+the metallic envelope of iron wires placed in communication with the
+ground. When this conductor is presented to one of the poles of a
+battery, the other pole of which communicates with the ground, it
+becomes charged with static electricity, like the coating of a Leyden
+jar,--electricity which is capable of giving rise to a discharge
+current, even after the voltaic current has ceased to be transmitted.
+
+Professor Wheatstone experimented upon the cable intended to unite La
+Spezia, upon the coast of Piedmont, with the Island of Corsica. It was
+one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires
+one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and
+each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in
+thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two
+ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as
+to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles
+in length, through which the electric current could circulate in the
+same direction. This current was itself furnished by an insulated
+battery formed of one hundred and forty-four Wheatstone's pairs, equal
+to fifty of Grove's. In the first series of experiments, it was proved,
+that, if one of the ends of the long wire, whose other end remained
+insulated, were made to communicate with one of the poles of the
+battery, the wire became charged with the electricity of that pole,
+which, so long as it existed, gave rise to a current which was made
+evident by a galvanometer: but, in order to obtain this result, the
+second pole of the battery must communicate with the ground, or with
+another long wire similar to the first.
+
+In a second series of experiments, Professor Wheatstone interposed three
+galvanometers in the middle and at the ends of the circuit, determining
+in this manner the progress of the current by the order which they
+followed in their deviation. If the two poles of the battery were
+connected by the long conductor of six hundred and sixty miles, the
+precaution having been taken to divide it into two portions of equal
+length, it was observed, on connecting the two free extremities of these
+two portions in order to close the circuit, that the galvanometer placed
+in the middle was the first to be deflected, whilst the galvanometers
+placed in the vicinity of the poles were not deflected until later.
+
+By a third series of experiments, Wheatstone, with the galvanometer, has
+shown that a continuous current may be maintained in the circuit of the
+long wire of an electric cable, of which one of the ends is insulated,
+whilst the other communicates with one of the poles of a battery whose
+other pole is connected with the ground. This current is due to the
+uniform and continual dispersion of the statical electricity with which
+the wire is charged along its whole length, as would happen to any other
+conducting body placed in an insulating medium.
+
+It was owing to the retardation from this cause that communication
+through the Atlantic Cable was so exceedingly slow and difficult, and
+not, as many suppose, because the cable was defective. It is true that
+there was a fault in the cable, discovered by Varley, before it left
+Queenstown; but it was not of so serious a character as to offer any
+substantial obstacle to the passage of the electric current.
+
+As everything pertaining to the actual operation of the Atlantic Cable
+has been studiously withheld from the public, until it has come to be
+seriously doubted whether any despatches were ever transmitted through
+it, we presume it will not be out of place here to give the actual
+_modus operandi_ of this great wonder and mystery.
+
+The only instrument which could be used successfully in signalling
+through the Atlantic Cable was one of peculiar construction, by
+Professor Thompson, called the marine galvanometer. In this instrument
+momentum and inertia are almost wholly avoided by the use of a needle
+weighing only one and a half grains, combined with a mirror reflecting a
+ray of light, which indicates deflections with great accuracy. By these
+means a gradually increasing or decreasing current is at each instant
+indicated at its due strength. Thus, when this galvanometer is placed
+as the receiving instrument at the end of a long submarine cable, the
+movement of the spot of light, consequent on the completion of a circuit
+through the battery, cable, and earth, can be so observed as to furnish
+a curve representing very accurately the arrival of an electric current.
+Lines representing successive signals at various speeds can also be
+obtained, and, by means of a metronome, dots, dashes, successive _A_-s,
+etc., can be sent with nearly perfect regularity by an ordinary Morse
+key, and the corresponding changes in the current at the receiving end
+of the cable accurately observed. The strength of the battery employed
+was found to have no influence on the results; curves given by batteries
+of different strengths could be made to coincide by simply drawing them
+to scales proportionate to the strengths of the two currents. It was
+also found that the same curve represented the gradual increase of
+intensity due to the arrival of a current and the gradual decrease due
+to the ceasing of that current. The possible speed of signalling was
+found to be very nearly proportional to the squares of the lengths
+spoken through. Thus, a speed which gave fifteen dots per minute in a
+length of 2191 nautical miles reproduced all the effects given by a
+speed of thirty dots in a length of 1500. At these speeds, with ordinary
+Morse signals, speaking would be barely possible. In the Red Sea, a
+speed of from seven to eight words per minute was attained in a length
+of 750 nautical miles. Mechanical senders, and attention to the
+proportion of the various contacts, would materially increase the speed
+at which signals of any kind could be transmitted. The best trained hand
+cannot equal the accuracy of mechanism, and the slightest irregularity
+causes the current to rise or fall quite beyond the limits required for
+distinct signals. No important difference was observed between signals
+sent by alternate reverse currents and those sent by the more usual
+method. The amount of oscillation, and the consequent distinctness of
+signalling, were nearly the same in the two cases. An advantage in the
+first signals sent is, however, obtained by the use of Messrs. Sieman's
+and Halske's submarine key, by which the cable is put to earth
+immediately on signalling being interrupted, and the wire thus kept at
+a potential half-way between the potentials of the poles of two
+counter-acting batteries employed, and the first signals become legible,
+which, with the ordinary key, would be employed in charging the wire.
+
+A system of arbitrary characters, similar to those used upon the Morse
+telegraph, was employed, and the letter to be indicated was determined
+by the number of oscillations of the needle, as well as by the length of
+time during which the needle remained in one place. The operator, who
+watched the reflection of the deflected needle in the mirror, had a key,
+communicating with a local instrument in the office, in his hand, which
+he pressed down or raised, as the needle was deflected; and another
+operator occupied himself in deciphering the characters thus produced
+upon the paper. As the operator at Trinity Bay had no means of arresting
+the operations at Valentia, and _vice versa_, and as the fastest rate of
+speed over the cable could not exceed three words per minute, it will
+not surprise the reader that the operators were nearly two days in
+transmitting the Queen's despatch.
+
+However, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, there were
+transmitted from Ireland to Newfoundland, through the Atlantic Cable,
+between the 10th of August and the 1st of September, 97 messages,
+containing 1102 words; and from Newfoundland to Ireland, 269 messages
+and 2840 words, making a total of 366 messages, containing 3942 words.
+Among these were the message from the Queen to the President of the
+United States, and his reply; the one announcing the safety of the
+steamer Europa, her mails and passengers, after her collision with
+the Arabia; and two messages for Her Majesty's War-Office, which last
+effected a very large saving to the revenue of the English government.
+
+In Liverpool, L150,000 have already been subscribed to the project of
+completing or relaying the Atlantic Cable.
+
+A contract has been recently made by the English government for a cable
+to be laid from Falmouth to Gibraltar, 1200 miles, which is to be ready
+in June next. This will be succeeded by one from Gibraltar to Malta
+and Alexandria, thus giving England an independent line, free from
+Continental difficulties.
+
+Steamers were to have left Liverpool at the end of the last month, with
+the remainder of the cable to connect Kurrachee with Aden. The cable to
+connect Alexandria with England is now to be laid through the islands
+of Rhodes and Scio to Constantinople, and not by way of Candia, as
+previously intended; it is expected to be laid this season. Hellaniyah,
+one of the Kuria-Muria Islands, has been decided on as a station for the
+Red Sea Telegraph.
+
+The new electric cable between Malta and the opposite coast of Sicily at
+Alga Grande is safely laid. Two previous attempts had been made; but, in
+consequence of the late strong winds, nothing could be done. The
+shore end on the Malta side had been laid down and connected with the
+company's offices before the expedition started; the outer end, about
+one mile off the Marsamuscetto harbor, into which the cable has been
+taken, being buoyed ready to complete the communication from shore to
+shore the moment the cable was submerged. The operation of paying out
+the cable was completed without the least accident. The mid-portion of
+the cable is of great strength, being able to sustain a strain of ten
+or twelve tons without parting, and the shore ends are of nearly double
+that strength. The depth of water throughout is within eighty fathoms;
+so that, if any accident should ever occur, it may be remedied without
+much difficulty.
+
+A great change in the rates to Sicily and the Italian States will result
+from the completion of this new line, a reduction in some cases of
+seventy-five per cent. being made,--a great boon to the English
+merchants. Messages in French, English, or Italian will be transmitted,
+and we must congratulate the company upon their success in inducing the
+Neapolitan government to make this concession, and upon the exceedingly
+low tariff proposed.
+
+Mr. De Sauty is the electrician of this company. He will be remembered
+by the reader as the mysterious operator at Trinity Bay, from whom an
+occasional vague and exceedingly brief despatch was received in relation
+to the working of the cable. Nothing really satisfactory could ever be
+obtained, and, when visited by some officers connected with the United
+States Coast Survey, he would not permit them to enter the office or
+examine the apparatus. His name was published in the daily journals with
+several different varieties of spelling, and for this reason, and in
+consequence of his extreme reticence, one of them perpetrated the
+following:--
+
+  "Thou operator, silent, glum,
+  Why wilt them act so naughty?
+  Do tell us _what_ your name is,--come:
+  De Santy, or De Sauty?
+
+  "Don't think to humbug any more,
+  Shut up there in your shanty,--
+  But solve the problem, once for all,--
+  De Sauty, or De Santy?"
+
+Electric telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire has within a few months had
+a remarkable development. Several lines are already in course of
+construction. A direct line from Varna to Toultcha, passing by
+Baltschik. A line from Toultcha to Odessa, passing by Reni and joining
+the Russian telegraph at Ismail. The subaqueous cable from Toultcha to
+Reni, on the Danube, is the sixth in the Ottoman Empire. This line,
+which will place Constantinople in direct communication with Odessa,
+will not only have the advantage of increasing and accelerating the
+communications, but will very considerably reduce their cost.
+
+There is also to be a line from Rodosto to Enos and Salonica; and from
+Salonica to Monastir, Valona, and Scutari in Albania. The line from
+Salonica to Monastir and Valona will be joined by a submarine cable
+crossing the Adriatic to Otranto, and carried on to Naples. It will
+have the effect of placing Southern Italy in communication with
+Constantinople, and also of reducing the cost of messages. A convention
+to this effect has been signed by a delegate of the Neapolitan
+government and the director-general of the telegraphic lines of the
+Ottoman Empire, touching this line to Naples. The ratification of the
+two governments will shortly be given to this convention.
+
+A line from Scutari in Albania to Bar-Bournon, and thence to
+Castellastua, passing round the Montenegrin territory by a submarine
+cable. This line is already laid, and will begin working immediately on,
+the completion of the Austrian lines to the point where it ends.
+
+A line from Constantinople to Bagdad. Three sections of this are being
+simultaneously laid down. The first from Constantinople to Ismid,
+Angora, Yuzgat, and Sivas: the works on this have been already carried
+to Sabanja, between Ismid and Angora. The second section, from Sivas
+to Moussoul: the works on this line are in a state of favorable
+preparation, and the line will be actively gone on with. The third
+section, from Bagdad to Moussoul: for this also the preparations have
+been made, and the works will begin when the season opens, the materials
+being all ready along the line. From Bagdad this line will extend to
+Bassora, to join a submarine cable to be carried thence to British
+India.
+
+A projected line from Constantinople to Smyrna. For this, two routes
+are thought of: one, the shortest, but most difficult, would run from
+Constantinople to the Dardanelles, Adramyti, and Smyrna; the other,
+the longest, but offering fewest difficulties, would pass from
+Constantinople by Muhalitch, Berliek-Hissar, and Maneesa, to Smyrna.
+
+A line from Mostar to Bosna-Serai. Mostar is already connected with the
+Austrian telegraphs at Metcovich.
+
+Other lines have been in the mean time completed and extended, and will
+soon be opened to the public. Thus, a third and fourth wire are being
+laid on the line from Constantinople to Rodosto; from the latter point
+three wires have been carried to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, two of
+which are for messages from Gallipoli to the Dardanelles, and the third
+is to join the submarine cable connecting Constantinople, Candia, Syra,
+and the Piraeus. The communications between Constantinople and Candia
+would already have begun but for an accident to the engineer. Those
+with Syra and the Piraeus will begin as soon as the ratification of the
+convention entered into between the Ottoman and Greek governments on
+this subject shall have taken place. The laying of the cable between
+Candia and Alexandria, which has not yet succeeded, will be resumed this
+spring.
+
+Thus, after the completion of these lines, Constantinople will be in
+communication with nearly all the chief provinces and towns of the
+empire, with Africa, and with Europe, by five different channels,--by
+the Principalities, by Odessa, by Servia, by Dalmatia, and the Kingdom
+of the Two Sicilies. With such a development of the system, it will
+be imperatively necessary to increase the telegraphic working-staff.
+Already the number of despatches arriving every day renders the service
+very difficult, and occasions much confusion and many grievous mistakes.
+Nothing is easier than to remedy all this by increasing the number of
+the _employes_.
+
+The great distinguishing feature of the telegraphs used in Great Britain
+is, that they are of the class known as oscillating telegraphs,--that
+is, telegraphs in which the letters are denoted by the number of motions
+to the right or left of a needle or indicator. Those of France are of
+the class called dial telegraphs, in which an index, or needle, is
+carried around the face of a dial, around the circumference of which are
+placed the letters of the alphabet; any particular letter being
+designated by the brief stopping of the needle. A similar system has
+been used in Prussia; but, recently, the American, or recording
+instrument of Professor Morse, has been introduced into this, as well
+as every other European country; and even in England, the national
+prejudice is gradually giving way, and our American system is being
+introduced.
+
+In America none but recording instruments have ever been used. Of
+these we have many kinds, but only five are in operation at present,
+namely:--The electro-magnetic timing instrument of Professor Morse;
+the electro-magnetic step-by-step printing of Mr. House; the
+electro-magnetic synchronous printing of Mr. Hughes; the
+electro-chemical rhythmic of Mr. Bain; and the combination-printing,
+combining the essential parts of the Hughes instrument with portions of
+the House. The Morse apparatus is, however, most generally used in this
+country and every other. Out of the two hundred and fifty thousand
+miles of electric telegraph now in operation or in the course of
+construction in the world, at least two hundred thousand give the
+preference to it.
+
+Although the Morse apparatus is a recording one, yet, for the last six
+years, the operators in this country have discontinued the use of the
+paper, and confined themselves to reading by the ear, which they do
+with the greatest facility. By this means a great saving is made in the
+expense of working the telegraph, and far greater correctness insured;
+as the ear is found much more reliable in comprehending the clicks of
+the instrument, than the eye in deciphering the arbitrary alphabet of
+dots and lines.
+
+The rapidity of the several instruments in use may be given as
+follows:--Cooke and Wheatstone's needle telegraph of Great Britain, 900
+words per hour; Froment's dial telegraph, of France, 1200; Bregnet's
+dial telegraph, also French, 1000; Sieman's dial telegraph, formerly
+used upon the Prussian lines, 900; Bain's chemical, in use between
+Liverpool and Manchester, and formerly to a considerable extent in the
+United States, 1500; the Morse telegraph, in use all over the world,
+1500; the House printing, used in the United States to a limited extent,
+and in Cuba, 2800; Hughes's and the combination instruments, 2000. The
+three last systems are American inventions; thus it will be seen, that
+to our country is due the credit of inventing the most rapid and the
+most universally used telegraphic systems.
+
+But though we surpass all other nations in the value of our electric
+apparatus, we are far behind many, and indeed most countries, in the
+construction of our lines. This does not arise from want of knowledge or
+of means, but from the custom which obtains to a great extent among all
+classes and professions in this country, of providing something which
+will answer for a time, instead of securing a permanent success.
+
+"But to my mind,--though I am native here, And to the manner born,--it
+is a custom More honored it in the breach than the observance,"--
+especially in building lines of electric telegraph, where the best are
+always the cheapest.
+
+When Shakspeare made Puck promise to "put a girdle round about the earth
+in forty minutes," he undoubtedly supposed he would thereby accomplish a
+remarkable feat; but when the great Russo-American line _via_ Behring's
+Strait and the Amoor is completed, and the Atlantic Cable is again in
+operation, we can put an electric girdle round about the earth before
+Puck could have time to spread his wings!
+
+In view of what must actually take place at no distant day,--the
+girdling of the earth by the electric wires,--a singular question
+arises:--If we send a current of electricity east, it will lose
+twenty-four hours in going round the globe; if we send one west, it
+will gain twenty-four, or, in other words, will get back to the
+starting-place twenty-four hours before it sets out. Now, if we send
+a current half-way round the world, it will get there twelve hours in
+advance of, or twelve hours behind our time, according as we send it
+east or west; the question which naturally suggests itself, therefore,
+is, What is the time at the antipodes? is it _yesterday_ or _to-morrow?_
+LOVE AND SELF-LOVE.
+
+
+"Friendless, when you are gone? But, Jean, you surely do not mean that
+Effie has no claim on any human creature, beyond the universal one of
+common charity?" I said, as she ceased, and lay panting on her pillows,
+with her sunken eyes fixed eagerly upon my own.
+
+"Ay, Sir, I do; for her grandfather has never by word or deed
+acknowledged her, or paid the least heed to the letter her poor mother
+sent him from her dying bed seven years ago. He is a lone old man, and
+this child is the last of his name; yet he will not see her, and cares
+little whether she be dead or living. It's a bitter shame, Sir, and the
+memory of it will rise up before him when he comes to lie where I am
+lying now."
+
+"And you have kept the girl safe in the shelter of your honest home all
+these years? Heaven will remember that, and in the great record of good
+deeds will set the name of Adam Lyndsay far below that of poor Jean
+Burns," I said, pressing the thin hand that had succored the orphan in
+her need.
+
+But Jean took no honor to herself for that charity, and answered simply
+to my words of commendation.
+
+"Sir, her mother was my foster-child; and when she left that stern old
+man for love of Walter Home, I went, too, for love of her. Ah, dear
+heart! she had sore need of me in the weary wanderings which ended only
+when she lay down by her dead husband's side and left her bairn to me.
+Then I came here to cherish her among kind souls where I was born; and
+here she has grown up, an innocent young thing, safe from the wicked
+world, the comfort of my life, and the one thing I grieve at leaving
+when the time that is drawing very near shall come."
+
+"Would not an appeal to Mr. Lyndsay reach him now, think you? Might not
+Effie go to him herself? Surely, the sight of such a winsome creature
+would touch his heart, however hard."
+
+But Jean rose up in her bed, crying, almost fiercely,--
+
+"No, Sir! no! My child shall never go to beg a shelter in that hard
+man's house. I know too well the cold looks, the cruel words, that would
+sting her high spirit and try her heart, as they did her mother's. No,
+Sir,--rather than that, she shall go with Lady Gower."
+
+"Lady Gower? What has she to do with Effie, Jean?" I asked, with
+increasing interest.
+
+"She will take Effie as her maid, Sir. A hard life for my child! but
+what can I do?" And Jean's keen glance seemed trying to read mine.
+
+"A waiting-maid? Heaven forbid!" I ejaculated, as a vision of that
+haughty lady and her three wild sons swept through my mind.
+
+I rose, paced the room in silence for a little time, then took a sudden
+resolution, and, turning to the bed, exclaimed,--
+
+"Jean, I will adopt Effie. I am old enough to be her father; and she
+shall never feel the want of one, if you will give her to my care."
+
+To my surprise, Jean's eager face wore a look of disappointment as she
+listened, and with a sigh replied,--
+
+"That's a kind thought, Sir, and a generous one; but it cannot be as you
+wish. You may be twice her age, but still too young for that. How could
+Effie look into that face of yours, so bonnie, Sir, for all it is so
+grave, and, seeing never a wrinkle on the forehead, nor a white hair
+among the black, how could she call you father? No, it will not do,
+though so kindly meant. Your friends would laugh at you, Sir, and idle
+tongues might speak ill of my bairn."
+
+"Then what can I do, Jean?" I asked, regretfully.
+
+"Make her your wife, Sir."
+
+I turned sharply and stared at the woman, as her abrupt reply reached my
+ear. Though trembling for the consequences of her boldly spoken wish,
+Jean did not shrink from my astonished gaze; and when I saw the
+wistfulness of that wan face, the smile died on my lips, checked by the
+tender courage which had prompted the utterance of her dying hope.
+
+"My good Jean, you forget that Effie is a child, and I a moody, solitary
+man, with no gifts to win a wife or make home happy."
+
+"Effie is sixteen, Sir,--a fair, good lassie for her years; and you--ah,
+Sir, _you_ may call yourself unfit for wife and home, but the poorest,
+saddest creature in this place knows that the man whose hand is always
+open, whose heart is always pitiful, is not the one to live alone, but
+to win and to deserve a happy home and a true wife. Oh, Sir, forgive me,
+if I have been too bold; but my time is short, and I love my child so
+well, I cannot leave the desire of my heart unspoken, for it is my
+last."
+
+As the words fell brokenly from her lips, and tears streamed down her
+pallid cheek, a great pity took possession of me, the old longing to
+find some solace for my solitary life returned again, and peace seemed
+to smile on me from little Effie's eyes.
+
+"Jean," I said, "give me till to-morrow to consider this new thought. I
+fear it cannot be; but I have learned to love the child too well to see
+her thrust out from the shelter of your home to walk through this evil
+world alone. I will consider your proposal, and endeavor to devise some
+future for the child which shall set your heart at rest. But before you
+urge this further, let, me tell you that I am not what you think me.
+I am a cold, selfish man, often, gloomy, often stern,--a most unfit
+guardian for a tender creature like this little girl. The deeds of mine
+which you call kind are not true charities; it frets me to see pain,
+and I desire my ease above all earthly things. You are grateful for
+the little I have done for you, and deceive yourself regarding my true
+worth; but of one thing you may rest assured,--I am an honest man, who
+holds his name too high to stain it with a false word or a dishonorable
+deed."
+
+"I do believe you, Sir," Jean answered, eagerly. "And if I left the
+child to you, I could die this night in peace. Indeed, Sir, I never
+should have dared to speak of this, but for the belief that you loved
+the girl. What else could I think, when you came so often and were so
+kind to us?"
+
+"I cannot blame you, Jean; it was my usual forgetfulness of others which
+so misled you. I was tired of the world, and came hither to find peace
+in solitude. Effie cheered me with her winsome ways, and I learned to
+look on her as the blithe spirit whose artless wiles won me to forget a
+bitter past and a regretful present." I paused; and then added, with a
+smile, "But, in our wise schemes, we have overlooked one point: Effie
+does not love me, and may decline the future you desire me to offer
+her."
+
+A vivid hope lit those dim eyes, as Jean met my smile with one far
+brighter, and joyfully replied,--
+
+"She _does_ love you, Sir; for you have given her the greatest happiness
+she has ever known. Last night she sat looking silently into the fire
+there with a strange gloom on her bonnie face, and, when I asked what
+she was dreaming of, she turned to me with a look of pain and fear, as
+if dismayed at some great loss, but she only said, 'He is going, Jean!
+What shall I do?'"
+
+"Poor child! she will miss her friend and teacher, when I'm gone; and I
+shall miss the only human creature that has seemed to care for me for
+years," I sighed,--adding, as I paused upon the threshold of the door,
+"Say nothing of this to Effie till I come to-morrow, Jean."
+
+I went away, and far out on the lonely moor sat down to think. Like a
+weird magician, Memory led me back into the past, calling up the hopes
+and passions buried there. My childhood,--fatherless and motherless,
+but not unhappy; for no wish was ungratified, no idle whim denied. My
+boyhood,--with no shadows over it but those my own wayward will called
+up. My manhood,--when the great joy of my life arose, my love for
+Agnes, a midsummer dream of bloom and bliss, so short-lived and so
+sweet! I felt again the pang that wrung my heart when she coldly gave me
+back the pledge I thought so sacred and so sure, and the music of her
+marriage-bells tolled the knell of my lost love. I seemed to hear them
+still wafted across the purple moor through the silence of those fifteen
+years.
+
+My life looked gray and joyless as the wide waste lying hushed around
+me, unblessed with the verdure of a single hope, a single love; and as I
+looked down the coming years, my way seemed very solitary, very dark.
+
+Suddenly a lark soared upward from the heath, cleaving the silence with
+its jubilant song. The sleeping echoes woke, the dun moor seemed to
+smile, and the blithe music fell like dew upon my gloomy spirit,
+wakening a new desire.
+
+"What this bird is to the moor might little Effie be to me," I thought
+within myself, longing to possess the cheerful spirit which had power to
+gladden me.
+
+"Yes," I mused, "the old home will seem more solitary now than ever; and
+if I cannot win the lark's song without a golden fetter, I will give
+it one, and while it sings for love of me it shall not know a want or
+fear."
+
+Heaven help me! I forgot the poor return I made my lark for the sweet
+liberty it lost.
+
+All that night I pondered the altered future Jean had laid before me,
+and the longer I looked the fairer it seemed to grow. Wealth I cared
+nothing for; the world's opinion I defied; ambition had departed,
+and passion I believed lay dead;--then why should I deny myself the
+consolation which seemed offered to me? I would accept it; and as I
+resolved, the dawn looked in at me, fresh and fair as little Effie's
+face.
+
+I met Jean with a smile, and, as she read its significance aright,
+there shone a sudden peace upon her countenance, more touching than her
+grateful words.
+
+Effie came singing from the burn-side, as unconscious of the change
+which awaited her as the flowers gathered in her plaid and crowning her
+bright hair.
+
+I drew her to my side, and in the simplest words asked her if she would
+go with me when Jean's long guardianship was ended. Joy, sorrow, and
+surprise stirred the sweet composure of her face, and quickened the
+tranquil beating of her heart. But as I ceased, joy conquered grief and
+wonder; for she clapped her hands like a glad child, exclaiming,--
+
+"Go with you, Sir? Oh, if you knew how I long to see the home you have
+so often pictured to me, you would never doubt my willingness to go."
+
+"But, Effie, you do not understand. Are you willing to go with me as my
+wife?" I said,--with a secret sense of something like remorse, as I
+uttered that word, which once meant so much to me, and now seemed such
+an empty title to bestow on her.
+
+The flowers dropped from the loosened plaid, as Effie looked with a
+startled glance into my face; the color left her cheeks, and the smile
+died on her lips, but a timid joy lit her eye, as she softly echoed my
+last words,--
+
+"Your wife? It sounds very solemn, though so sweet. Ah, Sir, I am not
+wise or good enough for that!"
+
+A child's humility breathed in her speech, but something of a woman's
+fervor shone in her uplifted countenance, and sounded in the sudden
+tremor of her voice.
+
+"Effie, I want you as you are," I said,--"no wiser, dear,--no better.
+I want your innocent affection to appease the hunger of an empty heart,
+your blithe companionship to cheer my solitary home. Be still a child to
+me, and let me give you the protection of my name."
+
+Effie turned to her old friend, and, laying her young face on the pillow
+close beside the worn one grown so dear to her, asked, in a tone half
+pleading, half regretful,--
+
+"Dear Jean, shall I go so far away from you and the home you gave me
+when I had no other?"
+
+"My bairn, I shall not be here, and it will never seem like home with
+old Jean gone. It is the last wish I shall ever know, to see you safe
+with this good gentleman who loves my child. Go, dear heart, and be
+happy; and Heaven bless and keep you both!"
+
+Jean held her fast a moment, and then, with a whispered prayer, put her
+gently away. Effie came to me, saying, with a look more eloquent than
+her meek words,--
+
+"Sir, I will be your wife, and love you very truly all my life."
+
+I drew the little creature to my breast, and felt a tender pride in
+knowing she was mine. Something in the shy caress those soft arms gave
+touched my cold nature with a generous warmth, and the innocence of
+that confiding heart was an appeal to all that made my manhood worth
+possessing.
+
+Swiftly those few weeks passed, and when old Jean was laid to her last
+sleep, little Effie wept her grief away upon her husband's bosom, and
+soon learned to smile in her new English home. Its gloom departed when
+she came, and for a while it was a very happy place. My bitter moods
+seemed banished by the magic of the gentle presence that made sunshine
+there, and I was conscious of a fresh grace added to the life so
+wearisome before.
+
+I should have been a father to the child, watchful, wise, and tender;
+but old Jean was right,--I was too young to feel a father's calm
+affection or to know a father's patient care. I should have been her
+teacher, striving to cultivate the nature given to my care, and fit it
+for the trials Heaven sends to all. I should have been a friend, if
+nothing more, and given her those innocent delights that make youth
+beautiful and its memory sweet.
+
+I was a master, content to give little, while receiving all she could
+bestow.
+
+Forgetting her loneliness, I fell back into my old way of life. I
+shunned the world, because its gayeties had lost their zest. I did not
+care to travel, for home now possessed a charm it never had before. I
+knew there was an eager face that always brightened when I came, light
+feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every
+want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a
+pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite
+whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a
+picture or a flower,--a little better than my horse and hound,--but
+far less than I loved my most unworthy self.
+
+And she,--always so blithe when I was by, so diligent in studying
+my desires, so full of simple arts to win my love and prove her
+gratitude,--she never asked for any boon, and seemed content to live
+alone with me in that still place, so utterly unlike the home she had
+left. I had not learned to read that true heart then. I saw those happy
+eyes grow wistful when I went, leaving her alone; I missed the roses
+from her cheek, faded for want of gentler care; and when the buoyant
+spirit which had been her chiefest charm departed, I fancied, in my
+blindness, that she pined for the free air of the Highlands, and tried
+to win it back by transient tenderness and costly gifts. But I had
+robbed my lark of heaven's sunshine, and it could not sing.
+
+I met Agnes again. She was a widow, and to my eye seemed fairer than
+when I saw her last, and far more kind. Some soft regret seemed shining
+on me from those lustrous eyes, as if she hoped to win my pardon for
+that early wrong. I never could forget the deed that darkened my best
+years, but the old charm stole over me at times, and, turning from the
+meek child at my feet, I owned the power of the stately woman whose
+smile seemed a command.
+
+I meant no wrong to Effie, but, looking on her as a child, I forgot
+the higher claim I had given her as a wife, and, walking blindly on my
+selfish way, I crushed the little flower I should have cherished in my
+breast. "Effie, my old friend Agnes Vaughan is coming here to-day; so
+make yourself fair, that you may do honor to my choice; for she desires
+to see you, and I wish my Scotch harebell to look lovely to this English
+rose," I said, half playfully, half earnestly, as we stood together
+looking out across the flowery lawn, one summer day.
+
+"Do you like me to be pretty, Sir?" she answered, with a flush of
+pleasure on her upturned face. "I will try to make myself fair with the
+gifts you are always heaping on me; but even then I fear I shall not do
+you honor, nor please your friend, I am so small and young."
+
+A careless reply was on my lips, but, seeing what a long way down the
+little figure was, I drew it nearer, saying, with a smile, which I knew
+would make an answering one,--
+
+"Dear, there must be the bud before the flower; so never grieve, for
+your youth keeps my spirit young. To me you may be a child forever; but
+you must learn to be a stately little Madam Ventnor to my friends."
+
+She laughed a gayer laugh than I had heard for many a day, and soon
+departed, intent on keeping well the promise she had given. An hour
+later, as I sat busied among my books, a little figure glided in, and
+stood before me with its jewelled arms demurely folded on its breast. It
+was Effie, as I had never seen her before. Some new freak possessed her,
+for with her girlish dress she seemed to have laid her girlhood by. The
+brown locks were gathered up, wreathing the small head like a coronet;
+aerial lace and silken vesture shimmered in the light, and became her
+well. She looked and moved a fairy queen, stately and small.
+
+I watched her in a silent maze, for the face with its shy blushes and
+downcast eyes did not seem the childish one turned frankly to my own an
+hour ago. With a sigh I looked up at Agnes's picture, the sole ornament
+of that room, and when I withdrew my gaze the blooming vision had
+departed. I should have followed it to make my peace, but I fell into
+a fit of bitter musing, and forgot it till Agnes's voice sounded at my
+door.
+
+She came with a brother, and seemed eager to see my young wife; but
+Effie did not appear, and I excused her absence as a girlish freak,
+smiling at it with them, while I chafed inwardly at her neglect,
+forgetting that I might have been the cause.
+
+Pacing down the garden paths with Agnes at my side, our steps were
+arrested by a sudden sight of Effie fast asleep among the flowers. She
+looked a flower herself, lying with her flushed cheek pillowed on her
+arm, sunshine glittering on the ripples of her hair, and the changeful
+lustre of her dainty dress. Tears moistened her long lashes, but her
+lips smiled, as if in the blissful land of dreams she had found some
+solace for her grief.
+
+"A 'Sleeping Beauty' worthy the awakening of any prince!" whispered
+Alfred Vaughan, pausing with admiring eyes.
+
+A slight frown swept over Agnes's face, but vanished as she said, with
+that low-toned laugh that never seemed unmusical before,--
+
+"We must pardon Mrs. Ventnor's seeming rudeness, if she welcomes us with
+graceful scenes like this. A child-wife's whims are often prettier than
+the world's formal ways; so do not chide her, Basil, when she wakes."
+
+I was a proud man then, touched easily by trivial things. Agnes's
+pitying manner stung me, and the tone in which I wakened Effie was far
+harsher than it should have been. She sprang up; and with a gentle
+dignity most new to me received her guests, and played the part of
+hostess with a grace that well atoned for her offence.
+
+Agnes watched her silently as she went before us with young Vaughan, and
+even I, ruffled as my temper was, felt a certain pride in the loving
+creature who for my sake conquered her timidity and strove to do me
+honor. But neither by look nor word did I show my satisfaction, for
+Agnes demanded the constant service of lips and eyes, and I was only too
+ready to devote them to the woman who still felt her power and dared to
+show it.
+
+All that day I was beside her, forgetful in many ways of the gentle
+courtesies I owed the child whom I had made my wife. I did not see the
+wrong then, but others did, and the deference I failed to show she could
+ask of them.
+
+In the evening, as I stood near Agnes while she sang the songs we both
+remembered well, my eye fell on a mirror that confronted me, and in it
+I saw Effie bending forward with a look that startled me. Some strong
+emotion controlled her, for with lips apart and eager eyes she gazed
+keenly at the countenances she believed unconscious of her scrutiny.
+
+Agnes caught the vision that had arrested the half-uttered compliment
+upon my lips, and, turning, looked at Effie with a smile just touched
+with scorn.
+
+The color rose vividly to Effie's cheek, but her eyes did not fall,--
+they sought my face, and rested there. A half-smile crossed my lips;
+with a sudden impulse I beckoned, and she came with such an altered
+countenance I fancied that I had not seen aright.
+
+At my desire she sang the ballads she so loved, and in her girlish voice
+there was an undertone of deeper melody than when I heard them first
+among her native hills; for the child's heart was ripening fast into the
+woman's.
+
+Agnes went, at length, and I heard Effies sigh of relief when we were
+left alone, but only bid her "go and rest," while I paced to and fro,
+still murmuring the refrain of Agnes's song.
+
+The Vaughans came often, and we went often to them in the summer-home
+they had chosen near us on the riverbank. I followed my own wayward
+will, and Effie's wistful eyes grew sadder as the weeks went by.
+
+One sultry evening, as we strolled together on the balcony, I was
+seized with a sudden longing to hear Agnes sing, and bid Effie come with
+me for a moonlight voyage down the river.
+
+She had been very silent all the evening, with a pensive shadow on her
+face and rare smiles on her lips. But as I spoke, she paused
+abruptly, and, clenching her small hands, turned upon me with defiant
+eyes,--crying, almost fiercely--
+
+"No, I will not go to listen to that woman's songs. I hate her! yes,
+more than I can tell! for, till she came, I thought you loved me; but
+now you think of her alone, and chide me when I look unhappy. You treat
+me like a child; but I am not one. Oh, Sir, be more kind, for I have
+only you to love!"--and as her voice died in that sad appeal, she
+clasped her hands before her face with such a burst of tears that I had
+no words to answer her.
+
+Disturbed by the sudden passion of the hitherto meek girl, I sat down on
+the wide steps of the balcony and essayed to draw her to my knee, hoping
+she would weep this grief away as she had often done a lesser sorrow.
+But she resisted my caress, and, standing erect before me, checked
+her tears, saying, in a voice still trembling with resentment and
+reproach,--
+
+"You promised Jean to be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask
+for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a
+pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is
+not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will not bear it!"
+
+If she had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly
+pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her
+indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit
+of the man, and made me sternest when I should have been most kind.
+
+"Effie," I said, looking coldly up into her troubled face, "I have given
+you the right to be thus frank with me; but before you exercise that
+right, let me tell you what may silence your reproaches and teach you
+to know me better. I desired to adopt you as my child; Jean would not
+consent to that, but bid me marry you, and so give you a home, and win
+for myself a companion who should make that home less solitary. I could
+protect you in no other way, and I married you. I meant it kindly,
+Effie; for I pitied you,--ay, and loved you, too, as I hoped I had fully
+proved."
+
+"You have, Sir,--oh, you have! But I hoped I might in time be more to
+you than a dear child," sighed Effie, while softer tears flowed as she
+spoke.
+
+"Effie, I told Jean I was a hard, cold man,"--and I was one as those
+words passed my lips. "I told her I was unfitted to make a wife happy.
+But she said you would be content with what I could offer; and so I gave
+you all I had to bestow. It was not enough; yet I cannot make it more.
+Forgive me, child, and try to bear your disappointments as I have
+learned to bear mine."
+
+Effie bent suddenly, saying, with a look of anguish, "Do you regret that
+I am your wife, Sir?"
+
+"Heaven knows I do, for I cannot make you happy," I answered,
+mournfully.
+
+"Let me go away where I can never grieve or trouble you again! I will,--
+indeed, I will,--for anything is easier to bear than this. Oh, Jean, why
+did you leave me when you went?"--and with that despairing cry Effie
+stretched her arms into the empty air, as if seeking that lost friend.
+
+My anger melted, and I tried to soothe her, saying gently, as I laid her
+tear-wet cheek to mine,--
+
+"My child, death alone must part us two. We will be patient with each
+other, and so may learn to be happy yet."
+
+A long silence fell upon us both. My thoughts were busy with the thought
+of what a different home mine might have been, if Agnes had been true;
+and Effie--God only knows how sharp a conflict passed in that young
+heart! I could not guess it till the bitter sequel of that hour came.
+
+A timid hand upon my own aroused me, and, looking down, I met such an
+altered face, it touched me like a mute reproach. All the passion bad
+died out, and a great patience seemed to have arisen there. It looked so
+meek and wan, I bent and kissed it; but no smile answered me as Effie
+humbly said,--
+
+"Forgive me, Sir, and tell me how I can make you happier. For I am truly
+grateful for all you have done for me, and will try to be a docile child
+to you."
+
+"Be happy yourself, Effie, and I shall be content. I am too grave and
+old to be a fit companion for you, dear. You shall have gay faces and
+young friends to make this quiet place more cheerful. I should have
+thought of that before. Dance, sing, be merry, Effie, and never let your
+life be darkened by Basil Ventnor's changeful moods."
+
+"And you?" she whispered, looking up.
+
+"I will sit among my books, or seek alone the few friends I care to see,
+and never mar your gayety with my gloomy presence, dear. We must begin
+at once to go our separate ways; for, with so many years between us, we
+can never find the same paths pleasant very long. Let me be a father to
+you, and a friend,--I cannot be a lover, child."
+
+Effie rose and went silently away; but soon came again, wrapped in her
+mantle, saying, as she looked down at me, with something of her former
+cheerfulness,--
+
+"I am good now. Come and row me down the river. It is too beautiful a
+night to be spent in tears and naughtiness."
+
+"No, Effie, you shall never go to Mrs. Vaughan's again, if you dislike
+her so. No friendship of mine need be shared by you, if it gives you
+pain."
+
+"Nothing shall pain me any more," she answered, with a patient sigh. "I
+will be your merry girl again, and try to love Agnes for your sake. Ah!
+do come, _father_, or I shall not feel forgiven."
+
+Smiling at her April moods, I obeyed the small hands clasped about my
+own, and through the fragrant linden walk went musing to the river-side.
+
+Silently we floated down, and at the lower landing-place found Alfred
+Vaughan just mooring his own boat. By him I sent a message to his
+sister, while we waited for her at the shore.
+
+Effie stood above me on the sloping bank, and as Agnes entered the
+green vista of the flowery path, she turned and clung to me with sudden
+fervor, kissed me passionately, and then stole silently into the boat.
+
+The moonlight turned the waves to silver, and in its magic rays the face
+of my first love grew young again. She sat before me with water-lilies
+in her shining hair, singing as she sang of old, while the dash of
+falling oars kept time to her low song. As we neared the ruined bridge,
+whose single arch still cast its heavy shadow far across the stream,
+Agnes bent toward me, softly saying,--
+
+"Basil, you remember this?"
+
+How could I forget that happy night, long years ago, when she and I went
+floating down the same bright stream, two happy lovers just betrothed?
+As she spoke, it all came back more beautiful than ever, and I forgot
+the silent figure sitting there behind me. I hope Agnes had forgotten,
+too; for, cruel as she was to me, I never wished to think her hard
+enough to hate that gentle child.
+
+"I remember, Agnes," I said, with a regretful sigh. "My voyage has been
+a lonely one since then."
+
+"Are you not happy, Basil?" she asked, with a tender pity thrilling her
+low voice.
+
+"Happy?" I echoed, bitterly,--"how can I be happy, remembering what
+might have been?"
+
+Agnes bowed her head upon her hands, and silently the boat shot into the
+black shadow of the arch. A sudden eddy seemed to sway us slightly from
+our course, and the waves dashed sullenly against the gloomy walls;
+a moment more and we glided into calmer waters and unbroken light. I
+looked up from my task to speak, but the words were frozen on my lips
+by a cry from Agnes, who, wild-eyed and pale, seemed pointing to some
+phantom which I could not see. I turned,--the phantom was Effie's empty
+seat. The shining stream grew dark before me, and a great pang of
+remorse wrung my heart as that sight met my eyes.
+
+"Effie!" I cried, with a cry that rent the stillness of the night, and
+sent the name ringing down the river. But nothing answered me, and the
+waves rippled softly as they hurried by. Far over the wide stream went
+my despairing glance, and saw nothing but the lilies swaying as they
+slept, and the black arch where my child went down.
+
+Agnes lay trembling at my feet, but I never heeded her,--for Jean's
+dead voice sounded in my ear, demanding the life confided to my care. I
+listened, benumbed with guilty fear, and, as if summoned by that weird
+cry, there came a white flash through the waves, and Effie's face rose
+up before me.
+
+Pallid and wild with the agony of that swift plunge, it confronted me.
+No cry for help parted the pale lips, but those wide eyes were luminous
+with a love whose fire that deathful river could not quench.
+
+Like one in an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it.
+One instant the terror held me,--the next I was far down in those waves,
+so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind
+struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm,
+and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing
+waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the
+boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and we laid it
+down, a piteous sight for human eyes to look upon. Of that swift voyage
+home I can remember nothing but the still face on Agnes's breast, the
+sight of which nerved my dizzy brain and made my muscles iron.
+
+For many weeks there was a darkened chamber in my house, and anxious
+figures gliding to and fro, wan with long vigils and the fear of death.
+I often crept in to look upon the little figure lying there, to watch
+the feverish roses blooming on the wasted cheek, the fitful fire burning
+in the unconscious eyes, to hear the broken words so full of pathos to
+my ear, and then to steal away and struggle to forget.
+
+My bird fluttered on the threshold of its cage, but Love lured it back,
+for its gentle mission was not yet fulfilled.
+
+The _child_ Effie lay dead beneath the ripples of the river, but the
+_woman_ rose up from that bed of suffering like one consecrated to
+life's high duties by the bitter baptism of that dark hour.
+
+Slender and pale, with serious eyes and quiet steps, she moved through
+the home which once echoed to the glad voice and dancing feet of that
+vanished shape. A sweet sobriety shaded her young face, and a meek smile
+sat upon her lips, but the old blithesomeness was gone.
+
+She never claimed her childish place upon my knee, never tried the
+winsome wiles that used to chase away my gloom, never came to pour her
+innocent delights and griefs into my ear, or bless me with the frank
+affection which grew very precious when I found it lost.
+
+Docile as ever, and eager to gratify my lightest wish, she left no
+wifely duty unfulfilled. Always near me, if I breathed her name, but
+vanishing when I grew silent, as if her task were done. Always smiling a
+cheerful farewell when I went, a quiet welcome when I came. I missed the
+April face that once watched me go, the warm embrace that greeted me
+again, and at my heart the sense of loss grew daily deeper as I felt the
+growing change.
+
+Effie remembered the words I had spoken on that mournful night;
+remembered that our paths must lie apart,--that her husband was a
+friend, and nothing more. She treasured every careless hint I had given,
+and followed it most faithfully. She gathered gay, young friends about
+her, went out into the brilliant world, and I believed she was content.
+
+If I had ever felt she was a burden to the selfish freedom I desired,
+I was punished now, for I had lost a blessing which no common pleasure
+could replace. I sat alone, and no blithe voice made music in the
+silence of my room, no bright locks swept my shoulder, and no soft
+caress assured me that I was beloved.
+
+I looked for my household sprite in girlish garb, with its free hair
+and sunny eyes, but found only a fair woman, graceful in rich attire,
+crowned with my gifts, and standing afar off among her blooming peers.
+I could not guess the solitude of that true heart, nor see the captive
+spirit gazing at me from those steadfast eyes.
+
+No word of the cause of that despairing deed passed Effie's lips, and
+I had no need to ask it. Agnes was silent, and soon left us, but her
+brother was a frequent guest. Effie liked his gay companionship, and I
+denied her nothing,--nothing but the one desire of her life.
+
+So that first year passed; and though the ease and liberty I coveted
+were undisturbed, I was not satisfied. Solitude grew irksome, and
+study ceased to charm. I tried old pleasures, but they had lost their
+zest,--renewed old friendships, but they wearied me. I forgot Agnes,
+and ceased to think her fair. I looked at Effie, and sighed for my lost
+youth.
+
+My little wife grew very beautiful to me, for she was blooming fast into
+a gracious womanhood. I felt a secret pride in knowing she was mine,
+and watched her as I fancied a fond brother might, glad that she was so
+good, so fair, so much beloved. I ceased to mourn the plaything I
+had lost, and something akin to reverence mingled with the deepening
+admiration of the man.
+
+Gay guests had filled the house with festal light and sound one winter's
+night, and when the last bright figure had vanished from the threshold
+of the door, I still stood there, looking over the snow-shrouded lawn,
+hoping to cool the fever of my blood, and case the restless pain that
+haunted me.
+
+I shut out the keen air and wintry sky, at length, and silently ascended
+to the diverted rooms above. But in the soft gloom of a vestibule my
+steps were stayed. Two figures, in a flowery alcove, fixed my eye. The
+light streamed full upon them, and the fragrant stillness of the air was
+hardly stirred by their low tones.
+
+Effie was there, sunk on a low couch, her face bowed upon her hands; and
+at her side, speaking with impassioned voice and ardent eyes, leaned
+Alfred Vaughan.
+
+The sight struck me like a blow, and the sharp anguish of that moment
+proved how deeply I had learned to love.
+
+"Effie, it is a sinful tie that binds you to that man; he does not love
+you, and it should be broken,--for this slavery will wear away the life
+now grown so dear to me."
+
+The words, hot with indignant passion, smote me like a wintry blast, but
+not so coldly as the broken voice that answered them:--
+
+"He said death alone must part us two, and, remembering that, I cannot
+listen to another love."
+
+Like a guilty ghost I stole away, and in the darkness of my solitary
+room struggled with my bitter grief, my newborn love. I never blamed
+my wife,--that wife who had heard the tender name so seldom, she could
+scarce feel it hers. I had fettered her free heart, forgetting it would
+one day cease to be a child's. I bade her look upon me as a father; she
+had learned the lesson well; and now what right had I to reproach her
+for listening to a lover's voice, when her husband's was so cold? What
+mattered it that slowly, almost unconsciously, I had learned to love her
+with the passion of a youth, the power of a man? I had alienated that
+fond nature from my own, and now it was too late.
+
+Heaven only knows the bitterness of that hour;--I cannot tell it. But
+through the darkness of my anguish and remorse that newly kindled love
+burned like a blessed fire, and, while it tortured, purified. By its
+light I saw the error of my life: self-love was written on the actions
+of the past, and I knew that my punishment was very just. With a child's
+repentant tears, I confessed it to my Father, and He solaced me, showed
+me the path to tread, and made me nobler for the blessedness and pain of
+that still hour.
+
+Dawn found me an altered man; for in natures like mine the rain of a
+great sorrow melts the ice of years, and their hidden strength blooms
+in a late harvest of patience, self-denial, and humility. I resolved to
+break the tie which bound poor Effie to a joyless fate; and gratitude
+for a selfish deed, which wore the guise of charity, should no longer
+mar her peace. I would atone for the wrong I had done her, the suffering
+she had endured; and she should never know that I had guessed her tender
+secret, nor learn the love which made my sacrifice so bitter, yet so
+just.
+
+Alfred came no more; and as I watched the growing pallor of her cheek,
+her patient efforts to be cheerful and serene, I honored that meek
+creature for her constancy to what she deemed the duty of her life.
+
+I did not tell her my resolve at once, for I could not give her up so
+soon. It was a weak delay, but I had not learned the beauty of a perfect
+self-forgetfulness; and though I clung to my purpose steadfastly, my
+heart still cherished a desperate hope that I might be spared this loss.
+
+In the midst of this secret conflict, there came a letter from old Adam
+Lyndsay, asking to see his daughter's child; for life was waning slowly,
+and he desired to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven when the last hour
+came. The letter was to me, and, as I read it, I saw a way where-by I
+might be spared the hard task of telling Effie she was to be free. I
+feared my new-found strength would desert me, and my courage fail, when,
+looking on the woman who was dearer to me than my life, I tried to give
+her back the liberty whose worth she had learned to know.
+
+Effie should go, and I would write the words I dared not speak. She
+would be in her mother's home, free to show her joy at her release, and
+smile upon the lover she had banished.
+
+I went to tell her; for it was I who sought her now, who watched for her
+coming and sighed at her departing steps,--I who waited for her smile
+and followed her with wistful eyes. The child's slighted affection was
+atoned for now by my unseen devotion to the woman.
+
+I gave the letter, and she read it silently.
+
+"Will you go, love?" I asked, as she folded it.
+
+"Yes,--the old man has no one to care for him but me, and it is so
+beautiful to be loved."
+
+A sudden smile touched her lips, and a soft dew shone in the shadowy
+eyes, which seemed looking into other and tenderer ones than mine. She
+could not know how sadly I echoed those words, nor how I longed to tell
+her of another man who sighed to be forgiven.
+
+"You must gather roses for these pale cheeks among the breezy moorlands,
+dear. They are not so blooming as they were a year ago. Jean would
+reproach me for my want of care," I said, trying to speak cheerfully,
+though each word seemed a farewell.
+
+"Poor Jean! how long it seems since she kissed them last!" sighed Effie,
+musing sadly, as she turned her wedding-ring.
+
+My heart ached to see how thin the hand had grown, and how easily that
+little fetter would fall off when I set my captive lark at liberty.
+
+I looked till I dared look no longer, and then rose, saying,--
+
+"You will write often, Effie, for I shall miss you very much."
+
+She cast a quick look into my face, asking, hurriedly,--
+
+"Am I to go alone?"
+
+"Dear, I have much to do and cannot go; but you need fear nothing; I
+shall send Ralph and Mrs. Prior with you, and the journey is soon over.
+When will you go?"
+
+It was the first time she had left me since I took her from Jean's arms,
+and I longed to keep her always near me; but, remembering the task I had
+to do, I felt that I must seem cold till she knew all.
+
+"Soon,--very soon,--to-morrow;--let me go to-morrow, Sir. I long to be
+away!" she cried, some swift emotion banishing the calmness of her usual
+manner, as she rose, with eager eyes and a gesture full of longing.
+
+"You shall go, Effie," was all I could say; and with no word of thanks,
+she hastened away, leaving me so calm without, so desolate within.
+
+The same eagerness possessed her all that day; and the next she went
+away, clinging to me at the last as she had clung that night upon the
+river-bank, as if her grateful heart reproached her for the joy she felt
+at leaving my unhappy home.
+
+A few days passed, bringing me the comfort of a few sweet lines from
+Effie, signed "Your child." That sight reminded me, that, if I would do
+an honest deed, it should be generously done. I read again the little
+missive she had sent, and then I wrote the letter which might be my
+last;--with no hint of my love, beyond the expression of sincerest
+regard and never-ceasing interest in her happiness; no hint of Alfred
+Vaughan; for I would not wound her pride, nor let her dream that any eye
+had seen the passion she so silently surrendered, with no reproach to
+me and no shadow on the name I had given into her keeping. Heaven knows
+what it cost me, and Heaven, through the suffering of that hour, granted
+me an humbler spirit and a better life.
+
+It went, and I waited for my fate as one might wait for pardon or for
+doom. It came at length,--a short, sad letter, full of meek obedience to
+my will, of penitence for faults I never knew, and grateful prayers for
+my peace.
+
+My last hope died then, and for many days I dwelt alone, living over all
+that happy year with painful vividness. I dreamed again of those fair
+days, and woke to curse the selfish blindness which had hidden my best
+blessing from me till it was forever lost.
+
+How long I should have mourned thus unavailingly I cannot tell. A more
+sudden, but far less grievous loss befell me. My fortune was nearly
+swept away in the general ruin of a most disastrous year. This event
+roused me from my despair and made me strong again,--for I must hoard
+what could be saved, for Effie's sake. She had known a cruel want with
+me, and she must never know another while she bore my name. I looked my
+misfortune in the face and ceased to feel it one; for the diminished
+fortune was still ample for my darling's dower, and now what need had I
+of any but the simplest home?
+
+Before another month was gone, I was in the quiet place henceforth to be
+mine alone, and nothing now remained for me to do but to dissolve the
+bond that made my Effie mine. Sitting over the dim embers of my solitary
+hearth, I thought of this, and, looking round the silent room, whose
+only ornaments were the things made sacred by her use, the utter
+desolation struck so heavily upon my heart, that I bowed my head upon
+my folded arms, and yielded to the tender longing that could not be
+repressed.
+
+The bitter paroxysm passed, and, raising my eyes, the clearer for that
+stormy rain, I beheld Effie standing like an answer to my spirit's cry.
+
+With a great start, I regarded her, saying, at length, in a voice that
+sounded cold, for my heart leaped up to meet her, and yet must not
+speak,--
+
+"Effie, why are you here?"
+
+Wraith-like and pale, she stood before me, with no sign of emotion but
+the slight tremor of her frame, and answered my greeting with a sad
+humility:--
+
+"I came because I promised to cleave to you through health and sickness,
+poverty and wealth, and I must keep that vow till you absolve me from
+it. Forgive me, but I knew misfortune had befallen you, and, remembering
+all you had done for me, came, hoping I might comfort when other friends
+deserted you."
+
+"Grateful to the last!" I sighed, low to myself, and, though deeply
+touched, replied with the hard-won calmness that made my speech so
+brief,--
+
+"You owe me nothing, Effie, and I most earnestly desired to spare you
+this."
+
+Some sudden hope seemed born of my regretful words, for, with an eager
+glance, she cried,--
+
+"Was it that desire which prompted you to part from me? Did you think I
+should shrink from sharing poverty with you who gave me all I own?"
+
+"No, dear,--ah, no!" I said, "I knew your grateful spirit far too well
+for that. It was because I could not make your happiness, and yet had
+robbed you of the right to seek it with some younger and some better
+man."
+
+"Basil, what man? Tell me; for no doubt shall stand between us now!"
+
+She grasped my arm, and her rapid words were a command.
+
+I only answered, "Alfred Vaughan."
+
+Effie covered up her face, crying, as she sank down at my feet,--
+
+"Oh, my fear! my fear! Why was I blind so long?"
+
+I felt her grief to my heart's core; for my own anguish made me pitiful,
+and my love made me strong. I lifted up that drooping head and laid it
+down where it might never rest again, saying, gently, cheerily, and with
+a most sincere forgetfulness of self,--
+
+"My wife, I never cherished a harsh thought of you, never uttered a
+reproach when your affections turned from a cold, neglectful guardian,
+to find a tenderer resting-place. I saw your struggles, dear, your
+patient grief, your silent sacrifice, and honored you more truly than I
+can tell. Effie, I robbed you of your liberty, but I will restore it,
+making such poor reparation as I can for this long year of pain;
+and when I see you blest in a happier home, my keen remorse will be
+appeased."
+
+As I ceased, Effie rose erect and stood before me, transformed from a
+timid girl into an earnest woman. Some dormant power and passion woke;
+she turned on me a countenance aglow with feeling, soul in the eye,
+heart on the lips, and in her voice an energy that held me mute.
+
+"I feared to speak before," she said, "but now I dare anything, for I
+have heard you call me 'wife,' and seen that in your face which gives me
+hope. Basil, the grief you saw was not for the loss of any love
+but yours; the conflict you beheld was the daily struggle to subdue
+my longing spirit to your will; and the sacrifice you honor but the
+renunciation of all hope. I stood between you and the woman whom you
+loved, and asked of death to free me from that cruel lot. You gave me
+back my life, but you withheld the gift that made it worth possessing.
+You desired to be freed from the affection which only wearied you, and I
+tried to conquer it; but it would not die. Let me speak now, and then I
+will be still forever! Must our ways lie apart? Can I never be more to
+you than now? Oh, Basil! oh, my husband! I have loved you very truly
+from the first! Shall I never know the blessedness of a return?"
+
+Words could not answer that appeal. I gathered my life's happiness close
+to my breast, and in the silence of a full heart felt that God was very
+good to me.
+
+Soon all my pain and passion were confessed. Fast and fervently the tale
+was told; and as the truth dawned on that patient wife, a tender peace
+transfigured her uplifted countenance, until to me it seemed an angel's
+face.
+
+"I am a poor man now," I said, still holding that frail creature fast,
+fearing to see her vanish, as her semblance had so often done in the
+long vigils I had kept,--"a poor man, Effie, and yet very rich, for I
+have my treasure back again. But I am wiser than when we parted; for I
+have learned that love is better than a world of wealth, and victory
+over self a nobler conquest than a continent. Dear, I have no home but
+this. Can you be happy here, with no fortune but the little store set
+apart for you, and the knowledge that no want shall touch you while I
+live?"
+
+And as I spoke, I sighed, remembering all I might have done, and
+dreading poverty for her alone.
+
+But with a gesture, soft, yet solemn, Effie laid her hands upon my head,
+as if endowing me with blessing and with gift, and answered, with her
+steadfast eyes on mine,--
+
+"You gave me your home when I was homeless; let me give it back, and
+with it a proud wife. I, too, am rich; for that old man is gone and left
+me all. Take it, Basil, and give me a little love."
+
+I gave not little, but a long life of devotion for the good gift God had
+bestowed on me,--finding in it a household spirit the daily benediction
+of whose presence banished sorrow, selfishness, and gloom, and, through
+the influence of happy human love, led me to a truer faith in the
+Divine.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MUSE.
+
+  Whither? albeit I follow fast,
+  In all life's circuit I but find
+  Not where thou art, but where thou wast,
+  Fleet Beckoner, more shy than wind!
+  I haunt the pine-dark solitudes,
+  With soft, brown silence carpeted,
+  And think to snare thee in the woods:
+  Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled!
+  I find the rock where thou didst rest,
+  The moss thy skimming foot hath prest;
+  All Nature with thy parting thrills,
+  Like branches after birds new-flown;
+  Thy passage hill and hollow fills
+  With hints of virtue not their own;
+  In dimples still the water slips
+  Where thou hast dipped thy finger-tips;
+  Just, just beyond, forever burn
+  Gleams of a grace without return;
+  Upon thy shade I plant my foot,
+  And through my frame strange raptures shoot;
+  All of thee but thyself I grasp;
+  I seem to fold thy luring shape,
+  And vague air to my bosom clasp,
+  Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!
+
+  One mask and then another drops,
+  And thou art secret as before.
+  Sometimes with flooded ear I list
+  And hear thee, wondrous organist,
+  Through mighty continental stops
+  A thunder of strange music pour;--
+  Through pipes of earth and air and stone
+  Thy inspiration deep is blown;
+  Through mountains, forests, open downs,
+  Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns,
+  Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on,
+  From Maine to utmost Oregon;
+  The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum;
+  From brawling parties concords come;--
+  All this I hear, or seem to hear;
+  But when, enchanted, I draw near
+  To fix in notes the various theme,
+  Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam,
+  History a Swiss street-singer's thrum,
+  And I, that would have fashioned words
+  To mate that music's rich accords,
+  By rash approaches startle thee,
+  Thou mutablest Perversity!
+  The world drones on its old _tum-tum_,
+  But thou hast slipped from it and me,
+  And all thine organ-pipes left dumb.
+
+  Not wearied yet, I still must seek,
+  And hope for luck next day, next week.
+  I go to see the great man ride,
+  Ship-like, the swelling human tide
+  That floods to bear him into port,
+  Trophied from senate-hall or court:
+  Thy magnetism, I feel it there,
+  Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare,
+  Making the mob a moment fine
+  With glimpses of their own Divine,
+  As in their demigod they see
+  Their swart ideal soaring free;
+  'Tis thou that bear'st the fire about,
+  Which, like the springing of a mine,
+  Sends up to heaven the street-long shout:
+  Full well I know that thou wast here;
+  That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear;
+  But vainly, in the stress and whirl,
+  I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.
+
+  Through every shape thou well canst run,
+  Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun,
+  Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
+  As where Milan's pale Duomo lies
+  A stranded glacier on the plain,
+  Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
+  Melted in many a quaint device,
+  And sees, across the city's din,
+  Afar its silent Alpine kin;
+  I track thee over carpets deep
+  To Wealth's and Beauty's inmost keep;
+  Across the sand of bar-room floors,
+  'Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
+  Where drowse the hayfield's fragrant heats,
+  Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats;
+  I dog thee through the market's throngs,
+  To where the sea with myriad tongues
+  Laps the green fringes of the pier,
+  And the tall ships that eastward steer
+  Curtsy their farewells to the town,
+  O'er the curved distance lessening down;--
+  I follow allwhere for thy sake,--
+  Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,--
+  Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
+  Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,--
+  But thou another mask hast donned,
+  And lurest still, just, just, beyond!
+
+  But here a voice, I know not whence,
+  Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
+  Saying, "See where she sits at home,
+  While thou in search of her dost roam!
+  All summer long her ancient wheel
+  Whirls humming by the open door,
+  Or, when the hickory's social zeal
+  Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
+  Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
+  It modulates the household mirth
+  With that sweet, serious undertone
+  Of Duty, music all her own;
+  Still, as of old, she sits and spins
+  Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
+  With equal care she twines the fates
+  Of cottages and mighty states;
+  She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
+  The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
+  The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
+  The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
+  The piping west-wind's snowy care
+  For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
+  Or from the thorns of evil times
+  She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
+  Morning and noon and eve supply
+  To her their fairest tints for dye,
+  But ever through her twirling thread
+  There spires one strand of warmest red,
+  Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
+  The stamp and warrant of her art;
+  With this Time's sickle she outwears,
+  And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.
+
+  "Harass her not; thy heat and stir
+  The greater coyness breed in her:
+  Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
+  Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
+  Learning at last that Stygian Fate
+  Supples for him that knows to wait.
+  The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
+  Her love to him who pules and plains;
+  With proud, averted face she stands
+  To him who wooes with empty hands.
+  Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
+  Pull down thy barns and greater build;
+  The wood, the mountain, and the plain
+  Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
+  Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
+  Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
+  From fireside lone and trampling street
+  Let thy life garner daily wheat;
+  The epic of a man rehearse,
+  Be something better than thy verse,
+  Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
+  Shall court thy precious interviews,
+  Shall take thy head upon her knee,
+  And such enchantment lilt to thee,
+  That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow
+  From farthest stars to grass-blades low,
+  And find the Listener's science still
+  Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!"
+
+
+
+SCREW-PROPULSION:
+
+
+ITS RISE AND PROGRESS.
+
+The earliest conception of an auxiliary motive power in navigation
+is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the
+inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of
+ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the
+paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced
+to play the secondary part of an auxiliary.
+
+Scarce was man in possession of this means of _impressing_ the wind, and
+resting his weary oar, than, scorning longer confinement to the coast,
+he boldly ventured upon the conquest of the main. Under the same
+impulse, the tiny skiff, in which he hardly dared to quit the river's
+bank, was enlarged, and made fit companion of his distant emprise. These
+footprints of the infant steps of navigation may all still be traced
+among the maritime tribes of the Pacific.
+
+From that period sails became the chief motor, and the paddle and the
+sweep auxiliaries,--which position they still hold to some extent, even
+in vessels of considerable burden. But as the proportions of naval
+architecture enlarged, these puny instruments were thrown aside;
+although the importance and necessity of some such auxiliary in the
+ordinary exigencies of marine life have always been felt and it has long
+been earnestly sought.
+
+From the first successful application of steam to navigation--by Fulton,
+in 1803--it was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world to
+provide ships with an auxiliary motor; but the result has shown the
+fallacy of this conception.
+
+For more than twenty years steam-navigation has advanced with giant
+strides, overstepping several times the limits which science had
+assigned it; but the paddle-wheel, by which the agency of steam has
+been applied, forms so bad an alliance with canvas, and supplies so
+indifferently the requirements of a man-of-war, that it has been
+impossible by this intermediary to render steam the efficient coadjutor
+of sails; and it is for this reason that steam so speedily took rank
+as a primary motor upon the ocean; for, in all the successful marine
+applications of steam by means of the paddle, steam is the dominant
+power, and sails the accessory, or almost superfluous auxiliary. It is
+the screw alone, in some of its modifications, which offers the means of
+a successful and economical adaptation of steam to ships of war or of
+commerce; for it is susceptible of a more complete protection than, the
+paddle, and of an easy and advantageous combination with canvas.
+
+The screw-propeller, in fact, has assumed so important a part in all
+naval enterprise, that it may not be without interest to trace briefly
+its rise and progress to the consideration it now commands, and
+to review, in general terms, the various experiments by which the
+screw-frigate has been brought to its present high state of efficiency,
+excelling, for purposes of war, all other kinds of vessels.
+
+As early as 1804, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, engaged in
+experiments to devise some means of driving a vessel through the water
+by applying the motive power at the stern, and with a screw-propeller
+and a defective boiler attained for short distances a speed of seven
+knots; and it is surprising, that, with the genius and determination so
+characteristic of his race, he should have abandoned the path on which
+he appears to have so fairly entered.
+
+Within the last half-century numerous attempts of a similar character
+have been made in Europe and America; but although many of the
+contrivances for this purpose were exceedingly ingenious, and the
+success of some of the experiments sufficient, one would suppose, to
+excite the interest of the public and encourage perseverance in the
+undertaking, yet in no instance were they followed by any practical and
+useful results until the year 1836, when both Captain Ericsson and
+Mr. F. P. Smith so fully demonstrated the speed and safety with which
+vessels could be moved by the screw-propeller, as to convince every
+intelligent and unprejudiced mind of the importance of their inventions,
+and immediately to attract the attention of the principal naval powers
+of the world.
+
+Captain Ericsson is a native of Sweden, but for some years previous to
+1836 he had resided in England, where he had become known as an engineer
+and mechanician of distinguished ability.
+
+In July, 1836, he took out a patent in England for his method of
+propelling vessels; and during that year the results of his experiments
+with a small boat were so satisfactory, that in the following year he
+built a vessel forty-five feet long, with eight feet beam, and drawing
+three feet of water, called the Francis B. Ogden, in compliment to the
+gentleman then consul of the United States at Liverpool, who was the
+first person to appreciate the merits of his invention, and to encourage
+him in his efforts to perfect it. This vessel was tried upon the Thames
+in April, 1837, and succeeded admirably. She made ten knots an hour, and
+towed the American ship Toronto at the rate of four and a half knots an
+hour; and in the following summer, Sir Charles Adam, one of the Lords
+of the Admiralty, Sir William Symonds, the Surveyor of the Navy, and
+several other scientific gentlemen and officers of rank, were towed by
+her in the Admiralty barge at the speed of ten miles an hour.
+
+Notwithstanding this demonstration of the powers of his vessel, Captain
+Ericsson did not succeed in exciting the interest of any of the persons
+who witnessed the performance; and it seems almost incredible that no
+one of them had the intelligence to perceive or the magnanimity to admit
+the importance of his invention. But, fortunately for Ericsson and the
+reputation of our country, he soon after met with Captain Stockton, of
+the United States navy, who at once took the deepest interest in
+his plans. The result of one experiment with Ericsson's steamer was
+sufficient to convince a man of Stockton's sagacity of the immense
+advantages which the new motor might confer upon the commerce and upon
+the navy of his country, and forthwith he ordered an iron steamer to be
+built and fitted with Ericsson's propeller. This vessel was named the
+Stockton, and was launched in July, 1838, and, after being thoroughly
+tested and her success demonstrated, she was sent under sail to the
+United States in April of the next year, and was soon after followed by
+Captain Ericsson; when, in consequence of the representations of Captain
+Stockton, the government ordered the Princeton to be built under
+Ericsson's superintendence, and to be fitted with his propeller.
+
+The Princeton, of 673 tons, was launched in April, 1842, and her
+propeller, of six blades, of thirty-five feet pitch, and of fourteen
+feet diameter, was driven by a semi-cylinder engine of two hundred and
+fifty horse-power, and all her machinery placed _below_ the water-line.
+Her smoke-stack was so arranged that the upper parts could be let into
+the lower, so as not to be visible above the rail; and as the anthracite
+coal which she used evolved no smoke, she could not, at a short
+distance, be distinguished from a sailing-ship.
+
+Her best speed under steam alone, _at sea_, was 8.6, and under sail
+alone, 10.1 knots; her mean performance under steam and sail, 8.226; and
+considering the imperfect form of boiler employed, and the small
+amount of fuel consumed, it may be doubted if this has since been much
+excelled. She worked and steered well under canvas or steam alone, or
+under both combined; was dry and weatherly, but pitched heavily, and was
+rather deficient in stability.
+
+[Footnote: For a particular account of the Princeton, by B. F.
+Isherwood, U. S. N., see _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ for June,
+1853. Taking everything into consideration, the Princeton was a most
+successful experiment, and, in her day, the most efficient man-of-war of
+her class. By her construction the government of the United States had
+placed itself far in advance of all the world in the path of naval
+improvement, and it is deeply to be regretted that it did not avail
+itself of the advantage thus gained; that it did not immediately order
+the construction of other vessels, in which successively the few defects
+of the Princeton might have been corrected; that it did not persist in
+that path of improvement into which it had fortunately been directed,
+instead of suffering our great naval rivals to outstrip us in the race,
+and compel us at last to resort to them for instruction in that science
+the very rudiments of which they had learned from us.]
+
+The success of the Princeton was followed by the general adoption in
+America of the screw-propeller. When Ericsson left England, he confided
+his interests to Count Rosen, who, in 1843, placed an Ericsson propeller
+in the French frigate Pomone, and soon afterwards the British Admiralty
+determined to place it in the Amphion. Not only was the performance of
+these vessels highly satisfactory, but they were the first ships in the
+navies of Europe in which the great desideratum was secured of placing
+the machinery below the load-line. Ericsson's propeller having been the
+first introduced into France, it was generally adopted; but afterwards,
+in consequence of the accounts of Smith's screw received from England,
+it underwent various modifications.
+
+Such was the result of Ericsson's labors; it now remains to relate the
+success of Smith. The efforts of either had been sufficient to have
+secured to navigation the inestimable advantages of screw-propulsion,
+but their rivalry probably hastened the solution of the problem.
+
+In May, 1836, Mr. F. P. Smith, a farmer of Hendon, in England, took out
+a patent for his screw-propeller, and exhibited some experiments with it
+attached to a model boat, and in the following autumn built a boat of
+six tons' burden, of ten horse-power, and fitted with a wooden screw.
+This vessel was kept running upon the Thames for nearly a year, and her
+performance was so satisfactory, that Mr. Smith determined to try her
+qualities at sea; and in the course of the year 1837, he visited in her
+several ports on the coast of England, and proved that she worked well
+in strong winds and rough water.
+
+These trials attracted much attention, and at last awakened the interest
+of the Admiralty, who requested Mr. Smith to try his propeller on a
+larger vessel, and the Archimedes, of ninety horse-power and 237 tons,
+built for this purpose, was launched in October, 1838, and made her
+experimental trip in 1839. It was thought that her performance would be
+satisfactory, if she could make four or five knots an hour; but she
+made nearly ten! In May, 1839, she went from Gravesend to Portsmouth,
+a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, and made the run in twenty
+hours.
+
+In April, 1840, Captain Chappel, R. N., and Mr. Lloyd, Chief Engineer of
+Woolwich Dockyard, were appointed by the Admiralty to try a series
+of experiments with her at Dover. The numerous trials made under the
+superintendence of these officers fully proved the efficiency of the new
+propeller, and their report was entirely favorable.
+
+The Archimedes next circumnavigated Great Britain under command of
+Captain Chappel, visiting all the principal ports: she afterwards
+went to Oporto, Antwerp, and other places, and everywhere excited the
+admiration of engineers and seamen.
+
+Up to this period, the British engineers were nearly unanimous in the
+opinion that the use of the screw involved a great loss of power, and
+they had concluded that it could not be adopted; but it was impossible
+any longer to resist the impressions made on the public by the
+demonstration which had been given both by Smith and Ericsson; and
+although the engineers were still unwilling to admit the screw to a
+comparison with the paddle, it was evident that their first conclusions
+regarding it were erroneous, and thereafter it was viewed by them with
+less disdain and spoken of more hopefully. One of the great objections
+by engineers to the use of the screw was their inability, at the time of
+its introduction, to construct properly a screw engine,--that is to say,
+a direct-acting horizontal engine, working at a speed of from sixty to
+one hundred revolutions per minute,--all their experience having been in
+paddle-wheel engines, working from ten to fifteen revolutions per
+minute. The peculiar mechanical details required in the screw engine,
+the necessity for accurate counterbalancing, etc., were then unknown,
+and had to be learned from a long succession of expensive failures. In
+England, the first machines applied to the screw were paddle-wheel
+engines, working it by gearing; there were consequently lost all the
+advantages of the reduced cost, bulk, and weight of the screw engine
+proper, including, for war purposes, the important feature of its being
+placed below the water-line. At first, the screw had not only to contend
+with physical difficulties, but to struggle against nearly universal
+prejudice; many inventors had succumbed to these obstacles, and
+therefore too much applause cannot be bestowed upon those who,
+unsustained by public sympathy, and in defiance of a prevailing
+skepticism, maintained their faith and courage unshaken, and gallantly
+persisted in their efforts, until crowned with a world-wide success.
+
+Ericsson, before interesting himself with the screw, was, as has been
+seen, an engineer and mechanician of distinguished ability; whereas
+Smith, in commencing his new vocation, had all to acquire but his first
+conception. Ericsson could rely upon the fertility of his own genius,
+was his own draughtsman, and designed his own engines, accommodating
+them to the new propeller by dispensing with gearing, and adapting
+them to a speed of from thirty to forty revolutions,--a great and bold
+advance for an initiative step. Smith, on the contrary, not being an
+engineer, had to intrust the execution of his plans to others, whose
+knowledge of construction was in the routine of paddle-wheel engines;
+and this accounts for the fact, that all the earliest British
+screw-steamers were driven by gearing. This want of mechanical resources
+on the part of Smith added to the difficulties of his career; but his
+resolution and perseverance rose superior to all obstacles, and carried
+him to the goal in triumph. Briefly, then, these were the respective
+merits of Smith and Ericsson, in the introduction of screw-propulsion;
+and it is much to their honor, that, throughout their career, no
+narrow-spirited jealousies dimmed the lustre of a noble rivalry.
+
+Such was the origin of the new motor,--the mighty engine by which
+armadas are marshalled in battle-array, the burdens of commerce borne to
+distant marts, the impatient emigrant transferred to the promised land,
+and by which the breathings of affection, the pangs of distress, and the
+sighs of love are wafted to far-off continents.
+
+In consequence of the success of the Archimedes, the Admiralty ordered
+the Rattler to be fitted with a screw, and it was no small satisfaction
+to find that her double-cylinder engines could be easily adapted to the
+new propeller. She is of 888 tons, and two hundred horse-power, and was
+launched in the spring of 1843, being the first screw-vessel in the
+British navy.
+
+In the course of the two succeeding years, she was tried with a great
+many different screws, and numerous experiments were made to discover
+the length, diameter, pitch, and number of blades of the screw, most
+effective in all the various conditions of wind and sea. A screw of two
+blades, each equal to one-sixth part of a convolution, and of a uniform
+pitch, was, on the whole, found to be the most efficient, and this is
+the screw now adopted in most of the ships of all classes in the British
+navy.[1]
+
+A propeller of very different construction, which had given great
+results in a ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and
+was afterwards exhibited in the docks at Southampton, here claims a
+passing notice. This propeller is so constructed as to enable the
+engineer to regulate the speed of the piston; for _the pitch of the
+screw can be increased or diminished at pleasure_. Thus, with a fair
+wind, by increasing the pitch, without increasing the revolutions, the
+full power of the engine is effectually exerted in driving the ship,
+instead of consuming fuel in driving the engine to no purpose; and with
+a headwind, by diminishing the pitch, the engines are made to do their
+utmost duty; and when the ship is under canvas only, the blades of the
+propeller may be placed in line with the stern-post, and thus offer
+little resistance. Another advantage claimed for this propeller (known
+as Griffith's) is, that, in the event of breaking a blade, it may be
+readily replaced by "tipping the ship"; which method merits careful
+consideration by engineers, as does especially every new propeller which
+promises a more perfect alliance with canvas.
+
+To resume the narrative,--the speed of the Rattler was afterwards tested
+by a trial with the Alecto, a paddle-wheel steamer of equal power,
+built from the same moulds; and the result was so favorable, that the
+Admiralty ordered the construction or conversion of _twenty-three_
+vessels as screw-steamers, and thus was laid the foundation of the
+present formidable steam-navy of England.
+
+The superiority which has been asserted for the Princeton was
+established during the Mexican War by her performance before Vera Cruz
+as a blockading ship of unprecedented efficiency, which, having been
+displayed under the admiring observation of a British squadron, tended
+more than any other single event to confirm the Admiralty in the
+conclusions to be drawn from the experiments just related, and to decide
+them in the adoption of the screw as the best auxiliary of sail, the
+best mechanical motor upon the ocean. Thus did England, in embracing at
+once the practical demonstration of the Princeton, display that forecast
+by which she won her ascendency at sea, and the vigilance with which
+she maintains it; whilst our own government awaited, in unbecoming
+hesitation, the results which England's more extended trials with the
+screw might develop.
+
+This cautious policy, rather than the bold and liberal course which the
+maritime genius of the country demands, condemned us for long years to
+inaction, until, at length, the absolute necessity for the renewal of a
+portion of our naval force produced the "Minnesota" class of frigates.
+Although they developed little that was absolutely new, they are very
+far from being imitations; but in model, capacity, equipment, and above
+all in their armament, they have challenged admiration throughout the
+world, and called from a distinguished British admiral in command the
+significant declaration, that, until he had seen them, he had never
+realized his ideal of a perfect man-of-war.
+
+A leading idea in the conception of these ships was to reduce the number
+of gun-decks from two and three to a single deck, and, consequently, the
+space in which shells could be lodged. This is a consideration which
+must, it is believed, sooner or later govern in naval construction;
+although France and England, long accustomed to measure the power of
+ships by the number of gun-decks, may be more slow in following our lead
+in this respect than in imitating the increased calibre of our ordnance.
+
+The new classes of steamers preparing for sea, of which the Hartford and
+Iroquois are types, promise to be most efficient ships, and to reflect
+much credit upon our naval authorities for their bold, yet judicious
+departure from traditions which had long hampered the administration of
+this important branch of the public service. Although the reflection is
+seldom made, it is nevertheless true, that much of the reputation
+enjoyed and of the influence exercised by the United States is due to
+the efficiency of her navy; and if these are to remain undiminished,
+then it is of the utmost consequence that the national ships should
+always represent the highest advancement of nautico-military science.
+
+[Footnote 1: A series of experiments with the screw were made on board
+the Dwarf in 1845, and on board the Minx in 1847 and 1848, but the
+results did not materially differ from those previously obtained. In the
+Rattler, Dwarf, and Minx twenty-nine different propellers were tried.]
+
+The efficiency of the screw having been demonstrated, it was seen that
+the next requirement for a war-steamer was to place her machinery below
+the waterline; and hence arose a demand for an entirely new description
+of engines, which it was clear would make a great change in all the
+labors of the engineer and machinist. Such change it was evident would
+greatly enhance the risk of failure, and therefore it was determined by
+the Admiralty to insure success in this very difficult task by enlisting
+all the best talent of the country. Accordingly, for the twenty-three
+ships an equal number of screw engines were ordered; and as with the
+constructors, so with the engineers, each was required to comply
+with certain conditions, yet each was permitted to put forth his own
+individuality, and each has illustrated his views of what was required
+by a distinct plan of engine.
+
+The wise and liberal action of the British Admiralty, which faltered at
+no expense, and made trial of every improvement in machinery that gave
+assurance of good performance and promised in any way to increase
+the efficiency of the fleet, produced no less than fourteen distinct
+varieties of the screw engine. Among them all, Penn's horizontal
+trunk-engine appears to be the favorite, and had performed so well
+in the Encounter of fourteen guns, the Arrogant of forty-six, the
+Imperieuse of fifty, and the Agamemnon of ninety, that two years ago
+it had been placed, in about equal proportions of two hundred, four
+hundred, six hundred, and eight hundred horse-power, on board of forty
+ships and many smaller vessels of the British navy; it had fulfilled all
+the promises made for it, without in any instance requiring repairs.
+These engines comply with all the conditions reasonably demanded in
+the machinery of a man-of-war; they lie very low, and the fewness and
+accessibility of their parts leave scarcely anything to be desired;--a
+lighter, more compact, or more simple combination has yet to be
+conceived.[1]
+
+In all the ships above referred to the connection of the engines is
+direct, and many of them are driven at rates varying from fifty to
+seventy-five revolutions. This point is dwelt upon because it is
+observed that many engineers find difficulty in freeing themselves from
+early impressions made by long-stroke engines, express apprehensions at
+fifty and sixty revolutions, and stand ready to obviate the difficulty
+by gearing,--which it is hoped may not henceforth be adopted in our
+national ships. Geared engines are much heavier than those of direct
+connection, and occupy more space,--a great consideration in ships where
+room for fuel is in such demand, besides making it more difficult to
+place them below the waterline,--a consideration which in men-of-war
+should be regarded of paramount importance, as the engines of a
+war-steamer should be as secure from shot as her magazine. Experience
+has shown that the apprehensions entertained from the quick stroke of
+direct engines were without foundation; and that, in auxiliary ships,
+with a properly modelled propeller, there will be no necessity for a
+very high speed of piston.
+
+The form of engine generally adopted with great success in the later
+screw-ships.
+
+[Footnote 1: "Its large amount of friction" is an objection often
+speciously urged against the trunk-engine, although the friction diagram
+shows it to be actually less in this than in most other engines.] of
+the United States navy is the "horizontal direct action," with the
+connecting-rod returning from a cross-head towards the cylinder;
+these engines make from sixty to eighty revolutions per minute.
+The steam-valve is a packed slide with but little lap, and the
+expansion-valve is an adjustable slide working on the back of the
+steam-valve. The boilers are of the vertical water-tube type, with the
+tubes above the furnaces, and are supplied with fresh water by tubular
+surface-condensers, which, together with the air-pumps, are placed
+opposite the cylinders.
+
+While the vessels ordered by the Admiralty were on the stocks, it was
+suggested by Mr. Lloyd that the model of their after-bodies was not that
+most favorable to speed,--that they were too "full," and that a "finer
+run" would be preferable. To settle this question, the Dwarf, a vessel
+of fine run, was taken into dock, and her after-body filled out by three
+separate layers of planking, so as to give it the form and proportions
+of the vessels then building. These layers of planking could be removed
+in succession, and the effects of a fuller or finer run upon the speed
+of the vessel easily ascertained. A trial was then made, and the result
+proved the correctness of Mr. Lloyd's opinion; the removal of the
+different layers of planking increasing the speed from 3.75 to 5.75,
+to 9, and finally to 11 knots. A trial between the Rifleman and the
+Sharpshooter, vessels of four hundred and eighty tons and two hundred
+horse-power, and the Minx and Teaser, of three hundred tons and one
+hundred horse-power, gave similar results,--the speed in each trial
+being twenty-four per cent. in favor of the finer run.
+
+Although great efficiency and economy had now been attained, there was
+still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to
+speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller;
+which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into
+which the propeller can be raised at pleasure; and there is no longer
+anything to prevent the construction of a screw-frigate which shall be
+fit to accompany, under canvas only, a fleet of fast sailers, with the
+assurance that she may arrive at the point of destination in company
+with her consorts, having in reserve all her steam-power.
+
+The mechanism by which the emersion of the screw is effected is as
+follows:--There are two stern-posts; between these, and connecting them
+with each other and with the keel, is a massive metallic frame, in which
+rests another frame, or _chassis_, in which the screw is suspended; near
+the water-line, the deck and wales are extended to the after stern-post,
+and through an opening or trunk in this overhanging stern the frame
+suspending the screw is raised by worms, working in a rack secured to
+the frame, and operated from the deck, as shown in the accompanying
+drawing,--or by a tackle, as is now most common. In the British ship
+Agamemnon, of ninety guns, the propeller is raised by a hydrostatic
+pump,--a neat arrangement, but liable to get out of order. When it is
+desirable to raise the propeller, the blades are first placed in a
+vertical position, and the operation of lifting is performed in a few
+minutes.
+
+The relative advantages of the propeller fitted to lift, and that which
+is permanently fixed, have long been the subject of much discussion.
+
+For merchant steamers, having an established route to perform, on which
+the aid of steam is in constant demand, it is generally conceded that
+the position of the screw should be permanent. The construction of the
+ship is then less costly, while greater strength is preserved; and as
+these vessels are out of port but for short intervals, should repairs be
+needed, they have access to the docks. But for men-of-war the case is
+widely different. Having frequently to keep the sea for long periods,
+much under canvas, and often far distant from a dock-yard, they should
+be provided with the means of lifting the screw to repair or to clear
+it, or to be relieved from the impediment it offers to sailing and to
+evolution, and also from the injurious "shake" occasioned by a dragging
+propeller.
+
+[Illustration: MODE OF LIFTING SCREW.]
+
+On the other hand, the construction of a trunk or well impairs the
+solidity of the stern, renders it much more vulnerable, and weakens its
+defences, while it opposes to speed the very considerable resistance of
+the after stern-post.[*] Nevertheless, no modern ship of the British
+navy is without the means of raising her propeller, and the best opinion
+of commanders and engineers of that service, of longest experience in
+screw-ships, goes to establish the conviction, that, for men-of-war, the
+advantages of being able to lift the propeller far more than outweigh
+the objections urged against lifting. In this connection we mention the
+fact, that all screw-ships "by the wind" have a strong tendency to
+gripe. Would not this be obviated by having a gate or slide to fill out
+the dead-wood when the screw is lifted?
+
+[Footnote *: Might not a metallic stern-post, combining strength,
+lightness, and little resistance, be introduced?]
+
+The best illustration of the effects of a dragging propeller was
+afforded on the departure of a Russian squadron from Cronstadt, bound to
+the Amoor, in 1857-'58, consisting of three sloops of war bark-rigged,
+and three three-masted schooners, under the flag of Commodore
+Kouznetsoff. The vessels of each class were built from the same
+moulds, and at the time of the experiment were of the same draft and
+displacement. On clearing the land, signal was made to lift screws and
+make sail. Soon after, all the squadron reported the execution of the
+order, except the Voyerada sloop, which had the misfortune to break a
+key in the couplings, and therefore could not lift her screw. Every
+effort was tried to get out the key, and meanwhile a very instructive
+example was presented to the squadron of the effect of a dragging
+propeller on the speed of the vessel. The circumstances were as
+follows:--The wind, a gentle breeze, right aft; the Voyerada carrying
+all sail but the main course; the other two sloops holding way with
+her with their topsails on the cap, and the schooners with their peaks
+dropped. Under these conditions, the Voyerada, having her screw-blades
+fixed horizontally, could scarcely keep her position, running two and a
+half and three knots. The Voyerada next succeeded in getting her screw
+vertical, when, without any change in the wind, the speed increased to
+four and a half knots. The other sloops then mastheaded their topsails,
+and the schooners peaked their gaffs. At length the Voyerada succeeded
+in lifting her screw, when immediately all the sloops under the same
+canvas continued their course, making six to six and a half knots. A
+better example of the obstruction offered by a dragging propeller could
+not have been afforded.[1]
+
+The "shake," to which reference has been made, is the tremulous or
+vibratory motion communicated to the after-body of the ship, and
+particularly to the stern, by the revolution of the propeller, often
+opening the seams, and in old ships sometimes starting the butts and
+causing dangerous leaks. This movement arises from two causes,--one
+inherent in the screw, the other due to its position in the deadwood.
+The first cause is the difference in the propelling efficiency of the
+upper and lower blades when in any other position than horizontal. The
+centre of pressure of the lower blade, being at a greater depth below
+the surface than the centre of pressure of the upper blade, acts upon a
+medium of greater resistance to displacement, and the differential of
+the pressures of the two blades produces inevitably a vibratory motion
+in the stern of the vessel. This effect is greatly increased when the
+clearance given to the screw in the dead-wood is too small; for the
+reduction of the hydrostatic pressure at the stern-post, and the
+increase of it at the rudder-post, on each passage of the blades, must
+be followed by concussion. Therefore, if the "well," or distance between
+the posts, be made sufficiently long in proportion to the screw, the
+"shake" due to the latter cause can be almost entirely obviated.
+
+In 1851, the British Admiralty selected three auxiliary screw-ships, of
+different classes and qualities, for an experimental cruise, namely:--
+
+[Footnote 1: _Russian Nautical Magazine_, No. XLI., December, 1857.]
+
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  | Guns. | Horse  | Screw. | Speed. | Day's |    Sail
+  |       | Power. |        |        | Fuel. |  Equipment
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |   9    |   8   |
+  Arrogant  |  46   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship full rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |  11    |  11   |
+  Dauntless |  24   |  580   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship light rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    | 10-1/2 |   6   |
+  Encounter |  14   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Barque
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+They were ordered to pass round the Azores, each ship holding
+her course, and using sail or steam, or both, as was deemed most
+advantageous. An officer was sent on board each ship to keep a record of
+her performance, and to note the time when and the position where, the
+coal being entirely consumed, the contest ended. In this trial, the
+Arrogant was found superior to the Dauntless, and both of them far
+excelled the Encounter; indeed, no very different result was expected,
+the object of the trial being to ascertain their relative as well as
+positive value. These ships afterwards formed a part of the experimental
+squadron stationed at Lisbon in the same year, which was composed of the
+finest ships in the British navy.
+
+It was believed by many officers, that a fast-sailing frigate, in a
+reefed-topsail breeze, would be able to get away from any screw-ship;
+but in a trial that took place between the Arethusa and the Encounter,
+and the Phaeton and Arrogant, under circumstances the most favorable to
+the sail-ships, it was found that the screw-ships, using both steam and
+sail, had decidedly the superiority,--and that in fresh gales, with one,
+two, or three reefs in the topsails, either "by the wind," or "going
+free," the Phaeton and the Arethusa, the fastest sail-frigates in
+the navy, were always beaten by the Arrogant. This result operated
+powerfully in removing the repugnance to steam existing among all
+classes of seamen; and the vast superiority of well-organized
+screw-ships for the purposes of war is now so apparent, as to render
+them the most important and indispensable part of every navy.
+
+While the English were engaged in the trials here related, their rivals
+on the opposite coast were not indifferent spectators. The French
+were nearly as soon in the field of modern screw experiment as their
+neighbors; and did the limits of this paper permit, it would be
+instructive, as well as interesting, to trace the ingenious and
+persevering steps by which they also approached the solution of that
+difficult problem, the construction of a screw-man-of-war.
+
+The first result of their efforts, La Pomone, screw-frigate, was shown
+to the world in 1844, and after careful inspection, (in 1853,) it is
+affirmed, such was the perfection of her general organization, that she
+has hardly been excelled by any of her younger sisters.
+
+The most complete course of experiments ever made, perhaps, with the
+new motor, was that carried out by MM. Bourgois and Moll, of the French
+navy, in 1847 and '48, which they verified by a second series in 1849.
+These experiments were instituted to ascertain the relative efficiency
+of all varieties of the screw-propeller, upon vessels of different
+models and dimensions, and under all the varying conditions of wind and
+sea, in order to determine the propeller best adapted to each particular
+description of ship.[*]
+
+Necessarily brief as is the notice of Gallic ingenuity and skill, the
+acknowledgment must be made, that, for the invention of the trunk or
+well, with its attendant advantages, navigation is indebted to Commander
+Labrousse, of the French navy; and for a novel arrangement of the screw-
+propeller, which has not attracted all the notice it deserves,
+obligations are due to M. Allix, a distinguished engineer of that
+service; and the propeller more recently introduced by M. Mangin, of the
+same corps, if it performs all that is claimed for it, namely, that it
+does away with the "shake," will be of great value.
+
+[Footnote *: For a most interesting and instructive memoir upon these
+experiments, the reader is referred to that admirable work, by Captain
+E. Paris, of the French navy, _L'Helice Propulsive_.]
+
+In concluding this recognition of the contributions by France to
+screw-propulsion, it is desired to submit a few general observations on
+the French navy; for, although upon every sea the tri-color waves
+over ships proudly comparing with those under any other flag, it is
+nevertheless too commonly believed that the docks of France are crowded
+and her navy-list swollen with hulks which are but the mouldering
+mementos of the vast armaments hastily created during the Consulate and
+the Empire; an illusion most hazardous to our interests abroad and our
+security at home.
+
+At the period of _the coup d'etat_ of 1851, a Committee of Inquiry,
+composed of the most experienced and intelligent officers and
+distinguished legislators, had visited all departments of the navy, and
+made the most careful investigations into every branch of the service.
+Upon the evidence thus obtained, a report was submitted, providing for
+the improvement of the condition of the officers and seamen, and the
+increase, renewal, and remodelling of the _materiel_,--in fine, for the
+correction of every abuse, the remedy of every evil, and the development
+of all good existing in the navy. This report, stamped on every page
+with patriotism and intelligence, commanded, even in the midst of
+revolution, the support of all parties, the adhesion of every faction;
+and has since, through all changes in the Ministry of the Marine, formed
+the basis of the action of that department.
+
+Under these auspices, France has in the last seven years organized the
+means of promptly putting to sea a numerous fleet, composed of the most
+modern and most powerful steamers, manned by efficient crews, commanded
+by skilful officers; and now worthily maintains a position as a naval
+power second only to that of Great Britain. At this moment, whilst
+the British fleet includes but thirty-six screw line-of-battle ships,
+mounting 3,400 guns, and propelled by 19,759 horse-power, that of France
+may boast of forty such ships, mounting 3,700 guns, propelled by 27,500
+horse-power; and while England has but thirty-eight screw-frigates,
+France has forty-two.
+
+In thus briefly summing up the forces of our ocean rivals, we cannot
+avoid making some reflections suggested by the unpreparedness of this
+country to meet any sudden burst of hostility. This not only involves
+the risk of national humiliation, but paralyzes our diplomacy; since it
+deprives us of that influence among the nations, which otherwise--from
+the breadth of our territory, the value of our products, the activity
+of our industry, the importance of our commerce, and the extent of our
+maritime resources--we of right should hold.
+
+No country is more interested than the United States in the maintenance
+of peace; yet, even on the principle of economy, we may argue in favor
+of a degree of preparation for war; for that calamity may best be
+averted by taking from foreign powers the temptation to interfere with
+us: all history showing that the justice and friendship of military
+states are but slender guaranties for the peace of a nation unprepared
+for attack.
+
+It is vain to talk of husbanding financial resources for war, without
+other preparation. When once embarked in hostilities, and in a position
+to maintain our ground, large finances, judiciously used, will
+ultimately command success; but no accumulation of funds can provide a
+timely remedy for that weakness which cannot resist the first blow.
+
+The national safety should no longer be left to chance, but be
+established on a basis of certainty. A navy cannot be manufactured nor a
+fortress built to meet an emergency, but should be kept ready-made.
+
+In considering the auxiliary screw-frigate under the views already
+offered, and in determining the canvas with which she should be
+supplied, it will be well to refer, as the best guide, to the fastest
+sail-ships,--the class which presents the greatest similarity in form to
+that demanded in screw-ships. In these ships the great length of deck
+offers every facility for the most advantageous spread of canvas;
+consequently the centre of effort may he kept low, and the requisite
+power and stability combined.
+
+Intimately connected with her sailing-power is another branch of the
+equipment of a screw-ship, which requires the most earnest, patient, and
+intelligent consideration. Prepared to endure all the wear and tear of a
+sail-ship, she should at the same time be ready for transmutation into
+a steam-ship; namely, when, for any urgent service, her best powers of
+steaming are required, she should be able to divest herself speedily of
+yards and top-masts, and, the special service completed, resume all her
+perfection as a sail-ship.
+
+It would be out of place here to enter into details of equipment. In
+naval affairs nothing is improvised, and a satisfactory conclusion upon
+these points can be arrived at only through long experiment, and perhaps
+frequent disappointment. Yet it is not doubted that the same ship may
+exhibit a handy and efficient rig, develop a high velocity canvas, and,
+without great power, a sufficient speed under steam.
+
+In our navy, away from our own coast, sail must of necessity be the
+rule, and steam the reserve or special power; and without abandonment of
+our anti-colonial policy--with the depots of our rivals upon every sea,
+yet not a ton of coal upon which we can rely--we should not dare to send
+abroad a single ship which, whenever she gets up her anchor, must needs
+also get up her steam.
+
+Fortunately, in the creation of a steam-fleet, the United States will
+not have to encounter tedious and costly experiments, nor to incur the
+risk of failure.[1] The best form of hull, model of propeller, and plan
+of engine are already so well established, that it is not easy to fall
+into error; that which is most to be guarded against is the popular
+demand, the prevailing mania for high speed,--for which single advantage
+there is such a proneness to sacrifice every other warlike quality. That
+measure of speed or power which will enable a ship to stem the currents
+of rivers, to enter or leave a port in the face of a moderate gale, or
+to meet the dangers of a lee-shore, should, it is conceived by many, be
+sufficient; and for these exigencies a ship, which, with four months
+supplies on board, can in calm weather and smooth water make nine to ten
+knots under steam, has ample power. This moderate rate is far below the
+popular mark; but, in considering this important question, it should not
+be forgotten, that, unlike the paddle, the screw will always cooeperate
+with sail,--and that, if a ship would go far under steam, she must be
+content to go gently. The natural law regulating the speed of a ship
+is, that the power requisite to propel her varies as the cube of the
+velocity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The constructors and engineers of the navy are unsurpassed
+in professional art or science, and when conjoined with naval
+officers--who should always determine the war-like essentials of
+ships--they are capable of producing a steam-fleet that would meet the
+requirements of all reasonable conditions. We venture to say, that
+the failures with which they have been charged would be found,
+on investigation, to be solely attributable to undue extraneous
+influences.]
+
+Let it be distinctly understood what power is here meant. As the power
+applied to the propulsion of a vessel is only that which acts upon her
+in the direction of the keel,--and as, of the gross indicated power
+developed by her engine, one portion is absorbed in working the organs
+of its mechanism, another in overcoming the friction of the load, while
+still other proportions are expended in the slip of the propeller and
+in the friction of its surfaces on the water,--only that portion of
+the gross power which remains is applied to propulsion; and it is this
+remainder which varies in the ratio of the cube of the speed.
+
+Hence a steamer, that with five hundred horse-power can make eight knots
+per hour, will require rather more than one thousand horse-power to
+drive her at the speed of ten knots,--the law being thus modified by the
+increased resistance consequent upon the greater weight of the large
+engines; and thus a limit to speed is imposed, depending upon the weight
+of machinery which, relative to her dimensions, a ship can carry. A
+ship, that at the rate of ten knots under steam may run twelve hundred
+miles, can, at the speed of eight knots, and with the expenditure of
+rather less fuel, run the distance of eighteen hundred miles; and
+therefore it is, many contend, that a man-of-war for distant service
+should not be laden with large engines, whose full power can rarely be
+wanted, and which monopolize so great a space and displacement as to
+render it impossible to carry fuel for their proper development.
+
+It is true, that, with large power of engine, the vessel may command,
+so long as her coals last, the advantage of high speed, and her large
+cylinders will enable her, by working the steam very expansively, to use
+her fuel with great economy; but there still remains the disadvantage of
+the increased first cost of the machinery, and its greater weight and
+bulk, to be permanently carried, whether used or not, and which, by
+increasing the displacement of the vessel, proportionally diminishes her
+speed.
+
+The last great improvement in connection with the screw remains to
+be noticed, namely, lining the "bushings" and "bearings" with
+lignum-vitae,--the invention of Mr. Penn, of Greenwich, near London.
+
+The lignum-vitae is introduced in the manner shown in the drawing. In
+connection therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of
+bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years.
+The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger
+than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of
+the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any
+number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of
+spare strips becomes a short and simple operation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Strange as it appears, these wooden bearings are far more durable than
+those of metal, and in some ships they have endured for years without
+any perceptible wear in those parts which, previously to this invention,
+had occasioned so much trouble and expense. But for this important
+discovery, it is thought by some of the most competent engineers that
+they would have been compelled to abandon the use of the screw in heavy
+ships.
+
+The Napoleon, the type of the new steam-ships of the line in the French
+navy, is a good illustration of a first-class, full-powered steamer.
+
+  Her dimensions are as follows:--
+
+  FT.  IN.
+  Length extreme.                          262 6.40
+  Length at load-line.                     234 0.94
+  Beam.                                     53 8.38
+  Height between decks.                      6 8.72
+  Height of lower port sill.                 7 2.63
+  Depth of hold.                            26 9.34
+  Deep-load draft.                          25 3
+  Immersed cross section, sq. ft. 1063.48
+  Displacement.                tons. 6050
+  Diameter of cylinders.                     8 2.45
+  Length of stroke.                          5 3.06
+  Diameter of propeller. (4 bladed)         19 0.70
+  Pitch    "     "            mean)         37 11
+
+She has eight boilers, each having five furnaces, consuming, at full
+speed, (12.14 knots,) 143 tons of coal per day, for which she stows five
+days' supply. The boilers and engines occupy eighty-two feet in the
+length of the ship.
+
+The trial of this ship has established the practicability of adapting a
+propeller to a ship of the largest class, so as to insure great speed,
+and constitute a most effective man-of-war for certain purposes and
+in certain situations; but when the great weight of the engines is
+considered, and the large space they occupy in the vessel,--thereby
+diminishing the stowage of supplies,--and further, that, after the coal
+is exhausted, the ninety-gun ship has but the sail of a sixty-gun ship
+to rely upon, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion, that, however
+useful such a vessel may be for short passages,[1] and in those seas in
+which her supplies of coal and provisions may be constantly replenished,
+her sphere of action must be very limited, and she could not be relied
+upon for the long cruises and various services on which an ordinary
+line-of-battle ship is employed.
+
+[Footnote 1: For debarking a regiment or two of Zouaves on the shores of
+the Adriatic or upon the coast of Ireland.]
+
+A ship constructed on the plan of the Napoleon, for the sake of gaining
+a speed of twelve knots per hour for the distance of about two thousand
+two hundred miles, is compelled to sacrifice a great part of her
+efficiency in several most important particulars.
+
+In time of war, at short distances from port, for the defence of bays or
+harbors or the Florida channel, for the speedy transport of troops to an
+adjacent coast, or to force a blockade, such a vessel would undoubtedly
+be a most valuable addition to our navy: but her employment must
+necessarily be confined to such circumstances and such situations; for
+should she unluckily fall in with an enemy's squadron, with her coal
+expended, or her machinery rendered useless by any of the numerous
+accidents to which steam-machinery is so constantly exposed, with her
+comparatively light rig, and want of stability in consequence of losing
+so great a weight of coals, she would hardly prove a very formidable
+opponent.
+
+Therefore, while admitting the importance and necessity of providing
+for special service a small class of fast, full-power steamers, it is
+submitted that the auxiliary screw-steamer is the description of ship to
+which the largest and best consideration should be devoted; for to the
+nation possessing the most efficient fleet of such vessels must belong
+the dominion of the sea. And while their cost is counted, let it at the
+same time be remembered that their value can be estimated only by the
+character of the service they may render, and that their capacity for
+aggression abroad makes them the best defence at home.
+
+Having briefly referred to the various views entertained in regard to
+the steam-power with which the navy should be furnished, it will be
+seen that a difference of opinion on this important subject may most
+reasonably be entertained.
+
+None can doubt the advantages of celerity to a man-of-war, yet many
+believe it would be too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of space to
+such an extent as would require supplies to be often replenished; as
+this necessity would in war confine the operations of the navy to our
+own shores.
+
+On the other hand, it is admitted, that, without high speed, a ship of
+war cannot exercise many of her most important functions,--that she can
+neither choose an engagement, protect a convoy, nor enforce a blockade.
+
+The best experience affirms the policy of giving to our cruisers as
+large steampower as is consistent with a due development of all other
+warlike qualities; for what would avail the superior armament of a ship,
+if the option of fighting or flying remain with her adversary, which
+must be the case when the latter commands higher speed? The introduction
+of improved ordnance, throwing heavy shells with great precision at
+long ranges, gives increased importance to celerity; for in any future
+fleet-fight, victory should belong to that flag having at command a
+steam-squadron of superior speed, which may thereby be concentrated upon
+any point without having been long under fire.
+
+May not the command of a maximum speed of thirteen knots be obtained
+from the machinery now employed for a maximum speed of ten knots? It
+evidently may, and with great economy, too, by the simple introduction
+of artificial draft, and the use of steam of higher pressure, when
+requiring the highest speed. At present, in our men-of-war, the boilers
+are proportioned for natural draft, burning about twelve pounds of coal
+per square foot of grate per hour, and for a steam-pressure of fifteen
+pounds per square inch. If, then, the boilers be proportioned to burn at
+the maximum, with blowers, say twenty-two pounds of coal to the square
+foot of grate, and to generate steam of forty pounds to the square inch,
+we shall double the power developed by the machinery, and consequently
+derive from it the same speed that could be attained without blowers
+from double the machinery; while the natural draft and the usual
+pressure of fifteen pounds would give sufficient speed for ordinary
+service. The inconvenience of the higher pressure with blowers could
+well be endured for the short and occasional periods during which they
+would be required.
+
+To create a perfect screw-frigate, a ship with sail-power complete, and
+efficient for any service that may be required, the endeavor should be
+made--by getting rid of every dispensable article of weight or bulk, and
+without reducing supplies below three months' provisions and six weeks'
+water--to find space and displacement for an engine of sufficient force
+to drive her thirteen knots an hour, together with at least ten
+days' full consumption of fuel; and this, it is believed, might be
+successfully accomplished in ships of the dimensions of the Wabash,
+beginning with a judicious reduction of spare spars, spare sails, and
+spare gear, and by the addition of blowers to their present machinery: a
+subject which should immediately receive the earnest consideration of a
+commission of the most intelligent officers.
+
+Having fixed upon the proportions of hull and spars, the form of
+propeller, and the plan of engine, a cautious discrimination should be
+exercised in multiplying the types of either. Besides economy, many
+other advantages would flow from a judicious regard to similarity in
+build; as it would permit us to relieve our ships of many of the spare
+spars with which they are incumbered, and we should probably not again
+hear of suspending the operations of a frigate thousands of miles away,
+until a crank or rod could be sent to her; because, when ships of the
+same class are cruising together, by a careful distribution of spare
+spars and machinery among them, it is hardly probable that damage would
+be sustained, or loss of spars or "break down" occur, which might not be
+remedied by the resources of the squadron.
+
+On the other hand, this system not be carried to a Chinese extreme, lest
+we follow too long a false direction,--thus losing the advantage of
+improvements constantly being made. For such is the change in all things
+pertaining to maritime war, that neither model of hull, plan of engine,
+nor mould of ordnance is best, unless of the latest creation. True
+progress will be most judiciously sought in not departing too suddenly
+and widely from the established order.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE MICE.
+
+
+A great many circumstances led me to decide on leaving the convenient
+boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail: a house correctly described as
+containing several "modern improvements": improperly, as being "in the
+immediate vicinity of all the places of public amusement." For, as the
+Central Park of New York is a place of public amusement, so likewise is
+Barnum's Museum; and these two places being at a distance of about five
+miles from each other, how could any one house be in the immediate
+vicinity of both? But it was not upon this incompatibility that any of
+my objections were founded.
+
+If I have a prejudice, it is against being talked _at_ instead of _to_.
+Now Mrs. Silvernail, who, like the katydid of the poplar-tree, if small,
+was shrill, had a way of conveying instructions to her boarders by
+means of parables ostensibly directed at Catharine, the tall Irish
+serving-maid, but in reality meant for the ear of the obnoxious boarder
+who had lately transgressed some important statute of the house, made
+and provided to meet a case or cases.
+
+A landing-place on the stairs was usually the platform selected for the
+delivery of a monologue, in which Catharine was always assumed to be
+the person addressed; although I have known instances in which that
+"excellent wench" was, at the time of being so conferred with, in the
+grocery at the corner, about half a block distant, as I could see from
+the window where I sat and viewed her protracting her doorway dalliance
+with Jeremiah Tomaters, the grocer's efficient young man.
+
+"Catharine," my landlady would say in a loudish whisper, close by a
+malefactor's chamber-door, and probably when Catharine was yet far down
+the street,--"Catharine, who let the water in the bathroom run over just
+now? If the slippers he left behind him a'n't Mr. Jennings's, I declare!
+Boarders must be warned an' watched, elseways we shall hev all in the
+house afloat, 'cepting the stoves an' flat-irons, by-'n'-by. Somebody at
+Mrs. Moyler's acted so, and the house was like a roarin' sea, with the
+baby adrift in his little cradle, and the roaches a-swimmin' round. Oh,
+dear!"
+
+Now Mr. Jennings was the serious boarder, who lodged in the room just
+over mine: a man who, from general indications, had never had a bath in
+his life; certainly he had never troubled the waters in that house. I
+was the supposed delinquent, and at me the parable was levelled.
+
+"Catharine, whose pass-key was that you found in the door? It's a mussy
+we wasn't all a-murdered and a-plundered in cold blood, by the light
+o' the moon! Mr. Jennings's night-key it must have been, to be sure!
+Boarders must be warned and watched. When Mrs. Toyler's nephew's
+night-key was found in the door of Number Forty-Seven, the boarders all
+went off at daylight in an omnibus, takin' away custom and character
+from the house forever."
+
+Now Mr. Jennings, the serious boarder, was always in bed and asleep long
+before latch-key time came round; and even supposing he ever _had_ let
+himself in by means of that mischievous little convenience, he would as
+soon have thought of taking the door up to bed with him as of leaving
+the key in it. The parable was intended for the hearing of a young man
+who occupied the room opposite mine, and who, being connected with
+clubs, came home nobody ever knew when or in what condition, but had red
+eyes o' mornings and a general odor of the convivial kind.
+
+Then, again, Mrs. Silvernail had a way of being always about the doors
+of the rooms, and a faculty, as I thought, of hovering near several of
+them at one and the same moment. There are men who will turn the least
+promising circumstance to advantage,--even that of being listened at
+through a keyhole, while they discourse to themselves about affairs
+connected with their most cherished and secret designs. One Captain
+Dunnitt, who lived in the house before I came, adroitly made his account
+of this eavesdropping propensity of the landlady, by settling his weekly
+bill with a silver-mounted pistol, instead of the dollars justly due.
+He had been a tragedian as well as a captain, and was saturated with
+Shakspeare and other bards to a far greater amount than with money; and
+when his week came round, he used to stride up and down his room with
+much gnashing of teeth and other stage indications of distress, finally
+settling down into a chair before the table, on which he would place and
+replace a packet of letters and a wisp of unromantic-looking hair. Then
+he would take the little silver pistol from his breast, and, after the
+usual soliloquy of "To be or not to be," or something equally to the
+purpose, would point it at his temples just as the landlady came
+bursting into the room, begging him for all sakes not to "ruin the
+character of her second-best room, and the walls newly painted at that!"
+Remorse would then double up the manly form of Captain Dunnitt, who
+would fall on his knees before the landlady,--"his benefactress! his
+better angel!"--and then arrangements would be entered into by which he
+was not to commit suicide for the present, but could avail himself of
+the landlady's indulgence and wait for "that remittance," which was
+always coming, but which never came.
+
+But there were more serious objections, even than a landlady of shrill
+parables and an inquiring turn of mind, to my prolonging the delights of
+a residence at the first-class boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail. Not
+the least of these was the fact of its _being_ a boarding-house,--a
+community. In such communities, from the inevitable intercourse over
+the social board, your circle of acquaintance is always liable to be
+extended rather than improved. In them there is no escape from the
+disinterested offers of those who would be your perpetual friends. I am
+still under lasting obligations to a man who, at a boarding-house in
+which I sojourned for but three days, forced on me a pipeful of an
+extremely choice and luxurious kind of tobacco, to dilate on the
+properties of which he came and smoked about a quarter of a pound of it
+in my room that very evening, and far on into the morning light. His
+goodness is the more impressed upon my memory, because, on the same
+occasion, he drank the greater part of the contents of a large
+willow-bound bottle of old St. Croix rum, which I had just received
+from a friend who had imported it direct. Then, in boarding-house
+communities, one's magnetism is as much at fault as that of a ship
+sailing up a river whose rock-bound shores are impregnated with iron
+elements. I knew a man who was over-magnetized to the extent of
+matrimony by the lady of the house,--a widow, and a shrew. He hated, or
+at least professed to hate her, and had ridiculous stories about her to
+no end; but she married him, and he still lives. Another, of a
+rather unsociable turn, rejected the proffered civilities of all his
+fellow-boarders who ever came to offer him rations of curious
+tobacco or to assist him in performing a libation of old and valuable
+Hollands. The only one of the party to whom he ever "cottoned" was the
+latest comer, a smoothed-out, blandulose kind of man, who smoked up all
+his cunning cigars, made sad havoc among his Hollanders of gin, departed
+from that house in an unexpected manner and his friend's best trousers,
+in the pockets of which he had bestowed that friend's rarest gems and
+gold, and is now serving out a term allotted to him in the State Prison,
+in recognition of the remarkable abilities displayed by him in the
+character of what the police call a "confidence man."
+
+And yet there are more objectionable boarding-house acquaintances than
+people who insist upon sharing with you their friendship, be they
+"confidence men" or not. I suppose we may allow, in these advanced
+times, that it is something like magnetism which decides the question of
+affinity and its reverse. But, in granting this, I will take the liberty
+of observing that external and palpable facts have a considerable effect
+in directing the currents of magnetism. For example, and to adopt the
+language of scientific men, the insignificant circumstance of a person
+habituating himself to the partial deglutition of his knife, while
+partaking of food, may produce antipathetic emotions on the part of
+others, whom prejudice or superstition has led to regard the knife as
+an article designed for cutting only. This kind of outrage I allude
+to merely for the purpose of illustrating a case. In first-class
+boarding-houses, like that of Mrs. Silvernail, such rusticities have
+long since become traditional, and of the things that have passed away;
+and, indeed, so particular was that lady with regard to her knives,
+that, had a boarder swallowed even a part of one, he would undoubtedly
+have heard the deed alluded to through the keyhole of his chamber-door
+on the following day, in the form of a parable having for its hero the
+justified Mr. Jennings, our serious young man.
+
+If external and palpable circumstances, then, are admitted to have a
+decided effect upon streams of magnetism, I suppose we may assume that
+they have also a certain power of determining impressions by themselves,
+without the intervention of any of the more subtile agencies whatever.
+The granting of this postulate will put me on quite easy terms with
+regard to the very positive objection entertained by me towards
+a certain Mr. Desole Arcubus, who, by provision of an immutable
+Medo-Persic edict promulgated by Mrs. Silvernail, occupied the
+chair next mine at the first-rate table of that rigid expounder of
+boarding-house law.
+
+Mr. Desole Arcubus, a young man of some three or four and twenty, had no
+special nationality about him from which one could guess how he came by
+his rather uncommon names. He was reputed to be learned, particularly
+in the modern languages; had a profusion of long, wild hair of a
+greenish-drab hue, which matched his complexion exactly,--this prevalent
+tint being infused also into the _cornea_ or "white" of his eye,--and,
+in physical proportions, was of weedy and unwholesome growth. He was not
+a young man of cheerful disposition. On the contrary, his deportment at
+table, where alone his fellow-boarders had any opportunity of observing
+him, was such as to induce a very general belief that his mind must have
+been affected by some terrible calamity; and his presence, indeed, was
+looked upon as undesirable by many of the guests, whose health had begun
+to suffer seriously from the manner in which Arcubus used to groan
+between his instalments of food. Sometimes, in the interval between
+the soup and the solids, he would lean his elbows upon the table, and,
+burying his face in his hands, so that his long, sad hair swept the
+board, would abandon himself for a brief space to private despondency,
+until the boiled leg of mutton brought with it a necessity for renewed
+action.
+
+Nor was the social feeling of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed
+when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that
+Mr. Desole Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that
+the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no
+romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of
+science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting his
+mind. For fourteen hours a day he worked assiduously in the laboratory
+of an eminent analytical chemist, whose practice in connection with the
+coroner was of a flourishing and increasing kind, owing to the growing
+taste for suicide, and the preference given to poisons over any other
+means for accomplishing that irrevocable wrong. In this chamber of
+horrors,--a court of which the tests were the stern, incorruptible
+ordinances of Nature,--he had already gone steadily through a course
+which gave him a mastery over the secrets of the relative poisons, with
+which he laughed secretly now, and played as securely as a child might
+with a dog-rose of whose thorns he had been made aware. But of late, his
+haggard features, and the start with which he would wake into life when
+a guest haply plucked a flower from the bouquets on the table, or when
+the handmaiden came round to him with a dish of leguminous vegetables,
+could readily have been traced by a clairvoyant to associations
+connected with the ghastly belladonna and with the deadly bean of
+St. Ignatius the Martyr. For Mr. Arcubus had now arrived at the
+investigation of the positive poisons,--a fact which might have revealed
+itself to the man of science by the general narcotico-acrid expression
+into which he had settled down bodily; while the most casual observer
+might have gathered from his incoherent contributions to the table-talk
+that some noxious drug was envenoming the cup of his life.
+
+He had a way of thinking aloud, and, as his thoughts always ran on the
+subject of his studies, the expression of them sometimes dovetailed
+curiously with the general conversation.
+
+"Miss Rocket will not come down to dinner, poor thing!" said Mrs.
+Silvernail, in her choicest table-manner. "She has lost her beautiful
+Angola kitten. It slipped into the glass globe, this morning, among the
+gold-fishes, and was drowned."
+
+"Digested in water, several of its constituents are dissolved," said Mr.
+Arcubus, in a husky voice, looking wildly at the picture on his plate.
+
+"You have a _specialite_ for puddings, I perceive, Madam," remarked a
+smiling old gentleman, a new-comer, addressing himself to the hostess;
+"may I ask now of what this very excellent one is composed?"
+
+"Sulphate of lime, potash, oil, resin, extractive matter, gluten, _et
+cetera, et cetera_," put in Mr. Arcubus, still following out his train
+of thought.
+
+"During the process of evaporation, a black substance is precipitated,"
+continued he; and at that very moment, the small colored boy, running
+to pour out some water for the wild boarder, who had just arrived in an
+excited condition from a rowing match, caught his foot in the carpet,
+and came to the floor with a crash.
+
+"Black oxide of Mercury, called _Ethiops per se_," pursued Mr. Arcubus,
+grappling with his tangled hair.
+
+"Do just try a drop or two of this Hollands of mine in that iced water;
+it is positively dangerous to drink it so," said an attentive boarder to
+Mrs. Silvernail, who certainly _did_ look warm.
+
+"Absorbs oxygen readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus,
+abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints
+crack.
+
+"Who is the tall lady who dined here yesterday with Miss Rocket, and
+talked so enthusiastically about woman's rights?" inquired the serious
+boarder of Mrs. Silvernail.
+
+"Prepared by deflagration in a crucible, one part of nitre with two of
+powdered tartar," proceeded Mr. Arcubus.
+
+"What do you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?"
+asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of
+with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of
+a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably
+affecting the nose and eyes."
+
+"I hope you are not going to bring another dog into the house, Mr.
+Puglock," remonstrated Mrs. Silvernail, addressing the wild boarder, to
+whose conversation she had been lending a sharp ear. "Re'lly now, I must
+restrict the number of dogs; we have three here already, I believe."
+
+"There is a strong analogy between the virus injected into wounds made
+by the teeth of a rabid dog and that found in the poison-apparatus of
+venomous snakes," brought in Mr. Arcubus, diving his fork truculently
+into a ripe tomato.
+
+This last observation of Mr. Arcubus, together with the fact that the
+blade of his knife had manifestly turned black, while all the other
+blades at table were as bright as silver, decided me. I packed up my
+portmanteau and writing-case that evening, and, having settled with
+my wondering landlady, to whom I accounted for my sudden departure
+by pleading expediency as to important affairs, took leave of that
+estimable widow, and drove away to a distant hotel, from which I sallied
+forth early next morning to look for lodgings,--furnished lodgings for
+single gentlemen, without board,--for against boarding-houses I had set
+my face forever.
+
+A peculiar feature of life in lodgings in New York, as in other large
+cities, is the incomparable solitude attainable in that blessed state of
+deliverance from promiscuous "board." One may dwell for a twelvemonth
+in lodgings for single gentlemen, without incurring the obligation of
+knowing by sight, or even by name, the lodger who occupies the very
+room opposite to his, on the same landing. Fifty lodgers may have
+successively lived in those "apartments" during the twelve months, on
+the same terms of perfect isolation from one who would rather mind his
+own business than make any inquiries regarding theirs. And so it is,
+that, of all the stage-pieces which have achieved popularity in our day,
+none is more faithful to the facts than the often-repeated one of "Box
+and Cox"; yet, but for the exigencies of the drama, which, of course,
+has for its principal object the development of a plot, there would have
+been no necessity whatever for bringing Box on a footing of acquaintance
+with Cox,--still less for attributing to either of them an idea of his
+landlady's name.
+
+For several months I lived contentedly in the house selected by me, up
+one pair of stairs, in a room looking out into a busy street,--a street
+so narrow, that the trees at one side of it, whenever a reviving breeze
+brought with it a subject for greeting and congratulation, shook hands
+in quite a friendly manner with those at the other. To illustrate the
+isolation of a residence in these lodgings, I may as well state,
+that, during all the time of my sojourn there, I never arrived at the
+knowledge of my landlady's name. It was not graven upon the house-door,
+and, as a knowledge of it was of no immediate consequence to any of my
+occupations, nor likely to be, I never asked about it from the old woman
+who kept the rooms in order, and to whom I seldom spoke, except upon the
+weekly occasion of handing to her the amount due to the landlady, with
+whom I never had any interview after the day I agreed with her for the
+lodgings. I believe there was a landlord,--if that be the proper term to
+apply to a man who is the husband of a landlady, and nothing else. From
+my window I once observed a man who might have been the landlord, a man
+of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church.
+Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the
+same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a
+cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative
+manner with one word, the only one I ever heard him utter,--
+
+"Owasyerelthbin?"
+
+To which, as I supposed him to be a foreigner, unacquainted with the
+English tongue, I replied at random in the only word of German of which
+I happen to be master,--
+
+"Yaw!"
+
+And this was the only communication I ever had with people of the house,
+excepting occasional conversations with the dust-colored old woman who
+cleaned the windows and swept the floors; while, with regard to a dozen
+or two of lodgers who succeeded each other from time to time in the
+other disposable rooms of the house, I never saw one of them, nor was
+acquainted with them otherwise than by footstep,--and that rather
+infelicitously at one time, in the case of something which went either
+upon crutches or wooden legs, and which occupied the room immediately
+over mine. This was in charming contrast with life at Mrs. Silvernail's,
+in its freedom from parables, and from the uncared-for society of Miss
+Rocket's guests; likewise from that of the serious and vicious boarders,
+and above all of the poisonous young man.
+
+A day came for cleaning my windows, and, as it rained heavily, I could
+not give the old woman a clear stage by going out for a couple of hours,
+but told her to clean away and be as lively as she could, while I
+sat there and wrote. Lodgers, she told me, as she polished up the
+brightening panes, came and went week after week, so fast that she
+forgot one when another came, and never knew any of their names. She had
+an eye for character, though, and told me the peculiarities of some of
+them in a quaint way, nailing her sentences, now and then, with odd,
+hard words, put in independently of the general text.
+
+"And who lives in the room just under mine? Somebody who raises plants,
+I see,--unless the green things on the balcony belong to the house."
+
+"A gentleman as keeps emself quite _to_ emself. Lonesome and friendless,
+I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all
+the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder
+tea of 'em, or root-drink. Decoctifies."
+
+"And who in the room opposite, on this floor?"
+
+"Empty now. Two dark-featured little gentlemen had it for a fortnight,--
+Jews, I reckon,--and as like one another as two spots of dirt on
+this 'ere pane of glass. Spoke a hard-biled kind of tongue, and was
+furriners, I guess. Polyanders."
+
+The vacant room would just suit De Vonville, who had arrived a few days
+before from abroad. I told him of it, and he came in the next day, bag
+and baggage, a portion of which latter was curious and uncommon.
+
+De Vonville, with whom I had lived in lodgings two or three years
+previously, was a Belgian and a _savant_, and a man of rare
+companionable qualities besides. Professionally, I believe, he called
+himself a naturalist. He had already roamed over the greater part
+of America, North and South, investigating the mysteries of Nature,
+especially of the animal kingdom, and contributing, as he went, many
+specimens of rare animals to the principal collections of Europe. His
+latest adventures took him through Africa and the East, whence he
+brought to New York a number of living creatures of many species, all
+of which, however, he had shipped for Havre before I met him, with the
+exception of two or three of the least disreputable kinds, which he
+meant to keep about him as pets. The most valued of these treasures were
+a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of
+white mice.
+
+These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the
+rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of
+a perfect jet black. They were quite tame and familiar; but, on the
+approach of a cat, or any other cause for alarm, the whole family would
+concentrate their energies in a very remarkable way into one piercing
+squeak.
+
+The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly
+allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and
+active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog
+to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes
+for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner
+of the room. There were personal reminiscences connected with Mungo
+which rendered him particularly valuable to De Vonville, whom he had
+often saved from the stings of the noxious vermin to be encountered by
+those who dwell in tents. His instinct was for creeping things, though
+he looked as if he could have dined contentedly on a brace of white
+mice. One piece of mischief he committed, during the few days he was
+allowed to run about the rooms: he gnawed holes at the bottom of all the
+doors, through which he could let himself in and out. He used to lie in
+the sun, on my table, as I sat reading; and was generally companionable
+and trustworthy, notwithstanding his insidious look.
+
+Seeing the interest I took in his small menagerie, De Vonville begged me
+to undertake the superintendence of it, on his being called away for a
+brief tour to Baltimore and elsewhere, in pursuance of an engagement to
+deliver a course of traveller's tales. Numerous were the directions I
+had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to
+the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence
+expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly
+confined to his cage. There were parrots to be looked after, also,
+including an extremely vituperative old macaw, any verbal communication
+with whom laid the advancing party open to all manner of insult and
+objurgation.
+
+The very first day of my menagerial experience, the Mangouste got out of
+his cage while I was feeding him, and glided away into dark nooks and
+garrets unknown. I failed of recovering him by a stalking process among
+the giddy passes of the upper stairs; nor did he return that day to my
+often-repeated call; for I vociferated at intervals throughout the
+day the word "Mungo!" in a manner that must have led the mysterious
+inhabitants of that silent house to the conclusion that I was a
+spiritual medium, inviting revelations from the shade of the mighty
+Park.
+
+A hot, clammy night. No balmy essences arise from the kennels of this
+hollow street in which I live; whatever comes from that quarter must be
+malarious, if anything. The windows are thrown open as far as they were
+made to be thrown, and I get as far out of one of them as I safely can,
+by tilting my chair back, and extending my legs out into that undefined
+everywhere called the wide, wide world. The only newspaper within reach
+of my hand is one I have already looked over, but I glance at it again,
+reading backwards from the end an account of a terrible poisoning case
+lately brought to light in England, which I had already read forwards
+from the beginning. Throwing it away from me in disgust, I reach out
+my other hand for a book. The one I lay hold of is "Laurel-Water,"
+the melancholy drama of Sir Theodosius Boughton by insidious poisoner
+killed. I dashed it away, backwards, over my head, and, turning off the
+gas, abandoned myself to the strange influences that breathed hotly upon
+me from the clammy vegetation festering in the ropy night-air.
+
+Why do civic wood-rangers choose the ailantus-tree for a bouquet-holder
+to the close-pent inhabitants of towns? Nothing can be more graceful,
+certainly, than the ellipses arched by the boughs from its taper stem.
+Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long,
+feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are
+times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but
+a diluted upas-antiar of Macassar, tainting, albeit with no deadly
+essence, the muggy air that rocks its slumbering branches and rolls
+away thence along the parapets and in at the windows of the sleepers.
+Dead-horse chestnut it might reasonably be called, because of its heavy,
+carrion smell, which, under the influences of a July night, is but too
+perceptible to the dwellers of streets where it abides. The tree at
+my window was an ailantus, of stately dimensions, and bounteous in a
+proportionate enormity of smell; yet it had never before affected me so
+much as on this night, when I lay dozing in the ghastly gloom. Sleep
+must have overcome me, for I had a troublous dream or vision of which
+Poison was the predominant nightmare,--a dream and slumber broken by the
+convulsive sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination
+to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of
+half-and-half--half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane--handed
+to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in
+the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly
+be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony
+beneath,--the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter
+sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, with a weird watering-pot
+held forth in a fawn-colored hand?
+
+In a particular condition of the nerves,--say, when a man feels
+"shaky,"--it takes but little to convince him that anything which may
+possibly not be all right is to a moral certainty all wrong. To sleep
+another night in that room, with the windows open,--and who would shut
+his windows in July?--directly exposed to the exhalations of a rising
+forest of upas-antiars of Macassar, nurtured by the unwholesome hand
+of a mysterious vegetarian for purposes unavowed, was no longer to be
+thought of. De Vonville's room, which was at the back of the house, and
+had no fuming ailantus by its windows on which to browse nightmares
+of skunkish flavor, afforded a better climate for a night's rest,
+notwithstanding the singular ideas which these travelled men, especially
+naturalists, have of comfort, in a civilized sense. He invariably slept
+on the floor, converting his room, indeed, into the general semblance
+of a tent, by divesting it of all the appliances dear to a Christian
+gentleman, and one who loves to repose as such. Yet there was
+comparative freshness in that tent-like apartment, as I entered it that
+night, shutting the door of mine after me, to prevent ailantus and
+upas-antiar from following in my wake. The little beasts were all
+sleeping tranquilly in their cages, and the birds on their perches
+rested quietly, too,--excepting the old macaw, who cursed me in his
+sleep, as I lit up the gas. But the Mangouste had not returned, nor did
+I quite regret his absence for the present; because, although highly
+approving of the culture of four-footed beasts, be they large or small,
+I have a prejudice against having my jugular vein breathed, at midnight,
+by small animals of the weasel tribe,--an act of which Mungo, probably,
+would have been incapable. His relations _will_ do such things, however,
+and newspapers recording appalling instances of it may be found.
+
+Shutting the door, I turned the gas down to a mere spark, and stretched
+my weary limbs on the mat which served the travelled man for a bed,
+drawing over me a gauze-like fabric, which, I suppose, answers in
+tropical countries all the purposes of the more voluminous "bed-clothes"
+of ours. Sleep soon came upon me,--a heavy, but unquiet sleep, in which
+the same influences haunted me as those I felt when slumbering at the
+window. The malaria from the trees was there, and the planter of the
+balcony watering henbane and hellebore with boiling aquafortis; likewise
+the demon-waiter, with his leaden salver and poisoned tankard, wearing
+an ophidian smile on his features and a fresh sprig of hemlock in his
+third buttonhole.
+
+How long I slept thus I know not. Once I had a vague sense of the
+Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was
+still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a
+piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood
+upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.
+
+The sound which followed this was one which the man is not likely to
+forget who has once heard it,--whether beneath his foot, as he steps
+upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand,
+when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is
+clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and
+hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke up the obedient
+gas, which flashed tremulously on the scales of an enormous rattlesnake
+coiled round the mice's cage, tightening his folds as he whizzed his
+infernal warning, and darting out his lightning tongue with baffled fury
+at the trembling group in the middle of the cage. This I saw by the
+first flash. Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the
+walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the
+Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the
+serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing,
+headless mass.
+
+In the heavy dreams which haunted me during the sleep from which I had
+just been roused, I had a vision of the planter of the balcony with
+a snake coiled round his naked arm. Who so dull as to require an
+interpreter for such plain speakings? Rushing down-stairs, I burst open
+the door of that person's room with one kick, and there, in the middle
+of the floor, half-dressed and bending over a censer of red-hot
+charcoal, knelt Mr. Desole Arcubus, the poison-man of Mrs. Silvernails
+boarding-house. His features were collapsed and livid, and he held his
+left arm, which was much swollen and discolored, close over the red-hot
+coals, basting it wildly, the while, with ladlefuls of some hot liquid,
+while he crammed into his mouth, at intervals, a handful of herb-fodder
+of some kind from a salad-bowl on the floor beside him. He was rapidly
+growing faint and sinking, but indicated his wishes by signs, and one
+of several strangers who now entered the room continued the fomenting
+treatment, while another ran for medical assistance.
+
+There was an open letter on the table, which I had no hesitation in
+reading, when I saw at a glance that it threw light on the matter. The
+following is an exact copy of it:--
+
+"Hollow Rock----County. N. Y. 17 Jewly. 18--
+
+MR. HARKABUS dear Sir.
+
+a cording to promis i send the sneak by Xpress. He is the Largest and
+wust Sneak we have ketched In these parts. Bit a cow wich died in 2.40
+likeways her calf of fright. Hope the sneak weed growed up strong and
+harty. By eting and drinking of that wede the greatest sneak has no
+power. Smeling of it a loan will cure a small sneak ader or the like. I
+go in upon the dens tomorough and if we find any Pufing Aders will Xpres
+them to you per Xpress.
+
+Yr. oblgd. servt. SILENUS CLUCK."
+
+Here was the whole story in a nutshell. For his experiments in septic
+poisons, Mr. Arcubus had hired this apartment, with its convenient
+balcony for the cultivation of his antidotes. Having prepared his
+decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake,
+which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed
+with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the
+animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste
+underneath the doors. A cold shudder seized me when I guessed the
+reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The
+hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice,
+whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had
+fortunately roused me from my lethargy,--for the rattle of the snake is
+but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste
+came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might
+have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I
+missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room
+was lumbered.
+
+And these were the delights of lodgings,--of lodgings without board!
+And who could see the end of it all?--for, if snake-poison lurked on the
+stairs, probably hydrophobia was tied up in the cupboard. Brief time
+I expended in making my arrangements to quit, having first seen Mr.
+Arcubus carted away to a hospital, where by skilful treatment he
+slowly recovered. For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and
+the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a
+bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that
+I had departed from lodgings forever,--lodgings for single gentlemen,
+without board.
+
+But, on leaving the house, I did not forget the dust-colored old
+woman, whose last words to me, as I tipped her with a gratuity, were
+oracular:--"Forty long years and more have I lived in lodgin'-houses and
+never before seen a sarpint. It behooves all on us, now, to be watchful
+for what may be coming next, and wakeful. Circumspectangular."
+
+I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But
+what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar
+idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic
+ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the
+style and title of St. Mungo; and if ever surplus funds are discovered
+to my credit in any solvent bank, at present unknown to me, I will
+certainly devote a moiety of them to the foundation of a neat row of
+alms-cages, for the reception of decayed members of the family of White
+Mice.
+
+
+
+
+FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE.
+
+  Upon us falls the shadow of night,
+  And darkened is our day:
+  My love will greet the morning light
+  Four hundred miles away.
+  God love her, torn so swift and far
+  From hearts so like to break!
+  And God love all who are good to her,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  I know, whatever spot of ground
+  In any land we tread,
+  I know the Eternal Arms are round,
+  That heaven is overhead;
+  And faith the mourning heart will heal,
+  But many fears will make
+  Our spirits faint, our fond hearts kneel,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Good bye, dear! be they kind to you,
+  As though you were their ain!
+  My daisy opens to the dew,
+  But shuts against the rain.
+  Never will new moon glad our eyes
+  But offerings we shall make
+  To old God Wish, and prayers will rise
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Four years ago we struck our tent;
+  O'er homeless babes we yearned;
+  Our all--three darlings--with us went,
+  But only two returned!
+  While life yet bleeds into her grave,
+  Love ventures one more stake;
+  Hush, hush, poor hearts! if big, be brave,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  Like crown to most ambitious brows
+  Was Christie to us given,
+  To make our home a holy house
+  And nursery of heaven.
+  Oh, softer was her bed of rest
+  Than lily's on the lake!
+  Peace filled so deep each billowy breast,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  To music played by harps and hands
+  Invisible were we drawn
+  O'er charmed seas, through faery lands,
+  Under a clearer dawn:
+  We entered our new world of love
+  With blessings in our wake,
+  While prospering heavens smiled above,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  We gazed with proud eyes luminous
+  On such a gift of grace,--
+  All heaven narrowed down to us
+  In one dear little face!
+  And many a pang we felt, dear wife,
+  With hurt of heart and ache
+  All shut within like clasping knife,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  I would no tears might e'er run down
+  Her patient face, beside
+  Such happy pearls of heart as crown
+  Young mother, new-made bride!
+  For 'tis a face that, looking up
+  To passing heaven, might make
+  An angel stop, a blessing drop,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  If Love in that child's heart of hers
+  Should breathe and break its calm,
+  With trouble sweet as that which stirs
+  The brooding buds of balm,--
+  Listening at ear of peeping pearl,
+  Glistening in eyes that shake
+  Their sweet dew down,--God bless our girl,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  But, Father, if our babe must mourn,
+  Be merciful and kind!
+  And if our gentle lamb be shorn,
+  Attemper thou the wind!
+  Across the Deluge guide our Dove,
+  And to thy bosom take
+  With arm of love, and shield above,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  We have had sorrows many and strange:
+  Poor Christie I when I'm gone,
+  Some of my words will weirdly change,
+  If she read sadly on!
+  Lightnings, from what was dark of old,
+  With meanings strange will break
+  Of sorrows hid or dimly told,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Wife, we should still try hard to win
+  The best for our dear child,
+  And keep a resting-place within,
+  When all without grows wild:
+  As on the winter graves the snow
+  Falls softly, flake by flake,
+  Our love should whitely clothe our woe,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  For one will wake at midnight drear
+  From out a dream of death,
+  And find no dear head pillowed near,
+  No sound of peaceful breath!
+  May no weak wailing words arise,
+  No bitter thoughts awake
+  To see the tears in Memory's eyes:
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  And There, where many crownless kings
+  Of earth a crown shall wear,
+  The martyrs who have borne the pangs
+  Their palm at last shall bear,--
+  When with our lily pure of sin
+  Our heavenward way we take,
+  There may we walk with welcome in,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+
+
+
+THE NURSERY BLARNEY-STONE.
+
+
+Where is it kept? We have often longed for a sight of that precious bit
+of aerolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to
+which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must be religiously
+pressed.
+
+In vain have we searched in the closet, where the headless dolls and
+tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away.
+We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have
+surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by
+disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did
+not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the
+coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the
+Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad
+was wrecked, as the meteor which fell into the State of Connecticut and
+the volcanic island which rose out of the Straits of Messina, as the
+rock of Plymouth, or the philosopher's stone,--yet we have sought in
+vain for it, and only know of it as of the Great Carbuncle, by the light
+it sheds.
+
+"Pray, my good Sir," ask legions of fond parents, "what do you mean? Is
+it Dalby's Carminative, Daffy's Elixir, Brown's Syrup of Squills, or
+White's Magnetic Mixture? Is it of the soothing or the coercing system?
+a substitute for lollipops or for birch? rock candy or rock the cradle?"
+
+"Look" not "into your heart," responds our Muse, but into your nursery,
+and write!
+
+We invite a general review of all infantry divisions. We may be, for
+aught you know, Mrs. Ellis _incog_., warning the mothers of America, as
+of yore the Cornelias of England. What is the Nursery Blarney-Stone?
+You have none in your own airy and southern-exposed first-pair-back,
+(_Nov-Anglice>_, "the keeping-room chamber,") where you daily water
+and rake your young olive-sprouts? upon your word of honor, Madam, you
+have not? You never tell nursery-tales of ghosts or fairies; you have
+conscientiously stripped from the dark closet every vestige of a legend;
+you have permitted juvenile inspection of the chimney, to prove that
+Santa Claus could not descend its sooty flue without grievous nigritude
+of the anticipated doll's frock, and have logically appealed to Miss
+Bran Beeswax's satin silveriness in proof of the non-existence of
+the saint beloved of Christmas-tide. Nay, more, you tell us you have
+actually invited inspection of the overnight process of filling the
+stockings, (you brute!) and you appropriately label each gift, "From
+Papa," "From Uncle Edward," "From Sister Kate," "From dear Mamma," lest
+a figment of the supernatural untruth should linger in the infantile
+brain. The "Arabian Nights'" (and "Arabian Days'") "Entertainments" are
+on your _Index Expurgatorius_. You have banned Bluebeard, and treated
+Red Ridinghood as no better than the Bonnet Rouge of domestic
+Jacobinism.
+
+You are a model mother, with whom even the late Mr. Gradgrind might be
+satisfied. "Truth, crushed to earth" by the whole race of nurses of the
+good old time, rises again triumphant at your hearth-stone. Then answer
+us,--Why did you tell your little ones to-night, as the sparrows were
+making an unusually loquacious preparation for their dormitories,
+that the little birds were singing their evening hymns, and exhort,
+thereupon, your unwilling nestlings to a rival performance of the verses
+of Dr. Watts? You ought to be prepared to explain, also, for the benefit
+of any sucking Socrates, why it is that these feathered choristers
+have their "revival seasons," and are terrible backsliders during the
+moulting period. When you looked out of the nursery-window, into the
+poultry-yard, and heard the noisy confabulation of the motherly hens
+and pert pullets, you should be prepared to state upon what theological
+principles it is that psalmody is not the wont of the Gallinacae. Are
+the Biddies given over to a reprobate mind, because you don't happen to
+like their vocalization? Is it only the Piccolomini and Linds of the
+feathered kingdom who have a right to practise sacred music?
+
+And how about that other stupendous fiction of the harvest-moon? Tell
+us, since you are voluntarily in the confessional, tell us why you
+kept back that explanation of its dependence on the Precession of the
+Equinoxes, which, at Professor Cram's finishing examination, in your
+school-girl days, you so glibly recited before your admiring papa and
+mamma? Do you really believe that the solar and stellar system was
+arranged to accommodate "the reapers reaping early" of the little island
+of Great Britain?
+
+We think you said angels! When little Isabel Montgomery, with her long,
+sunny curls, and sweet, blue eyes, was taken away, you made a very
+touching application of her decease, to illustrate what all good people
+were to become in the unknown world. How did you get out of the scrape
+which followed the remark of your downright eldest, remembering also the
+departure of a good-natured, obese, elderly neighbor,--"Then I thpothe
+Mithter Thimmonth ith a big angel"? So he probably is; but Simmons's two
+hundred pounds of earthliness did not suit your sentimentality quite as
+readily as the little fairy who always wore such clean pantalets and
+never tore her pretty white frocks in a game of romps. Is beatification
+dependent upon the platform-balance? and what amount of flesh will turn
+the scale in favor of the _Avvocato del Diavolo?_
+
+Once upon a time, a little boy was allowed to ramble in the woods. Being
+an adventurous little boy, he saw and coveted, and also conquered, (in
+the good old English sense of the word,) a pretty bird's-nest and its
+contents, to wit, several shiny, speckled eggs. He brought them home for
+triumphant display. He set them out upon the drawing-room table, and
+called a family conclave to admire and exult. What was the surprise
+and grief of the infant Catiline, to find himself received, not with
+applause, but horror! He was accused of robbery, was threatened with
+Solomonic penalties, was finally condemned to penance at a side-table
+upon dry bread and water, while his innocent brothers and sisters were
+regaling upon chickens and custards. He was edified over his scanty meal
+by melting descriptions of the mother-bird returning to the desolated
+home, of her positive sorrow and her probable pining to death. And
+the same little boy, looking out through the prison-bars of the
+nursery-window, saw his mother take by the hand his weeping sister (much
+cast down by the fraternal wickedness) and lead her to the nest of
+another mother-bird, and then and there encourage her to perform the
+same act of spoliation. True, the eggs were not speckled and small, but
+of a very pretty white, and quite a handful for the juvenile fingers.
+But the bereaved "parient" was not slender and active,--in fact, was
+rather a tame, confiding, dumpy and dull, pepper-and-salt-colored dame.
+Her complaints were not touching, but rather ludicrous,--so much so,
+indeed, as to suggest to the human hen-bird that "Biddy was laughing to
+think what a nice breakfast little Carrie would have off her nice eggs!"
+The young Trenck, from aloft beholding, could not but stumble upon
+certain "glittering generalities," as, that "eggs was eggs," and that
+the return of them on the fowl's part, in consideration of an advance of
+corn, was not altogether a voluntary barter,--quite, in short, after the
+pattern of Coolie apprenticeship. And thus the high moral lesson of the
+morning was sadly shaken. Of course this boy did not belong to any of
+the model mammas, for whom we are writing.
+
+A large fragment of the Nursery Blarney-Stone has been made over, to
+have and to hold, to the writers of the Children's Astor-Place
+Library. We yawn over poetical justice in novels, and only tolerate it
+as an amusing absurdity in genteel comedy, for the sake of getting
+the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the
+virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very
+different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the
+heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain
+to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical
+domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as
+for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and if we did
+not know it to be so, and if we did not know that they know that we know
+it, we should perhaps feel very differently.
+
+Why must we, then, be conscientiously constrained to mark out such a
+very different plan for our children at home? Why is the life of little
+boys and girls in books always pictured on the foot-lights pattern? We
+remember that we were of those good little boys and girls,--quite as
+good as that one who saved his pennies for the missionary-box, or that
+other who hemmed a tiny pocket-handkerchief against the nasal needs of a
+forlorn infant in Burmah; but we don't remember ever (then or since) to
+have encountered any of those delightful (and strong-minded) mothers or
+those sensible and always well-informed fathers of whom we read. Neither
+in our own particularly pleasant home, nor in any where we went, (at
+three, P.M., to take an early tea with preparatory barmecidal rehearsals
+on doll's china,) did we ever meet them. Perhaps they were the
+progenitors of the authors of the books. Mr. Thackeray has introduced us
+to sundry gentlemen and ladies bearing a faint likeness to them; but
+he also permitted us to behold Lady Beckie Crawley _nee_ Sharpe boxing
+little Rawdon's ears, and to meet Mrs. Hobson Newcome at one of her
+delightful "at homes," where Runmun Loll, of East Indian origin, was the
+lion of the evening.
+
+We couldn't get through five pages of Hannah More, on a wet day, at the
+dreariest railway-station, when the expected train was telegraphed as
+"not due under two hours." What have the innocent heirs of our name
+done, that Hannah should continue under numberless _noms-de-plume_ to
+cater for them?
+
+We know there must have been a large lump of the Blarney-Stone,
+conglomerate probably, kept in the desk of our reverend instructor in
+the ways of syntax and the dismal paths of numbers. We have a lively
+recollection of the countless tables of foreign coins which we committed
+to memory, and of the provoking additions and subtractions we underwent
+to reduce to dollars and cents of the Federal denomination the
+fortunes of a score of Rothschilds. But when, under the shadow of the
+Drachenfels, we attempted to reimburse the Teutonic waiter for a cup of
+_cafe noir_, we were ignominiously constrained to hold forth a handful
+of coin and to await the white-jacketed and bearded one's pleasure, as
+he helped himself.
+
+We have a strong impression that we should never have attained to our
+present proud position of being allowed to write for (and be printed
+in) the "Atlantic Monthly," without much previous polish, through the
+companionship of the fairer sex. Why was it made a crime worthy of
+Draconian sternness to address our she-comrades in the pleasant paths of
+learning? Why did we behold the severe Magister Morum himself, in utter
+forgetfulness of his own rule, mingle in the mazy dance on an evening
+occasion, at which we were allowed to sit up? Did the girls of a larger
+growth lose their dangerous qualities on arriving at belle-hood? Why were
+our primary _billets-doux_ confiscated, and our offending palms, like
+Cranmer's, visited with the first penalty, though we had been obliged to
+walk blushingly the gauntlet of fifty pairs of maiden eyes and deliver
+to the "female principal" of the girls' school across the entry notes
+which we have since but too much reason to conclude bore no reference
+to the affairs of the school-realm? There is a bit of the Blarney-Stone
+(always of the nursery formation) which we are sure is discoverable to
+the true geologic eye in the underpinning of the Fifth Congregational
+Society's house of worship,--then called a meeting-house, now, we
+believe, styled a church. For all sermons therein delivered were
+supposed to be for our personal edification; albeit we were not, by
+reason of our tender years, specifically exposed to the heresies of
+Origen or Pelagius. It must have been on some afternoon when we were
+absent, then, that Dr. Baxter delivered the discourse of which we
+found a commentary written on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book in our
+pew,--"Terribly tedious this P.M., isn't he?" We have always felt that
+a great opportunity was lost to us. We should doubtless have been
+permitted to indulge unchecked in the solution of that lost mystery of
+our boyhood, as to the exact number of little brass rods in the front of
+the gallery, to scratch our initials with a pin upon the pew-side, or,
+propped by the paternal arm, to sweetly slumber till nineteenthly's
+close. No such sermon was ever pronounced in our hearing. Oh, golden
+time of youth! precious season thus lost! We intend yet revisiting that
+ancient and time-worn edifice, and, borrowing the keys of the sexton,
+we mean to revel in all and sundry those delights of "boyhood's breezy
+hour" from which we were debarred by that untimely absence. Like the
+old gentleman who visited nightly Van Amburg's exhibition of the
+head-in-the-lion's-mouth feat, in the moral certainty that a single
+absence would fall inevitably upon the one night when Leo would vary the
+programme by decapitation,--so we lost the one afternoon when that
+dull discourse diversified the pious eloquence of Jotham Baxter, D.D.,
+disciple of Dr. Hopkins and believer in Cotton Mather. Many a refreshing
+slumber has sealed our eyes under subsequent outpourings of divinity,
+but never with that entire sense of permissible indulgence which
+then would certainly have been ours. Why was it--except for the
+Blarney-Stone--that we were always checked in any Sabba'day notes and
+queries of what we had noticed in the sanctuary? Why was it wicked and
+deserving of a double infliction of catechism (Assembly's) for us to
+have seen that Bob Jones had a new jacket, and that he took five marbles
+and a jack-knife (in aggravating display) out of its pockets, while our
+mother and sisters were enabled, without let or hindrance to the most
+absorbing devotion, to chronicle every bonnet and ribbon within the
+walls of the temple?
+
+Certainly, the family-physician carried--as well he might--a bit of the
+precious rock in his waistcoat-pocket; for all our subsequent experience
+of _materia medica_ has never revealed to us the then patent fact, that
+all our bodily ailments were the consequence of those particular sports
+which damaged clothes and disturbed the quiet of the household. Surely,
+the connection between the measles and sailing on the millpond was about
+as obvious as that between Macedon and Monmouth; and whooping-cough must
+have had a very long road to travel, if it originated in our nutting
+frolic, when we returned home with a ghastly gash in our trousers-knee.
+
+The Blarney-Stone got into our "Manual of History"; for either it or
+the "Boston Centinel" must have made some egregious mistakes as to the
+character of some famous men who nursed our country's fortunes. So, too,
+did the author of "Familiar Letters on Public Characters"; for he was
+anything but an indorser of the History-Book, with its wood-cuts (after
+Trumbull and West) of the death of General Wolfe, exclaiming, "They
+run who run the French then I die happy," and of General Warren at the
+Battle of Bunker's Hill, with its amazing portraits of the first six
+Presidents, and the death of Tecumseh. Nay, we have found hard work to
+reconcile our faith, as per History-Book, in the loveliness of those
+gentlemen whom stress of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon
+Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a
+certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just
+after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the
+other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the
+Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed)
+the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of
+Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in
+Plutarch's Lives, the Charter Oak, and the existence of the Maelstroem
+all sliding away from under us. "Think," we said, "if New York had been
+Boston, how it would have fared with the good Knickerbockers!"
+
+Who was our geographer? Why did he insist upon our believing that all
+French men and women passed their time in mutual bows and "curchies,"
+and that all Italians were on their knees to fat priests, clean and
+rosy-looking? Why did he palm upon us that outrageous fiction of three
+kings (like those of Cologne) sitting in full ermine robes, with gold
+crowns on their heads, all alone in a sort of summer-parlor, where the
+heat, must have been at 80 deg. in the shade, engaged in disparting Poland?
+We have seen, say, a million of Frenchmen, and nearly the same of
+Italians, since then, with a dozen or so of kings and emperors,--but
+never the faintest likeness to those deluding pictures. We learned
+at the same time, by painful rote, the population of various capital
+cities; but we cannot find in any statistic-book gazetteer, neither in
+McCulloch nor in Worcester, any of the old, familiar numbers. Also in
+that same Wonder-Book of Malte-Brun, edited by Pietro il Parlatore, we
+recall a sketch of a boy running for life down a slope of at least 45 deg.,
+just before a snowball some five hundred times as big as the one our
+school-boys unitedly rolled up in the back-yard. It was a snowball,
+round, symmetrical, just such a magnified copy of the backyard one as
+might be expected to follow a boy in dreams after too much Johnny-cake
+for supper. And that was an avalanche. We have stood since then under
+the shadow of the Jungfrau, on the Wengern Alp, at the selfsame spot
+where Byron beheld the fall of so many. We had the noble lord's luck,
+(as most people have.) and saw dozens, but not one big snowball.
+
+We believe there has been reform since that day. Thanks to the London
+"Illustrated News" and the "Penny Magazine," juster ideas visit the
+ingenious youth of the present age. But we solemnly declare that we
+grew up in the belief that the President of the United States was
+daily ushered to his carriage by a long array of bareheaded and bowing
+menials, and that his official dress was a cocked hat and knee-breeches.
+We furthermore make affidavit that we supposed all the nobility of
+Europe to be in the habit of driving four-in-hand over wooden-legged
+beggars. And we also depose and say, that we had no other idea of
+royalty than as continually clad in coronation-robes, with six peers in
+the same, with huge wigs, as attendants. All this upon the faith of
+that same Malte-Brun, _a la_ P.P. Wasn't this a pretty dish to set
+before--not a king-but a young republican, who fancied himself the
+equal of kings? And lastly, upon the same authority, we held that "the
+horrible custom of eating human flesh does not belong exclusively to any
+nation." We have seen, we repeat, men and cities. We have dined at
+the Rocher de Cancale, the Maison Doree, at Delmonico's, at German
+Gasthauses, at Italian Trattorias, at "Joe's" in London, the Trosachs
+Inn in the Highlands, and upon all peculiar and national dishes, from
+the _sardines au gratin_ of Naples to the _sauer kraut_ of Berlin, from
+the "one fish-ball" of Boston to the hog and hominy of Virginia,--but
+never yet upon any _carte_ did we encounter "Cold Missionary" or
+"_Enfans en potage Fijien_."
+
+Where, we repeat, is the Nursery Blarney-Stone? or rather, where is it
+not?
+
+The gentle reader (prepared to corroborate with many a juvenile
+reminiscence) must by this time be prepared for our moral; and it is
+very briefly this:--Is it not time to consider the budding brain as
+entitled to fair play? We, the dear middle-aged people, must surely
+remember that it has taken us much toil and trouble to unlearn many
+things. We know, that, when we pen anything for our coevals, it is with
+due attention to such facts as we can command,--that we have a wholesome
+fear of criticism,--that, if we make blunders in our seamanship, even
+though professedly land-lubbers, some awful Knickerbocker stands by with
+the Marine Dictionary in hand to pounce upon us. But for the poor little
+innocents at home any cast-off rags of knowledge are good enough. We
+hand down to them the worn-out platitudes of history which we have
+carefully eschewed. We humbug their inexperience with the same nursery
+fables beneath whose leonine hide our matured vision detects the ass's
+ears.
+
+We have been writing lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as
+may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many
+other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising
+generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There
+is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave
+our pupils to disavow it when they can. History is still taught in our
+public and private schools, seasoned with all the exploded blunders of
+the past. Men grow up to full manhood with ideas of foreign lands as
+ridiculous and unfounded as the pictures over which we have been amusing
+ourselves just now in our old Geography. Young America is ignorant
+enough, Heaven knows, of a great deal he ought to learn; but what shall
+we say of our persistently cramming him with what he ought not to learn?
+No exploding process is strong enough, it would seem, to blow away the
+countless pretty stories with which juvenile histories are embroidered.
+Niebuhr and Arnold have forever finished Romulus and Remus and the
+Livian legends, for maturer beliefs; but childhood goes on in the same
+track. Lord Macaulay's Romance of English History has been riddled by
+the acute reviewers; but he will be abridged for the use of schools, and
+not a fiction about William Penn, or John of Marlborough, or Grahame of
+Claverhouse, be left out.
+
+Can you plant a garden with weeds and then pull them up again in secure
+trust that no lurking burdocks and Canada thistle shall remain? Dear
+model mothers and prudent papas, be not afraid of wholesome fiction,
+as such, duly labelled and left uncorked. It will be far better to
+administer plenty of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" and "Arabian
+Nights," good ringing old ballads with a healthy sentiment at bottom of
+manly honor and womanly affection, fairy stories and ancient legends,
+than all the mince-meat histories and biographies that nurse-wise have
+been chewed soft for the use of tender gums. Let us all, for the benefit
+of ourselves, keep clear of cant; but if cant we must, why let it be for
+those who will cant back again, laughing in their sleeves the while, and
+not for the dear little faces so solemnly upturned to ours, whose
+honest blue eyes (black or green, if you please, as you take your tea)
+confidingly meet ours.
+
+American education, especially home education, is wanting not in
+quantity so much as quality; in that it _is_ fearfully lacking, and we,
+the educators, are the ones to blame for it.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER.
+
+It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with
+residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some
+breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with
+two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation.
+Rockland was such a place.
+
+Some of the natural features of the town have been described already.
+The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed
+it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary
+country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which
+belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it
+dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it brooded
+than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate by
+cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat like a
+garden-wall. Peach-trees, which, on the northern side of the mountain,
+hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in Rockland.
+
+But there was still another relation between the mountain and the town
+at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and
+which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. Those
+high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would have
+called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had
+always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as
+if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare,
+precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide
+like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so
+sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled
+over on the valley of Goldau.
+
+Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short
+residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the thought
+of this awful green wall piled up into the air over their heads. They
+would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the muffled snapping of
+roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side were tugging to break
+away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees were
+clinging with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel
+away and crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by
+one of those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human
+nature, there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or
+forty years after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening
+mountain-side, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls.
+The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the
+mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they ought
+to be there. It was a fascination like that which the rattlesnake is
+said to exert.
+
+This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other source
+of danger which was an element in the everyday life of the Rockland
+people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a joke against
+them, that a Rocklander couldn't hear a bean-pod rattle without saying,
+"The Lord have mercy on us!" It is very true, that many a nervous old
+lady has had a terrible start, caused by some mischievous young rogue's
+giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy vegetable products in her
+immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons missed the
+excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite in other regions, where
+there were nothing but black and green and striped snakes, mean
+ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent without his venom,--
+poor crawling creatures, whom Nature would not trust with a poison-bag.
+Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably experience a certain
+gratification in this infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that
+the old people retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some
+said it was the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to
+the habit of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through
+the grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is
+often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their _creme de noyau_ with a
+peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that it
+may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case they
+will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into the earth
+through their brain and marrow.
+
+But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special
+character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its chief
+glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its elms made
+a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its extent. No
+natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that formed by two
+American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot across each
+other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of green.
+When one looks through a long double row of these, as in that lovely
+avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well,--
+
+  "Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear
+  As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!"--
+
+he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, with
+all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone.
+
+Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of its
+elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other vegetable
+creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is modest and
+patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in everywhere and
+makes arrangements for coming up by-and-by. So, in spring, one finds a
+crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very weak and small
+compared to those, succulent vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of
+them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, as meekly as
+Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has
+established a kind of right to stay. Three generations of carrot and
+parsnip-consumers have passed away, yourself among them, and now let
+your great-grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean
+girth, three hundred and sixty feet in the line that bounds its leafy
+circle, it covers the boy with such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed
+oak nor insect-haunted linden ever lifted into the summer skies.
+
+Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its
+Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, or
+"mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this street,
+also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were chiefly
+congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland dignitary to have a
+house in Elm Street.
+
+A New England "mansion-house" is naturally square, with dormer windows
+projecting from the roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round
+it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner
+shows a respectable expanse of clean shirt-front. It has a lateral
+margin beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white
+wrist-bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can
+properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate.
+Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of
+any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to button itself up
+tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin, will be advertising
+for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the New England
+mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas Abney's
+place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the family, and
+wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into consciousness in
+our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single verses, between the
+momenta of wandering and of stupor, when we lie dying, and sound over
+us when we can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears to the hot,
+aching eyes beneath the thick, black veils, and carrying the holy calm
+with them which filled the good man's heart, as he prayed and sung under
+the shelter of the old English mansion-house.
+
+Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story, trim, white-painted,
+"genteel" houses, which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred,
+crowded close up to the street, instead of standing back from it with
+arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very
+commonly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed
+to smother the lower story almost to the exclusion of light and air, so
+that, what with small windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness
+made by these choking growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of
+these houses were the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be
+found anywhere among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt
+to assist this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look
+discontented in little rooms, hair-cloth furniture, black and shiny as
+beetles' wing-cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the
+kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,--these
+things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged the
+current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance Documents,
+unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines with worn-out
+steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a
+distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to mention, a volume
+of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according to the tastes of the
+family, and the Good Book, which is always Itself in the cheapest and
+commonest company. The father of the family with his hand in the breast
+of his coat, the mother of the same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a
+print of the Last Supper, by no means Morghen's, or the Father of his
+Country, or the old General, or the Defender of the Constitution, or an
+unknown clergyman with an open book before him,--these were the usual
+ornaments of the walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the others
+according to politics and other tendencies.
+
+This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New
+England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They
+have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the
+farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The
+mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open
+to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a good
+warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with the
+rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These lesser
+country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent
+subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. The
+chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the
+warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, happy, and
+cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, plenty of it,
+and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't afford this, don't
+try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to the ways of the honest
+farm-house.
+
+There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about Rockland.
+The best of them were something of the following pattern, which is too
+often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but infinitely less
+pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back from the road,
+seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden building, two
+stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to within a few
+feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is copied from an
+old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be seen in Lancashire,
+for instance, always with the same honest, homely look, as if their
+roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil out of which they
+sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by the slow action of sun
+and air and rain to a quiet dove- or slate-color. An old broken mill-
+stone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing like a finger to the heavens,
+which the shining round of water beneath looked up at like a dark
+unsleeping eye,--a single large elm a little at one side,--a barn twice
+as big as the house,--a cattle-yard, with
+
+        "The white horns tossing above the wall,"--
+
+some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round them,--a
+row of beehives,--a garden-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and
+many-hued holly-hocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, seedling
+onions, and marigolds, and flower-de-luces, and lady's-delights, and
+peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the borders,
+and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they got a
+chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born children
+remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the
+recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling
+yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape;
+and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born
+merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm
+with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises,
+as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
+
+Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and
+looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in
+the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow
+out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes
+with their sharp-pointed weathercocks.
+
+The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England
+meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square
+tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs,
+out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at
+its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery
+running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the
+pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached
+the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., successor, after a number of
+generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus
+Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged
+heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and occasionally
+delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard-headed
+theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter fully and
+finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid down for
+the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform of his
+demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of preaching
+plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and showing his
+Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It was noticed by
+some few of his flock, not without comment, that the great majority of
+his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and more as he became
+interested in various benevolent enterprises which brought him into
+relations with ministers and kind-hearted laymen of other denominations.
+The truth is, that he was a man of a very warm, open, and exceedingly
+_human_ disposition, and, although bred by a clerical father, whose
+motto was "_Sit anima mea cum Puritanis_," he exercised his human
+faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such freedom that
+the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere greatly with the
+circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once in a while he
+seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand doctrinal sermon,
+and then he would lapse away for while into preaching on men's duties to
+each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at some of the actual
+vices of the time and place, and insist with such tenderness and
+eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian love and
+charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he had
+shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on
+Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was
+sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council
+held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which
+expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding
+officer, he did not vote, to be sure, but there was no doubt that he was
+all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't
+very well let him go wrong.
+
+The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern
+style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England
+model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its
+old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so,
+and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in
+what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and
+crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of
+pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked,
+and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed
+in imitation of stone,--first a dark-brown square, then two light-brown
+squares, then another dark-brown square, and so on, to represent the
+accidental differences of shade always noticeable in the real stones of
+which walls are built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting
+his party-colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those
+of a chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and
+serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural clumps
+know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and
+symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of
+throwing up into the air a peck of potatoes and sticking in a tree
+wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were
+the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together with a ledge
+before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to occasional
+contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, and a
+place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be
+deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by boots
+or crickets.
+
+In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a
+divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at that
+famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years ago, to
+have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms of heresy.
+His ministrations were attended with decency, but not followed with
+enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old story at last.
+"The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite a thrill of
+satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to be a dull
+business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, while he
+knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards and
+empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that the
+drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the statistics
+and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, however,
+the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against his
+neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; but it was a
+languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away from meeting in
+the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening services. The
+minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the way, was a
+down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching as he had been
+taught to preach, but he bad misgivings at times. There was a little
+Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill where his own was placed,
+which he always had to pass on Sundays. He could never look on the
+thronging multitudes that crowded its pews and aisles or knelt
+bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to get in among them and
+go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of devotional contact which
+makes a worshipping throng as different from the same numbers praying
+apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of scattered cinders.
+
+"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and
+working-women!" he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that
+atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies,
+and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of
+droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!"
+The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all the
+terrible things to natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to a
+minority. No person that looked at his thin and sallow cheek, his sunken
+and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who heard
+his querulous, though not unmusical voice, could fail to see that his
+life was an uneasy one, that he was engaged in some inward conflict. His
+dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed,
+and was all the more striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a
+belief which made him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was
+yet a most good-humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on
+week-days did one as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever
+delivered on a Sunday.
+
+A few miles from Rockland was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a
+roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained window, and
+a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral depth of
+utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his own
+mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had not
+ironed his surplice and put it on with her own hands.
+
+There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name
+of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city-people in the summer
+months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct
+ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a _table d'hote_ of some
+pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a
+two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a
+great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored
+elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the
+bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and
+coffee,--where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early
+passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and
+coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere,
+and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the
+neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the
+news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which
+the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the
+Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related
+by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and
+story-telling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was when there
+were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a hissing vessel
+of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four _loggerheads_ (long
+irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold
+season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of
+flip,---a goodly compound, speaking according to the flesh, made with
+beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a
+little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed to
+sizzle, there results a peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as
+a warning to remove themselves at once out of the reach of temptation.
+
+But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old
+attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. In
+place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they were
+commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a few
+lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long exposure,
+but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the whole ornamented
+by festoons of yellow and blue cut fly-paper. On the front shelf of the
+bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, and scattered about
+were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that always wanted picking, which
+burned red and smoked a good deal, and were apt to go out without any
+obvious cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the
+circumambient air.
+
+The common school-houses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of the
+Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk he was
+taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at the rows of
+desks and recalled his late experiences. He could not help laughing, as
+he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins.
+
+            "'A little _science_ is a dangerous thing.'
+
+as well as a little 'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's
+dangerous to the fellow you try it on." And he cut him a good stick and
+began climbing the side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous
+Rattlesnake Ledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
+the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
+one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
+their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
+not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
+indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
+you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
+A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
+Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to
+get good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management,
+he recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere
+among the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at
+the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual
+authority, the sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear
+answers to the pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the
+force without the form of a command, and the young man could not doubt
+that the good genius of the school stood before him in the person of
+Helen Darley.
+
+It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies and leaves a widow
+and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
+bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep
+a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
+herself the _prima donna_ in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas
+Peckham's educational establishment.
+
+What a miserable thing it is to be poor! She was dependent, frail,
+sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping,
+thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared
+for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have
+his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's
+worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English,
+overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,--sadder a
+great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much more fertile
+in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of
+headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera
+into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with half her brain while
+the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,--sometimes tightening
+round the brows as if her cap-band were Luke's iron crown,--and then her
+neuralgias, and her back-aches, and her fits of depression, in which she
+thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which
+men speak slightingly of as hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only
+not commonly fatal ones,--so many trials which belong to her fine and
+mobile structure,--that she is always entitled to pity, when she is
+placed in conditions which develop her nervous tendencies. The poor
+teacher's work had, of course, been doubled since the departure of Mr.
+Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the weariness of instruction
+is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin to be overtasked, but those
+who have tried it. The _relays_ of fresh pupils, each new set with its
+exhausting powers in full action, coming one after another, take out
+all the reserved forces and faculties of resistance from the subject of
+their draining process.
+
+The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she
+sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or
+compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the
+pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill
+stair of labor she was daily climbing.
+
+How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She
+was conscientious in her duties and would insist on reading every
+sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar or
+bad spelling. There might but have been twenty or thirty of these themes
+in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the leading
+sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the accidents
+of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence uncertain; that
+virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like the dew-drop
+from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; that life was
+o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue instilled by our
+beloved teachers were to be our guides through all our future career.
+The imagery employed consisted principally of roses, lilies, birds,
+clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated comparison of wayward genius to
+a meteor. Who does not know the small, slanted, Italian hand of these
+girls'-compositions,--their stringing together of the good old
+traditional copy-book phrases, their occasional gushes of sentiment, the
+profound estimates of the world, sounding to the old folks that read
+them as the experience of a bantam-pullet's last-hatched young one
+with the chips of its shell on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's
+chicken, who knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes?
+Yet every now and then one is liable to be surprised with strange
+clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, except by the
+mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a young girl and
+exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the
+sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and the
+Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. In the
+midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read over so
+carefully were two or three that had something of individual flavor
+about them, and here and there there was an image or an epithet which
+showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a fallen scarlet feather
+marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden.
+
+The young lady teacher read them with a certain indifference of manner,
+as one reads proofs,--noting defects of detail, but not commonly
+arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann Wood's poem,
+beginning
+
+  "How sweet at evening's balmy hour,"
+
+did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and
+Yankee beginners, _morn_ and _dawn_, and tossed the verses on the pile
+of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them
+in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was getting sleepy in
+spite of herself,--when she came to one which seemed to rouse her
+attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment
+before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and
+slid it off from the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it,
+or had some undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd
+fancies are common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of
+these young people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble
+the tips of their fingers in water, after touching the most inoffensive
+objects.
+
+This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long,
+slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something
+strangely suggestive about the look of it,--but exactly of what, Miss
+Darley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the
+paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive
+rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage
+scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have
+threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as
+well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind
+of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this strange
+paper she did not know what to make of. There was something in its
+descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not say
+what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not help
+reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her that the
+tired and overwearied girl's self-control left her entirely. She sobbed
+once or twice, then laughed convulsively, and flung herself on the bed,
+where she worked out a set hysteric spasm as she best might, without
+anybody to rub her hands and see that she did not hurt herself.
+By-and-by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a
+volume of Coleridge and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep and
+wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams.
+
+Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition
+which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state
+that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and
+it was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which
+made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance.
+The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, _E.
+Venner_, and was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had
+excited the master's curiosity and prompted his question, as before
+mentioned.
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher looked pale and wearied, naturally
+enough, but she was in her place at the usual hour, and Master Langdon
+in his own. The girls had not yet entered the schoolroom.
+
+"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard.
+
+"I was not well yesterday," she answered. "I had a worry and a kind of
+fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls
+and bodies! Every young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm in arm,
+between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought
+of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants--Tell me,
+are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural
+law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?"
+
+Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his
+profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with which
+individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, therefore, with
+a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very familiar class of
+facts.
+
+"Why, of course. Each of us is only footing-up of a double column of
+figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells,--and some of
+them are _plus_, and some _minus_. If the columns don't add up right, it
+is commonly because we can't make out all the figures. I don't mean to
+say that something may not be added by Nature to make up for losses and
+keep the race to its average, but we are mainly nothing but the answer
+to a long sum in addition and subtraction. No doubt there are people
+born with impulses at every possible angle to the parallels of Nature,
+as you call them. If they happen to cut these at right angles, of course
+they are beyond the reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are
+what we have most to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane
+asylums take care of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have
+put it too much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know.
+Pray, what set you--"
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher took to asking me this? "Any strange
+cases among the scholars?"
+
+The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with the
+question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that that she
+was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never
+rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies,
+amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses
+them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families.
+And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of
+the common multitude, they seek each other's company at once by the
+natural law of elective affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know
+their peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of two ship-wrecked
+vessels, were cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once
+address the other as "Our Royal Sister."
+
+Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering
+with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as those
+foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she look into
+them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm,
+steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, as she read his
+expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but exhausting glance.
+"A lady," he said to himself, as he met her questioning look,--so brief,
+so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had taught to read
+faces quickly without offence, as children read the faces of parents,
+as wives read the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was but a few
+seconds' work, and yet the main point was settled. If there had been any
+vulgar curiosity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression,
+she would have detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face
+so softly and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly,
+he would not have said to himself, "She is a _lady_," for that word
+meant a good deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the
+scholarly Langdons.
+
+"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I
+don't think our school-room is an exception. I am glad you believe in
+the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I did
+not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but
+God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my negligence or
+incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have
+charge of. Yet there, are mysteries I do not know how to account for."
+She looked all round the school-room, and then said, in a whisper, "Mr.
+Langdon, we had a girl that _stole_, in the school, not long ago. Worse
+than that, we had a girl that tried to set us on fire. Children of good
+people, both of them. And we have a girl now that frightens me so"----
+
+The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three
+types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have
+been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in
+the school.--_Hannah Martin_. Fourteen years and three months old.
+Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead,
+large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression.
+Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking her
+provisions in school-hours.--_Rosa Milburn_. Sixteen. Brunette, with
+a rare ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes
+wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be passionate,
+if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back and
+walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, with a slight rocking
+movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,--a
+hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to
+read in school-time.--_Charlotte Ann Wood_. Fifteen. The poetess before
+mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate
+child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go
+much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry,
+underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast,
+not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the
+accustomed phrases. Undervitalized. Sensibilities not covered with their
+normal integuments. A negative condition, often confounded with genius,
+and sometimes running into it. Young people that _fall_ out of line
+through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those
+that _step_ out of it through strength of the intellectual ones.
+
+The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups,
+until the school-room was nearly full. Then there was a little pause,
+and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes
+turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same
+direction.
+
+A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but
+rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes
+sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of
+graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the
+very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a
+splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth that
+was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered
+dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little
+fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a
+short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing
+listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling
+it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her
+long, delicate fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes,
+not large,--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley
+bust,--black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not
+help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from
+for something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes.
+They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own away,
+and let them wander over the other scholars. But they could not help
+coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. The diamond
+eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books,
+as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited
+long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl.
+The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her kerchief to her
+forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost
+shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse,
+which she could not resist, she left her place and went to the young
+girl's desk.
+
+_"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?_" It was a strange question to
+put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come
+to her.
+
+"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke
+in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her
+articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect.
+
+"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a rare
+alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The
+Mountain.
+
+"Where it grew," said Elsie Venner. "Take it." The teacher could not
+refuse her. The girl's finger-tips touched hers as she took it. How cold
+they were for a girl of such an organization!
+
+The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting the
+school-room soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling the
+flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second was to
+wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. A
+poor, overtasked, nervous creature,--we must not think too much of her
+fancies.
+
+After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which had
+been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which may
+prove interesting by-and-by, but there are other matters we must first
+attend to. IS THE RELIGIOUS WANT OF THE AGE MET?
+
+
+To answer this question intelligently, we must first glance at the
+characteristics of the age. It is an age of remarkable activity. There
+have been industrious men in other days; there have been nations of whom
+it might be truly said, They were an industrious people, they lost no
+time in idleness: but their rate of speed was low. Such a people could
+hardly be deemed enterprising. They might continue uncomplainingly in
+their accustomed round of labors, but would lack impulse to attempt
+anything new. Circumstances did not compel them to unwonted efforts,
+and their capabilities lay dormant. The world was wide, the population
+comparatively sparse, and the means of subsistence not difficult of
+attainment.
+
+Our age is very unlike to that. People begin to crowd one another. There
+is competition. The more active and ingenious will have the advantage;
+they do have the advantage; and this fact is a constant stimulus. It has
+been operating for thirty years past with ever-increasing power. We seem
+to be approaching a climax,--a point beyond which flesh and blood cannot
+go. The enterprise of the more active spirits of our day is astounding;
+we begin to ask, "Will they stop at anything? What will they not
+undertake?" There are a great many unsuccessful attempts; but these are
+not necessarily observed, they pass quietly into obscurity, while we
+hasten to observe the successes, which are wonderful, and so numerous
+as to keep us ever on tiptoe, looking for new wonders. Having seen the
+railways, the magnetic telegraph, and Hoe's press, in full operation,
+and having been brought to accept these as a common measure of time and
+motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older usages. We find our
+age an age of daring and of doing. We are ready to discard the word
+_impossible_; from our vocabulary; we deny that anything is the less
+probable because of being unprecedented. For doing new things we look
+about for new means,--being full charged with the belief that for all
+worthy or desirable ends there must be adequate and available means.
+In this regard, it is an age of unprecedented faith, of expectation of
+success; and we all know the natural and necessary influence of such
+an expectation. Sanguine expectation lights up the fires of genius;
+invention is quickened for the attainment of the highest speed and the
+greatest momentum. In no former age has there been anything to compare
+in rapidity and power of movement with the every-day achievements of
+this age. The relation of books to men, and the sphere assigned to
+books, are materially modified by the characteristics of the age. Books,
+as books, are no longer a charm to conjure with. The few really superior
+books have a wider and greater influence than ever before; while
+the great mass of common books have less, and pass more easily into
+oblivion. Good books may and must help us; but books cannot make us men
+of the nineteenth century, and a power in it. A thorough knowledge of
+the world within us, as it stands related to the world without us, is
+something quite different from mere book-knowledge. This is an element
+of influence not only not confined to the bookmen, but often possessed
+in a transcendent degree by those whose devotion to books is altogether
+subordinate to other avocations. Our common-school education may be said
+to bring the entire people upon a common plane. We are no longer the
+esoteric and the exoteric; we understand our rights in the common fund
+of sense and truth very well. We are not very patient with those who
+affect to know better than ourselves what we want and what we ought to
+desire. Most men are exceedingly in earnest, and determined to be heard
+in their own cause, and well able to make themselves understood. Scribes
+and Pharisees compassing sea and land to make one proselyte are
+a good and bad type of our activity in the pursuit of our own ends.
+Innumerable and infinitely varied are the shifts employed to secure
+attention, to effect the sale of merchandise, and to increase income.
+Nor are the learned professions much behind the men of merchandise. The
+contest of life thickens. Competition for the fruits of labor waxes
+continually more fierce. Mother Earth is too moderate in her labors; the
+ranks of the producers suffer from desertion; the plough is forsaken;
+the patient ox is contemned; silence, seclusion, and meditation are a
+memory of the past. The world's axis is changed; there is more heat in
+the North. The world has advanced, in our age, from a speed of five
+miles an hour, to twenty or thirty, or more.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the advantages and disadvantages accruing
+from these movements, there can be no question of the fact, that they
+have greatly affected the position and the relations of speakers and
+hearers. The million have been driven to do so much for themselves, that
+they are in no little danger of jumping to the conclusion, that they no
+longer need teachers of religion. A conclusion so fraught with mischief
+to the race will not be arrested by a pertinacious adhesion to modes of
+preaching which men under the old-time training could be made to endure,
+but which latter-day contrasts have rendered intolerable.
+
+It is just here, if anywhere, that a special backwardness on the part of
+the clergy to meet the religious wants of the age may, without injustice
+or unkindness, be alleged. It comes about very naturally; the training
+of the clergy is not in harmony with the exigencies of the position they
+are intended to occupy. The endeavors of the preparatory schools are
+not to be depreciated. It is scarcely possible to say too much of the
+fundamental importance of thoroughness and of minute accuracy in the
+rudiments of learning. But that extreme zeal in this behalf has produced
+an unnatural divorce of the practical from the critical, it is vain
+to deny. The devotion to the latter, which is inaugurated in the
+preparatory school, is by the college inflamed to the utmost, and
+the young man reaches his climax when he receives the appointment of
+valedictorian; that is his end; he reaches it, and we may say it is
+the death of him. He may, indeed, enter the theological seminary,
+industriously resolved on more of the same supremacy; but, in most
+instances, the great practical ends of a Christ-like life of doing good
+have been already lost from his view, and the ways and means by which
+alone such ends can be reached have become offensive to him. The
+student, as he delights in calling himself, has become greatly more
+interested in knowledge than in the people for whom he is to use his
+knowledge. A certain unknown God, an idol, in short, quite unsuspected,
+whose name is _Critical Dignity_, is installed in his heart, in
+the place of the Son of God. And the man endures the trials of his
+ministerial life under the mistaken impression that he is a martyr for
+Christ. He compels himself to be satisfied with a measure of attention
+to his utterances, which would content no sane and sensible man in any
+other department of teaching. He will tell you that it is one of the
+inevitable infelicities of his vocation, that to nothing are men such
+unwilling listeners as to religious truth; than which nothing can
+be more untrue; for to nothing are men so prepared to listen as to
+religious truth, properly presented.
+
+In order to a more generally happy and successful prosecution of the
+duties of a minister of Christ, a preliminary fact requires to be
+considered. That a man is found or finds himself in any calling is no
+evidence whatever that he is fitted for that calling. This is just as
+true of the ministry as of any other vocation. Every man-of-business
+knows this. The clergy seem to us behind the age in being astonishingly
+blind to it. Men-of-business know that only a very small fraction of
+their number can ever attain eminent success. They know, that, in a term
+of twenty years, ninety-seven men in a hundred _fail_. Here and there
+one develops a remarkable talent for the specific business in which he
+is engaged. The ninety-and-nine discover that they have a weary contest
+to maintain with manifold contingencies and combinations which no
+foresight can preclude.
+
+The application of this general truth to their profession the clergy are
+backward to perceive. The consequences of this backwardness are very
+hurtful to their interests. Because of this, we have an indefinite
+amount of puerile and undignified complaint from disappointed men, of
+disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered
+upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake
+their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and
+they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of
+incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their
+flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural
+splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for
+something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have
+been put forward, as a screen, by many an unsuccessful preacher, who
+failed,--simply failed,--not in selling horns or hides, shirtings or
+sugars,--but failed to recommend Christ and his gospel,--failed for want
+of head, or heart, or industry, or all three.
+
+The man who embarks his all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk
+of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster,
+work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might
+suffice for both. This unalterable fact every business-man accepts.
+
+Do you inquire, To what good purpose do you thrust the possibility of
+failure upon the attention of the candidate for the ministry? Would you
+utterly discourage those who are already more alive to the perils of
+their undertaking than we could wish them?
+
+We answer, It is no kindness to encourage men to enter a ministry whose
+inexorable requirements and whose incidental possibilities they may
+not look in the face. It is no kindness to represent to them that the
+qualities which they possess _ought_ to engage attention; and that
+their talents will command respect, or else it will be the fault of the
+people.
+
+Men go into business in the face of a possibility of failure through
+uncontrollable circumstances; not in defiance of an ascertainable,
+insufferable incompetency. They toil on, accepting adversity with such
+equanimity as God gives them, so long as they are permitted to believe
+that their misfortunes are not chargeable upon their incapacity or
+self-indulgence. But when it is made apparent that they are not in their
+proper sphere, they think it no shame to say so, to withdraw, and
+to apply their energies to something suited to their tastes and
+capabilities. And it should be with the ministry; but as things now are,
+with the conceptions of the ministry now entertained, pride interposes
+to forbid the rectification of the most serious mistakes. It is a
+question of dignity and of scholarship; whereas it should be a question
+of love to God and man, and of real ability and conscious power to bring
+them together,--to reconcile man to God.
+
+Our age is an age of great devotion to secular affairs,--of men who are
+great in the conduct of such affairs,--in every department in life. To
+counterbalance this, our ministry must be filled with an equally earnest
+devotion to God and salvation. In real ability our ministers ought to be
+not a whit behind. But ability is not necessarily scholarship; though it
+may, and as far as possible should, include that, and a great deal more.
+Let it be fully understood, once for all, that we have no disparaging
+remark to make of scholarship; a man must be foolish beyond expression,
+who pretends to argue that the highest scholarship is less than a most
+important and almost indispensable auxiliary to the minister of Christ.
+All our concern in the matter, just here, is, that it shall be fully
+understood that piety and real ability make the minister of Christ,
+and not scholarship; in the words of Augustine, "the heart makes the
+minister";--but we may safely assume that he meant the heart of a really
+able man; otherwise we can accord but a qualified respect to this
+remark.
+
+The prevailing impression among the ministry appears to be, that the man
+who cannot write "an able doctrinal discourse" is but an inferior man,
+fit only to preach in an inferior place; and that it would be a great
+gain to the Church, if scholarship were only so general that the
+standard of the universities could be applied, and only Phi-Beta-Kappa
+men allowed to enter the ministry. No doubt, those who incline to this
+view are quite honest, and not unkindly in it. But those who think this
+grievously misunderstand the necessities of the age in which we live.
+Reading men know where to find better reading than can possibly be
+furnished by any man who is bound to write two sermons weekly, or
+even one sermon a week; and to train any corps of young men in the
+expectation that any considerable fraction of them will be able to win
+and to maintain a commanding influence in their parishes mainly by the
+weekly production of learned discourses is to do them the greatest
+injury, by cherishing expectations which never can be realized. Why
+do our educated men of other professions so seldom and so reluctantly
+contribute to the addresses in our religious assemblies? Precisely
+because they understand the difficulty of meeting the popular
+expectation which is created by the prevailing theory; a theory which
+demands that sermons, and not only that sermons, but also that all
+religious addresses, should be chiefly characterized as learned, acute,
+scholastic even. An Irish preacher is reported in an Edinburgh paper as
+saying lately, that "he had been led to think of his own preaching and
+of that of his brethren. He saw very few sermons in the New Testament
+shaped after the forms and fashion in which they had been accustomed to
+shape theirs. He was not aware of a sermon there, in which they had
+a little motto selected, upon which a disquisition upon a particular
+subject was hung. The sort of sermons which the people in his locality
+were desirous to hear were sermons delivered on a large portion of the
+Word of God, carrying through the ideas as the Spirit of God had done."
+And it is, in part at least, because of the prevailing disregard of this
+most reasonable desire, that parishes so soon weary of their ministers.
+
+It need not discourage ministers to accept the fact that there will be
+failures in the ministry,--and a great many failures among those who
+rely for their success mainly upon the weekly production of learned
+disquisitions. Discouragement is not in accepting a fact that accords
+with all just theories of truth, but in adopting a theory which is sure
+to be invalidated by the almost universal experience of men in, as well
+as out of, the ministry. A right-minded minister _may_ have many falls
+in struggling up his Hill of Difficulty; but the Lord will lift him
+up, and will save him from adding to the temperate grief proper to any
+measure of short-coming the intolerable poignancy that comes of cheating
+by false pretences,--of assuming to do what he knows or should know that
+he cannot do, namely, produce any considerable number of great sermons.
+
+Let it, then, be frankly owned, that men, very good men, very capable
+men, have failed in the ministry. A. failed, because he did not study;
+B., because he did not visit his people; C., because he could not talk;
+D., because he was too grave; E., because he was too frivolous; F. could
+not, or would not, control his temper; G. alienated by exacting more
+than he received; and all of them because of not having what Scougal
+calls "the life of God in the soul of man."
+
+It is not worth while for any man to go into the ministry who cannot
+relish the Apostle's invitation, running thus:--"I beseech you,
+therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
+bodies _a living sacrifice_, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
+reasonable service." If that seem not reasonable, ay, and exceedingly
+inviting too, better let it alone. All men cannot do all things. Better
+raise extraordinary potatoes than hammer out insignificant ideas. You do
+not see the connection? you were a Phi-Beta-Kappa man in college, and
+know that you can write better than many a man in a metropolitan pulpit?
+Very likely; but we of the few go to church to be made better men, and
+not by fine writing, but by significant ideas, which may come in a
+homely garb, so they be only pervaded with affectionate piety, but which
+can come to us only from one who has laid all ambitious self-seeking on
+the altar of God. There is a power of persuasion in every minister who
+follows God as a dear child, and who walks in love, as Christ loved
+us, which the hardest heart cannot long resist,--which will win the
+congregation, however an individual here and there may be able to harden
+himself against it. You think that the great power of the pulpit is in
+high doctrine, presented with metaphysical precision and acuteness. We
+have no disparagement to offer of your doctrinal knowledge, nor of your
+ability to state it with metaphysical precision and hair-splitting
+acuteness. But we know, from much experience, that there is a divine
+truth, and a fervor and power in imparting it, with which God inspires
+the man who is wholly devoted to Him, in comparison with which the
+higher achievements of the man who lacks these are trumpery and rubbish.
+Many, _many_ men have failed in the ministry, are failing in the
+ministry every day, because their principal reliance has been upon what
+they deem their thorough mastery of the soundest theories of doctrine
+and of duty. They were confident they could administer to minds and
+hearts diseased the certain specific laid down in the book, admeasured
+to the twentieth part of a scruple. Confident in their theoretical
+acquisitions, they could not comprehend the indispensable necessity of a
+large experience in actual cases of mental malady. And for the want of
+such experience, it was absolutely impossible that they should be _en
+rapport_ with the souls they honestly desired to benefit. Can you heal a
+heart-ache with a syllogism? There is no dispensing with the precept and
+prescription,--"Weep with those that weep!" "Be of the same mind one
+toward another!"
+
+Theories of doctrine and of practice are not without their value; but
+the minister who is merely or chiefly a theorist, whether in doctrines
+or in measures, is an adventurer; and the chances against him are as
+many as the chances against the precise similarity of any two cases
+presented to his attention,--as many as the chances against the
+education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every
+particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be
+solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician;
+"_surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows._" Theories
+shirk that. "_In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and
+in His pity, He redeemed them._" And precisely in this way his ministers
+are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less
+tolerant of formality,--less and less willing to accept metaphysical
+disquisition in place of a warm-hearted, loving, fervent expansion of
+the Word of God, recommended to the understanding and to the sensibility
+by lively illustrations of spiritual truth, derived from all the
+experience of life, from all observation, from all analogies in the
+natural world,--in short, from every manner of illumination, from the
+heavens above, from the earth beneath, and from the waters which are
+under the earth. God is surely everywhere, and hath made all things, and
+all to testify of Him; and the innumerable voices all agree together.
+
+And when this is both understood and felt, what rules shall be given to
+guide and control the construction and the delivery of discourses? Shall
+we say, The people must be brought back to the old-time endurance--ay,
+_endurance_, that is the word--of long-drawn, laborious ratiocinations,
+wherein the truth is diligently pursued for its own sake, with an
+ultimate reference, indeed, to the needs and uses of the hearer, but so
+remote as rarely to be noticed, except by that very small fraction of
+any customary congregation who may chance to have an interest in
+such doings,--some of whom watch the clergyman as they would the
+entomologist, running down a truth that he may impale it, and add one
+more specimen to his well-ordered collection of common and of uncommon
+bugs? Our neighbors in the South do better than this; for they hunt with
+the lasso, and never throw the noose except to capture something which
+can be harnessed to the wheels of common life.
+
+No, the people are not going back to the endurance of any such misery.
+They have found out that still-born rhetoric is by no means the one
+thing needful, and care far less for the _art_ of speech than for the
+_nature_ of a holy heart. They want a man to speak less of what he
+believes and more of what he feels. The expectation of bringing the
+people again to endure prolonged metaphysical discriminations, spun out
+of commonplace minds, cobwebs to cloak their own nakedness and universal
+inaptitude, if indulged, is absurdly indulged. The whole Church is sick
+of such trifling. She knows well that it has made her most unsavory to
+those who might have found their way into the temples of God, or kept
+their places there, but for the memory of an immense amount of wearisome
+readings from the pulpit,--too often a vocabulary of words seldom or
+never found out of sermons,--a manner of speech which, when tried by the
+sure test of natural, animated conversation, must be pronounced absurd
+and abominable. It is a wonder of wonders, that, in spite of such
+drawbacks, an individual here and there has been reclaimed from
+worldliness to the love and service of God.
+
+The student-habits of the clergy most naturally lead them to prefer the
+formal statement, the studied elaboration of ideas, which their own
+training cannot but render facile and dear to them. And there is here
+and there a man who, in virtue of extraordinary genius, can infuse new
+life into worn-out phrases,--a man or two who can for a moment or for an
+hour, by the very weight and excellence of their thoughts, and because
+they truly and deeply feel them, arrest the age, and challenge and
+secure attention, in spite of all the infelicities of an antiquated
+style and an unearthly delivery. But in this age, more than ever before,
+we are summoned to surrender our scholastic preferences and esoteric
+honors to the exigencies of the million. And the men of this generation
+have, without much conference, come with great unanimity to the
+determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the
+pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of
+words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or
+lack of sympathies,--and especially that they will not endure dull
+declamation from the pulpit.
+
+If any man really wish to know how he is preaching, let him imagine
+himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted,
+but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger
+children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an
+eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused
+sensibilities of his hearers?
+
+How long ought a sermon to be? As long as you can read in the eye of
+seven-eighths of your audience, _Pray, go on_. If you cannot read that,
+you have mistaken your vocation; you were never called to the ministry.
+The secret of the persuasive power of our favorite orators is in their
+constant recognition of the ebb and flow of the sensibilities they are
+acting upon. Their speech is, in effect, an actual conversation,
+in which they are speaking for as well as to the audience; and the
+interlocutors are made almost as palpably such as at the "Breakfast-
+Table" of our dramatic "Autocrat" In contrast with this, the dull
+preacher, falling below the dignity and the privilege of his office,
+addresses himself, not to living men, but to an imaginary sensibility
+to abstract truth. The effect of this is obvious and inevitable; it
+converts hearers into doubters as to whether in fact there be any such
+thing as a religion worth recommending or possessing, and preachers into
+complainers of the people as indifferent and insensible to the truth,--a
+libel which ought to render them liable to fine and punishment. God's
+truth, _fairly presented_, is never a matter of indifference or of
+insensibility to an intelligent, nor even to an unintelligent audience.
+However an individual here and there may contrive to withdraw himself
+from the sphere of its influence, truth can no more lose her power than
+the sun can lose his heat.
+
+The people, under the quickening influences characteristic of our age,
+are awaking to the consciousness, that, on the day which should be the
+best of all the week, they have been defrauded of their right, in having
+solemn dulness palmed upon them, in place of living, earnest, animated
+truth. Let not ministers, unwisely overlooking this undeniable fact,
+defame the people, by alleging a growing facility in dissolving the
+pastoral relation,--a disregard of solemn contracts,--a willingness to
+dismiss excellent, godly, and devoted men, without other reason than the
+indisposition to retain them. Be it known to all such, that capable men
+very department of life were never in such request as at this very hour;
+and never, since the world began, was there an audience so large and so
+attentive to truth, well wrought and fitted to its purpose, as now.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph
+Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.
+
+
+FIRST NOTICE.
+
+
+Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any
+satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried,
+(1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by
+Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often
+of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical
+publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of
+information respecting the great master, and the history of his works,
+available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen"
+are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's
+"Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed
+to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or
+in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal
+knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,--perhaps
+has given sufficient occasion for it,--but we must bear this testimony
+to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries
+give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some
+twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always
+careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written
+anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but
+have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are
+constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we
+find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New
+American," published by the Appletons.
+
+A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers,
+combined with the materials scattered through other publications,--even
+though no original researches were made,--was still a desideratum,
+when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander
+Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German
+musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven
+into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that
+now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something
+worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and
+articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's
+history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.
+
+Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two
+works,--"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg,
+1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A
+very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works--in
+French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,--consists principally of
+an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are
+indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has
+plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the
+critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took
+only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique,
+chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great
+industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the
+principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the
+pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the
+"Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."
+
+The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben
+des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the
+"Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a
+biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much
+original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected;
+but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which
+he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a
+logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is
+not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;--at
+all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him
+and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,--apropos of
+nothing,--has called--out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical
+journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation.
+In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his
+"Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single
+work.
+
+Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against
+Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title,
+"Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig,
+1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions
+to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's
+life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of
+Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,--not in real life,--as
+to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction
+is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first
+twenty-five years of the present century,--a supplement to his famous
+view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of
+Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled,
+save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer
+Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy.
+Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. _We_ can
+forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in
+seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.
+
+But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the
+public--at all events, our public--demands. We wish his biography,--the
+history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite.
+We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored,
+and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers
+above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their
+publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when
+he shall appear.
+
+It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we
+saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the
+head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very
+careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice,
+granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in
+any German publication which has come under our notice, because out
+of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at
+home,--whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without
+honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.
+
+Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving
+that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in
+a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from
+Schilling's "Encyclopaedie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft,"
+Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,--a work which deserves to be better known in
+our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart
+fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and
+a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and
+a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.
+
+Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many
+of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He
+studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his
+profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,--the
+well-known contrapuntist, Tuerk, being his instructor in musical theory
+and composition. "He [Tuerk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told
+Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."[1]
+
+Soon after finishing his legal studies, Marx removed to Berlin, as the
+place where he could best enjoy the means of artistic culture. "For one
+quite without fortune, merely to live in a strange city demands great
+strength of character; but to go farther and fit one's self for a career
+and for a position in the future, which even under the best auspices
+is of very difficult attainment, and, beside all this, to have others
+dependent upon him for the necessaries of life,--what a burden to bear!
+..... By a very intellectual system of instruction in singing and in
+composition, and, at a later period, (1824-81,) by editing the 'Berliner
+Allgemeine Musikzeitung,' and several theoretical and practical musical
+works, he earned the means of subsistence. Never was a periodical more
+conscientiously edited. It was for Marx like an official station, and
+his seven years upon that paper were in fact a preparation for the
+position of Public Teacher, to which in 1830 he was appointed, in the
+University at Berlin, after having declined a judicial position offered
+to him, with a fair salary, in one of the provinces. Honorably has he
+since that period filled his station, however great the pains which
+have been taken in various quarters that it should not be said of him,
+'Virtus post nummos!'"[2]
+
+"The diploma of Doctor of Music Marx received from the University at
+Marburg; and thereupon (?) obtained the greatest applause for a course
+of lectures, in part strictly scientific for the musician, and in part
+upon the history of music, its philosophy, etc.; also, as Music-Director
+of the University, he has brought (1841,) the academic choir into such
+a flourishing state, both as to numbers and skill, as to be adequate to
+the most difficult music."[3]
+
+Again we read,--"We remember, that, some time since, Fetis, at Paris,
+pointed out Marx as the one who had introduced the philosophy of Kant
+into music." Were this so, so much the more credit to Marx, who, at that
+time, we are informed, had never studied the works of the philosopher
+of Koenigsberg, and his basing music upon the Kantian philosophy is
+therefore but a proof of the profundity of his genius.
+
+From the same article we extract the following list of his
+productions:--1. A work on Singing, in three parts; the second and third
+of which "contain throughout admirable and novel remarks." 2. "Maigruss"
+(Maygreeting). "This pamphlet, humorous and delicate, yet powerfully
+written," calls attention to certain novel views of its author in regard
+to music. 3. Articles in the "Caecilia," a musical periodical. 4. Essay
+on Handel's works. 5. A work on Composition. 6. Several biographies and
+other articles in Schilling's Encyclopaedia,--"indeed, all the articles
+signed A. B. M." 7. Editions of several of Bach's and Handel's works.
+To these we may now add his extensive treatise upon Musical Science, in
+four volumes, his "Music in the Nineteenth Century," and the work which
+is now before us.
+
+Of musical compositions we find the
+
+[Footnote 1: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 2: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.] following noticed:--1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und
+Baetely,"--which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly _damned_;--but
+then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische
+Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of
+revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance
+waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at
+the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was
+the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture
+and _entr'actes_, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and
+profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given
+in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the
+work _did not succeed_." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouque, with
+a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present
+Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,--but then, it was badly
+executed! 4. Symphony,--"The Fall of Warsaw,"--still manuscript. "The
+music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character
+of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their
+terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange
+soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to
+add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,--preferring
+Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,--"one of Marx's
+most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"--a series of songs, the music of
+which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the
+Baptist," an oratorio,--twice performed by the University choir in one
+of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar
+sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos
+and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,--the
+music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed
+vigorously after the sense of the text,--are distinguished from those
+in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public
+preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer,
+Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the
+list of his works at that time.
+
+"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an
+oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in
+its profound conception of character will have but few equals."
+
+The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several
+places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares
+no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.
+
+We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in
+Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the
+basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England
+and the United States;--for, singular as the fact may appear, we are
+unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and
+gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach,
+whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from
+the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna
+and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,--a
+writer upon music.
+
+There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article
+from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of
+Marx,--modesty, the ornament of true greatness,--may (or may not) add
+weight to the extracts we have made from it,--namely, that the article
+was written for Schilling by Marx himself.
+
+We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood
+fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician
+by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and
+musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path
+of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for
+thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor
+of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both
+social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of
+information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical
+libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven
+papers are preserved,--a city, moreover, in which more than in any
+other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly
+performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so
+much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.
+
+We have no extravagant ideas of the value of the so-called
+Conversation-Books of Beethoven. We are aware that they seldom contain
+anything from the hand of the master himself,--being made up, of course,
+of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such
+books--though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled
+together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his
+brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper,
+upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists,
+poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases even from
+England, and in one from America--must contain a great mass of matter,
+which places one amidst those by whom the master was surrounded, makes
+one to "know his goings-out and his comings-in," and occasionally facts
+of high importance in the study of his character, and the circumstances
+in which he spent his last years. For some twelve years these books
+have been in Berlin and at the disposal of Marx. The numerous files of
+musical periodicals and the mass of musical biography and recent musical
+history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to
+the writer on Beethoven,--a value which Marx must fully appreciate,
+both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as
+contributor of biographical articles to Schilling's Encyclopedia.
+
+As we take up this new life of Beethoven, then, the measure of our
+expectations is the reputation of the author, plus the means, the
+materials, at his command. And certainly the first impression made
+by these two goodly volumes is a very favorable one; for, making due
+allowance for the music scattered through them with not too lavish a
+hand, by way of examples, we have still some six hundred solid pages of
+reading matter,--space enough in which to answer many a vexed question,
+clear up many a dark point, give us the results of widely extended
+researches, and place Beethoven the Man and the Composer before us in
+"Leben und Schaffen,"--in his life and his labors.
+
+In the first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an
+apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have
+taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion
+really exists. We find that in the first volume, four works,--the First,
+Second, and Third Symphonies and the opera "Leonore" or "Fidelio" occupy
+136 of the 875 pages; in the second, that the other five Symphonies and
+the "Missa Solemnis" fill out 123 of the 330 pages. Bearing in mind that
+the works of Beethoven which have _Opus_ numbers--not to speak of the
+others--amount to 137, and that, in some cases, three and even six
+compositions, so important as the Rasoumowsky Quartetts, for instance,
+are included in a single _Opus_, the disproportion really appears
+very great. We notice, moreover, that just those works which are most
+familiar to the public, which have for thirty years or more been
+subjects of never-ending discussion, and which one would naturally
+suppose might be dismissed in fewest words,--that these are the works
+which occupy so much space. What is there so new to be said of the
+"Heroic Symphony" that fifty pages should be allotted to it, while the
+ballet "Prometheus," still strange to nearly every reader, should be
+dismissed in three?
+
+We find it also somewhat remarkable that Marx thinks it necessary to
+give his own notions of musical form to the extent of nineteen pages,
+(Vol. I. pp. 79 _et seq_.,) preparatory to his discussion of the
+greater works of the master, and yet is able to condense the history of
+Beethoven's first twenty-two years--the period, in our view, the most
+important in making him what he was--in sixteen! We have not space to
+follow this out farther, and only add, that, were this work a mere
+catch-penny affair by an unknown writer, we should suspect him of
+"drawing out the thread of his verbosity" on topics where materials are
+plenty and talk is easy, in preference to the labor of original research
+on points less known.
+
+In reading the work carefully, two points strike us in relation to his
+printed authorities: first, that the list of those quoted by Lenz in his
+"Catalogue" and "Leben des Meisters" comprises nearly all those cited by
+Marx; the principal additions being the works of Lenz, Oulibichef, and
+A. B. Marx,--the latter of which he exhibits great skill in finding
+and making opportunities to advertise;--and secondly, that, where the
+Russian writer, through haste, carelessness, or the want of means
+to verify facts and correct errors, falls into mistakes, the Berlin
+Professor generally agrees with him. As it is impossible to suppose that
+a gentleman who for nearly thirty years "writes himself, in any bill,
+warrant, quittance, or obligation," Extraordinary Professor of a great
+German University, should simply adopt the labors of an obscure Russian
+writer without acknowledgment, we can only suppose these resemblances to
+be coincidences. These coincidences are, nevertheless, so numerous,
+that we may say in general, what Lenz knew of the history of the man
+Beethoven and his works is known to Marx,--what was unknown to the
+former is equally unknown to the latter. Marx, however, occasionally
+quotes passages from Schindler, Wegeler, and Ries at length, to which
+Lenz only gives references. We will note a few of the coincidences
+between the two writers.
+
+Here is the first sentence of the biography:--
+
+"Ludwig van Beethoven was born to his father, a singer in the chapel of
+the _Elector Max Franz_, Archbishop of Cologne, Dec. 17, 1770." (Marx,
+Vol. I. p. 4.) Beethoven was fourteen years old when this Elector
+came to Bonn. Max Franz is confounded with Max Friedrich,--a singular
+mistake, since Wegeler writes the name in full. It may, however, be a
+typographical error, or a _lapsus pennae_ on the part of Marx. We give
+him all the benefit of the doubt; but, unluckily, we read on p. 12, that
+the Archbishop, "brother of Joseph II.," called the Protestant Neefe
+from the theatre to the organ-loft of the Electoral Chapel,--this
+appointment having in fact been made four years before the "brother of
+Joseph II." had aught to do with appointments in that part of the world.
+Lenz confounds the two Electors in precisely the same manner.
+
+Both Lenz and Marx (p. 9) relate the old exploded story of the child
+Beethoven and the spider. The former found it in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," and probably had not authorities
+at hand to correct it. Had Marx sent to the Library for Disjouval's
+"Arachnologie," the work which he gives as _his_ authority, he would
+have found, that, not Beethoven, but the French violinist Berthaume, was
+the hero of the anecdote,--as, indeed, is also related in Schilling's
+Encyclopaedia, not many pages after Marx's own article on Beethoven in
+that work.
+
+That Lenz should misdate Beethoven's visit to Berlin is not strange;
+that Marx, a Berliner, should, is. Nor is it remarkable that Lenz knows
+nothing of Beethoven's years of service as member of the Electoral
+orchestra at Bonn; but how Marx should have overlooked it, in case he
+has made _any_ researches into the composer's early history, is beyond
+our comprehension.
+
+Schindler has mistaken the date of certain letters written by Beethoven
+long before he had any personal intercourse with him,--the notes to
+Julia Guicciardi,--which he dates 1806. Both Lenz and Marx follow him
+in the date; both quote Beethoven's words, that the lady in question
+married Count Gallenberg before the departure of the latter to Italy;
+both coincide in overlooking the circumstance related in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," that, _before_ June, 1806, a grand
+performance of music, composed and directed by Gallenberg, took place at
+Naples in honor of Joseph Bonaparte;--proof sufficient that Beethoven
+could not in July of that year have addressed the lady in these terms:
+"Mein Engel, mein Alles, mein Ich!"
+
+Both Marx and Lenz relate the following anecdote. Haydn, meeting
+Beethoven, praised the Septett of the latter; upon which the young man
+exclaimed, deprecatingly, "Ah, it is far from being a 'Creation'!" To
+which Haydn replied, "_That_ you could not have written, for you are an
+atheist!"
+
+That the absurdity of making Beethoven, then a man of thirty and
+supposed to be possessed of common sense, hint at any comparison of a
+piece of chamber-music with one of the grandest of oratorios, and that,
+too, to the author himself, should not have struck Marx, is strange; nor
+is it less so, that, in the course of his researches, he has not met
+with the correction of the story, by the late Alois Fuchs of Vienna.
+
+In fact, the ballet "Prometheus," in which the progress of man from a
+state of rude nature to the highest culture and refinement is depicted,
+and the "Creation," were both given for the first time within a few
+weeks of each other. The affinity of the subjects is clear, and the
+remark of the young man, "Ah, dear papa, it is far from being a
+'Creation'!" is only natural. "No," said Haydn, "it is indeed not a
+'Creation,' nor do I think its author will ever reach that!"
+
+In the dates given by Marx to Beethoven's compositions he generally
+coincides with Lenz, in his "Catalogue," particularly when the latter is
+wrong,--and when he differs from him, he is as apt to be wrong as right.
+Any person who has both works at command may easily verify this remark.
+
+But we cannot dwell longer on this point.
+
+
+
+_Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, The Great American Advocate_. By EDWARD
+G. PARKER. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.
+
+
+We think it our duty to state our judgment of this book, because it
+professes to give personal reminiscences, by a familiar friend, of a
+remarkable and distinguished man of our own time and country, has been
+much read and discussed, and has gained a good deal of popularity of a
+certain sort; it therefore belongs _somewhere_ in the literature of the
+day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if
+we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign
+justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary
+and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to
+some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman
+among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the
+extraordinary alacrity with which this book was produced the author got
+a little the start of criticism, perhaps; but we should fail in our duty
+as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound,
+for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has
+exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate,
+the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task.
+
+For the purposes of the bookseller, nothing could have been happier than
+the publication, within a few months after the death of Mr. Choate, of
+such a book as this promised to be. Throughout the country his name had
+been generally accounted the synonyme of all that was most original,
+mysterious, and fascinating, in the arts of the advocate and the
+scholar. Perhaps we have none of us ever known a man in regard to whom
+a greater degree of _curiosity_ existed among his countrymen. Those
+who saw him every day never ventured to believe that they quite ever
+understood him, so various and so peculiar were the aspects he exhibited
+even here at home. Those who attempted to study him were as much
+perplexed as charmed. The avidity with which a cheap book, easily read,
+professing to give personal recollections of such a man, would be seized
+upon by the mass of reading people, was not overestimated.
+
+It is not the purpose of this notice to discuss Mr. Choate,--his
+eloquence, his wit, his scholarship, or his personal characteristics.
+Our office is simply to examine the manner of Mr. Parker's performing
+what he set out to perform. Our business is with the book, not with the
+subject of it. And, in our judgment, the book is the very worst that
+could well be written on such a subject. It is done with bad taste, bad
+judgment, bad style, It is precisely the book to mortify and disgust Mr.
+Choate's admirers, and to fix more firmly than ever such unfavorable
+notions of him as may have existed in the minds of others.
+
+Mr. Parker does not appear to have considered what he undertook, when he
+stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man.
+We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating
+account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of
+perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of
+scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that
+he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his
+enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been _said_, as well as
+how little was _known_ about Mr. Choate; what wonderfully loose and idle
+notions of him had got abroad; how the most essential and notable points
+of his character and genius had been so clumsily handled by flippant or
+careless critics, that the popular impression of him was, to a great
+degree, extravagant and absurd. Remembering all this, and properly
+_respecting_ the subject in which he appears to have interested himself
+so ardently, Mr. Parker should have applied to his task a somewhat
+gentle hand; gratifying, if that must be done, the curiosity of his
+readers as far as he safely could, but refraining altogether from those
+aspects of Mr. Choate's mind and character which he must have known
+could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly
+executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled
+off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called
+indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected.
+We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious
+talk about Mr. Choate,--and that is the whole of it. For our own
+part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little
+amusement it has afforded us was probably not exactly designed by the
+author.
+
+We would fain be excused from the duty of remarking upon the merely
+literary character of the book, but that may not be. As we said before,
+the book is somewhere in the literature of the day, and its place must
+be ascertained. The following gems of rhetoric it will be useful, for
+that end, to notice:--"With me, as with every young man of a taste
+that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh
+topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains";
+"newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor";
+"severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the
+maiden-mother,"--alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a
+mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, _facile
+princeps_"; not to forget an extraordinary quotation from the title,
+which the author says he found at the head of one of Mr. Choate's
+manuscript plans for daily study, in these words, "_faciundo ad munus
+nuper impositum_." Now it must really in justice be said that to write
+a biography of Mr. Choate in such a lingo as this is an insult to the
+subject. We believe we are fair with Mr. Parker's style. Indeed, where
+it is not relieved by such barbarisms as we have quoted, it purls along
+with a certain weak smartness which is inexpressibly tiresome.
+
+A much more tolerable book, however, would be spoiled by such arrant
+egotism as our author displays on every page. We are never rid of _Mr.
+Parker_ for a moment. Wherever Mr. Choate is visible, Mr. Parker is
+strutting by his side. He exhibits, indeed, all the intrusiveness of
+Boswell, without any of that honest, self-forgetting, simple-hearted
+admiration of his distinguished friend which makes Boswell positively
+respectable. A single illustration of this weakness is so apt that we
+quote it. "Mr. Choate said, 'Some one should write a History of the
+Ancient Orators. There is no book in all my library where I can find
+all there is extant about any ancient orator.' He earnestly advised
+the author to undertake it. In pursuance of the idea, an article
+on 'Hortensius' appeared in a Review as a beginning. He spoke with
+enthusiasm of the satisfaction it gave him; saying it was a new
+revelation to him, for he never _knew_ Hortensius before."
+
+Again, Mr. Parker is continually assuring us, in more or less direct
+terms, of the intimacy which existed between himself and Mr. Choate. In
+a matter of this sort, once telling is enough; and then it should
+be done with modesty, and so as simply to assure the reader of the
+genuineness of the reminiscences. All beyond that is vulgar. One more
+remark upon Mr. Parker's _behavior_ as an author. He permits himself to
+speak of individuals of decided personal and public dignity with quite
+too much familiarity. This is, of course, nothing more than an offence
+against good taste. But it is so prevalent in his pages that we cannot
+omit it from anything like a summary of the faults which they display.
+And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere
+else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one
+can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice.
+
+We have yet to notice Mr. Parker's book in respect to its success as an
+attempt at biography. We suppose he intended to draw the portrait of
+a man of wit, eloquence, and scholarship. He constantly assures us in
+terms that Mr. Choate _was_ such a man; an assurance which certainly
+was not necessary to so extensive and brilliant a reputation. If he
+had stopped there, he would at least have done no harm. But the
+illustrations which he gives us are so very far from satisfactory, that,
+unless Mr. Choate's reputation in these particulars be surrendered, for
+which we are not quite prepared, it must be upon the ground that his
+biographer has failed entirely to appreciate him. That Mr. Choate was,
+for instance, a man of singularly keen and delicate wit, everybody
+knows. But we believe that any brother advocate who ever sat at the same
+courtroom table with him for three days, or any cultivated person who
+ever passed an evening in his company, was likely to hear from his lips,
+in that space of time, more real wit than Mr. Parker repeats in his
+whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in
+the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which
+Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert
+a sullen juror,--such turns of speech as _he_ certainly never thought
+were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,--to which
+he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the
+business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire
+to have forgotten,--make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's
+illustrations in the matter of wit. One faculty which Mr. Choate
+possessed in a remarkable degree, that of ready, elegant, and telling
+quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every
+one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have
+furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions.
+As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would
+seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up
+and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon
+these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as
+mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which they
+were charmed with his graceful and truly vigorous speech, his biographer
+loves to dwell. He has much to say of the length and complexity of
+the sentences, but nothing of the often exquisite elegance of their
+structure; much of the number and size of the words of which they
+consisted,--nothing of the extreme delicacy and dexterity of their use,
+the wonderful completeness with which they were made to express every
+particle of the orator's meaning. As to Mr. Choate's scholarship, we
+certainly learn nothing satisfactory from this unfortunate book. In the
+conversations which the author, clumsily, indeed, but, we are bound to
+believe, faithfully, details, we should expect to find something of
+the rich fruitage of a life-long cultivation in letters. But so poor a
+result does Mr. Parker show in this part of his work, that he drives us
+to the dilemma either of placing Mr. Choate in quite an unworthy rank as
+a scholar, or of concluding, that, in the case of these conversations,
+he bestowed upon his listener very little of any particular
+preciousness, or that what else was bestowed was not understood or
+remembered so as to be recorded.
+
+We cannot dismiss this book without noticing the extremely unhappy
+treatment which the personal and professional character of Mr. Choate
+has received at the author's hands. That he should have introduced into
+it, as he has done, such stories, or jokes, or anecdotes, or whatever
+else they may be called, as the commonest good taste or good sense
+should have told him to exclude, we suppose ought in charity to be
+attributed to mere uncontrollable garrulity. But he has also completely
+missed some of the most obvious and familiar characteristics of Mr.
+Choate, and his description of others which he professes to have
+perceived he spoils by unseemly and unintelligent illustration. We have
+not the patience to follow him through this part of his performance. It
+is enough to say that none who knew Mr. Choate would ever recognize the
+portrait.
+
+We regret extremely that Mr. Parker felt himself called upon to write
+and print his "Reminiscences." He has done himself no credit whatever;
+but that is comparatively a small matter. The book is in every way an
+injurious and indecorous one. And if he really respects the fame of the
+distinguished man whom he has attempted to describe, he must agree with
+us in the hope that his own work may be forgotten as soon as possible.
+
+
+
+
+_A History of the Whig Party_. By R. Mc KINLEY ORMSBY. Boston: Crosby
+Nichols, & Co.
+
+
+The duties of an historian, always difficult, are peculiarly so when he
+attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose
+mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him
+utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of
+judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid
+and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr.
+Ormsby, we propose to inquire.
+
+We are at first favorably impressed. Mr. Ormsby's Preface is most
+striking,--uniting not only touching candor, but innocence absolutely
+refreshing. The duties of historian, which we just now called so
+weighty, rest lightly upon his conscious strength. The historian
+remarks, that "he is aware that his outlines are very imperfect, and
+in many things may be erroneous. He has had no access to libraries or
+public documents; and his statistics are sometimes given from general
+recollection, and are but approximations to accuracy. But, feeling
+that some history of the parties of this country is needed, he has the
+temerity to offer this, till its place shall be supplied by one more
+reliable and satisfactory."
+
+Any man's apology for deficiencies in his book may be accepted, provided
+he be able to make good the suppressed premise upon which, after all,
+the whole depends, namely,--that there was need of his writing at all.
+Mr. Ormsby seems to think there was, but gives no reasons in support of
+his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated
+whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over
+the man so unlucky as not to possess it.
+
+We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
+scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
+nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
+smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
+is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
+these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
+introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
+description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
+rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.
+
+The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
+is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
+institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
+warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
+the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
+mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
+ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
+in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
+etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
+philanthropy,"--etc., etc.
+
+Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
+legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
+distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
+in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
+given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
+States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
+but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
+to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
+is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
+incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.
+
+We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
+pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
+instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
+Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
+their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
+Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
+acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
+March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
+not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
+anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
+Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
+South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
+principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
+did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
+is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
+evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
+by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
+disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
+If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
+leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
+of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
+was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
+has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
+refunding the pay.
+
+Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
+many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
+he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
+1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
+gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
+Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
+Democracy.
+
+It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
+from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
+swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
+and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
+alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
+other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
+party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
+North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
+that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
+Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
+assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
+carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
+slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
+Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
+endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
+thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
+admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
+gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
+denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
+the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
+that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
+blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.
+
+On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
+to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
+do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
+the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
+not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
+a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
+is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
+two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
+servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
+bondage" and "negro servitude!"
+
+Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
+assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
+arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
+refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
+have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
+irrelevant.
+
+"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
+them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
+ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
+He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
+necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
+of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
+_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
+they think?
+
+Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
+efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
+been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
+been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
+increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
+decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
+in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
+consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
+would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
+showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
+of Providence!
+
+"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
+the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
+best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
+based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
+any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.
+
+There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
+champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
+dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
+slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
+is the good of being opposed to it?
+
+The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
+to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
+Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
+Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
+the surviving Whigs?
+
+"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
+party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
+national party." p. 355.
+
+"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
+condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
+ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
+the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
+if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
+party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
+sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
+a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
+be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
+small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
+existence_." pp. 363-4.
+
+This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
+resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
+beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
+Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
+to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
+so obliging as to supply!
+
+After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
+books?
+
+
+
+_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
+"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
+8vo. pp. 395.
+
+This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
+England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
+of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
+taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
+style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
+shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
+Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
+and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
+much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
+real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
+and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
+he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
+him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
+Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
+gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
+varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
+the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
+but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
+merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
+parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
+has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
+conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
+he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
+may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
+to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.
+
+The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
+present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
+questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
+1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
+being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
+great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
+exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
+both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
+comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
+If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
+disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
+then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
+done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
+be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
+devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
+will have proved injurious.
+
+As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
+accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
+differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
+aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
+towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
+may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
+observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
+partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
+main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
+shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
+was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
+I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
+emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
+nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
+for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
+such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
+condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
+to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
+was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
+of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
+expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
+commencement of a struggle."
+
+This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
+suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
+satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
+the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
+from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
+temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
+to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
+regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
+in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
+little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
+work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
+is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
+Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
+and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
+causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
+especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
+the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
+a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
+expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
+full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
+work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
+labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
+means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.
+
+A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
+but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
+drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
+recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
+seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
+the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
+but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
+hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
+very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
+blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
+idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
+in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
+a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.
+
+But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
+neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
+and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
+its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
+occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
+of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
+as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
+mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
+thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
+thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
+degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
+still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
+sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
+equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
+their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
+There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
+sentence.
+
+But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
+to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
+has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preexisting
+slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
+emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
+"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
+the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
+this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
+has now fallen back into wilderness?"
+
+Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
+disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
+in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
+there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
+work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
+a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
+negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
+laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
+of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
+1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
+Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]
+
+Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
+and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
+in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
+the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
+Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
+demand for labor.
+
+In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
+brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
+depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
+freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
+ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
+India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
+prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
+so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
+immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
+Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
+the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
+of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
+of the immigration by yearly instalments.
+
+[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
+were and are_.]
+
+They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
+reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
+hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
+salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
+Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
+end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
+and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
+home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
+learned to husband their means, and put money together."
+
+We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
+animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
+part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
+which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
+negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
+to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
+population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
+or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
+himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
+to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
+the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
+but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
+improvement in the race.
+
+How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
+blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
+them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
+obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
+which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
+the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
+solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
+reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
+reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
+giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.
+
+There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
+other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
+readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
+country far more thorough and not less entertaining.
+
+Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
+transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
+Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
+must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
+venture over the same ground.
+
+
+
+
+_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
+Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.
+
+
+It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
+has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
+responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
+"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
+viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
+narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
+as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
+shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
+admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.
+
+There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
+one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
+to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
+thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
+newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
+his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
+him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
+a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
+excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
+in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
+him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
+of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
+biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
+most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
+entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
+its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
+of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
+and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
+and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
+have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
+would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
+Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
+pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
+previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
+partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
+statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
+continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
+his materials.
+
+The truth is, that a life of Brown was not now needed for those who
+already admired the stalwart nature of the man, even though they might
+deplore his course,--for those who had had their hearts touched and
+stirred by his manliness, his truth, his courage, and his unwavering
+fidelity to conscience and faith in God; but it was greatly needed for
+that much larger class,--the mass of the Northern community,-whose
+timidity had been startled at his rash attempt, whose sympathy had been
+more or less awakened by his bearing and his death, but who were and are
+in a painful state of perplexity, in the endeavor to reconcile their
+abhorrence, or at least their disapproval, of his attack on Virginia,
+with their sense of the admirable nature of the qualities he displayed.
+It was needed also for the very large class who received from the
+newspapers but a confused and imperfect account of the events which took
+place in Virginia from October to December, and who, according to their
+political predilections, condemn or applaud the course of Captain Brown.
+And, above all, it was needed for the men who have disgraced themselves
+by denying to Brown the possession of any virtues, and who have
+outstripped his Southern enemies in applying to him the most opprobrious
+and the falsest epithets. Now, none of these classes will Mr. Redpath's
+book reach with effect. Its tone is such, it is so violent, so
+extravagant, that it will offend all right-thinking men. Even those who
+have known how to hold a steady and clear opinion, in the midst of the
+confusion of the popular mind,--who have not applauded Brown's acts of
+violence, and have condemned his judgment, but who have, nevertheless,
+honored what was noble in him, and sympathized with him in his strong
+love of liberty,--who, while acknowledging him guilty under the law,
+mourned that the law should not be tempered with mercy,--and who
+have recognized in him at once the excellences and the errors of an
+enthusiast,--those who have most faithfully endeavored to find the truth
+concerning him, though they will obtain some interesting information
+from Mr. Redpath's book, will be the most dissatisfied with it.
+
+It has always been among the offences of the out-and-out Abolitionists,
+to abuse the force of words, and to make exclusive pretensions to virtue
+and the love of liberty. This book is written in the spirit and style
+of an Abolition tract. In representing John Brown as little more than a
+mere hero of the Abolitionists, the author has done essential disservice
+to the cause of freedom, and to the memory of a man who was as free from
+party-ties as he was from personal ambitions.
+
+Although John Brown's character was a simple one, a long time must pass
+before it will be generally understood, and justice be done to it. The
+passion and the prejudice which the later acts of his life have excited
+cannot die away for years. Mr. Redpath has done his best to perpetuate
+them. In seasons of excitement, and amid the struggles of political
+contention, the men who use the most extravagant and the most violent
+words have, for a time, the advantage; but, in the long run, they damage
+whatever cause they may adopt; and the truth, which their declamations
+have obscured or their falsehoods have violated, finally asserts itself.
+In our country, the worth and the strength of temperance and moderation
+of speech seem to be peculiarly forgotten. Words, which should stand
+for things, are too commonly used with no respect to their essential
+meaning. Political debates are embittered, personal feeling wounded,
+the tone of manners lowered, and national character degraded, by this
+disregard of words as the symbol and expression of truth. Moderation is
+brought into disrepute, and justice, fairness, and honesty of opinion
+tendered as rare as they are difficult of attainment. The manner in
+which John Brown has been spoken of affords the plainest illustration
+of these facts. Extravagance in condemnation has been answered by
+extravagance in praise of his life and deeds.
+
+The most interesting and the most novel part of Mr. Redpath's book is
+the letter written by John Brown in 1857, giving some account of his
+early life. It is, in all respects, a remarkable composition. It
+exhibits the main influences by which his character was formed; it
+affords a key to the history of his life; it illustrates the nature of
+the social institutions under which such a man could grow up; and it
+shows his natural traits, before they had become hardened and trained
+under the discipline of later experience and circumstance. Nothing has
+been more marked in the various exhibitions of his character, as they
+have come successively to view, than their complete consistency. This
+letter, this account of his youth, squares perfectly with what we
+know of his manhood. The whole of it should be read by all who would
+understand the man, with his native faculty of command, with his mingled
+sternness and tenderness, with his large heart, his steadfast will. The
+base of his soul was truth; and the motive power of his life, faith in
+the justice of God.
+
+He was a man of a rare type,--so rare in our times as to seem like a
+man of another age. He belonged to the same class with the Scottish
+Covenanters and the English Regicides. He belonged to the great company
+of those who have followed the footsteps of Gideon, and forgot that the
+armory of the Lord contained other weapons than the sword. He belonged
+to those who from time to time have adopted some cause,--the good old
+cause,--and have shrunk from no sacrifice which it required at their
+hands. "I have now been confined over a month," wrote John Brown to
+his children, in one of that most affecting series of letters from his
+prison, "with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as fair in the
+face as I am capable of doing, and I now feel most grateful that I am
+counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth."
+"Suffering is a gift not given to every one," wrote one of the
+Covenanters, who was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, in
+1684,--"and I desire to bless God's name with my whole heart and soul,
+that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of
+suffering."
+
+That John Brown was wrong in his attempt to break up slavery by
+violence, few will deny. But it was a wrong committed by a good
+man,--by one who dreaded the vengeance of the Almighty and forgot His
+long-suffering. His errors were the result of want of patience and want
+of imagination, and he paid the penalty for them. He had faith in the
+Divine ordering of the affairs of this world; but he forgot that
+the processes by which evils like that of slavery are done away are
+thousand-year-long,--that, to be effectual, they must be slow,--that
+wrong is no remedy for wrong. He was an anachronism, and met the fate of
+all anachronisms that strive to stem and divert the present current by
+modes which the world has outgrown. But now that he and those dearest
+to him have so bitterly expiated his faults, both charity and justice
+demand that his virtues should be honored, and he himself mourned. It
+will be a gloomy indication of the poor, low spirit of our days, if fear
+and falsehood, if passion or indifference, should cause the lesson of
+John Brown's life to be neglected, or should check a natural sympathy
+with the noble heart of the old man. That lesson is not for any one part
+of the country more than another; that sympathy may be given by the
+South as well as by the North. It is not sympathy for his acts, but
+for the spirit of his life and the heroism of his death. The lesson of
+manliness, uprightness, and courage, which his life teaches, is to be
+learned by us, not merely as lovers of liberty, not as opponents of
+slavery, but as men who need more manliness, more uprightness, more
+courage and simplicity in our common lives.
+
+All that is possible of apology for John Brown is to be found in his
+letters and in his speech to the court before his sentence. It is,
+perhaps, too soon to hope that these letters and this speech will be
+read with candor and a feeling of human brotherhood by those who now
+look with abhorrence or with indifference on his memory. But the time
+will come when they will be held at their true worth by all, as the
+expressions of a large, tender soul,--when they will be read with
+sympathetic pity, even by those who still find it difficult to forgive
+their author for his offence against society. These letters appeal to
+the better nature of every man and woman in America; and it will be a
+sad thing, if their appeal be disregarded.
+
+We trust, that, before long, a fairer and fuller biography than that by
+Mr. Redpath will remove the obstacle which this book now presents to the
+general appreciation of the character and life of John Brown.
+
+
+
+
+_Poems_. By SYDNEY DOBELL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
+
+
+Many of Mr. Dobell's poems have passages which are musical, vigorous,
+and peculiar, and hardly in any part can he be justly charged with
+prolonging an echo. He is not one of the many mocking-birds that infest
+the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be
+wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a
+heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep
+the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of
+that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity
+of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate
+master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping,
+and turn away from colors, however exquisite, that are strewn, as it
+were, on a palette, rather than wrought into picture and harmonized
+to the tone of life. The truth is, that the grandly designing hand is
+nowhere completely visible in the poetry of Young England. Many of her
+more youthful poets show a mass of rich materials, but they appear to
+have been upheaved by convulsions, half-blinding us with their splendor,
+while, like lava pouring from a volcano's crater, they take no
+prescribed channel, they flow into no immortal mould. It is this fiery
+gleam on the surface of matter hot from chaos, which the multitude honor
+as the highest manifestation of genius. But this is to desecrate a word
+which implies constructive power of the first order. Form is its highest
+expression. Without the shaping faculty, which artistically rounds
+to perfection, no glitter of decoration, nor even force and fire of
+expression, can keep the work from falling into ruins. If the beautiful,
+as Goethe said, includes in it the good, then perfect beauty alone is
+everlasting. This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made,
+but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is
+not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in
+"The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt
+out of the memory.
+
+
+
+
+_A Good Fight, and other Tales_. By CHARLES KEADE. New York: Harper &
+Brothers. 1859.
+
+About the middle of the fifteenth century, a youth named Gerard, a
+native of Tergou, in Holland, loved Margaret, the daughter of Peter,
+a learned man of the neighboring village of Zevenbergen. Expecting
+immediate marriage, their intimacy was restrained by no limits. The
+interference of Gerard's relations, however, separated them for a time,
+during which the young man visited Rome, and gained some distinction as
+a transcriber of ancient manuscripts. Learning, after a while, that he
+was about to return, his kindred caused a false report of Margaret's
+death to be conveyed to him, and, by thus crushing all the hopes of
+his young life, had the final satisfaction of seeing him take priestly
+orders, which threw his patrimony into their hands. Having broken two
+hearts, and brought a world of shame upon an innocent girl to get it, it
+is only fair to suppose they enjoyed it with tranquillity.
+
+Margaret, left alone, gave birth to a child, the greatness of whose
+manhood might have softened the remembrance of her earlier sorrows, had
+she lived to witness it. But she died when he was thirteen years old.
+Gerard, her true husband, who had never rejoined her while living, also
+died within a brief space. The son they left was the famous Erasmus.
+
+Mr. Reade has taken this little record, which would never have become
+historical but for the accidental consequence of the loves of Gerard and
+Margaret, and wrought it into a story of exquisite grace and delicacy.
+A dead and half-forgotten fact, he has warmed it into fresh life, and
+given it all the beauties with which his brilliant imagination could
+endow it. Though shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly inferior
+to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit.
+The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest
+books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is
+for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its
+power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents
+follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the
+interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the
+entire story. On the contrary, it follows pretty closely the old formula
+of troubled true-love until the closing chapter, when triumphant virtue
+sets in. But this takes nothing from the effect. All is so clear and
+vivid in description, so glittering with gleams of wit, relieved by soft
+shadows of purest pathos, so full of the spirit of tender humanity,
+that the reader finds no reason to complain, except that the end is so
+speedily reached.
+
+The author has sacrificed history, in his conclusion, to satisfy a
+natural feeling. No one will object because the "Good Fight" terminates
+victoriously in the right direction. The parents of Erasmus suffered;
+but it would be a pity, if readers, after the lapse of four hundred
+years, must mourn their woes to the extent that would inevitably be
+necessary, if Mr. Reade had not arranged it otherwise. And his object,
+which was to prove--if proof were needed--that all human lives, however
+obscure, have their own share of romance, is not disturbed by this
+variation from the severity of the chronicle.
+
+
+
+
+_The Undergraduate_. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and
+Professional Students in the United States and Europe. [Greek:_'Ekasto
+onmachoi pantos_]; January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New
+Haven, Conn.
+
+We are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have
+commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two
+or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes,
+a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a
+few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and
+jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would
+he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the
+opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A
+freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its
+promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not
+something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect the youth, and
+be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining
+the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three
+or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that
+many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will
+hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased,
+therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest
+pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and
+dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.
+
+But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor
+than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has
+almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that,
+promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and
+apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College,
+and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions.
+Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and
+Introduction. They are briefly these:--"To record the history, promote
+the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize
+the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and
+Professional Students, and their Institutions."
+
+The name, "Undergraduate," shows by whom it is to be managed; but its
+contributors are, and will doubtless continue to he, in part, of a more
+advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we
+have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they
+were contributed to a students' journal. The first paper, for instance,
+"German Student-Life and Travel," is not only well written, but full of
+excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of
+good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. "A Student's
+Voyage to Labrador" is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new
+to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account
+of the two ancient societies of Yale College, "Brothers in Unity" and
+"Linonia," rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their
+protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will
+interest all students, and many outside of the student-world, "The
+Undergraduate" would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them
+somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful
+character. Perhaps it might be safe to lay it down as a law, that, the
+tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the
+older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of
+discussion. It is safe to say that a young man's essay is most likely
+to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or
+experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions
+on "Virtue," "Honesty," "Shakspeare," "Human Nature," and such large
+subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.
+
+On the whole, "The Undergraduate" is most creditable to the enterprise
+that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If
+we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be,
+that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism
+should not be spelt Calv_a_nism, Thackeray Thack_a_ray, nor Courvoisier
+_Corvosier_,--neither should traveller be spelt _traveler_, nor theatre
+_theater_. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a
+place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking
+world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in
+the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring
+University, it should be a condition that the English standard of
+spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.
+
+With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical
+which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our
+educational institutions.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year
+1860. Boston, Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 399. $1.00.
+
+The New American Cyclopedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge.
+Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. VIII. Fugger-Haynau.
+New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 788, vii. $3.00.
+
+Life Without and Life Within: or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
+Poems. By Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth
+Century," "At Home and Abroad," etc. Edited by her Brother, Arthur B.
+Fuller. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & Chase. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.00.
+
+Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. With Narrative
+Illustrations. By Robert Dale Owen, formerly Member of Congress, and
+American Minister to Naples. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp.
+528. $1.25.
+
+Title-Hunting. By E. L. Llewellyn. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.
+pp. 357. $1.00.
+
+The Rivals. A Tale of the Times of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
+By Hon. Jere. Clemens, Author of "Bernard Lite" and "Mustang Gray."
+Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 286. 75 cts.
+
+Poems. By Sydney Dobell. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. 544. 75
+cts. An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco, in the Summer
+of 1859. By Horace Greeley. New York. Saxton, Barker, & Co. 12mo. pp.
+386. $1.00.
+
+Morphy's Games: a Selection of the Best Games played by the
+Distinguished Champion in Europe and America. With Analytical and
+Critical Notes by J Loewenthal. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp.
+xviii., 473. $1.25.
+
+Compensation: or, Always a Future. By Anne M. H. Brewster. Philadelphia.
+Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 297. 75 cts.
+
+The Eighteen Christian Centuries. By the Rev. James White, Author of a
+"History of France." With a Copious Index. From the Second Edinburgh
+Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 538. $1.25.
+
+An Appeal to the People in Behalf of their Rights as Authorized
+Interpreters of the Bible. By Catherine E. Beecher, Author of "Common
+Sense Applied to Religion," "Domestic Economy," etc. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. x., 380. $1.00.
+
+On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The
+Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles
+Darwin, M. A., Fellow of the Royal Geological, Linnaean, etc., Societies;
+Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round
+the World." New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.25.
+
+Life in Spain, Past and Present. By Walter Thornbury, Author of "Every
+Man his own Trumpeter," "Art and Nature," etc. With Illustrations. New
+York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 383. $1.00.
+
+Poems. By the Author of "A Life for a Life," "John Halifax, Gentleman,"
+etc. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp.270. 75 cts.
+
+The Female Skeptic: or, Faith Triumphant, New York. R. M. DeWitt. 12mo.
+pp. 449. $1.00.
+
+Report on Weights and Measures, read before the Pharmaceutical
+Association, at their Eighth Annual Session, held in Boston, September
+15, 1859. By Alfred B. Taylor, of Philadelphia, Chairman of the
+Committee of Weights and Measures. Boston. Press of Rand & Avery. 8vo.
+pamphlet, pp. 104. 50 cts.
+
+The Adopted Heir. By Miss Pardoe, Author of "The Confessions of a Pretty
+Woman," "Life of Maria de Medicis." etc. Complete and unabridged.
+Philadelphia. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.25.
+
+A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and
+his Companions, by Captain M'Clintock, R. N., LL.D. With Maps and
+Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 375. $1.50.
+
+The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By Peter
+H. Burnett. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xiv., 741. $2.50.
+
+Sermons on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. Delivered at Trinity
+Chapel, Brighton. By the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, M.A., the Incumbent.
+Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xii., 425. $1.00.
+
+Trinitarianism not the Doctrine of the New Testament. Two Lectures,
+delivered, partly in Review of Rev. Dr. Huntington's Discourse on the
+Trinity, in the Hollis Street Church, January 7 and 14,1860. By T. S.
+King. Printed by Request. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 8vo. pamphlet,
+pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Lyrics and other Poems. By S. J. Donaldson, Jr. Philadelphia. Lindsay &
+Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 208. 75 cts.
+
+Twenty Years Ago, and Now. By T. S. Arthur. Philadelphia. G. G. Evans.
+12mo. pp. 307. $1.00.
+
+The Water Witch: or, The Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale. By J. Fenimore
+Cooper. Illustrated from Designs by F. 0. C. Darley. New York. Townsend
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.50.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number
+29, March, 1860, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, MARCH 1860 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29,
+March, 1860, by Various
+
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+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860
+       A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9389]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 28, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. V, NO. 29 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, David Widger and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. V.--MARCH, 1860.--NO. XXIX.
+
+
+
+THE FRENCH CHARACTER.
+
+The American character is now generally acknowledged to be the most
+cosmopolitan of modern times; and a native of this country, all things
+being equal, is likely to form a less prescriptive idea of other nations
+than the inhabitants of countries whose neighborhood and history unite
+to bequeathe and perpetuate certain fixed notions. Before the frequent
+intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we
+derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian
+skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest
+association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous.
+All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism,
+strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a
+Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner
+stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice;
+for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to
+our childhood proved a poor _emigre_ who gained a precarious livelihood
+as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of
+smiles, shrugs, bows, and compliments, prided himself on _la belle
+France_, played the fiddle, and took snuff. A more dignified view
+succeeded, when we read "Telemaque," so long an initiatory text-book
+in the study of the language, blended as its crystal style was in our
+imaginations with the pure and noble character of Fenelon. Perhaps the
+next link in the chain of our estimate was supplied by the bust of
+Voltaire, whose withered, sneering physiognomy embodies the wit and
+indifference, the soulless vagabondage that forms the worst side of
+the national mind. As patriotic sentiment awakened, the disinterested
+enthusiasm of Lafayette, woven, as it is, into the record of the
+struggle which gave birth to our republic, yielded another and more
+attractive element to the fancy portrait. Then, as our reading expanded,
+came the tragic chronicle of the first French Revolution and the
+brilliant and dazzling melodrama of Napoleon, the traditions so pathetic
+and sublime of gifted women, the _tableaux_ so exciting to a youthful
+temper of military glory. And thus, by degrees, we found ourselves
+bewildered by the most vivid contrasts and apparently irreconcilable
+traits, until the original idea of a Frenchman expanded to the widest
+range of associations, from the ingenious devices of a mysterious
+_cuisine_ to the brilliant manoeuvres of the battle-field; infinite
+female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable _bon-mots_,
+exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined
+profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,--Ude, Napoleon, Madame Recamier,
+Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and
+desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical
+and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we
+first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. The society of one of those
+benign _savans_ who attract the sympathy and win the admiration of
+young students may yield a delightful and noble association to our
+future reminiscences; or an unmodified experience of cynical hearts
+joined to scenical manners may leave us nothing to regret, upon our
+departure, save the material advantages there enjoyed. But whoever knows
+life in Paris, unrelieved by some consistent and individual purpose,
+will find it a succession of excitements, temporary, yet varied,--full
+of the agreeable, yet barren of consecutive interest and satisfactory
+results,--admirable as a recreative hygiene, deplorable as a permanent
+resource; their inevitable consequence being a faith in the external, a
+dependence on the immediate, and a habit of vagrant pleasure-seeking,
+which must at last cloy and harden the manly soul. For this very reason,
+however, the scenes, characters, and society there exhibited are
+prolific of suggestion to the philosophic mind.
+
+In every phase of life, manners, and action, we see a characteristic
+excellence in detail and process, and an equally remarkable deficiency
+in grand practical idea and consistent moral sentiment. The French
+chemists have the art to extract quinine from Peruvian bark and conserve
+the juices of meats; but one of their most patriotic writers calls
+attention to the wholly diverse motives addressed by Napoleon and Nelson
+to their respective followers. "Soldiers," exclaimed the former, "from
+the summit of those Pyramids forty ages are looking down upon you."
+"England," said the latter, "expects every man to do his duty." In
+Paris, the science of dissection is perfect; in London, that of
+nutrition;--Dumas has reduced plagiarism to a fine art; Cobbett made
+common-sense a social lever;--a British merchant or statesman attaches
+his name to a document in characters of such individuality that the
+signature is known at a glance; a French official invents a flourish
+so intricate that the forger's ingenuity is baffled in the attempt to
+imitate it;--government, on one side of the Channel, employs a taster to
+detect adulteration in wine whose sensitive palate is a fortune; on
+the other, the hereditary fame of a brewery is the guaranty of the
+excellence of ale.
+
+This minute observance of detail has made the French leaders in fashion;
+it directs invention to the minutiae of dress, and confirms the sway of
+the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an
+extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as
+characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with
+their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so
+imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as
+every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick,
+"nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and
+lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your
+clothes."
+
+The superiority of the French in the minor philosophy of life was
+curiously exemplified during our Revolutionary War. The octogenarians of
+Rhode Island used to expatiate on the remarkable difference between the
+troops of France and those of England when quartered among them. The
+former speedily made a series of little arrangements, and fell naturally
+into a pleasant routine, making the best of everything, adapting
+themselves to the ways and prejudices of the inhabitants, and, in a
+word, becoming assimilated at once to a new mode of life and form of
+society; their wit, cheerfulness, and gallantry are yet proverbial
+in that region. The English, on the other hand, even when in full
+possession of the country, made but an awkward use of their privileges,
+were ill-at-ease, failed to recognize anything genial in the habits and
+manners even of the Tory families. While the French officers introduced
+the mysteries of their _cuisine_, and brightened many a rustic
+household with song, anecdote, dance, and conversation, the English
+complained of the simple viands, regretted London fogs and beer,
+and made themselves and their hosts, whether forced or voluntary,
+uncomfortable. They exhibited no tact or facility in improving the
+resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We
+beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and
+impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic
+allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and
+ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off,
+meantime, chagrin and _ennui_ with as much alacrity as they did
+Cossacks.
+
+_Finesse_ characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the
+cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as
+the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of
+intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it
+more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English,
+shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is _finesse_,
+which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal
+attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to
+an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims,
+of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the
+tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted.
+To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in
+France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated
+woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days
+the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order
+to learn the _savoir vivre_ of the metropolis. Itineraries of other
+cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs,
+the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these
+curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century
+ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, _Gouvernantes,
+Emeutes, Reves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit_,
+--corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, _femmes de
+quarante ans_, with their "_deux ressources, la devotion et le bel
+esprit"; Contre Poisons_,--indispensable in those days of jealousy
+and assassination; _Pots de Fleurs_ form an item of the most limited
+establishment; emblems, such as _Rubans_ and _Bonnets Rouges_, are
+described as essential to the intelligent conduct of the visitor; and a
+chapter is devoted to Gallantry, of which a modern author in the same
+department pensively remarks, "_Cette ancienne galanterie qui vivait
+d'esprit et d'infidelites est comptletement denaturee_."
+
+It is curious how municipal, economical, and social life are thus
+simultaneously daguerreotyped and indicate their mutual and intricate
+association in the French capital. Its history involves that of
+churches, congresses, academies, prisons, cemeteries, and police, each
+of which represents domestic and royal vicissitudes. What other city
+furnishes such a work as the Duchess D'Abrantes' "Histoire des Salons
+de Paris"? The _salons_ of Madame Necker, Polignac, De Beaumont, De
+Mazarin, Roland, De Genlis, of Condorcet, of Malmaison, of Talleyrand,
+and of the Hotel Rambouillet, etc., embrace the career of statesmen
+and soldiers, the literary celebrities, the schools of philosophy,
+the revolutions, the court, the wars, diplomacy, and, in a word, the
+veritable annals of France. Society, according to this lively writer, in
+the proper acceptation of the term, was born in France in the reign of
+the Cardinal de Richelieu; and thenceforth, in its history, we trace
+that of the nation.
+
+Throughout the most salient eras of this history, therefore, is visible
+female influence. Cousin has just revived the career of Madame de
+Longueville, which is identified with the cabals, financial expedients,
+and war of the Fronde; tournaments, which formed so striking a feature
+in the diversions of Louis XIV.'s court, owed their revival to the whim
+of one of his mistresses; Montespan fostered a brood of satirists,
+and Maintenon one of devotees, while that extraordinary religious
+controversy which initiated the sect of the Quietists had its origin in
+the example and agency of Madame Guyon. Even now, although, as a late
+writer has quaintly observed, "no lady brings her distaff to the
+council-chamber," the influence of the sex on political opinion, in
+its operation as a social principle, is recognized. A friend of mine,
+returning from a dinner-party, described the free and witty sarcasm with
+which a fair Legitimist assailed the Imperial rule; a week afterwards,
+meeting her at the same table, she related, that, a few days after her
+imprudent conversation, she received a courteous invitation from the
+chief of police. "When they were seated alone in his bureau,--Madame,"
+said he, "you have position, conversational talent, and wield the pen
+effectively; are you disposed to exert this influence, henceforth, in
+behalf of, instead of against the government?" Before her indignant
+negative was fairly uttered, he opened a drawer that seemed full of
+Napoleons, and glanced at them and her significantly. Thus Montesquieu's
+observation continues true:--"The individual who would attempt to judge
+of the government by the men at the head of affairs, and not by the
+women who sway those men, would fall into the same error as he who
+judges of a machine by its outward-action, and not by its secret
+springs"; and the old base system of espionage is revived under the new
+despotism.
+
+It has become proverbial in France, that the life of woman has three
+eras,--in youth a coquette, in middle-life a wit, and in age a
+_devote_,--which is but another mode of expressing that economy of
+personal gifts, that shrewd use of the most available social power,
+which distinguishes the Gallic from the Saxon woman, the worldly from
+the domestic instincts. There only can we imagine a royal favorite
+admitting her indebtedness to a royal wife. "To her," wrote Madame de
+Maintenon of the Queen of Louis; "I owe the King's affection. Picture
+a sovereign worn out with state affairs, intrigues, and ceremonies,
+possessed of a _confidante_ always the same, always calm, always
+rational, equally able to instruct and to soothe, with the intelligence
+of a confessor and the winning gentleness of a woman." It is peculiar
+to the sex there to escape outward soil, whatever may be their moral
+exposure; for one instinctively recognizes a Frenchwoman by her clean
+boots, even in the muddiest thoroughfare, her spotless muslin cap,
+kerchief, and collar. She retains also her individuality after marriage
+better than the fair of other nations, not only in character, but in
+name, the maiden appellative being joined to her husband's, so that,
+although a Madame, she keeps the world informed that she was _nee_ of a
+family whose title, however modest, she will not drop. The maxims, so
+prevalent in France, which declare matrimony the tomb of love, are
+the legitimate result of a superficial theory of life and the mutual
+independence of the sexes thence arising; accordingly we are assured,
+"C'est surtout entre mari et femme que l'amour a le moins de chance de
+succes. Ils vieillirent ensemble comme deux portraits de famille, sans
+aucune intimite, aucun profit pour l'esprit, et arrives au dernier
+relais de leur existence, le souvenir n'avait rien a faire entre eux."
+
+It is a curious illustration at once of the mobility and the isolation
+of the French mind, that, while it assimilates elements within its
+sphere which in other nations are kept comparatively apart, it rejects
+the process in regard to foreign material. Thus, in no other capital are
+politics and literature so interwoven with society; the love-affairs of
+a minister directly influence his policy; the tone of the _salon_
+often inspires and moulds the author; the social history of an epoch
+necessarily includes the genius of its statesmanship and of its letters,
+because they are identified with the intrigues, _the bon-mots_, and the
+conversation of the period; more is to be learned at a lady's morning
+reception or evening _soiree_ than in the writer's library or the
+official's cabinet. On the other hand, how few threads from abroad can
+be found in this mingled web of civic, literary, and social life! The
+vicinity of England and the influx of Englishmen have scarcely brought
+the ideas or the sentiment of that country into nearer recognition at
+Paris than was the case a century ago. Notwithstanding an occasional
+outbreak of Anglomania, the best French authors spell English proper
+names no better, the best French critics appreciate Shakspeare as
+little, and the majority of Parisians have no less partial and fixed a
+notion of the characteristics of their insular neighbors, than before
+the days of journalism and steam. The attempts to represent English
+manners and character are as gross caricatures now as in the time of
+Montaigne. However apt at fusion within, the national egotism is
+as repugnant to assimilation from without as ever. The stock seems
+incapable of vital grafting, as has been remarkably evidenced in all the
+colonial experiments of France.
+
+The excellence of the French character, intellectually speaking,
+consists in routine and detail. How well their authors describe and
+their artists depict peculiarities! how exact the evolutions of a French
+regiment, and the statements of a French naturalist! how apt is a
+Parisian woman in raising gracefully her skirts, throwing on a shawl, or
+carrying a basket! In loyalty to a method they are unrivalled, in the
+triumph of individualities weak; their artisans can make a glove fit
+perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a coat; their authors,
+like their soldiers, can be marshalled in groups; means are superior
+to ends; manners, the exponent of Nature in other lands, there color,
+modify, and characterize the development of intellect; the subordinate
+principle in government, in science, and in life, becomes paramount;
+drawing, the elemental language of Art, is mastered, while the standard
+of expression remains inadequate; the laws of disease are profoundly
+studied, while this knowledge bears no proportionate relation to the
+practical art of healing; the ancient rules of dramatic literature are
+pedantically followed, while the "pity and terror" they were made to
+illustrate are unawakened; the programme of republican government is
+lucidly announced, its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded,
+while its spirit and realization continue in abeyance: and thus
+everywhere we find a singular disproportion between formula and fact,
+profession and practice, specific knowledge and its application. The
+citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions,
+the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he
+aspire to be a courtier or a chemist, a soldier or a _savant_, a dancer
+or a doctor; and yet, for complete equipment, he must temper each weapon
+he there acquires, or it will break in his hand.
+
+In every epoch a word rules or illustrates the dominant spirit:
+_citoyen_ in the Revolution, _moustache_ during the Consulate,
+_victoire_ under the Empire, to-day _la Bourse_. "To a Frenchman," says
+Mrs. Jameson, "the words that express things seem the things themselves,
+and he pronounces the words _amour, grace, sensibilite_, etc., with a
+relish in his mouth as if he tasted them, as if he possessed them. They
+talk of "_le sentiment du metier_"; in travelling, Paris is the eternal
+theme. A sagacious observer has remarked in their language the "short,
+aphoristic phrase, the frequent absence of the copulative, avoidance of
+dependent phrases, and disdain of modifying adverbs. _Naivete, abandon,
+ennui_, etc., are specific terms of the language, and designate national
+traits. When Beaumarchais ridiculed a provincial expression, the
+Dauphiness, we are told, composed a head-dress expressly to give it a
+local habitation and a name."
+
+The mania for equality, in the first Revolution, De Tocqueville shows
+was not so much the result of political aspiration as the fierce protest
+against those exclusive rights once enjoyed by the nobility, (shown by
+Arthur Young to have been the primary impulse to revolution,) to hunt,
+keep pigeons, grind corn, press grapes, etc. For a long period, the man
+of letters was never combined with the statesman, as in England. In
+France, speculation in government ran wild, because the thinkers,
+suddenly raised to influence in affairs, had enjoyed no ordeal of public
+duty. Hence certain imaginary fruits of liberty were sought, and its
+absolute worth misunderstood. And now that experience, dearly bought,
+has modified visionary and moulded practical theories, how much of the
+normal interest of the French character has evaporated! Even the love
+of beauty and the love of glory, proverbially its distinctions, are
+eclipsed by the sullen orb of Imperialism; the Bourse is more attractive
+than the battle-field, material luxury than artistic distinction.
+
+One of their own philosophers has summed up, with justice, the anomalous
+elements of the versatile national character:--
+
+"Did there ever appear on the earth another nation so fertile in
+contrasts, so extreme in its acts,--more under the dominion of
+feeling, less ruled by principle; always better or worse than was
+anticipated,--now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people
+so unchangeable in its leading features that it may be recognized by
+portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in
+its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to
+itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it
+has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet, when once driven
+forth and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles to
+any lengths and to dare anything; indocile by disposition, but better
+pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a sovereign than
+with a free and regular government under its chief citizens; now fixed
+in hostility to subjection of any kind, now so passionately wedded to
+servitude that nations made to serve cannot vie with it; led by a thread
+so long as no word of resistance is spoken, wholly ungovernable when the
+standard of revolt is raised,--thus always deceiving its masters,
+who fear it too much or too little; never so free that it cannot be
+subjugated, never so kept down that it cannot break the yoke; qualified
+for every pursuit, but excelling in nothing but war; more prone to
+worship chance, force, success, _eclat_, noise, than real glory; endowed
+with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better
+adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of
+great enterprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation
+of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred,
+terror, or pity, but never indifference?"[1]
+
+What other social sphere could afford room for the vocation so aptly
+described in the following sketch of his "ways and means," given in a
+recent picture of life in Paris by a sycophant of millionnaires, at
+a period when interests, not rights, are the watchwords of the
+nation?--"Mon role de familier dans une veritable population d'enrichis
+me donnait du credit dans les boudoirs, et mon credit dans les boudoirs
+ajoutait a ma faveur pres ces pauvres diables de millionaires, presque
+tous vieux et blases, courant toujours en chancelant apres un plaisir
+nouveau. Les marchands de vin me font la cour comme les jolies femmes,
+pour que je daigne leur indiqner des connaisseurs assez riches pour
+payer les bonnes choses le prix qu'elles valent. Mon metier est de tout
+savoir,--l'anecdote de la cour, le scandale de la ville, le secret des
+coulisses." And this species of adventurer, we are told, has always the
+same commencement to his memoirs,--"_Il vint a Paris en sabots._"
+
+[Footnote 1: De Tocqueville.]
+
+The numerous avocations of women in the French capital explain, in a
+measure, their superior tact, efficiency, and force of character. This
+is especially true of females of the middle class, who have been justly
+described as remarkable for good sense and appropriate costumes. The
+participation of women in so many departments of art and industry
+affects, also, the social tone and the manners. Sterne, long ago,
+remarked it of the fair shopkeepers. "The genius of a people," he says,
+"where nothing but the monarchy is _Salique_, having ceded this
+department totally to the women, by a continual higgling with customers
+of all ranks and sizes, from morning to night, like so many rough
+pebbles in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but
+will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant."
+
+How distinctly may be read the political vicissitudes of France in her
+literature,--classic, highly finished, keen, and formal, when a monarch
+was idolized and authors wrote only for courts and scholars: Bossuet,
+with his rhetorical graces; La Bruyere, with his gallery of characters,
+not one of which was moulded among the people; De la Rochefoucauld's
+maxims, drawn from the arcana of fashionable life; Racine, whose heroes
+die with an immaculate couplet and speak the faint echoes of Grecian or
+Roman sentiment! When politics became common property, and the walls of
+a prescriptive and conventional system fell, how wild ran speculation
+and sentiment in the copious and superficial Voltaire and the vague
+humanities of Rousseau! When an era of military despotism supervened
+upon the reign of license, how destitute of lettered genius seemed the
+nation, except when the pensive enthusiasm of Chateaubriand breathed
+music from American wilds or a London garret, and Madame de Stael gave
+utterance to her eloquent philosophy in exile at Geneva! "_Napoleon eut
+voulu faire manoeuvrer l'esprit humain comme il faisait manoeuvrer ses
+vieux bataillons_." Yet more emphatic is the reaction of political
+conditions upon literary development after the Restoration. The tragic
+horrors and protracted fever of the Revolution, and the passion for
+military glory exaggerated by the victories of Napoleon, legitimately
+initiated the intense school, which during the present century has
+signalized French literature. The _prestige_ of the scholar revived, and
+literary eclipsed warlike fame; but with the revival of letters came
+the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and
+in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the
+melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in
+dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Beranger;
+fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly
+artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the chaos and the
+earthquakes that laid bare and upheaved life and society in the
+preceding epochs; the journal became an intellectual gymnasium and
+Olympic game, where the first minds of the nation sought exercise and
+glory; the _feuilleton_ almost necessitated the novelist to concentrate
+upon each chapter the amount of interest once diffused through a volume;
+criticism, from tedious analysis, became a brilliant ordeal; egotism
+inspired a world of new confessions, political questions a new school
+of popular writing, the love of effect and the passion for excitement a
+multitude of dramatic, narrative, and biographical books, wherein the
+serenity of thought, the tranquil beauty of truth, and the healthful
+tone of nature were sacrificed, not without dazzling genius, to
+immediate fame, pecuniary reward, and the delight _d'eprouver une
+sensation_. Even in the history of the fine arts, we find the political
+element guiding the pencil and ruling the fortunes of genius. David was
+the government painter, and regarded Gros and Girodet as _suspects_.
+He effected a revolution in Art by going back to severe anatomical
+principles in design. There were conspiracies against him in the
+studios, and war was declared between color and design; the palette
+and the pencil were in conflict; David, the Napoleon of the
+former,--Prud'hon, Gericault, Delacroix, and others, leaders in the
+latter faction. Each party was surrounded by its respective corps of
+amateurs; and military terms were in vogue in the _atelier_ and academy.
+"_S'il est permis_" says Delacroix, speaking of his Sardanapalus,
+"de comparer les petites choses aux grandes, ce fut mon Waterloo. Je
+devenais l'abomination de la peinture; il fallait me refuser l'eau et
+le sel." "If you wish to share the favors of the government," said an
+official to another artist, "you must change your manner." From the
+tyranny of external influences have arisen the incongruities of the
+French schools of painting, and especially what has been well called
+"that meretricious breed which continue to depict the Magdalen with
+the united attractions of Palestine and the Palais Royal." The large
+pictures which Gros painted during the Empire were consigned to
+long obscurity at the Restoration. The lives, too, of many of these
+cultivators of the arts of peace had a tragic close. Haydon's fate made
+a deep impression in England, because it was an exceptional case; while,
+of the modern painters of France, whose career was far more harmonious
+and successful than his, Gros drowned himself, Robert cut his throat,
+Prud'hon died in misery, and Greuze was buried in Potter's Field. The
+side of life we naturally associate with tranquillity thus offers, in
+this dramatic realm, scenes of excitement and pity. It is the same in
+literature. Witness the fierce struggle between the Romantic and Classic
+schools,--the early victories of the _enfant sublime_, Victor Hugo.
+And we must acknowledge that "_les lettres et les arts ont aussi leurs
+emeutes et leurs revolutions_," and accept the inference of one of the
+_Parisian literati_,--that "_l'esprit a toujours quelque chose de
+satanique_." Every revolution is identified with some musical air: when
+Louis XVIII. first appeared at the theatre, after his long exile, he was
+greeted with the "Vive Henri IV.," and the new constitution of 1830 was
+ushered in by the "Marseillaise." The Vaudeville theatre, we are told,
+during the Revolution and under the Empire, was essentially political.
+An imaginary resemblance between _la chaste Suzanne_ and Marie
+Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which
+Cambaceres took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it
+his official protection.
+
+In the family of nations France is the child of illusions, and excites
+the sympathy of the magnanimous because her destinies have been marred
+through the errors of the imagination rather than of the heart.
+Government, religion, and society--the three great elements of civil
+life--have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact.
+Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and
+literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness
+in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a
+thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety,
+gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without
+the solid foundation of principles and the efficient development in
+practice, either of polity, a social system, or religious belief,--the
+theory and the sentiment of each being at the same time luxuriant,
+attractive, and prolific.
+
+The popular writers are eloquent in abstractions, but each seems
+inspired by a thorough egotism. Descartes, their philosopher, drew all
+his inferences from consciousness; Madame de Sevigne, the epistolary
+queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love
+of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of
+self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the
+lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society
+through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyere elaborated
+generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial
+society; Boileau established a classical standard of criticism suggested
+by personal taste, which ignored the progress of the human mind.
+
+The redeeming grace of the nation is to be found in its wholesome sense
+of the enjoyable and the available in ordinary life, in its freedom
+from the discontent which elsewhere is born of avarice and unmitigated
+materialism. The love of pleasing, the influence of women, and a
+frivolous temper everywhere and on all occasions signalize them. "Why,
+people laugh at everything here!" naively exclaimed the young Duchess of
+Burgundy, on her arrival at the French court.
+
+The amount of commodities taken by French people on a journey, and the
+cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion
+demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The
+_pate_, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff,
+and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory
+and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an
+interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to
+which the humblest of Dutch pictures are refined and elegant.
+
+The intrinsic diversity and the national relations between the French
+and English are curiously illustrated by their respective history and
+literature. Compare, for instance, the plays of Shakspeare, which
+dramatize the long wars of the early kings, with the account given in
+the journals of the reception of Victoria at Paris and of Louis Napoleon
+in London; imagine the royal salutation and the official recognition of
+the once anathematized Napoleon dynasty; General Bonaparte becomes in
+his tomb Napoleon I. No wonder "Punch" affirmed that the statue of Pitt
+shook its bronze head and the bones of Castlereagh stirred in protest.
+
+"The English," says a celebrated writer, "like ancient medals, kept more
+apart, preserve the first sharpness which the fair hand of Nature has
+given them; they are not so pleasant to feel, but, in return, the legend
+is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and
+superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth
+the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and
+assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,--a vital difference, which
+no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can essentially
+change.
+
+A century ago there were few better tests of popular sentiment in
+England than the plays in vogue. As indications of the state of the
+public mind, they were what the ballads are to earlier times, and the
+daily press is to our own,--generalized casual, but emphatic proofs of
+the opinions, prejudices, and fancies of the hour. Now a large English
+colony is domesticated in France; it is but a few hours' trip from
+London to Paris; newspapers and the telegraph in both capitals make
+almost simultaneous announcements of news; the soldiers of the two
+nations fight side by side; the French shopman declares on his sign that
+English is spoken within; the "Times," porter, and tea are obtainable
+commodities in Paris; and _fraternite_ is the watchword at Dover and
+Calais. Yet the normal idea which obtains in the conservative brain of a
+genuine _Anglais_, though doubtless expanded and modified by intercourse
+and treaties, may be found still in that once popular drama, Foote's
+"Englishman in Paris." "A Frenchman," says one of the characters, "is a
+fop. Their taste is trifling, and their politeness pride. What the deuse
+brings you to Paris, then? Where's the use? It gives Englishmen a true
+relish for their own domestic happiness, a proper veneration for their
+national liberties, and an honor for the extended generous commerce of
+their country. The men there are all puppies, the women painted dolls."
+Monsieur Ragout and Monsieur Rosbif bandy words; the former is said to
+"look as if he had not had a piece of beef or pudding in his paunch for
+twenty years, and had lived wholly on frogs,"--and the latter pines to
+leap a five-barred gate, and is afraid of being entrapped by "a rich
+she-Papist." His fair countrywoman is invited by a French marquis to
+marry him, with this programme,--"A perpetual residence in this paradise
+of pleasures; to be the object of universal adoration; to say what you
+please,--go where you will,--do what you like,--form fashions,--hate
+your husband, and let him see it,--indulge your gallant,--run in debt,
+and oblige the poor devil to pay it."
+
+As a pendant, take the description of one of the last French novels:--"A
+Paris tout s'oublie, tout se pardonne. Par convenance, par decence,
+quelquefois par crainte, on s'absente, ou fait un entr'acte: puis le
+rideau se releve pour le spectacle de nouvelles fautes et de nouvelles
+folies; toute la question est de savoir s'y prendre."
+
+Comedy is native to French genius and appreciation; it follows the
+changes of social life with marvellous celerity; it is the best school
+of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both
+in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The
+prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of
+invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic
+Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital
+affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like
+Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein
+novelty of combination, significance of dialogue, and artistic
+felicities quite unrivalled elsewhere, are exhibited.
+
+It is quite the reverse with the serious drama. In England this is a
+form of literature which goes nearest to the normal facts and conditions
+of human nature; it teaches the highest and deepest lessons, wins the
+most profound sympathy, and is remarkable and interesting through its
+subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters
+of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French
+tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of
+a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or
+melodramatic invention,--not to the universal and existing passions.
+There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies--those of
+modern civilization--with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas
+or Grecian mantles rehearse the sentiments of fatalism, the creed of
+ancient mythology, or Gallic rhetoric in a classic dress; and these
+disguises so envelope the love, ambition, despair, hate, or patriotism,
+that we are always conscious of the theatrical, and it requires the
+extraordinary gifts of a Rachel to enlist other than artistic interest.
+
+The French have manuals for breathing and composing the features
+to secure artistic effects; they offer academic prizes for every
+conceivable achievement; their very lamp-posts are designed with taste;
+a huckster in the street will exhibit dramatic tact and wonderful
+mechanical dexterity. "Quand il parait un homme de genie en France,"
+says Madame de Stael, "dans quelque carriere que ce soit, il atteint
+presque toujours a un degre de perfection sans exemple; car il reunit
+l'audace qui fait sortir de la route commune au tact du bon gout." And
+yet in vast political interests they are victims,--in the more earnest
+developments of the soul, children. A new artificial lake in the Bois de
+Boulogne, a grand military reception, news of a victory in some distant
+corner of the globe, the distribution of eagles to brave survivors,--in
+a word, an appeal to the love of amusement, of display, and of
+glory,--quiets the murmur about to rise against interference with human
+rights or usurpation of the national will. Political interests of the
+gravest character are treated with flippancy: one writer calls the
+formation of a new government Talleyrand's table of whist; and another
+casually observes that "_tous les gouvernements nouveaux ont leur lune
+de miel_."
+
+That great principle of the division of labor, which the English carry
+into mechanical and commercial affairs, the French also apply to the
+economy of life and to Art; but, as these latter interests are more
+spontaneous and unlimited, the result is often a perfection in detail,
+and a like deficiency in general effect. Thus, there are schools of
+painting in France more distinct and apart than exist elsewhere; usually
+the followers of such are distinguished for excellence in the mechanical
+aptitudes of their vocation; the figure is admirably drawn, the costume
+rightly disposed, and sometimes the degree of finish quite marvellous;
+but, usually, this superiority is attained at the expense of the
+sentiment of the picture. French historic Art, like French life, is
+apt to be extravagant and melodramatic, or over-refined in unimportant
+particulars; it often lacks moral harmony,--the grand, simple, true
+reflection of Nature in its nicety. Delaroche, who, of all French
+painters, rose most above the adventitious, and gave himself to the soul
+of Art, to pure expression, was, for this very reason, thought by his
+brother artists to be cold and unattractive. There is one sphere,
+however, where this exclusiveness of style and partition of labor are
+productive of the most felicitous results: namely, the minor drama. In
+England and America the same theatre exhibits opera, melodrama, tragedy,
+comedy, rope-dancing, and legerdemain; but in Paris, each branch and
+element of histrionic art has its separate temple, its special corps of
+actors and authors, nay, its particular class of subjects; hence their
+unrivalled perfection. Ingenuity, science, and Art are concentrated by
+thus assigning free and individual scope to the dramatic niceties and
+phases of life, of history, of genius, and of society. At the Opera
+Comique you find one kind of musical creation; at the Italiens the
+lyrical drama of Southern Europe alone; at the Varietes a unique order
+of comic dialogue; and at the Porte St. Martin yet another species of
+play. One theatre gives back the identical tone of existing society and
+current events; another deals with the classical ideas of the past.
+Satire and song, the horrible and the brilliant, the graceful and the
+highly artistic, pictorial, elocutionary, pantomimic, tragic, vocal,
+statuesque, the past and present, all the elements of Art and of life,
+find representation in the plot, the language, the sentiment, the
+costume, the music, and the scenery of the many Parisian theatres.
+
+Yet how much of this superiority is fugitive! how little in the whole
+dramatic development takes permanent hold upon popular sympathy! Much
+of its significance is purely local, and of its interest altogether
+temporary. Scholars and the higher classes can talk eloquently of
+Corneille and Racine; the beaux and _spirituelle_ women of the day can
+repeat and enjoy the last hit of Scribe, or the new _bon-mot_ of
+the theatre: but contrast these results with the national love and
+appreciation of Shakspeare,--with the permanent reflection of Spanish
+life in Lope de Vega,--the patriotic aspirations which the young Italian
+broods over in the tragedies of Alfieri. The grace of movement, the
+triumph of tact and ingenuity, the devotion to conventionalism, either
+pedantry or the genius of the hour, also rules the drama in Paris. With
+all its brilliancy, entertainment, grace, wit, and popularity,--there
+exists not a permanently vital and universally recognized type of this
+greatest department of literature, familiar and endeared alike to
+peasant and peer, a representative of humanity for all time,--like the
+bard around whose name and words cluster the Anglo-Saxon hearts and
+intelligence from generation to generation.
+
+But nowhere do life and the drama so trench upon each other; nowhere is
+every incident of experience so dramatic. Miss H.M. Williams told the
+poet Rogers that she had seen "men and women, waiting for admission at
+the door of the theatre, suddenly leave their station, on the passing of
+a set of wretches going to be guillotined, and then, having ascertained
+that none of their relations or friends were among them, very
+unconcernedly return to the door of the theatre." A child is born at the
+Opera Comique during the performance, and it is instantly made an event
+of sympathy and effect by the audience; a subscription is raised, the
+child named for the dramatic heroine of the moment, and the fortunate
+mother sent home in a carriage, amid the plaudits of the crowd. You are
+listening to a play; and a copy of the "Entr'acte" is thrust into your
+hand, containing a minute account of the death of a statesman two
+squares off whose name fills pages of history, or a battle in the East,
+where some officer whom you met two months before on the Boulevard has
+won immortal fame by prodigies of valor. So do the actualities and the
+pastimes, the real and the imaginary drama, miraculously interfuse at
+Paris; the comedy of life is patent there, and often the spectator
+exclaims, "_Arlequin avait bien arrange les choses, mais Colombine
+derange tout!_"
+
+The Parisian females are "unexceptionably shod,"--but the agricultural
+instruments now in use in the rural districts of France are of a form
+and mechanism which, to a Yankee farmer, would seem antediluvian; the
+cooks, gardeners, and other working-people, have annually the most
+graceful festivals,--but the traveller sees in the fields women so
+bronzed and wrinkled by toil and exposure that their sex is hardly to be
+recognized. When the Gothamite passes along Pearl or Broad Street,
+he beholds the daily spectacle of unemployed carmen reading
+newspapers;--there may be said to be no such thing as popular literature
+in France; mental recreation, such as the German and Scotch peasantry
+enjoy, is unknown there. The Art and letters of the kingdom flourished
+in her court and were cultivated as an aristocratic element for so long
+a period, that neither has become domesticated among the lower classes;
+we find in them the sentiment of military glory, of religion in its
+superstitious phase, of music perhaps, of rustic festivity,--but not the
+enjoyments which spring from or are associated with thought and poetic
+sympathies such as national writers like Burns inspired. An exception
+comparatively recent may be found in the popular appreciation of
+Beranger and Souvestre.
+
+There is not a natural object too beautiful or an occasion too solemn
+to arrest the French tendency to the theatrical. Even one of their most
+ardent eulogists remarks,--"All that can be said against the French
+sublime is this,--that the grandeur is more in the word than in the
+thing; the French expression professes more than it performs"; and old
+Montaigne declares that "lying is not a vice among the French, _but a
+way of speaking_." Both observations admit too much; and indicate an
+habitual departure from Nature and simplicity as a national trait.
+Who but Frenchmen ever delighted in reducing to artificial shapes the
+graceful forms of vegetable life, or can so far lay aside the sentiment
+of grief as to engage in rhetorical panegyrics over the fresh graves
+of departed friends? Compare the high dead wall with its range of
+flower-pots, the porches undecked by woodbines or jessamine, the formal
+paths, the proximate kitchen, stables, and ungarnished _salon_ of
+a French villa, with the hedges, meadows, woodlands, and trellised
+eglantine of an English country-house; and a glance assures us that
+to the former nation the country is a _dernier ressort_, and not an
+endeared seclusion. Yet they romance, in their way, on rural subjects:
+"_A la campagne_," says one of their poets, "_ou chaque feuille qui
+tombe est une elegie toute faite_." Through an avenue of scraggy poplars
+we approach a dilapidated _chateau_, whose owner is playing dominoes
+at the cafe of the nearest provincial town, or exhausting the sparse
+revenues of the estate at the theatres, roulette-tables, or balls of
+Paris. People leave these for a rural vicinage only to economize, to
+hide chagrin, or to die. So recognized is this indifference to Nature
+and inaptitude for rural life in France, that, when we desire to
+express the opposite of natural tastes, we habitually use the word
+"Frenchified." The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a
+convenient appendage to a lamp. The traveller never sees artificial
+light reflected from green leaves, without thinking of his evening
+promenades in the French capital, or a dance in the groves of
+Montmorency. The old verbal tyranny of the French Academy, the
+painted wreaths sold at cemetery-gates, the colored plates of fashions,
+powdered hair, and rouged cheeks, typify and illustrate this irreverent
+ambition to pervert Nature and create artificial effects; they are but
+so many forms of the theatrical instinct, and proofs of the ascendency
+of meretricious taste. It is this want of loyalty to Nature, and
+insensibility to her unadulterated charms, which constitute the real
+barrier between the Gallic mind and that of England and Italy, and
+which explain the fervent protest of such men as Alfieri and Coleridge.
+Simplicity and earnestness are the normal traits of efficient character,
+whether developed in action or Art, in sentiment or reflection; and
+manufactured verse, vegetation, and complexions indicate a faith in
+appearances and a divorce from reality, which, in political interests,
+tend to compromise, to theory, and to acquiescence in a military
+_regime_ and an embellished absolutism.
+
+It is this incompleteness, this comparative untruth, that gives rise to
+the dissatisfaction we feel in the last analysis of French character.
+It is delusive. The promise of beauty held out by external taste is
+unfulfilled; the fascination of manner bears a vastly undue proportion
+to the substantial kindness and trust which that immediate charm
+suggests. "Just Heaven!" exclaims Yorick, "for what wise reasons hast
+thou ordered it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance
+in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?" The
+bearing of an Englishman seldom awakens expectation of courtesy
+or entertainment; yet, if vouchsafed, how to be relied on is the
+friendship! how generous the hospitality! The urbane salutation with
+which a Frenchman greets the female passenger, as she enters a public
+conveyance, is not followed by the offer of his seat or a slice of his
+reeking _pate_,--while the roughest backwoodsman in America, who never
+touched his hat or inclined his body to a stranger, will guard a
+woman from insult, and incommode himself to promote her comfort, with
+respectful alacrity. It is so in literature. How often we eagerly follow
+the clear exposition of a subject in the pages of a French author, to
+reach an impotent conclusion! or suffer our sympathies to be enlisted by
+the admirable description of an interior or a character in one of their
+novels, to find the plot which embodies them an absurd melodrama!
+Evanescence is the law of Parisian felicities,--selfishness the
+background of French politeness,--sociability flourishes in an inverse
+ratio to attachment; we become skeptical almost in proportion as we are
+attracted. If we ask the way, we are graciously directed; but if we
+demand the least sacrifice, we must accept volubility for service. Thus
+the perpetual flowering in manners, in philosophy, in politics, and in
+economy, is rarely accompanied by fruit in either. To enjoy Paris, we
+must cease to be in earnest;--to pass the time, and not to wrest from it
+a blessing or a triumph, is the main object. The badges, the gardens,
+the smiles, the agreeable phrase, the keen repartee, the tempting dish,
+the ingenious _vaudeville_, the pretty foot, the elegant chair and
+becoming curtain, the extravagant gesture, the pointed epigram or
+alluring formula, must be taken as so many agreeabilities,--not for
+things performed, but imaginatively promised. The folly of war has been
+demonstrated to the entire sense of mankind; at best, it is now deemed
+a painful necessity; yet the most serious phase of life in France is
+military. Depth and refinement of feeling are lonely growths, and can no
+more spring up in a gregarious and festal life than trees in quicksands;
+citizenship is based on consistent acts, not on verbosity; and
+brilliant accompaniments never reconcile strong hearts to the loss of
+independence, which some English author has acutely declared the first
+essential of a gentleman. The civilization of France is an artistic and
+scientific materialism; the spiritual element is wanting. Paris is the
+theatre of nations; we must regard it as a continuous spectacle, a
+boundless museum, a place of diversion, of study,--not of faith, the
+deepest want and most sacred birthright of humanity.
+
+The want of directness, the absence of candor, the non-recognition of
+truth in its broad and deep sense, is, indeed, a characteristic phase
+of life, of expression, and of manners in France. A lover of his nation
+confesses that even in "_galantes aventures l'esprit prenait la place
+du coeur, la fantaisie celle du sentiment_." Voltaire's creed was, that
+"_le mensonge n'est un vice que quand il fait du mal; c'est une grande
+vertu quand il fait du bien_." "_L'exageration_" says De Maistre, "_est
+le mensonge des honnetes gens_."
+
+In every aspect the histrionic prevails,--by facility of association and
+colloquial aptitude in the common intercourse of life,--by the inventive
+element in dress, furniture, and material arrangements, plastic to the
+caprice of taste and ingenuity,--by the habitudes of out-of-door life,
+giving greater variety and adaptation to manners,--and by a national
+temperament, susceptible and demonstrative. The current vocabulary
+suggests a perpetual recourse to the casual, a shifting of the
+life-scene, a recognition of the temporary and accidental. Such
+oft-recurring words as _flaneur_, _liaison_, _badinage_, etc., have no
+exact synonymes in other tongues. All that is done, thought, and felt
+takes a dramatic expression. Lamartine elaborates a "History of
+the Restoration" from two reports,--the one monarchical, the other
+republican,--and, by making the facts picturesque and sentimental, wins
+countless readers. Comte elaborates a masterly analysis of the sciences,
+proclaims a fascinating theory of eras or stages in human development;
+but the positive philosophy, of which all this is but the introduction,
+to be applied to the individual and society, eludes, at last, direct and
+complete application. A popular _savant_ dies, and students drag the
+hearse and scatter flowers over the grave; a philosopher lectures, and
+immediately his disciples form a school, and advocate his system with
+the ardor of partisans; a disappointed soldier commits suicide by
+throwing himself from Napoleon's column, while a _grisette_ and her
+lover make their exit through a last embrace and the fumes of charcoal;
+a wit seeks revenge with a clever repartee instead of his fists or cane.
+A lady is the centre of attraction at a reception, and, upon inquiry, we
+are gravely informed that the charm lies in the fact, that, though now
+fat and more than forty, as well as married to an old noble, in her
+youth she was the mistress of a celebrated poet. Notoriety, even when
+scandalous, is as good a social distinction as birth, fame, or beauty.
+Rousseau wrote a love-story, and sentiment became the rage. An artisan
+has a day to spare, and takes his family to a garden or a dance. Human
+existence, thus embellished, impulsive, and caricatured, becomes
+a continuous melodrama, with an occasional catastrophe induced by
+political revolutions. Louis XIV., the most characteristic king France
+ever had, is a genuine representative of this theatrical instinct and
+development.
+
+Herein may we find a key to the riddle of governmental vicissitudes
+in France. People so easily satisfied with illusions, so fertile in
+superficial expedients, are like children and savages in their sense of
+what is novel and amusing, and their love of excitement,--and make
+no such demands upon reality as full-grown men and educated citizens
+instinctively crave. Their powers, in this regard, have not been
+disciplined,--their wants but vaguely realized. Accustomed to look out
+of themselves for a law of action, to consult authority upon every
+occasion, to defer to official sources for guidance in every detail of
+municipal and personal affairs,--the lesson of self-dependence,
+the courage and the knowledge needful for efficiency are wanting.
+"_Savez-vous_," asks an epicure, "_ce qui a chasse la gaite? C'est la
+politique_." They rally at the voice of command, submit to interference,
+and take for granted a prescribed formula, partly because it is
+troublesome to think, and partly on account of inexperience in assuming
+responsibility. De Tocqueville has remarked, that, in every instance
+of attempted colonization, they have adapted themselves to, instead of
+elevating savage tribes. They have never gone through the process of
+state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the
+Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability
+realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow
+reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things
+that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and
+will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of
+political training. But those who look deeper know that this political
+inefficiency is but the external manifestation or the latent cause of
+more serious defects: by impeding healthful development in one way, it
+occasions a morbid development in another. If citizenship in its most
+free and active privilege were enjoyed, there would be less devotion to
+amusement, a more virile national character, and the sanctities of
+life would have observance. Public spirit and a political career are
+incentives to manly ambition,--to an employment of mind and feeling
+that wins men from trifling pursuits and vain diversion; they are the
+national basis of private usefulness; to thwart them is to condemn
+humanity to perpetual childhood,--to render members of a state machines.
+
+The social evils and kinds of crime in France are referable in no
+small degree to the absence of great motives,--the limited spheres and
+hopeless routine involved in arbitrary government, unsustained by any
+elevated sentiment. Such a rule makes literature servile, enterprise
+mercenary, and manners profligate: all history proves this. It is not,
+therefore, rational to infer, from the apparent want of ability in the
+nation to take care of its own affairs, that a military despotism is
+justifiable; when the truth is equally demonstrated, that such a sway,
+by indefinitely postponing the chance to acquire the requisite training,
+keeps down and throws back the national impulse and destiny. The man who
+thus abuses power is none the less a traitor and a parricide.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+"Mr. Geer!"
+
+Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.
+
+This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently warm appreciation of Mrs.
+Geer's social charms; but the enormity of the offence will be greatly
+modified by a brief review of the attending circumstances. If you will
+but consider that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
+stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies,--that the cushion of a
+capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted as if with a single eye
+to a delicious dose, nay, to a long succession of doses, is a powerful
+temptation to a sleepy soul,--that the regular, and, it must be
+confessed, somewhat monotonous _click, click, click_ of Mrs. Geer's
+knitting-needles only served to measure, without disturbing the
+silence,--and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife for thirty
+years,--you will not cease to wonder that Mr. Geer
+
+  "was glorious,
+  O'er all the ills of life victorious."
+
+To most men, an interruption at such a time would have been particularly
+annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or
+awake, always made a point of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned
+his round, honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his bosom,
+who went on,--
+
+"Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall."
+
+"Possible?" replied Mr. Geer. "Who'd 'a' thunk it?"
+
+Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker, or rather, a
+free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact, he tyrannized over
+all parts of speech: wrested nouns and verbs from their original shape,
+till you could hardly recognize their distorted faces; and committed
+that next worst sin to murdering one's mother, namely,--murdering one's
+mother-tongue, with an _abandon_ that was absolutely fascinating. Having
+delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he at once subsided, closed
+his placid eyes, and retired into his inner world of--thought, perhaps.
+
+"_Mr. Geer!_"
+
+This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about him scared,
+blinking eyes.
+
+"Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time so?"
+
+"Sleep? I--I--am sure, I was never wider awake in my life."
+
+"Well, then, tell me what I said."
+
+"Said? Eh,--eh,--something about Ivy, wasn't it?"
+
+And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced
+his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had
+been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her
+own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; so she answered,--
+
+"Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?"
+
+"Lud, lud! What's the matter?" asked Mr. Geer, wildly.
+
+"Matter? Why, she'll be seventeen, come fall, and doesn't know a thing."
+
+"O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'."
+
+And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair once more.
+He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of smallpox, cholera, and
+throat-distemper, the worst evils that he could think of and dread for
+his darling, had been conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found
+the real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly fallen on
+his heart, was as suddenly lifted.
+
+"But I tell you it _is_ something," continued Mrs. Geer, energetically.
+"Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been ten miles from home in her
+life, and to no school but our little district"----
+
+"And she's as pairk a gal," interrupted Mr. Geer, "as any you'll find in
+all the ten miles round, be the other who she will."
+
+"She's well enough in her way," replied Mrs. Geer, in all the humility
+of motherly pride; "and so much the more reason why she shouldn't be let
+go so. There's Mr. Dingham sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's
+seminary. (I wonder if he expects they'll ever turn out anything.) And
+here's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well able to maintain
+her like a lady, and have done nothing but turn her out to grass all her
+life, till she's fairly run wild. I declare it's a shame. She ought to
+be sent to school to-morrow."
+
+"Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' lo have no such doin's.
+Sha'n't go off to school. What's the use havin' her, if she can't stay
+at home with us? Let Mr. Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to.
+All the book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy with
+only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin' up high-falutin'
+notions. She's all gold now. She don't need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge
+an inch. Sha'n't stir a step."
+
+"But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us some time. We
+can't have her always."
+
+"Why can't we?" exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides you and me, I
+suppose, that thinks she's pairk. What's John Herricks and Dan Norris
+hangin' round for all the time?"
+
+"And they may hang round till the cows come home! Nary hair of Ivy's
+head shall they touch,--nary one on em!"
+
+Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question bounded into
+the room.
+
+"Come here, Ivy," said the old man; "your mother's been a-slanderin'
+you; says you don't know nothin'."
+
+Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and turned upon him
+a pair of palpably roguish eyes.
+
+"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."
+
+"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
+Herricks, do you?"
+
+"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"
+
+"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"
+
+"Never a one, father."
+
+"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
+for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
+You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
+to go away, Ivy."
+
+"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
+syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
+live."
+
+"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"
+
+And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
+with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
+parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
+She had said she would not, and of course she would not."
+
+"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
+could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his
+everlasting smirk, and his diddling walk, and take care of all the
+Herricks' sisters and mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and
+horses and pigs--and--hens--and--and"----
+
+But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer than ever before
+in her life; and ere she had finished the inventory of John Herricks's
+personal property and real estate, the blue eyes were closed in the
+sweet, sound sleep of youth and health.
+
+Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments, was partly
+right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been "finished" at Mrs. Porter's
+seminary, and was consequently in a highly unfinished condition. "Small
+Latin and less Greek" jostled each other in her head. German and French,
+Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy. She could not dance,
+nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor work little dogs on footstools.
+
+What, then, could she do?
+
+_Imprimis_, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. _Secundo_, she could
+walk across the great beam in the barn like a year-old kitten. In the
+pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold,
+from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
+under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some
+inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure.
+With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly
+and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer
+consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
+behind. Without saddle or bridle she could
+
+  "Ride a black horse
+  To Banbury Cross."
+
+(N.B.--I don't say she actually did. I only say she could; and under
+sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt she would.) She knew
+where the purple violets and the white innocence first flecked the
+spring turf, and where the ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs.
+All the little waddling, downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and
+faint-hearted, desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and
+shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the
+morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool,
+and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True
+Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
+Legion!
+
+From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have faithfully
+reported, a casual observer, particularly if young and inexperienced,
+might infer that the question of Miss Ivy's education was definitively
+settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof.
+I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and
+intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
+a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that
+appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something,
+and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow
+over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
+does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman
+can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to
+tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything
+will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,--one to his
+farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs
+just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor of her way
+unmoved:
+
+  "Beware! beware!
+  Trust her not; she is fooling thee."
+
+Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like Napoleon, she was
+never more elated than after a defeat. Before consulting her husband
+at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had
+deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the
+senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
+and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
+notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the
+next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly,
+as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that departure had been
+fixed.
+
+Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time. She had a sublime
+faith in herself. She felt in her soul the divine afflatus, and pressed
+forward gloriously to her goal. Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to
+say obstinacy, as falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more;
+and as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, "A woman in
+the very house has such deused opportunities!" so Farmer Geer grumbled,
+and squirmed, and remonstrated, and--yielded.
+
+Mrs. Geer was _not_ right. She had reckoned without her host. Her
+affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way of prosperity in a
+chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders, when, presto! they turned
+a sharp and unexpected corner, and over went the whole establishment
+into a mirier mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.
+
+To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira was announced to
+Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady, to the ill-concealed vexation of
+her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed exultation of her
+father, expressed decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she
+was the chief _dramatis persona_, the very Hamlet of the play, this
+unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All
+the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one
+point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty
+were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any
+allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only
+hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own
+will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth.
+One last resort, one forlorn hope,--one expedient, which had never
+failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her
+parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst
+into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father
+and mother by going away from them. This drove the nail into her old
+father's heart, and then the little vixen clenched it by throwing
+herself into his arms, and sobbing, "Oh, papa! would you turn your Ivy
+out of doors and break her heart?"
+
+Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she was the only and
+beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy passed unchallenged; the
+strong arms closed around the naughty girl; and the soothing voice
+murmured, "There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you sha'n't
+be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!" and the _status quo_ was
+restored.
+
+  "It is not in the sea nor in the strife
+  We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
+  But in the after silence on the shore,
+  When all is lost, except a little life,"
+
+said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
+fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
+be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
+her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
+been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
+authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
+emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
+disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
+miserable.
+
+"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
+were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
+decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
+care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
+a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
+be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
+heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
+if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
+would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
+_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
+and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
+just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
+whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
+Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
+B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
+enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
+Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be
+sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric, and I don't believe he knows
+much, either; and there's nobody else in town that knows any more than
+anybody else; and there's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I
+am ever to know anything." (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted for several
+minutes.) "There's Mr. Clerron!" (A sudden cessation.) "I suppose he
+knows more than the whole town tumbled into one; and writes books,
+and--mercy! there's no end to his knowledge; and he's rich, and does
+everything he likes, all day long. Oh, if I only _did_ know him! I would
+ask him straight off to teach me. I should be scared to death. I've a
+great mind to ask him, as it is. I can tell him who I am. He never will
+know any other way, for he isn't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
+as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would rather ask
+him than go to school. He might just as well do something as not. I am
+sure, if God had made me him, and him me, I should be glad to help him.
+I'll go straight to him the first thing to-morrow morning."
+
+Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow vanished.
+Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did she sing about the
+house that night; for she was summoning all her powers to prepare an
+introductory speech to Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar.
+Her elocutionary attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
+she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she took heart of
+grace, slung her broadbrimmed hat over her arm, and began her march
+"over the hills and far away," in search of her--fate.
+
+"And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on such an errand,
+to a perfect stranger?"
+
+Humanly speaking, nothing was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a
+prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such
+an--to use the mildest term--unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact
+is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of the plan.
+
+"Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without leave? without even
+informing her parents?"
+
+I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life, one
+cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper, not to say
+indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres generally. Duty
+compels me to adhere closely to the truth; and for whatever of obloquy
+may be heaped upon me, or upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the
+words of the illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious
+Taylor; I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
+Washington:--"Do right, and let the consequences take care of
+themselves." I am therefore obliged to say, that Ivy's departure in
+pursuit of knowledge was entirely unknown to her respected and beloved
+parents. But you must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
+child,--spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents, somewhat
+advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do not defend Ivy. On
+the contrary, notwithstanding my regard for her, I hand her over to the
+reprobation of an enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
+persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take warning by the
+fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any important undertaking, until
+they have, to say the least, consulted those who are their natural
+guides, their warmest friends, and their most experienced counsellors.
+
+While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart, fleet of foot,
+and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and
+across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron,
+Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that
+enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
+breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat
+stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance
+of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; but
+in her excitement she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the
+door-step, as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before, (not
+in the same place,) with the "wind blowing her fair hair about her
+beautiful cheeks."
+
+There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague rumor, that,
+instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian, with your own good
+knuckles, for such case made and provided, modern fashion had introduced
+"the ringing and the dinging of the bells." This vague rumor found
+a local habitation, when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
+established himself, his men and women and horses and cattle; but as
+Ivy stood on his door-step, looking upward, downward, sidewise, with
+earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and no sign of bell, was visible;
+nothing unusual, save a little door-knob at the right-hand side of the
+door,--a thing which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
+deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must be inside,
+and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So she tried to twist it,
+first one way, then the other; but twist it would not. In despair she
+betook herself to her fingers and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again.
+No use. Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled path,
+selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her station before the
+door, and began to pound away. In a moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown
+and smoking-cap, with a cigar between his fingers, came round the
+corner. Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
+bowed, and, with a polite "allow me," stepped to the door, pulled the
+bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not so confused at being
+detected in her assault and battery on the door of a respectable,
+peaceable, private gentleman, as not to make the silent reflection,
+"Pulled the knob, instead of twisting it. How easy it is to do a
+thing, if you only know how!"
+
+The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into
+a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully
+fresh and _green_-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,--then a step in
+the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
+the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single glance showed her
+that he was the person who had rung the bell for her, though the gay
+dressing-gown had been changed for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed.
+Ivy, hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, "I am Ivy Geer." A
+half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered behind the heavy beard, and
+gleamed beneath the heavy eyebrows, as he answered, "I am happy to
+make your acquaintance"; but another glance at the trembling form, the
+frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile into one
+that was very good-natured, and even kind; and he added, playfully,--
+
+"I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service."
+
+"You write books and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly,
+never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her
+hat-strings.
+
+There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing a little
+diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct bit of information. She
+made the assertion with the air of one who has a disagreeable piece of
+business on hand, and is determined to go through with it as soon as
+possible. He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily,--since, as I
+have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed on the carpet. A
+slight pause for breath and she pitched ahead again.
+
+"I am very ignorant, and I am growing old. I am almost seventeen. I
+don't know anything to speak of. Mamma wishes me to go to school. Papa
+did not, but now he does. I won't go. I would rather be stupid all my
+life long than leave home. But mamma is vexed, and I want to please
+her, and I thought,--Mr. Brownslow is so busy,--and you,--if you have
+nothing to do,--and know so much,--I thought"------
+
+She stopped short, utterly unable to proceed. Wonderfully different did
+this affair seem from the one she had planned the preceding evening. My
+dear Sir, Madam,--have not we, too, sometimes found it an easier thing
+to fight the battle of life in our own chimney-corner, by the ruddy and
+genial firelight, than in broad day on the world's great battle-field?
+
+Mr. Clerron, seeing Ivy's confusion, kindly came to her aid. "And you
+thought my superfluous time and wisdom might be transferred to you, thus
+making a more equal division of property?"
+
+"If you would be so good,--I,--yes, Sir."
+
+"May I inquire how you propose to effect such an exchange?"
+
+He really did not intend to be anything but kind, but the whole matter
+presented itself to him in a very ludicrous light; and in endeavoring to
+preserve proper gravity, he became severe. Ivy, all-unused to the world,
+still had a secret feeling that he was laughing at her. Tears, that
+would not be repressed, glistened in her downcast eyes, gathered on the
+long lashes, dropped silently to the floor. He saw that she was entirely
+a child, ignorant, artless, and sincere. His better feelings were
+roused, and he exclaimed, with real earnestness,--
+
+"My dear young lady, I should rejoice to serve you in any way, I beg you
+to believe."
+
+His words only hastened the catastrophe which seems to be always
+impending over the weaker sex. Ivy sobbed outright,--a perfect tempest.
+Felix Clerron looked on with a bachelor's dismay. "What in thunder?
+Confound the girl!" were his first reflections; but her utter
+abandonment to sorrow melted his heart again,--not a very susceptible
+heart either; but men, especially bachelors, are so--_green!_ (the word
+is found in Cowper.)
+
+He sat down by her side, stroked the hair from her burning forehead, as
+if she had been six instead of sixteen, and again and again assured her
+of his willingness to assist her.
+
+"I must go home," whispered Ivy, as soon as she could command, or rather
+coax her voice.
+
+His hospitality was shocked.
+
+"Indeed you must not, till we have at least had a consultation. Tell me
+how much you know. What have you studied?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, Sir. I am very stupid."
+
+"Ah! we must begin with the Alphabet, then. Blocks or a primer?"
+
+Ivy smiled through her tears.
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, Sir."
+
+"You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even count, and spell your
+name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten me."
+
+Ivy grew calm as he became playful.
+
+"I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's Large."
+
+"House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you please."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's large. You did
+not designate what."
+
+He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and genial, and she
+joined.
+
+"My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew that. Everybody
+calls it so."
+
+"Time is short. Yes. We are an abbreviating nation. Do you like
+Arithmetic?"
+
+"Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial Payments. But I
+can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and such things."
+
+"Positions are occasionally embarrassing. And Grammar?"
+
+"I think it's horrid. It's all 'indicative mood, common noun, third
+person, singular number, and agrees with John.'"
+
+"_Bravissima!_ A comprehensive sketch! _A multum in parvo!_ A bird's-eye
+view, as one may say,--and not entertaining, certainly. What other
+branches have you pursued? Drawing, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, no, Sir!"
+
+"Nor Music?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Good, my dear! excellent! An overruling Providence has saved you and
+your friends from many a pitfall. Shall we proceed to History? Be so
+good as to inform me who discovered America."
+
+"I believe Columbus has the credit of it," replied Ivy, demurely.
+
+"Non-committal, I see. Case goes strongly in his favor, but you reserve
+your judgment till further evidence."
+
+"I think he was a wise and good and enterprising man."
+
+"But are rather skeptical about that San Salvador story. A wise course.
+Never decide till both sides have been fairly presented. 'He that
+judgeth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto
+him,' said the wise man. Occasionally his after-judgment is
+equally discreditable. That is a thousand times worse. Exit Clio.
+Enter--well!--Geographia. My young friend, what celebrated city has
+the honor of concentrating the laws, learning, and literature of
+Massachusetts, to wit, namely, is its capital?"
+
+"Boston, Sir."
+
+"My dear, your Geography has evidently been attended to. You have
+learned the basis fact. You have discovered the pivot on which the world
+turns. You have dug down to the ante-diluvian, ante-pyrean granite,--the
+primitive, unfused stratum of society. The force of learning can no
+farther go. Armed with that fact, you may march fearlessly forth to do
+battle with the world, the flesh, and--the--ahem--the King of Beasts!
+Do you think you should like me for a teacher?"
+
+"I can't tell, Sir. I did not like you as anything awhile ago."
+
+"But you like me better now? You think I improve on acquaintance? You
+detect signs of a moral reformation?"
+
+"No, Sir, I don't like you now. I only don't dislike you so much as I
+did."
+
+"Spoken like a major-general, or, better still, like a brave little
+Yankee girl, as you are. I am an enthusiastic admirer of truth. I
+foresee we shall get on famously. I was rather premature in sounding the
+state of your affections, it must be confessed,--but we shall be rare
+friends by-and-by. On the whole, you are not particularly fond of
+books?"
+
+"I like some books well enough, but not studying-books," said Ivy, with
+a sigh, "and I don't see any good in them. If it wasn't for mamma, I
+never would open one,--never! I would just as soon be a dunce as not; I
+don't see anything very horrid in it."
+
+"An opinion which obtains with a wonderfully large proportion of our
+population, and is applied in practice with surprising success. There is
+a distinction, however, my dear young lady, which you must immediately
+learn to make. The dunce subjective is a very inoffensive animal,
+contented, happy, and harmless; and, as you justly remark, inspires no
+horror, but rather an amiable and genial self-complacency. The dunce
+objective, on the contrary, is of an entirely different species. He is a
+bore of the first magnitude,--a poisoned arrow, that not only pierces,
+but inflames,--a dull knife, that not only cuts, but tears,--a cowardly
+little cur, that snaps occasionally, but snarls unceasingly; whom,
+which, and that, it becomes the duty of all good citizens to sweep from
+the face of the earth."
+
+"What is the difference between them? How shall one know which is
+which?"
+
+"The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point of view,--the
+dunce with his eyes turned inward,--confining his duncehood to the bosom
+of his family. The dunce objective is the dunce butting against his
+neighbor's study-door,--intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid
+folly and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He is a
+creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's angels, in one
+respect at least: you may thrust him through and through with the
+two-edged sword of your satire, and at the end he shall be as intact and
+integral as at the beginning. Am I sufficiently obvious?"
+
+"It is very obvious that I am both, according to your definition."
+
+"It is very obvious that you are neither, I beg to submit, but a
+sensible young girl,--with no great quantity of the manufactured
+article, perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being wrought
+into fabric of the finest quality."
+
+"Do you really think I can learn?" asked Ivy, with a bright blush of
+pleasure.
+
+"Demonstrably certain."
+
+"As much as if I went to school?"
+
+"My dear miss, as the forest oak, 'cabined, cribbed, confined' with
+multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby, and dwarfed, but,
+brought into the open fields alone, stretches out its arms to the blue
+heavens and its roots to the kindly earth, so that the birds of the air
+lodge in the branches thereof, and men sit under its shadow with great
+delight,--so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care, flourish
+like a green bay-tree; that is, if I am to have the honor."
+
+"Yes, Sir, I mean--I meant--I was thinking as if you were teaching me--I
+mean were going to teach me."
+
+"Which I also mean, if time and the favoring gods allow, and your
+parents continue to wish it."
+
+"Oh, they won't care!"
+
+"Won't care?"
+
+"No, Sir, they will be glad, I think. Papa, at least, will be glad to
+have me stay at home."
+
+"Did not they direct you to come to me to-day?"
+
+Ivy blushed deeply, and replied, in a low voice, "No, Sir; I knew mamma
+would not let me come, if I asked her."
+
+"And to prevent any sudden temptation to disobedience, and a consequent
+forfeiture of your peace of mind, you took time by the forelock and came
+on your own responsibility?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Very ingenious, upon my word! An accomplished casuist! A born Jesuit!
+But, my dear Miss Geer, I must confess I have not this happy feminine
+knack of keeping out of the way of temptation. I should prefer to
+consult your friends, even at the risk of losing the pleasure of your
+society."
+
+"Oh, yes, Sir! I don't care, now it is all settled."
+
+And so, over hill-side, along wood-path, and through meadow-land, with
+light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy back again. To Mrs. Geer
+shelling peas in the shady porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with
+his straw hat on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her
+adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was
+lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase;
+Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed
+the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron
+rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the points of his
+Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's scarlet verbena, and assured
+them he should be very glad to refresh his own early studies, and also
+to form an acquaintance with the family,--he knew very few in the
+village,--and if Mrs. Geer would drive over when Ivy came to recite,--or
+perhaps they would rather he should come to their house. Oh, no! Mrs.
+Geer could not think of that. Just as they pleased. Mrs. Simm, the
+housekeeper, would be very glad of Mrs. Geer's company while Miss Ivy
+was reciting, in case Mrs. Geer should not wish to listen; and the house
+and grounds would be shown by Mrs. Simm with great pleasure. By the way,
+Mrs. Simm was a thrifty and sensible woman, and he was sure they would
+be mutually pleased.--When, in short, all this and much more had been
+said, it was decided that Ivy should be regularly installed pupil of Mr.
+Felix Clerron.
+
+"_Eureka!_" cries the professional novel-reader, that far-sighted and
+keen-scented hound that snuffs a _denouement_ afar off; and anon there
+rises before his eyes the vision of poor little Stella drinking in love
+and learning, especially love, from the divine eyes of the anything but
+divine Swift,--of Shirley, the lioness, the pantheress, the leopardess,
+the beautiful, fierce creature, sitting, tamed, quiet, meek, by the side
+of Louis Moore, her tutor and master,--and of all the legends of all the
+ages wherein Beauty has sat at the feet of Wisdom, and Love has crept
+in unawares, and spoiled the lesson while as yet half-unlearnt;--so
+he cries, "She is going the way of all heroines. The man and the
+girl,--they will fall in love, marry, and live happily all the rest of
+their days."
+
+Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should not? If any man
+can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
+him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.
+
+I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should,
+in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall
+in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital
+principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye
+sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning
+words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling
+work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a
+weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and
+heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not?
+Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming,
+floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid _soupcon_ of
+curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite
+distress, Adolphus and Miranda have made
+
+  "One of the very best matches,
+  Both well mated for life:
+  She's got a fool for her husband,
+  He's got a fool for his wife."
+
+Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry that gilds
+with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of many a prosaic life.
+"Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime"; tramp behind the plough,
+hammer on the lapstone, beat the anvil, drive the plane, "from morn till
+dewy eve"; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams soft and
+golden over the far-off pinetrees, but
+
+  "The star that lightens your bosom most,
+  And gives to your weary feet their speed,
+  Abides in a cottage beyond the mead."
+
+It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare. Threadbare
+it may be to you, enervated and _blase_ man of pleasure, worn and
+hardened man of the world; but it is not for you I write. The fountain
+which leaps up fresh and living in every new life can never be exhausted
+till the springs of all life are dry. Tell me, O lover, gazing into
+those tender eyes uplifted to yours, twining the silken rings around
+your bronzed finger, pressing reverently the warm lips consecrated to
+you,--does it abate one jot or tittle of your happiness to know that
+eyes just as tender, curls just as silken, lips just as red, have
+stirred the hearts of men for a thousand years?
+
+Love, then, is a _sine qua non_ in stories; and if love, why not
+marriage? What pleasure can a humane and benevolent man find in
+separating two individuals whose chief, perhaps whose sole happiness,
+consists in being together? For certain inscrutable reasons, Divine
+Benevolence permits evil to exist in the world. All who have a taste for
+misery can find it there in exhaustless quantities. Johns are every day
+falling in love with Katys, but marrying Isabels, and Isabels the same,
+_mutatis mutandis_. We submit to it because there is no alternative; and
+we believe that good shall finally be wrought and wrested from evil.
+Don't, for heaven's sake, let us in mere wantonness introduce into
+our novel-world the work of our own hand, an abridged edition, a
+daguerreotype copy of the world without, of which we know so little and
+so much. I always do and always shall read the last page of a novel
+first; and if I perceive there any indications that matters are not
+coming out "shipshape," my reading invariably terminates with the last
+page.
+
+For the rest, please to remember that I am not writing about a princess
+of the blood, nor of the days of the bold barons, but only the life of
+a quiet little girl in a quiet little town in the eastern part of
+Massachusetts; and so far as my experience and observation go, men and
+women in the eastern part of Massachusetts are not given to thrilling
+adventures, hairbreadth escapes, wonderful concatenations of
+circumstances, and blood and thunder generally,--but pursue the even
+tenor of their way, and of their love, with a sober and delightful
+equanimity. If you want a plot, go to the "Children of the Abbey,"
+"Consuelo," and myriads of that kin, and help yourself. As for me, I
+must confess I hate plots. I see no pleasure in stumbling blindfolded
+through a story, unable to see a yard ahead, fancying every turn to be
+the last, and the road to go straight on to a glorious goal,--and,
+lo! we are in a more hopeless labyrinth than ever. I have a sense of
+restraint. I want to breathe freely, and can't. I want to have leisure
+to observe the style, the development of character, the author's tone of
+thought, and not be galloped through on the back of a breathless desire
+to know "how they are coming out."
+
+But, my dear plot-loving friend, be easy. I will not leave you in
+the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and woman out of hand. An
+obstacle, of which I suppose you have never heard,--an obstacle entirely
+new, fresh, and unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let patience
+have her perfect work.
+
+Wonderful was the new world opened to Ivy Geer. It was as if a corpse,
+cold, inert, lifeless, had suddenly sprung up, warm, invigorated,
+informed with a spirit which led her own spell-bound. Grammar,--Grammar,
+which had been a synonyme for all that was dry, irksome, useless,--a
+beating of the wind, the crackling of thorns under a pot,--Grammar even
+assumed for her a charm, a wonder, a glory. She saw how the great and
+wise had shrined in fitting words their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow,
+and suffering, and penitence; and how, as this generation passed away,
+and another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket became dim,
+and the memory of its priceless gem faded away; but how, at the touch of
+a mighty wand, the obedient lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought
+"sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and
+freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the
+poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged
+for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect
+mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod
+with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul
+of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself
+in words. Roaming in the dense forest with the stern and bloody
+Druid,--bounding over the waves with the fierce pirates who supplanted
+them, and in whose blue eyes and beneath whose fair locks gleamed indeed
+the ferocity of the savage, but lurked also, though unseen and unknown,
+the tender chivalry of the English gentleman,--gazing admiringly on the
+barbaric splendor of the cloth-of-gold, whereon trod regally, to the
+sound of harp and viol, the beauty and bravery of the old Norman
+nobility, she delighted to see how the mother-tongue, our dear
+mother-tongue, had laid all the nations under contribution to enrich
+her treasury,--gathering from one its strength, from another its
+stateliness, from a third its harmony, till the harsh, crude, rugged
+dialect of a barbarous horde became worthy to embody, as it does, the
+love, the wisdom, and the faith of half a world.
+
+So Grammar taught Ivy to reverence language.
+
+History, in the light of a guiding mind, ceased to be a bare record of
+slaughter and crime. Before her eyes filed, in a statelier pageant than
+they knew, the long procession of "simple great ones gone for ever and
+ever by," and the countless lesser ones whose names are quenched in the
+darkness of a night that shall know no dawn. She saw the "great world
+spin forever down the ringing grooves of change"; but amid all the
+change, the confusion, the chaos, she saw the finger of God ever
+pointing, and heard the sublime monotone of the Divine voice ever saying
+to the children of men, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And Ivy
+thought she saw, and rejoiced in the thought, that, even when this
+warning was unheeded,--when on the brow of the mournful Earth "Ichabod,
+Ichabod," was forever engraven,--when the First Man with his own hand
+put from him the cup of innocence, and went forth from the happy garden,
+sin-stained and fallen, the whole head sick, and the whole heart
+faint,--even then she saw within him the divine spark, the leaven of
+life, which had power to vitalize and vivify what Crime had smitten with
+death. Though sea and land teemed with strange perils, though night
+and day pursued him with mysterious terrors, though the now unfriendly
+elements combined to check his career, still, with unswerving purpose,
+undaunted courage, she saw him march constantly forward. Spirits of evil
+could not drive from his heart the prescience of greatness; and his soul
+dwelt calmly under the foreshadow of a mighty future.
+
+And as Ivy looked, she saw how the children of men became a great
+nation, and possessed the land far and wide. They delved into the bosom
+of the pleased earth, and brought forth the piled-up treasures of
+uncounted cycles. They unfolded the book of the skies, and sought to
+read the records thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible
+ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they plucked from hers.
+And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their
+restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the
+dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond
+their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests,
+there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of
+marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering of the
+feet of little children. Many a day and many a night she saw them wander
+on towards the setting sun, till the Unseen Hand led them to a fair
+and fruitful country that opened its bounteous arms in welcome. Broad
+rivers, green fields, laughing valleys wooed them to plant their
+household gods,--and the foundations of Europe were laid. Here were sown
+the seeds of those heroic virtues which have since leaped into luxuriant
+life,--seeds of that irresistible power which fastened its grasp on
+Nature and forced her to unfold the secret of her creation,--seeds of
+that far-reaching wisdom which in the light of the unveiled past has
+read the story of the unseen future.
+
+And still under Ivy's eye they grouped themselves. Some gathered on the
+pleasant hills of the sunny South, and the beauty of earth and sea and
+sky passed into their souls forever. They caught the evanescent gleam,
+the passing shadow, and on unseemly canvas limned it for all time in
+forms of unuttered and unutterable loveliness. They shaped into glowing
+life the phantoms of grace that were always flitting before their
+enchanted eyes, and poured into inanimate marble their rapt and
+passionate souls. They struck the lyre to wild and stirring songs whose
+tremulous echoes still linger along the corridors of Time. Some sought
+the icebound North, and grappled with dangers by field and flood. They
+hunted the wild dragon to his mountain-fastnesses, and fought him at
+bay, and never quailed. Death, in its most fearful forms, they met with
+grim delight, and chanted the glories of the Valhalla waiting for heroes
+who should forever quaff the "foaming, pure, and shining mead" from
+skulls of foes in battle slain. Some crossed the sea, and on
+
+  "that pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back tho ocean's swelling
+  tide,"
+
+they reared a sinewy and stalwart race, whose "morning drum-beat
+encircles the world."
+
+And History taught Ivy to reverence man.
+
+But there was one respect in which Ivy was both pupil and teacher.
+Never a word of Botany had fallen upon her ears; but through all the
+unconscious bliss of infancy, childhood, and girlhood, for sixteen happy
+years, she had lived among the flowers, and she knew their dear faces
+and their wild-wood names. She loved them with an almost human love.
+They were to her companions and friends. She knew their likings and
+dislikings, their joys and sorrows,--who among them chose the darkest
+nooks of the old woods, and who bloomed only to the brightest
+sunlight,--who sent their roots deep down among the mosses by the brook,
+and who smiled only on the southern hill-side. Around each she wove a
+web of beautiful individuality, and more than one had received from her
+a new christening. It is true, that, when she came to study from a
+book, she made wry faces over the long, barbarous, Latin names which
+completely disguised her favorites, and in her heart deemed a great many
+of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had strong faith in her
+teacher, and when the technical was laid aside for the real, then,
+indeed, "her foot was on her native heath, and her name was MacGregor."
+A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
+night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air,
+treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be
+otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship
+of a mind vigorous, cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen
+and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to
+the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her
+horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life
+dilate her whole being with a fine ecstasy.
+
+And what was the end of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She
+had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,--a buoyant, elastic
+gladness,--a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her
+sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth.
+Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her
+summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered
+down through the leafiness, only to span her with a rainbow in the glory
+of the setting sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains of
+her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The secret chord was to be
+smitten by a master-hand,--a chord which, once stirred, may never cease
+to quiver.
+
+At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the
+embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to
+see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell
+from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all
+the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
+Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the
+past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with
+him; and in fact, if these three men and Felix Clerron had all stood
+before her, and offered each a different opinion on any given subject, I
+have scarcely a doubt as to whose would have commended itself to her
+as combining the soundest practical wisdom and the highest Christian
+benevolence.
+
+So the summer passed on, and her shyness wore off,--and their intimacy
+became less and less that of teacher and pupil, and more and more that
+of friend and friend. With the sudden awakening of her intellectual
+nature, there woke also another power, of whose existence she had never
+dreamed. It was natural, that, in ranging the fields of thought so
+lately opened to her, she should often revert to him whose hand had
+unbarred the gates; she was therefore not startled that the image of
+Felix Clerron was with her when she sat down and when she rose up, when
+she went out and when she came in. She ceased, indeed, to think _of_
+him. She thought _him_. She lived him. Her soul fed on his life. And
+so--and so--by a pleasant and flowery path, there came into Ivy's heart
+the old, old pain.
+
+Now the thing was on this wise:--
+
+One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find Mr. Clerron in
+the library, where he usually awaited her. After spending a few moments
+in looking over her lessons, she rose and was about to pass to the door
+to ring, when Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her
+that Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come out. Ivy
+immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden. On the south side of the
+house was a piazza two stories high. Along the pillars which supported
+it a trellis-work had been constructed, reaching several feet above the
+roof of the piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which not
+only completely screened nearly the whole front of the piazza, but,
+reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by the aid of a few pieces
+of fine wire, and overran a part of the roof of the house. Thus the roof
+of the piazza was the floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and
+ceiling were broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
+innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
+
+From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried, "Hail to thee, my
+twining vine!" Ivy turned and looked up, with the uncertain, inquiring
+smile we often wear when conscious that, though unseeing, we are not
+unseen; and presently two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
+sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could come up there!" cried Ivy, clasping her hands with
+childish eagerness.
+
+"The wish is father to the deed."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Be sure you may."
+
+"But how shall I get in?"
+
+"Are you afraid to come up the ladder?"
+
+"No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where you are, after I am
+up?"
+
+"Oh, never fear! I'll draw you in safely enough."
+
+"Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?" cried Mrs. Simm, in
+terror.
+
+Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she stopped and
+answered, hesitatingly,--"He said I might."
+
+"He said you might, yes," continued Mrs. Simm,--talking _to_ Ivy, but
+_at_ Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared to remonstrate in a more
+direct way. "And if he said you might throw yourself down Vineyard
+Cliff, it don't follow that you are bound to do it. He goes into all
+sorts of hap-hazard scrapes himself, but you can't follow him."
+
+"But it looks so nice up there," pleaded Ivy, "and I have been twice as
+high at home. I don't mind it at all."
+
+"If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your life, it's none
+of my look-out, but I a'n't going to have you breaking your neck right
+under my nose. If you want to get up there, I'll show you the way in the
+house, and you can step right out of the window. Just wait till I've
+told Ellen about the dinner."
+
+As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to Ivy, "Come!"--and
+in a moment Ivy bounded up the ladder and through an opening in the
+vine, and stood by his side.
+
+"I'm ready now, Miss Ivy," said Mrs. Simm, reappearing. "Miss Ivy! Where
+is the child?"
+
+A merry laugh greeted her.
+
+"Oh, you good-for-nothing!" cried the good-natured old housekeeper,
+"you'll never die in your bed."
+
+"Not for a good while, I hope," answered Mr. Clerron.
+
+Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the great basket the
+finest cluster of grapes.
+
+"Is that reward enough for coming?"
+
+"Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you read
+yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, 'its own exceeding great reward.'"
+
+"And you don't want the grapes?"
+
+"I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them as a free
+gift. It was only the principle that I opposed."
+
+"Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half for the free
+gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little tendril, you look
+as fresh as the morning."
+
+"Don't I always?"
+
+"I should say there was a _little_ more dew than usual. Stand up and let
+me survey you, if perchance I may discover the cause."
+
+Ivy rose, made a profound curtsy, and then turned slowly around, after
+the manner of the revolving fashion-figures in a milliner's window.
+
+"I don't know," continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a couple of
+revolutions, resumed her seat. "You seem to be the same. I think it must
+be the frock."
+
+"I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve my style of
+beauty, if I did. Papa wears one sometimes."
+
+"And what kind of a frock, pray, does 'papa' wear?"
+
+"Oh, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his knees. Made of some
+kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!"
+
+"And what name do you give to that white thing with blue sprigs in it?"
+
+"This?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a dress."
+
+"No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash are your dress.
+This is a frock."
+
+Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"You know a great deal, I know."
+
+"So you informed me once before."
+
+"Oh, don't mention that!" said Ivy, blushing, and quickly added, "Do you
+know I have discovered the reason why you like me this morning?"
+
+"And every morning."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Go on. What is the reason?"
+
+"It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with my owny-dony
+hands; and that, you know, is the reason it looks nicer than usual."
+
+"Ah, me! I wish I wore dresses."
+
+"You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to hinder you."
+
+"Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have
+asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little
+speech all ready for you,--a veritable compliment"
+
+"It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve of compliments,
+and perhaps it would have made me vain."
+
+"Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech was, and thus give
+me an opportunity to relieve myself. Why, a body might die of a plethora
+of flattery, if he had nobody but you to discharge it against."
+
+"He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed the demand."
+
+"Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have next?"
+
+"Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally, indeed, prefer it to
+the other, I am told."
+
+"Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!"
+
+He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes. Ivy did not
+care to interrupt his thinking. Presently he said,--
+
+"Ivy, how old are you?"
+
+"I shall be seventeen the last day of this month."
+
+A short pause.
+
+"And then eighteen."
+
+"And then nineteen."
+
+"And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty."
+
+"Horrid old, isn't it?"
+
+He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what Ivy thought a
+curious kind of smile, but only said,--
+
+"You must not say 'horrid' so much."
+
+By-and-by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and watching the
+rustle of the leaves, which hid every other prospect; she turned her
+face a little so that she could look at him. He sat with folded arms,
+looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
+expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
+wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
+sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
+should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
+wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
+there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
+softly,--
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."
+
+"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"
+
+"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."
+
+"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
+atmosphere?"
+
+"Yes, Sir, I am ready."
+
+Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
+had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
+would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.
+
+He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
+through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,
+while he carried the grapes to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and
+proposed to walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went home.
+
+"You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the city to-morrow,
+on business, to be gone a week or two. So, as you must perforce take a
+vacation then, why, we may as well begin to vacate today, and enjoy it."
+
+"I am sorry you are going away."
+
+"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
+
+"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to
+you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without
+you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you,
+or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
+
+"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,--the last, for
+instance,--what would you do?"
+
+"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
+
+Mr. Clerron laughed.
+
+"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me
+well again?"
+
+"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving
+it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
+
+"So you love your papa and mamma better than"----
+
+He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
+
+"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems
+strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,--oh, you don't
+know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I
+have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."
+
+"Do you always pity people, when they love you very much?"
+
+"Oh, no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough to be pitied,
+except papa.--Isn't it pleasant here? How very green it is! It looks
+just like summer. Oh, Mr. Clerron, did you see the clouds this morning?"
+
+"There were none when I arose."
+
+"Why, yes, Sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise."
+
+"I am not prepared to contradict you."
+
+"Perhaps you were not up at sunrise."
+
+"I have an impression to that effect."
+
+He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying, though she was
+half afraid he might not be pleased,--
+
+"I wonder whether you are an early riser."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe I have been
+up every morning but one, this week, by nine o'clock."
+
+Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of "early to bed and early to
+rise" received a great shock, as her looks plainly showed. He laughed
+gayly at her amazed face.
+
+"You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer."
+
+"'Nine o'clock!'" repeated Ivy, slowly,--"'every morning but one!' and
+it is Tuesday to-day."
+
+"Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day, and excellent for
+sleeping."
+
+"But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up when I come. And
+when do you write?"
+
+"Always in the evening."
+
+"But the evenings are so short,--or have been."
+
+"Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is about long enough
+for one sitting."
+
+"I should think so. And you must be so tired!"
+
+"Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or six, and running
+round all day, become so tired that you have to go to bed by nine;
+of course you have no time for reflection and meditation. I, on the
+contrary, take life easily,--write in the night, when everything is
+still and quiet,--take my sleep when all the noise of the world's
+waking-up is going on,--and after creation is fairly settled for the
+day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely, and
+leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil."
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
+
+"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
+
+"What is the use of telling it, then?"
+
+"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising
+from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come
+to a better understanding. Go on."
+
+"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
+
+"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
+
+"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and
+wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
+
+"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and
+mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to
+extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate,
+destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture
+to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."
+
+"Now, Sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question. And I
+really wish you did not. Before I knew you, I thought it was almost as
+bad to smoke as it was to steal. I know, however, now, that it cannot
+be; still"--
+
+"Feminine logic."
+
+"I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to say, Sir,
+I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of subjection to
+anything."
+
+"Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often don't smoke
+for months together. To prove it, I promise you I won't smoke for the
+next two months."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad! Oh, I am so much obliged to you! And you are not in
+the least vexed that I spoke to you about it?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, Sir, I have been afraid
+of, the last few days. You know when I first knew you, or before I knew
+you, I supposed you did nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all
+day. But now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that you
+could not well spare two hours every day for me,--particularly in the
+morning, which are almost always considered the best. But if you like
+to write in the evening, you would just as soon I would come in the
+morning?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any time, hesitate
+to tell me. I have no claim on a moment,--only"--
+
+"My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to understand,
+henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into my house at any time
+when you are not wanted; nor stay any longer than I want you; nor say
+anything that will not please me;--well, I am not quite sure about
+that;--but, at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
+teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never hope to do you as
+much good as you do me every day of your blessed life."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Clerron!" exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of gratitude and
+happiness; "do I, can I, do _you_ any good?"
+
+"You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element that was wanting in
+my life. You make every day beautiful to me. The flutter of your robes
+among these trees brings sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in
+my garden as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you turn
+into the lane; and every day I watch you till you disappear. You are
+fresh and truthful and natural, and you give me new life. And now, my
+dear little trembling benefactor, because we are nearly through the
+woods, I can go no farther with you; and because I am going away
+to-morrow, not to see you again for a week, and because I hope you will
+be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think I must let you--kiss
+me!"
+
+Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression, at
+first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then gradually changing
+into waiting wonder; but when his sentence finally closed, she stood
+still, scarcely able to comprehend. He placed his hands on her temples,
+and, smiling involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
+sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back, kissed brow,
+cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, "Go now! God bless you for ever and
+ever, my darling!" and, turning, walked hastily down the winding path.
+As for Ivy, she went home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great
+joy.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+"IMPLORA PACE."
+
+  No more Joy-roses! their perfume
+  To this dull pain brings short surcease:
+  But tell me, if ye know, where bloom
+  The golden lily-bells of Peace.
+
+  Leap, winnowing all the air of light,
+  Ye wild wraiths of the waterfall!
+  But for that fabled fountain's sight,
+  That giveth sleep, I'd give you all.
+
+  Bound, gay barks, o'er the bounding main!
+  Shake all your white wings to the breeze!
+  My joy was erst the hurricane,
+  The plunging of the purple seas;
+
+  My hope to find the mystic marge
+  Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
+  But bear me now to yon still barge,
+  Calm cradled by a tideless shore!
+
+  Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
+  With May-time matins loud and long,
+  Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
+  Its pulses time not to your song!
+
+  But know ye where she hides her nest,
+  Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
+  The Dove that bears on her white breast
+  The sacred green of olive-leaves?
+
+  Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
+  From white foam of the Northern snows;
+  Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
+  The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:
+
+  But when amid the templed hills,
+  Deep drained from every purple vine,
+  Soft for her dying lips distils
+  The Summer's sacramental wine;
+
+  While all her woodland priests put on
+  Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
+  And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
+  A rhythmic silence holds the skies;
+
+  What time the Day-spring softly wells
+  From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
+  In long, melodious, tidal swells,
+  Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;--
+
+  Oh, open then my dungeon door!
+  Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
+  If haply I may _feel_ once more
+  The pillars of the steadfast skies;
+
+  If haply there may fall for me
+  Some strange assurance in my fears,--
+  As he who heard on Galilee,
+  That stormy night in wondrous years,
+
+  The "It is I," and o'er the foam
+  Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
+  Saw glory of the kingdom come,
+  The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+  "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
+   the end of the world."
+                           PSALMS, xix. 4.
+
+Among the impossibilities enumerated to convince Job of his ignorance
+and weakness, the Almighty asks,--
+
+"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here
+we are?"
+
+At the present day, every people in Christendom can respond in the
+affirmative.
+
+The lines of electric telegraph are increasing so rapidly, that the
+length in actual use cannot be estimated at any moment with accuracy. At
+the commencement of 1848, it was stated that the length in operation
+in this country was about 3000 miles. At the end of 1850, the lines in
+operation, or in progress, in the United States, amounted to 22,000. In
+1853, the total number of miles of wire in America amounted to 26,375.
+
+It is but fifteen years since the first line of electric telegraph was
+constructed in this country; and at the present time there are not less
+than 50,000 miles in successful operation on this continent, having over
+1400 stations, and employing upwards of 10,000 operators and clerks.
+
+The number of messages passing over all the lines in this country
+annually is estimated at upwards of 5,000,000, producing a revenue of
+$2,000,000; in addition to which, the press pays $200,000 for public
+despatches.
+
+In Europe there are lines rivalling those in America. The electric wire
+extends under the English Channel, the German Ocean, the Black and Red
+Seas, and the Mediterranean; it passes from crag to crag on the Alps,
+and runs through Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Russia.
+
+India, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and several of the South American States
+have also their lines; and the wires uniting the Pacific and Atlantic
+States will shortly meet at the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+The electric telegraph, which has made such rapid strides, is yet in its
+infancy. The effect of its future extension, and of new applications,
+cannot be estimated, when, as a means of intercourse at least, its
+network shall spread through every village, bringing all parts of our
+republic into the closest and most intimate relations of friendship and
+interest. In connection with the railroad and steamboat, it has
+already achieved one important national result. It has made possible,
+on this continent, a wide-spread, yet closely linked, empire of States,
+such as our fathers never imagined. The highest office of the electric
+telegraph, in the future, is thus to be the promotion of unity, peace,
+and good-will among men.
+
+In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland have the greatest number of miles
+of electric telegraph,--namely, 40,000. France has 26,000; Belgium,
+1600; Germany, 35,000; Switzerland, 2000; Spain and Portugal, 1200;
+Italy, 6600; Turkey and Greece, 500; Russia, 12,000; Denmark and Sweden,
+2000.
+
+In Italy, Sardinia has the largest share of lines, having about 1200
+miles; and in Germany, after Austria and Prussia, the largest share
+belongs to Bavaria, which has 1050. Saxony has 400 miles; Wuertemberg,
+195.
+
+The distance between stations on lines of Continental telegraph is from
+ten to twelve miles on the average, and the number of them is about
+3800.
+
+In France the use of the electric telegraph has rapidly increased within
+the last few years. In 1851, the number of despatches transmitted
+was 9014, which produced 76,723 francs. In 1858, there were 463,973
+despatches transmitted, producing 3,516,634 francs. During the last four
+years, that is to say, since all the chief towns in France have been in
+electric communication with Paris, and consequently with each other,
+there have been sent by private individuals 1,492,420 despatches, which
+have produced 12,528,591 francs. Out of the 97,728 despatches exchanged
+during the last three months of 1858, 23,728 were with Paris, and 15,409
+with the thirty most important towns of France. These 15,409 despatches
+are divided, as to their object or nature, as follows:--Private and
+family affairs, 3102; journals, 523; commerce and manufactures, 6132;
+Bourse affairs, 5253; sundry affairs, 399.
+
+In Australia, the electric telegraph is in constant use, affording a
+remunerating revenue, and the amount of business has forced on the
+government the necessity of additional wires.
+
+Cuba has six hundred miles of wire in operation. Messages can be
+transmitted only in Spanish, and the closest surveillance is
+maintained by the government officials over all despatches offered for
+transmission. From the fact that no less than a dozen errors occurred in
+a dispatch transmitted by a Boston gentleman from Cardenas to Havana,
+we judge that the telegraphic apparatus, invented by our liberty-loving
+American, Professor House, rebels at such petty tyranny.
+
+Several hundred miles of electric telegraph have been constructed in
+Mexico; but the unfortunate condition of the country for the last few
+years has precluded the possibility of maintaining it in working order,
+and it has, like everything else in the land of Monteznma, gone to
+decay.
+
+The English and Dutch governments have come to an understanding upon a
+system of cables which will unite India and Australia, and eventually be
+extended to China. The arrangements between the governments are:--That
+the Indian and Imperial governments shall connect India with Singapore;
+that the Dutch government shall connect Singapore with the southeast
+point of Java; that the Australian governments shall connect their
+continent with Java. The cable for the Singapore-Java section was to
+have been laid during the last month; the Indian-Singapore section is
+to be laid this spring; and the connection with Australia will, it is
+believed, be completed in the course of next year.
+
+The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company have announced the arrangements
+under which they are prepared to transmit messages for the public
+between Alexandria and Aden. Messages for Australia and China will be
+forwarded by post from Aden. It is considered probable that a direct
+communication with Alexandria will be established through Constantinople
+in the course of a few weeks, and then the news from India will reach
+London in ten or eleven days.
+
+A late European steamer brings a report that two Russian engineers
+have proceeded to Pekin, China, to make preparations for a telegraphic
+connection between that place and the Russian territory.
+
+There is reason to believe that arrangements will soon be made at St.
+Petersburg, through private companies and government subsidies, for
+completing the line of telegraph from Novgorod to the mouth of the
+Amoor, and thence across the straits to Russian America. In the mean
+time, a company has already been formed and incorporated in Canada,
+under the name of the Transmundane Telegraphic Company, which will
+afford important aid in continuing the proposed line through British
+America. The plan is, to carry the wires from the mouth of the Amoor
+across Behring's Strait, to and through Russian and British America.
+From Victoria a branch will be extended to San Francisco, and another to
+Canada. The line from San Francisco to Missouri is under way, and Mr.
+Collins, who is engaged in the Russian and Canadian enterprise, thinks
+that by the time it is in operation he shall have extended his line to
+San Francisco.
+
+This is unquestionably the most feasible route for telegraphic
+communication between America and Europe; and, though the longest
+by several thousand miles, it would afford the most rapid means of
+communication, owing to the great superiority of aerial over subaqueous
+lines.
+
+No limit has yet been found to aerial telegraphing; for, by inserting
+transferrers into the more extended circuits, renewed energy can be
+attained, and lines of several thousands of miles in length can be
+worked, if properly insulated, as surely as those of a hundred. The
+lines between New York and New Orleans are frequently connected together
+by means of transferrers, and direct communication is had over a
+distance of more than, two thousand miles. No perceptible retardation of
+the current takes place; on the contrary, the lines so connected work as
+successfully as when divided into shorter circuits.
+
+This is not the case with subaqueous lines. The employment of submarine,
+as well as of subterranean conductors, occasions a small retardation in
+the velocity of the transmitted electricity. This retardation is not due
+to the length of the path which the electric current has to traverse,
+since it does not take place with a conductor equally long, insulated in
+the air. It arises, as Faraday has demonstrated, from a static reaction,
+which is determined by the introduction of a current into a conductor
+well insulated, but surrounded outside its insulating coating by a
+conducting body, such as sea-water or moist ground, or even simply by
+the metallic envelope of iron wires placed in communication with the
+ground. When this conductor is presented to one of the poles of a
+battery, the other pole of which communicates with the ground, it
+becomes charged with static electricity, like the coating of a Leyden
+jar,--electricity which is capable of giving rise to a discharge
+current, even after the voltaic current has ceased to be transmitted.
+
+Professor Wheatstone experimented upon the cable intended to unite La
+Spezia, upon the coast of Piedmont, with the Island of Corsica. It was
+one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires
+one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and
+each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in
+thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two
+ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as
+to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles
+in length, through which the electric current could circulate in the
+same direction. This current was itself furnished by an insulated
+battery formed of one hundred and forty-four Wheatstone's pairs, equal
+to fifty of Grove's. In the first series of experiments, it was proved,
+that, if one of the ends of the long wire, whose other end remained
+insulated, were made to communicate with one of the poles of the
+battery, the wire became charged with the electricity of that pole,
+which, so long as it existed, gave rise to a current which was made
+evident by a galvanometer: but, in order to obtain this result, the
+second pole of the battery must communicate with the ground, or with
+another long wire similar to the first.
+
+In a second series of experiments, Professor Wheatstone interposed three
+galvanometers in the middle and at the ends of the circuit, determining
+in this manner the progress of the current by the order which they
+followed in their deviation. If the two poles of the battery were
+connected by the long conductor of six hundred and sixty miles, the
+precaution having been taken to divide it into two portions of equal
+length, it was observed, on connecting the two free extremities of these
+two portions in order to close the circuit, that the galvanometer placed
+in the middle was the first to be deflected, whilst the galvanometers
+placed in the vicinity of the poles were not deflected until later.
+
+By a third series of experiments, Wheatstone, with the galvanometer, has
+shown that a continuous current may be maintained in the circuit of the
+long wire of an electric cable, of which one of the ends is insulated,
+whilst the other communicates with one of the poles of a battery whose
+other pole is connected with the ground. This current is due to the
+uniform and continual dispersion of the statical electricity with which
+the wire is charged along its whole length, as would happen to any other
+conducting body placed in an insulating medium.
+
+It was owing to the retardation from this cause that communication
+through the Atlantic Cable was so exceedingly slow and difficult, and
+not, as many suppose, because the cable was defective. It is true that
+there was a fault in the cable, discovered by Varley, before it left
+Queenstown; but it was not of so serious a character as to offer any
+substantial obstacle to the passage of the electric current.
+
+As everything pertaining to the actual operation of the Atlantic Cable
+has been studiously withheld from the public, until it has come to be
+seriously doubted whether any despatches were ever transmitted through
+it, we presume it will not be out of place here to give the actual
+_modus operandi_ of this great wonder and mystery.
+
+The only instrument which could be used successfully in signalling
+through the Atlantic Cable was one of peculiar construction, by
+Professor Thompson, called the marine galvanometer. In this instrument
+momentum and inertia are almost wholly avoided by the use of a needle
+weighing only one and a half grains, combined with a mirror reflecting a
+ray of light, which indicates deflections with great accuracy. By these
+means a gradually increasing or decreasing current is at each instant
+indicated at its due strength. Thus, when this galvanometer is placed
+as the receiving instrument at the end of a long submarine cable, the
+movement of the spot of light, consequent on the completion of a circuit
+through the battery, cable, and earth, can be so observed as to furnish
+a curve representing very accurately the arrival of an electric current.
+Lines representing successive signals at various speeds can also be
+obtained, and, by means of a metronome, dots, dashes, successive _A_-s,
+etc., can be sent with nearly perfect regularity by an ordinary Morse
+key, and the corresponding changes in the current at the receiving end
+of the cable accurately observed. The strength of the battery employed
+was found to have no influence on the results; curves given by batteries
+of different strengths could be made to coincide by simply drawing them
+to scales proportionate to the strengths of the two currents. It was
+also found that the same curve represented the gradual increase of
+intensity due to the arrival of a current and the gradual decrease due
+to the ceasing of that current. The possible speed of signalling was
+found to be very nearly proportional to the squares of the lengths
+spoken through. Thus, a speed which gave fifteen dots per minute in a
+length of 2191 nautical miles reproduced all the effects given by a
+speed of thirty dots in a length of 1500. At these speeds, with ordinary
+Morse signals, speaking would be barely possible. In the Red Sea, a
+speed of from seven to eight words per minute was attained in a length
+of 750 nautical miles. Mechanical senders, and attention to the
+proportion of the various contacts, would materially increase the speed
+at which signals of any kind could be transmitted. The best trained hand
+cannot equal the accuracy of mechanism, and the slightest irregularity
+causes the current to rise or fall quite beyond the limits required for
+distinct signals. No important difference was observed between signals
+sent by alternate reverse currents and those sent by the more usual
+method. The amount of oscillation, and the consequent distinctness of
+signalling, were nearly the same in the two cases. An advantage in the
+first signals sent is, however, obtained by the use of Messrs. Sieman's
+and Halske's submarine key, by which the cable is put to earth
+immediately on signalling being interrupted, and the wire thus kept at
+a potential half-way between the potentials of the poles of two
+counter-acting batteries employed, and the first signals become legible,
+which, with the ordinary key, would be employed in charging the wire.
+
+A system of arbitrary characters, similar to those used upon the Morse
+telegraph, was employed, and the letter to be indicated was determined
+by the number of oscillations of the needle, as well as by the length of
+time during which the needle remained in one place. The operator, who
+watched the reflection of the deflected needle in the mirror, had a key,
+communicating with a local instrument in the office, in his hand, which
+he pressed down or raised, as the needle was deflected; and another
+operator occupied himself in deciphering the characters thus produced
+upon the paper. As the operator at Trinity Bay had no means of arresting
+the operations at Valentia, and _vice versa_, and as the fastest rate of
+speed over the cable could not exceed three words per minute, it will
+not surprise the reader that the operators were nearly two days in
+transmitting the Queen's despatch.
+
+However, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, there were
+transmitted from Ireland to Newfoundland, through the Atlantic Cable,
+between the 10th of August and the 1st of September, 97 messages,
+containing 1102 words; and from Newfoundland to Ireland, 269 messages
+and 2840 words, making a total of 366 messages, containing 3942 words.
+Among these were the message from the Queen to the President of the
+United States, and his reply; the one announcing the safety of the
+steamer Europa, her mails and passengers, after her collision with
+the Arabia; and two messages for Her Majesty's War-Office, which last
+effected a very large saving to the revenue of the English government.
+
+In Liverpool, L150,000 have already been subscribed to the project of
+completing or relaying the Atlantic Cable.
+
+A contract has been recently made by the English government for a cable
+to be laid from Falmouth to Gibraltar, 1200 miles, which is to be ready
+in June next. This will be succeeded by one from Gibraltar to Malta
+and Alexandria, thus giving England an independent line, free from
+Continental difficulties.
+
+Steamers were to have left Liverpool at the end of the last month, with
+the remainder of the cable to connect Kurrachee with Aden. The cable to
+connect Alexandria with England is now to be laid through the islands
+of Rhodes and Scio to Constantinople, and not by way of Candia, as
+previously intended; it is expected to be laid this season. Hellaniyah,
+one of the Kuria-Muria Islands, has been decided on as a station for the
+Red Sea Telegraph.
+
+The new electric cable between Malta and the opposite coast of Sicily at
+Alga Grande is safely laid. Two previous attempts had been made; but, in
+consequence of the late strong winds, nothing could be done. The
+shore end on the Malta side had been laid down and connected with the
+company's offices before the expedition started; the outer end, about
+one mile off the Marsamuscetto harbor, into which the cable has been
+taken, being buoyed ready to complete the communication from shore to
+shore the moment the cable was submerged. The operation of paying out
+the cable was completed without the least accident. The mid-portion of
+the cable is of great strength, being able to sustain a strain of ten
+or twelve tons without parting, and the shore ends are of nearly double
+that strength. The depth of water throughout is within eighty fathoms;
+so that, if any accident should ever occur, it may be remedied without
+much difficulty.
+
+A great change in the rates to Sicily and the Italian States will result
+from the completion of this new line, a reduction in some cases of
+seventy-five per cent. being made,--a great boon to the English
+merchants. Messages in French, English, or Italian will be transmitted,
+and we must congratulate the company upon their success in inducing the
+Neapolitan government to make this concession, and upon the exceedingly
+low tariff proposed.
+
+Mr. De Sauty is the electrician of this company. He will be remembered
+by the reader as the mysterious operator at Trinity Bay, from whom an
+occasional vague and exceedingly brief despatch was received in relation
+to the working of the cable. Nothing really satisfactory could ever be
+obtained, and, when visited by some officers connected with the United
+States Coast Survey, he would not permit them to enter the office or
+examine the apparatus. His name was published in the daily journals with
+several different varieties of spelling, and for this reason, and in
+consequence of his extreme reticence, one of them perpetrated the
+following:--
+
+  "Thou operator, silent, glum,
+  Why wilt them act so naughty?
+  Do tell us _what_ your name is,--come:
+  De Santy, or De Sauty?
+
+  "Don't think to humbug any more,
+  Shut up there in your shanty,--
+  But solve the problem, once for all,--
+  De Sauty, or De Santy?"
+
+Electric telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire has within a few months had
+a remarkable development. Several lines are already in course of
+construction. A direct line from Varna to Toultcha, passing by
+Baltschik. A line from Toultcha to Odessa, passing by Reni and joining
+the Russian telegraph at Ismail. The subaqueous cable from Toultcha to
+Reni, on the Danube, is the sixth in the Ottoman Empire. This line,
+which will place Constantinople in direct communication with Odessa,
+will not only have the advantage of increasing and accelerating the
+communications, but will very considerably reduce their cost.
+
+There is also to be a line from Rodosto to Enos and Salonica; and from
+Salonica to Monastir, Valona, and Scutari in Albania. The line from
+Salonica to Monastir and Valona will be joined by a submarine cable
+crossing the Adriatic to Otranto, and carried on to Naples. It will
+have the effect of placing Southern Italy in communication with
+Constantinople, and also of reducing the cost of messages. A convention
+to this effect has been signed by a delegate of the Neapolitan
+government and the director-general of the telegraphic lines of the
+Ottoman Empire, touching this line to Naples. The ratification of the
+two governments will shortly be given to this convention.
+
+A line from Scutari in Albania to Bar-Bournon, and thence to
+Castellastua, passing round the Montenegrin territory by a submarine
+cable. This line is already laid, and will begin working immediately on,
+the completion of the Austrian lines to the point where it ends.
+
+A line from Constantinople to Bagdad. Three sections of this are being
+simultaneously laid down. The first from Constantinople to Ismid,
+Angora, Yuzgat, and Sivas: the works on this have been already carried
+to Sabanja, between Ismid and Angora. The second section, from Sivas
+to Moussoul: the works on this line are in a state of favorable
+preparation, and the line will be actively gone on with. The third
+section, from Bagdad to Moussoul: for this also the preparations have
+been made, and the works will begin when the season opens, the materials
+being all ready along the line. From Bagdad this line will extend to
+Bassora, to join a submarine cable to be carried thence to British
+India.
+
+A projected line from Constantinople to Smyrna. For this, two routes
+are thought of: one, the shortest, but most difficult, would run from
+Constantinople to the Dardanelles, Adramyti, and Smyrna; the other,
+the longest, but offering fewest difficulties, would pass from
+Constantinople by Muhalitch, Berliek-Hissar, and Maneesa, to Smyrna.
+
+A line from Mostar to Bosna-Serai. Mostar is already connected with the
+Austrian telegraphs at Metcovich.
+
+Other lines have been in the mean time completed and extended, and will
+soon be opened to the public. Thus, a third and fourth wire are being
+laid on the line from Constantinople to Rodosto; from the latter point
+three wires have been carried to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, two of
+which are for messages from Gallipoli to the Dardanelles, and the third
+is to join the submarine cable connecting Constantinople, Candia, Syra,
+and the Piraeus. The communications between Constantinople and Candia
+would already have begun but for an accident to the engineer. Those
+with Syra and the Piraeus will begin as soon as the ratification of the
+convention entered into between the Ottoman and Greek governments on
+this subject shall have taken place. The laying of the cable between
+Candia and Alexandria, which has not yet succeeded, will be resumed this
+spring.
+
+Thus, after the completion of these lines, Constantinople will be in
+communication with nearly all the chief provinces and towns of the
+empire, with Africa, and with Europe, by five different channels,--by
+the Principalities, by Odessa, by Servia, by Dalmatia, and the Kingdom
+of the Two Sicilies. With such a development of the system, it will
+be imperatively necessary to increase the telegraphic working-staff.
+Already the number of despatches arriving every day renders the service
+very difficult, and occasions much confusion and many grievous mistakes.
+Nothing is easier than to remedy all this by increasing the number of
+the _employes_.
+
+The great distinguishing feature of the telegraphs used in Great Britain
+is, that they are of the class known as oscillating telegraphs,--that
+is, telegraphs in which the letters are denoted by the number of motions
+to the right or left of a needle or indicator. Those of France are of
+the class called dial telegraphs, in which an index, or needle, is
+carried around the face of a dial, around the circumference of which are
+placed the letters of the alphabet; any particular letter being
+designated by the brief stopping of the needle. A similar system has
+been used in Prussia; but, recently, the American, or recording
+instrument of Professor Morse, has been introduced into this, as well
+as every other European country; and even in England, the national
+prejudice is gradually giving way, and our American system is being
+introduced.
+
+In America none but recording instruments have ever been used. Of
+these we have many kinds, but only five are in operation at present,
+namely:--The electro-magnetic timing instrument of Professor Morse;
+the electro-magnetic step-by-step printing of Mr. House; the
+electro-magnetic synchronous printing of Mr. Hughes; the
+electro-chemical rhythmic of Mr. Bain; and the combination-printing,
+combining the essential parts of the Hughes instrument with portions of
+the House. The Morse apparatus is, however, most generally used in this
+country and every other. Out of the two hundred and fifty thousand
+miles of electric telegraph now in operation or in the course of
+construction in the world, at least two hundred thousand give the
+preference to it.
+
+Although the Morse apparatus is a recording one, yet, for the last six
+years, the operators in this country have discontinued the use of the
+paper, and confined themselves to reading by the ear, which they do
+with the greatest facility. By this means a great saving is made in the
+expense of working the telegraph, and far greater correctness insured;
+as the ear is found much more reliable in comprehending the clicks of
+the instrument, than the eye in deciphering the arbitrary alphabet of
+dots and lines.
+
+The rapidity of the several instruments in use may be given as
+follows:--Cooke and Wheatstone's needle telegraph of Great Britain, 900
+words per hour; Froment's dial telegraph, of France, 1200; Bregnet's
+dial telegraph, also French, 1000; Sieman's dial telegraph, formerly
+used upon the Prussian lines, 900; Bain's chemical, in use between
+Liverpool and Manchester, and formerly to a considerable extent in the
+United States, 1500; the Morse telegraph, in use all over the world,
+1500; the House printing, used in the United States to a limited extent,
+and in Cuba, 2800; Hughes's and the combination instruments, 2000. The
+three last systems are American inventions; thus it will be seen, that
+to our country is due the credit of inventing the most rapid and the
+most universally used telegraphic systems.
+
+But though we surpass all other nations in the value of our electric
+apparatus, we are far behind many, and indeed most countries, in the
+construction of our lines. This does not arise from want of knowledge or
+of means, but from the custom which obtains to a great extent among all
+classes and professions in this country, of providing something which
+will answer for a time, instead of securing a permanent success.
+
+"But to my mind,--though I am native here, And to the manner born,--it
+is a custom More honored it in the breach than the observance,"--
+especially in building lines of electric telegraph, where the best are
+always the cheapest.
+
+When Shakspeare made Puck promise to "put a girdle round about the earth
+in forty minutes," he undoubtedly supposed he would thereby accomplish a
+remarkable feat; but when the great Russo-American line _via_ Behring's
+Strait and the Amoor is completed, and the Atlantic Cable is again in
+operation, we can put an electric girdle round about the earth before
+Puck could have time to spread his wings!
+
+In view of what must actually take place at no distant day,--the
+girdling of the earth by the electric wires,--a singular question
+arises:--If we send a current of electricity east, it will lose
+twenty-four hours in going round the globe; if we send one west, it
+will gain twenty-four, or, in other words, will get back to the
+starting-place twenty-four hours before it sets out. Now, if we send
+a current half-way round the world, it will get there twelve hours in
+advance of, or twelve hours behind our time, according as we send it
+east or west; the question which naturally suggests itself, therefore,
+is, What is the time at the antipodes? is it _yesterday_ or _to-morrow?_
+LOVE AND SELF-LOVE.
+
+
+"Friendless, when you are gone? But, Jean, you surely do not mean that
+Effie has no claim on any human creature, beyond the universal one of
+common charity?" I said, as she ceased, and lay panting on her pillows,
+with her sunken eyes fixed eagerly upon my own.
+
+"Ay, Sir, I do; for her grandfather has never by word or deed
+acknowledged her, or paid the least heed to the letter her poor mother
+sent him from her dying bed seven years ago. He is a lone old man, and
+this child is the last of his name; yet he will not see her, and cares
+little whether she be dead or living. It's a bitter shame, Sir, and the
+memory of it will rise up before him when he comes to lie where I am
+lying now."
+
+"And you have kept the girl safe in the shelter of your honest home all
+these years? Heaven will remember that, and in the great record of good
+deeds will set the name of Adam Lyndsay far below that of poor Jean
+Burns," I said, pressing the thin hand that had succored the orphan in
+her need.
+
+But Jean took no honor to herself for that charity, and answered simply
+to my words of commendation.
+
+"Sir, her mother was my foster-child; and when she left that stern old
+man for love of Walter Home, I went, too, for love of her. Ah, dear
+heart! she had sore need of me in the weary wanderings which ended only
+when she lay down by her dead husband's side and left her bairn to me.
+Then I came here to cherish her among kind souls where I was born; and
+here she has grown up, an innocent young thing, safe from the wicked
+world, the comfort of my life, and the one thing I grieve at leaving
+when the time that is drawing very near shall come."
+
+"Would not an appeal to Mr. Lyndsay reach him now, think you? Might not
+Effie go to him herself? Surely, the sight of such a winsome creature
+would touch his heart, however hard."
+
+But Jean rose up in her bed, crying, almost fiercely,--
+
+"No, Sir! no! My child shall never go to beg a shelter in that hard
+man's house. I know too well the cold looks, the cruel words, that would
+sting her high spirit and try her heart, as they did her mother's. No,
+Sir,--rather than that, she shall go with Lady Gower."
+
+"Lady Gower? What has she to do with Effie, Jean?" I asked, with
+increasing interest.
+
+"She will take Effie as her maid, Sir. A hard life for my child! but
+what can I do?" And Jean's keen glance seemed trying to read mine.
+
+"A waiting-maid? Heaven forbid!" I ejaculated, as a vision of that
+haughty lady and her three wild sons swept through my mind.
+
+I rose, paced the room in silence for a little time, then took a sudden
+resolution, and, turning to the bed, exclaimed,--
+
+"Jean, I will adopt Effie. I am old enough to be her father; and she
+shall never feel the want of one, if you will give her to my care."
+
+To my surprise, Jean's eager face wore a look of disappointment as she
+listened, and with a sigh replied,--
+
+"That's a kind thought, Sir, and a generous one; but it cannot be as you
+wish. You may be twice her age, but still too young for that. How could
+Effie look into that face of yours, so bonnie, Sir, for all it is so
+grave, and, seeing never a wrinkle on the forehead, nor a white hair
+among the black, how could she call you father? No, it will not do,
+though so kindly meant. Your friends would laugh at you, Sir, and idle
+tongues might speak ill of my bairn."
+
+"Then what can I do, Jean?" I asked, regretfully.
+
+"Make her your wife, Sir."
+
+I turned sharply and stared at the woman, as her abrupt reply reached my
+ear. Though trembling for the consequences of her boldly spoken wish,
+Jean did not shrink from my astonished gaze; and when I saw the
+wistfulness of that wan face, the smile died on my lips, checked by the
+tender courage which had prompted the utterance of her dying hope.
+
+"My good Jean, you forget that Effie is a child, and I a moody, solitary
+man, with no gifts to win a wife or make home happy."
+
+"Effie is sixteen, Sir,--a fair, good lassie for her years; and you--ah,
+Sir, _you_ may call yourself unfit for wife and home, but the poorest,
+saddest creature in this place knows that the man whose hand is always
+open, whose heart is always pitiful, is not the one to live alone, but
+to win and to deserve a happy home and a true wife. Oh, Sir, forgive me,
+if I have been too bold; but my time is short, and I love my child so
+well, I cannot leave the desire of my heart unspoken, for it is my
+last."
+
+As the words fell brokenly from her lips, and tears streamed down her
+pallid cheek, a great pity took possession of me, the old longing to
+find some solace for my solitary life returned again, and peace seemed
+to smile on me from little Effie's eyes.
+
+"Jean," I said, "give me till to-morrow to consider this new thought. I
+fear it cannot be; but I have learned to love the child too well to see
+her thrust out from the shelter of your home to walk through this evil
+world alone. I will consider your proposal, and endeavor to devise some
+future for the child which shall set your heart at rest. But before you
+urge this further, let, me tell you that I am not what you think me.
+I am a cold, selfish man, often, gloomy, often stern,--a most unfit
+guardian for a tender creature like this little girl. The deeds of mine
+which you call kind are not true charities; it frets me to see pain,
+and I desire my ease above all earthly things. You are grateful for
+the little I have done for you, and deceive yourself regarding my true
+worth; but of one thing you may rest assured,--I am an honest man, who
+holds his name too high to stain it with a false word or a dishonorable
+deed."
+
+"I do believe you, Sir," Jean answered, eagerly. "And if I left the
+child to you, I could die this night in peace. Indeed, Sir, I never
+should have dared to speak of this, but for the belief that you loved
+the girl. What else could I think, when you came so often and were so
+kind to us?"
+
+"I cannot blame you, Jean; it was my usual forgetfulness of others which
+so misled you. I was tired of the world, and came hither to find peace
+in solitude. Effie cheered me with her winsome ways, and I learned to
+look on her as the blithe spirit whose artless wiles won me to forget a
+bitter past and a regretful present." I paused; and then added, with a
+smile, "But, in our wise schemes, we have overlooked one point: Effie
+does not love me, and may decline the future you desire me to offer
+her."
+
+A vivid hope lit those dim eyes, as Jean met my smile with one far
+brighter, and joyfully replied,--
+
+"She _does_ love you, Sir; for you have given her the greatest happiness
+she has ever known. Last night she sat looking silently into the fire
+there with a strange gloom on her bonnie face, and, when I asked what
+she was dreaming of, she turned to me with a look of pain and fear, as
+if dismayed at some great loss, but she only said, 'He is going, Jean!
+What shall I do?'"
+
+"Poor child! she will miss her friend and teacher, when I'm gone; and I
+shall miss the only human creature that has seemed to care for me for
+years," I sighed,--adding, as I paused upon the threshold of the door,
+"Say nothing of this to Effie till I come to-morrow, Jean."
+
+I went away, and far out on the lonely moor sat down to think. Like a
+weird magician, Memory led me back into the past, calling up the hopes
+and passions buried there. My childhood,--fatherless and motherless,
+but not unhappy; for no wish was ungratified, no idle whim denied. My
+boyhood,--with no shadows over it but those my own wayward will called
+up. My manhood,--when the great joy of my life arose, my love for
+Agnes, a midsummer dream of bloom and bliss, so short-lived and so
+sweet! I felt again the pang that wrung my heart when she coldly gave me
+back the pledge I thought so sacred and so sure, and the music of her
+marriage-bells tolled the knell of my lost love. I seemed to hear them
+still wafted across the purple moor through the silence of those fifteen
+years.
+
+My life looked gray and joyless as the wide waste lying hushed around
+me, unblessed with the verdure of a single hope, a single love; and as I
+looked down the coming years, my way seemed very solitary, very dark.
+
+Suddenly a lark soared upward from the heath, cleaving the silence with
+its jubilant song. The sleeping echoes woke, the dun moor seemed to
+smile, and the blithe music fell like dew upon my gloomy spirit,
+wakening a new desire.
+
+"What this bird is to the moor might little Effie be to me," I thought
+within myself, longing to possess the cheerful spirit which had power to
+gladden me.
+
+"Yes," I mused, "the old home will seem more solitary now than ever; and
+if I cannot win the lark's song without a golden fetter, I will give
+it one, and while it sings for love of me it shall not know a want or
+fear."
+
+Heaven help me! I forgot the poor return I made my lark for the sweet
+liberty it lost.
+
+All that night I pondered the altered future Jean had laid before me,
+and the longer I looked the fairer it seemed to grow. Wealth I cared
+nothing for; the world's opinion I defied; ambition had departed,
+and passion I believed lay dead;--then why should I deny myself the
+consolation which seemed offered to me? I would accept it; and as I
+resolved, the dawn looked in at me, fresh and fair as little Effie's
+face.
+
+I met Jean with a smile, and, as she read its significance aright,
+there shone a sudden peace upon her countenance, more touching than her
+grateful words.
+
+Effie came singing from the burn-side, as unconscious of the change
+which awaited her as the flowers gathered in her plaid and crowning her
+bright hair.
+
+I drew her to my side, and in the simplest words asked her if she would
+go with me when Jean's long guardianship was ended. Joy, sorrow, and
+surprise stirred the sweet composure of her face, and quickened the
+tranquil beating of her heart. But as I ceased, joy conquered grief and
+wonder; for she clapped her hands like a glad child, exclaiming,--
+
+"Go with you, Sir? Oh, if you knew how I long to see the home you have
+so often pictured to me, you would never doubt my willingness to go."
+
+"But, Effie, you do not understand. Are you willing to go with me as my
+wife?" I said,--with a secret sense of something like remorse, as I
+uttered that word, which once meant so much to me, and now seemed such
+an empty title to bestow on her.
+
+The flowers dropped from the loosened plaid, as Effie looked with a
+startled glance into my face; the color left her cheeks, and the smile
+died on her lips, but a timid joy lit her eye, as she softly echoed my
+last words,--
+
+"Your wife? It sounds very solemn, though so sweet. Ah, Sir, I am not
+wise or good enough for that!"
+
+A child's humility breathed in her speech, but something of a woman's
+fervor shone in her uplifted countenance, and sounded in the sudden
+tremor of her voice.
+
+"Effie, I want you as you are," I said,--"no wiser, dear,--no better.
+I want your innocent affection to appease the hunger of an empty heart,
+your blithe companionship to cheer my solitary home. Be still a child to
+me, and let me give you the protection of my name."
+
+Effie turned to her old friend, and, laying her young face on the pillow
+close beside the worn one grown so dear to her, asked, in a tone half
+pleading, half regretful,--
+
+"Dear Jean, shall I go so far away from you and the home you gave me
+when I had no other?"
+
+"My bairn, I shall not be here, and it will never seem like home with
+old Jean gone. It is the last wish I shall ever know, to see you safe
+with this good gentleman who loves my child. Go, dear heart, and be
+happy; and Heaven bless and keep you both!"
+
+Jean held her fast a moment, and then, with a whispered prayer, put her
+gently away. Effie came to me, saying, with a look more eloquent than
+her meek words,--
+
+"Sir, I will be your wife, and love you very truly all my life."
+
+I drew the little creature to my breast, and felt a tender pride in
+knowing she was mine. Something in the shy caress those soft arms gave
+touched my cold nature with a generous warmth, and the innocence of
+that confiding heart was an appeal to all that made my manhood worth
+possessing.
+
+Swiftly those few weeks passed, and when old Jean was laid to her last
+sleep, little Effie wept her grief away upon her husband's bosom, and
+soon learned to smile in her new English home. Its gloom departed when
+she came, and for a while it was a very happy place. My bitter moods
+seemed banished by the magic of the gentle presence that made sunshine
+there, and I was conscious of a fresh grace added to the life so
+wearisome before.
+
+I should have been a father to the child, watchful, wise, and tender;
+but old Jean was right,--I was too young to feel a father's calm
+affection or to know a father's patient care. I should have been her
+teacher, striving to cultivate the nature given to my care, and fit it
+for the trials Heaven sends to all. I should have been a friend, if
+nothing more, and given her those innocent delights that make youth
+beautiful and its memory sweet.
+
+I was a master, content to give little, while receiving all she could
+bestow.
+
+Forgetting her loneliness, I fell back into my old way of life. I
+shunned the world, because its gayeties had lost their zest. I did not
+care to travel, for home now possessed a charm it never had before. I
+knew there was an eager face that always brightened when I came, light
+feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every
+want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a
+pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite
+whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a
+picture or a flower,--a little better than my horse and hound,--but
+far less than I loved my most unworthy self.
+
+And she,--always so blithe when I was by, so diligent in studying
+my desires, so full of simple arts to win my love and prove her
+gratitude,--she never asked for any boon, and seemed content to live
+alone with me in that still place, so utterly unlike the home she had
+left. I had not learned to read that true heart then. I saw those happy
+eyes grow wistful when I went, leaving her alone; I missed the roses
+from her cheek, faded for want of gentler care; and when the buoyant
+spirit which had been her chiefest charm departed, I fancied, in my
+blindness, that she pined for the free air of the Highlands, and tried
+to win it back by transient tenderness and costly gifts. But I had
+robbed my lark of heaven's sunshine, and it could not sing.
+
+I met Agnes again. She was a widow, and to my eye seemed fairer than
+when I saw her last, and far more kind. Some soft regret seemed shining
+on me from those lustrous eyes, as if she hoped to win my pardon for
+that early wrong. I never could forget the deed that darkened my best
+years, but the old charm stole over me at times, and, turning from the
+meek child at my feet, I owned the power of the stately woman whose
+smile seemed a command.
+
+I meant no wrong to Effie, but, looking on her as a child, I forgot
+the higher claim I had given her as a wife, and, walking blindly on my
+selfish way, I crushed the little flower I should have cherished in my
+breast. "Effie, my old friend Agnes Vaughan is coming here to-day; so
+make yourself fair, that you may do honor to my choice; for she desires
+to see you, and I wish my Scotch harebell to look lovely to this English
+rose," I said, half playfully, half earnestly, as we stood together
+looking out across the flowery lawn, one summer day.
+
+"Do you like me to be pretty, Sir?" she answered, with a flush of
+pleasure on her upturned face. "I will try to make myself fair with the
+gifts you are always heaping on me; but even then I fear I shall not do
+you honor, nor please your friend, I am so small and young."
+
+A careless reply was on my lips, but, seeing what a long way down the
+little figure was, I drew it nearer, saying, with a smile, which I knew
+would make an answering one,--
+
+"Dear, there must be the bud before the flower; so never grieve, for
+your youth keeps my spirit young. To me you may be a child forever; but
+you must learn to be a stately little Madam Ventnor to my friends."
+
+She laughed a gayer laugh than I had heard for many a day, and soon
+departed, intent on keeping well the promise she had given. An hour
+later, as I sat busied among my books, a little figure glided in, and
+stood before me with its jewelled arms demurely folded on its breast. It
+was Effie, as I had never seen her before. Some new freak possessed her,
+for with her girlish dress she seemed to have laid her girlhood by. The
+brown locks were gathered up, wreathing the small head like a coronet;
+aerial lace and silken vesture shimmered in the light, and became her
+well. She looked and moved a fairy queen, stately and small.
+
+I watched her in a silent maze, for the face with its shy blushes and
+downcast eyes did not seem the childish one turned frankly to my own an
+hour ago. With a sigh I looked up at Agnes's picture, the sole ornament
+of that room, and when I withdrew my gaze the blooming vision had
+departed. I should have followed it to make my peace, but I fell into
+a fit of bitter musing, and forgot it till Agnes's voice sounded at my
+door.
+
+She came with a brother, and seemed eager to see my young wife; but
+Effie did not appear, and I excused her absence as a girlish freak,
+smiling at it with them, while I chafed inwardly at her neglect,
+forgetting that I might have been the cause.
+
+Pacing down the garden paths with Agnes at my side, our steps were
+arrested by a sudden sight of Effie fast asleep among the flowers. She
+looked a flower herself, lying with her flushed cheek pillowed on her
+arm, sunshine glittering on the ripples of her hair, and the changeful
+lustre of her dainty dress. Tears moistened her long lashes, but her
+lips smiled, as if in the blissful land of dreams she had found some
+solace for her grief.
+
+"A 'Sleeping Beauty' worthy the awakening of any prince!" whispered
+Alfred Vaughan, pausing with admiring eyes.
+
+A slight frown swept over Agnes's face, but vanished as she said, with
+that low-toned laugh that never seemed unmusical before,--
+
+"We must pardon Mrs. Ventnor's seeming rudeness, if she welcomes us with
+graceful scenes like this. A child-wife's whims are often prettier than
+the world's formal ways; so do not chide her, Basil, when she wakes."
+
+I was a proud man then, touched easily by trivial things. Agnes's
+pitying manner stung me, and the tone in which I wakened Effie was far
+harsher than it should have been. She sprang up; and with a gentle
+dignity most new to me received her guests, and played the part of
+hostess with a grace that well atoned for her offence.
+
+Agnes watched her silently as she went before us with young Vaughan, and
+even I, ruffled as my temper was, felt a certain pride in the loving
+creature who for my sake conquered her timidity and strove to do me
+honor. But neither by look nor word did I show my satisfaction, for
+Agnes demanded the constant service of lips and eyes, and I was only too
+ready to devote them to the woman who still felt her power and dared to
+show it.
+
+All that day I was beside her, forgetful in many ways of the gentle
+courtesies I owed the child whom I had made my wife. I did not see the
+wrong then, but others did, and the deference I failed to show she could
+ask of them.
+
+In the evening, as I stood near Agnes while she sang the songs we both
+remembered well, my eye fell on a mirror that confronted me, and in it
+I saw Effie bending forward with a look that startled me. Some strong
+emotion controlled her, for with lips apart and eager eyes she gazed
+keenly at the countenances she believed unconscious of her scrutiny.
+
+Agnes caught the vision that had arrested the half-uttered compliment
+upon my lips, and, turning, looked at Effie with a smile just touched
+with scorn.
+
+The color rose vividly to Effie's cheek, but her eyes did not fall,--
+they sought my face, and rested there. A half-smile crossed my lips;
+with a sudden impulse I beckoned, and she came with such an altered
+countenance I fancied that I had not seen aright.
+
+At my desire she sang the ballads she so loved, and in her girlish voice
+there was an undertone of deeper melody than when I heard them first
+among her native hills; for the child's heart was ripening fast into the
+woman's.
+
+Agnes went, at length, and I heard Effies sigh of relief when we were
+left alone, but only bid her "go and rest," while I paced to and fro,
+still murmuring the refrain of Agnes's song.
+
+The Vaughans came often, and we went often to them in the summer-home
+they had chosen near us on the riverbank. I followed my own wayward
+will, and Effie's wistful eyes grew sadder as the weeks went by.
+
+One sultry evening, as we strolled together on the balcony, I was
+seized with a sudden longing to hear Agnes sing, and bid Effie come with
+me for a moonlight voyage down the river.
+
+She had been very silent all the evening, with a pensive shadow on her
+face and rare smiles on her lips. But as I spoke, she paused
+abruptly, and, clenching her small hands, turned upon me with defiant
+eyes,--crying, almost fiercely--
+
+"No, I will not go to listen to that woman's songs. I hate her! yes,
+more than I can tell! for, till she came, I thought you loved me; but
+now you think of her alone, and chide me when I look unhappy. You treat
+me like a child; but I am not one. Oh, Sir, be more kind, for I have
+only you to love!"--and as her voice died in that sad appeal, she
+clasped her hands before her face with such a burst of tears that I had
+no words to answer her.
+
+Disturbed by the sudden passion of the hitherto meek girl, I sat down on
+the wide steps of the balcony and essayed to draw her to my knee, hoping
+she would weep this grief away as she had often done a lesser sorrow.
+But she resisted my caress, and, standing erect before me, checked
+her tears, saying, in a voice still trembling with resentment and
+reproach,--
+
+"You promised Jean to be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask
+for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a
+pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is
+not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will not bear it!"
+
+If she had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly
+pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her
+indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit
+of the man, and made me sternest when I should have been most kind.
+
+"Effie," I said, looking coldly up into her troubled face, "I have given
+you the right to be thus frank with me; but before you exercise that
+right, let me tell you what may silence your reproaches and teach you
+to know me better. I desired to adopt you as my child; Jean would not
+consent to that, but bid me marry you, and so give you a home, and win
+for myself a companion who should make that home less solitary. I could
+protect you in no other way, and I married you. I meant it kindly,
+Effie; for I pitied you,--ay, and loved you, too, as I hoped I had fully
+proved."
+
+"You have, Sir,--oh, you have! But I hoped I might in time be more to
+you than a dear child," sighed Effie, while softer tears flowed as she
+spoke.
+
+"Effie, I told Jean I was a hard, cold man,"--and I was one as those
+words passed my lips. "I told her I was unfitted to make a wife happy.
+But she said you would be content with what I could offer; and so I gave
+you all I had to bestow. It was not enough; yet I cannot make it more.
+Forgive me, child, and try to bear your disappointments as I have
+learned to bear mine."
+
+Effie bent suddenly, saying, with a look of anguish, "Do you regret that
+I am your wife, Sir?"
+
+"Heaven knows I do, for I cannot make you happy," I answered,
+mournfully.
+
+"Let me go away where I can never grieve or trouble you again! I will,--
+indeed, I will,--for anything is easier to bear than this. Oh, Jean, why
+did you leave me when you went?"--and with that despairing cry Effie
+stretched her arms into the empty air, as if seeking that lost friend.
+
+My anger melted, and I tried to soothe her, saying gently, as I laid her
+tear-wet cheek to mine,--
+
+"My child, death alone must part us two. We will be patient with each
+other, and so may learn to be happy yet."
+
+A long silence fell upon us both. My thoughts were busy with the thought
+of what a different home mine might have been, if Agnes had been true;
+and Effie--God only knows how sharp a conflict passed in that young
+heart! I could not guess it till the bitter sequel of that hour came.
+
+A timid hand upon my own aroused me, and, looking down, I met such an
+altered face, it touched me like a mute reproach. All the passion bad
+died out, and a great patience seemed to have arisen there. It looked so
+meek and wan, I bent and kissed it; but no smile answered me as Effie
+humbly said,--
+
+"Forgive me, Sir, and tell me how I can make you happier. For I am truly
+grateful for all you have done for me, and will try to be a docile child
+to you."
+
+"Be happy yourself, Effie, and I shall be content. I am too grave and
+old to be a fit companion for you, dear. You shall have gay faces and
+young friends to make this quiet place more cheerful. I should have
+thought of that before. Dance, sing, be merry, Effie, and never let your
+life be darkened by Basil Ventnor's changeful moods."
+
+"And you?" she whispered, looking up.
+
+"I will sit among my books, or seek alone the few friends I care to see,
+and never mar your gayety with my gloomy presence, dear. We must begin
+at once to go our separate ways; for, with so many years between us, we
+can never find the same paths pleasant very long. Let me be a father to
+you, and a friend,--I cannot be a lover, child."
+
+Effie rose and went silently away; but soon came again, wrapped in her
+mantle, saying, as she looked down at me, with something of her former
+cheerfulness,--
+
+"I am good now. Come and row me down the river. It is too beautiful a
+night to be spent in tears and naughtiness."
+
+"No, Effie, you shall never go to Mrs. Vaughan's again, if you dislike
+her so. No friendship of mine need be shared by you, if it gives you
+pain."
+
+"Nothing shall pain me any more," she answered, with a patient sigh. "I
+will be your merry girl again, and try to love Agnes for your sake. Ah!
+do come, _father_, or I shall not feel forgiven."
+
+Smiling at her April moods, I obeyed the small hands clasped about my
+own, and through the fragrant linden walk went musing to the river-side.
+
+Silently we floated down, and at the lower landing-place found Alfred
+Vaughan just mooring his own boat. By him I sent a message to his
+sister, while we waited for her at the shore.
+
+Effie stood above me on the sloping bank, and as Agnes entered the
+green vista of the flowery path, she turned and clung to me with sudden
+fervor, kissed me passionately, and then stole silently into the boat.
+
+The moonlight turned the waves to silver, and in its magic rays the face
+of my first love grew young again. She sat before me with water-lilies
+in her shining hair, singing as she sang of old, while the dash of
+falling oars kept time to her low song. As we neared the ruined bridge,
+whose single arch still cast its heavy shadow far across the stream,
+Agnes bent toward me, softly saying,--
+
+"Basil, you remember this?"
+
+How could I forget that happy night, long years ago, when she and I went
+floating down the same bright stream, two happy lovers just betrothed?
+As she spoke, it all came back more beautiful than ever, and I forgot
+the silent figure sitting there behind me. I hope Agnes had forgotten,
+too; for, cruel as she was to me, I never wished to think her hard
+enough to hate that gentle child.
+
+"I remember, Agnes," I said, with a regretful sigh. "My voyage has been
+a lonely one since then."
+
+"Are you not happy, Basil?" she asked, with a tender pity thrilling her
+low voice.
+
+"Happy?" I echoed, bitterly,--"how can I be happy, remembering what
+might have been?"
+
+Agnes bowed her head upon her hands, and silently the boat shot into the
+black shadow of the arch. A sudden eddy seemed to sway us slightly from
+our course, and the waves dashed sullenly against the gloomy walls;
+a moment more and we glided into calmer waters and unbroken light. I
+looked up from my task to speak, but the words were frozen on my lips
+by a cry from Agnes, who, wild-eyed and pale, seemed pointing to some
+phantom which I could not see. I turned,--the phantom was Effie's empty
+seat. The shining stream grew dark before me, and a great pang of
+remorse wrung my heart as that sight met my eyes.
+
+"Effie!" I cried, with a cry that rent the stillness of the night, and
+sent the name ringing down the river. But nothing answered me, and the
+waves rippled softly as they hurried by. Far over the wide stream went
+my despairing glance, and saw nothing but the lilies swaying as they
+slept, and the black arch where my child went down.
+
+Agnes lay trembling at my feet, but I never heeded her,--for Jean's
+dead voice sounded in my ear, demanding the life confided to my care. I
+listened, benumbed with guilty fear, and, as if summoned by that weird
+cry, there came a white flash through the waves, and Effie's face rose
+up before me.
+
+Pallid and wild with the agony of that swift plunge, it confronted me.
+No cry for help parted the pale lips, but those wide eyes were luminous
+with a love whose fire that deathful river could not quench.
+
+Like one in an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it.
+One instant the terror held me,--the next I was far down in those waves,
+so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind
+struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm,
+and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing
+waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the
+boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and we laid it
+down, a piteous sight for human eyes to look upon. Of that swift voyage
+home I can remember nothing but the still face on Agnes's breast, the
+sight of which nerved my dizzy brain and made my muscles iron.
+
+For many weeks there was a darkened chamber in my house, and anxious
+figures gliding to and fro, wan with long vigils and the fear of death.
+I often crept in to look upon the little figure lying there, to watch
+the feverish roses blooming on the wasted cheek, the fitful fire burning
+in the unconscious eyes, to hear the broken words so full of pathos to
+my ear, and then to steal away and struggle to forget.
+
+My bird fluttered on the threshold of its cage, but Love lured it back,
+for its gentle mission was not yet fulfilled.
+
+The _child_ Effie lay dead beneath the ripples of the river, but the
+_woman_ rose up from that bed of suffering like one consecrated to
+life's high duties by the bitter baptism of that dark hour.
+
+Slender and pale, with serious eyes and quiet steps, she moved through
+the home which once echoed to the glad voice and dancing feet of that
+vanished shape. A sweet sobriety shaded her young face, and a meek smile
+sat upon her lips, but the old blithesomeness was gone.
+
+She never claimed her childish place upon my knee, never tried the
+winsome wiles that used to chase away my gloom, never came to pour her
+innocent delights and griefs into my ear, or bless me with the frank
+affection which grew very precious when I found it lost.
+
+Docile as ever, and eager to gratify my lightest wish, she left no
+wifely duty unfulfilled. Always near me, if I breathed her name, but
+vanishing when I grew silent, as if her task were done. Always smiling a
+cheerful farewell when I went, a quiet welcome when I came. I missed the
+April face that once watched me go, the warm embrace that greeted me
+again, and at my heart the sense of loss grew daily deeper as I felt the
+growing change.
+
+Effie remembered the words I had spoken on that mournful night;
+remembered that our paths must lie apart,--that her husband was a
+friend, and nothing more. She treasured every careless hint I had given,
+and followed it most faithfully. She gathered gay, young friends about
+her, went out into the brilliant world, and I believed she was content.
+
+If I had ever felt she was a burden to the selfish freedom I desired,
+I was punished now, for I had lost a blessing which no common pleasure
+could replace. I sat alone, and no blithe voice made music in the
+silence of my room, no bright locks swept my shoulder, and no soft
+caress assured me that I was beloved.
+
+I looked for my household sprite in girlish garb, with its free hair
+and sunny eyes, but found only a fair woman, graceful in rich attire,
+crowned with my gifts, and standing afar off among her blooming peers.
+I could not guess the solitude of that true heart, nor see the captive
+spirit gazing at me from those steadfast eyes.
+
+No word of the cause of that despairing deed passed Effie's lips, and
+I had no need to ask it. Agnes was silent, and soon left us, but her
+brother was a frequent guest. Effie liked his gay companionship, and I
+denied her nothing,--nothing but the one desire of her life.
+
+So that first year passed; and though the ease and liberty I coveted
+were undisturbed, I was not satisfied. Solitude grew irksome, and
+study ceased to charm. I tried old pleasures, but they had lost their
+zest,--renewed old friendships, but they wearied me. I forgot Agnes,
+and ceased to think her fair. I looked at Effie, and sighed for my lost
+youth.
+
+My little wife grew very beautiful to me, for she was blooming fast into
+a gracious womanhood. I felt a secret pride in knowing she was mine,
+and watched her as I fancied a fond brother might, glad that she was so
+good, so fair, so much beloved. I ceased to mourn the plaything I
+had lost, and something akin to reverence mingled with the deepening
+admiration of the man.
+
+Gay guests had filled the house with festal light and sound one winter's
+night, and when the last bright figure had vanished from the threshold
+of the door, I still stood there, looking over the snow-shrouded lawn,
+hoping to cool the fever of my blood, and case the restless pain that
+haunted me.
+
+I shut out the keen air and wintry sky, at length, and silently ascended
+to the diverted rooms above. But in the soft gloom of a vestibule my
+steps were stayed. Two figures, in a flowery alcove, fixed my eye. The
+light streamed full upon them, and the fragrant stillness of the air was
+hardly stirred by their low tones.
+
+Effie was there, sunk on a low couch, her face bowed upon her hands; and
+at her side, speaking with impassioned voice and ardent eyes, leaned
+Alfred Vaughan.
+
+The sight struck me like a blow, and the sharp anguish of that moment
+proved how deeply I had learned to love.
+
+"Effie, it is a sinful tie that binds you to that man; he does not love
+you, and it should be broken,--for this slavery will wear away the life
+now grown so dear to me."
+
+The words, hot with indignant passion, smote me like a wintry blast, but
+not so coldly as the broken voice that answered them:--
+
+"He said death alone must part us two, and, remembering that, I cannot
+listen to another love."
+
+Like a guilty ghost I stole away, and in the darkness of my solitary
+room struggled with my bitter grief, my newborn love. I never blamed
+my wife,--that wife who had heard the tender name so seldom, she could
+scarce feel it hers. I had fettered her free heart, forgetting it would
+one day cease to be a child's. I bade her look upon me as a father; she
+had learned the lesson well; and now what right had I to reproach her
+for listening to a lover's voice, when her husband's was so cold? What
+mattered it that slowly, almost unconsciously, I had learned to love her
+with the passion of a youth, the power of a man? I had alienated that
+fond nature from my own, and now it was too late.
+
+Heaven only knows the bitterness of that hour;--I cannot tell it. But
+through the darkness of my anguish and remorse that newly kindled love
+burned like a blessed fire, and, while it tortured, purified. By its
+light I saw the error of my life: self-love was written on the actions
+of the past, and I knew that my punishment was very just. With a child's
+repentant tears, I confessed it to my Father, and He solaced me, showed
+me the path to tread, and made me nobler for the blessedness and pain of
+that still hour.
+
+Dawn found me an altered man; for in natures like mine the rain of a
+great sorrow melts the ice of years, and their hidden strength blooms
+in a late harvest of patience, self-denial, and humility. I resolved to
+break the tie which bound poor Effie to a joyless fate; and gratitude
+for a selfish deed, which wore the guise of charity, should no longer
+mar her peace. I would atone for the wrong I had done her, the suffering
+she had endured; and she should never know that I had guessed her tender
+secret, nor learn the love which made my sacrifice so bitter, yet so
+just.
+
+Alfred came no more; and as I watched the growing pallor of her cheek,
+her patient efforts to be cheerful and serene, I honored that meek
+creature for her constancy to what she deemed the duty of her life.
+
+I did not tell her my resolve at once, for I could not give her up so
+soon. It was a weak delay, but I had not learned the beauty of a perfect
+self-forgetfulness; and though I clung to my purpose steadfastly, my
+heart still cherished a desperate hope that I might be spared this loss.
+
+In the midst of this secret conflict, there came a letter from old Adam
+Lyndsay, asking to see his daughter's child; for life was waning slowly,
+and he desired to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven when the last hour
+came. The letter was to me, and, as I read it, I saw a way where-by I
+might be spared the hard task of telling Effie she was to be free. I
+feared my new-found strength would desert me, and my courage fail, when,
+looking on the woman who was dearer to me than my life, I tried to give
+her back the liberty whose worth she had learned to know.
+
+Effie should go, and I would write the words I dared not speak. She
+would be in her mother's home, free to show her joy at her release, and
+smile upon the lover she had banished.
+
+I went to tell her; for it was I who sought her now, who watched for her
+coming and sighed at her departing steps,--I who waited for her smile
+and followed her with wistful eyes. The child's slighted affection was
+atoned for now by my unseen devotion to the woman.
+
+I gave the letter, and she read it silently.
+
+"Will you go, love?" I asked, as she folded it.
+
+"Yes,--the old man has no one to care for him but me, and it is so
+beautiful to be loved."
+
+A sudden smile touched her lips, and a soft dew shone in the shadowy
+eyes, which seemed looking into other and tenderer ones than mine. She
+could not know how sadly I echoed those words, nor how I longed to tell
+her of another man who sighed to be forgiven.
+
+"You must gather roses for these pale cheeks among the breezy moorlands,
+dear. They are not so blooming as they were a year ago. Jean would
+reproach me for my want of care," I said, trying to speak cheerfully,
+though each word seemed a farewell.
+
+"Poor Jean! how long it seems since she kissed them last!" sighed Effie,
+musing sadly, as she turned her wedding-ring.
+
+My heart ached to see how thin the hand had grown, and how easily that
+little fetter would fall off when I set my captive lark at liberty.
+
+I looked till I dared look no longer, and then rose, saying,--
+
+"You will write often, Effie, for I shall miss you very much."
+
+She cast a quick look into my face, asking, hurriedly,--
+
+"Am I to go alone?"
+
+"Dear, I have much to do and cannot go; but you need fear nothing; I
+shall send Ralph and Mrs. Prior with you, and the journey is soon over.
+When will you go?"
+
+It was the first time she had left me since I took her from Jean's arms,
+and I longed to keep her always near me; but, remembering the task I had
+to do, I felt that I must seem cold till she knew all.
+
+"Soon,--very soon,--to-morrow;--let me go to-morrow, Sir. I long to be
+away!" she cried, some swift emotion banishing the calmness of her usual
+manner, as she rose, with eager eyes and a gesture full of longing.
+
+"You shall go, Effie," was all I could say; and with no word of thanks,
+she hastened away, leaving me so calm without, so desolate within.
+
+The same eagerness possessed her all that day; and the next she went
+away, clinging to me at the last as she had clung that night upon the
+river-bank, as if her grateful heart reproached her for the joy she felt
+at leaving my unhappy home.
+
+A few days passed, bringing me the comfort of a few sweet lines from
+Effie, signed "Your child." That sight reminded me, that, if I would do
+an honest deed, it should be generously done. I read again the little
+missive she had sent, and then I wrote the letter which might be my
+last;--with no hint of my love, beyond the expression of sincerest
+regard and never-ceasing interest in her happiness; no hint of Alfred
+Vaughan; for I would not wound her pride, nor let her dream that any eye
+had seen the passion she so silently surrendered, with no reproach to
+me and no shadow on the name I had given into her keeping. Heaven knows
+what it cost me, and Heaven, through the suffering of that hour, granted
+me an humbler spirit and a better life.
+
+It went, and I waited for my fate as one might wait for pardon or for
+doom. It came at length,--a short, sad letter, full of meek obedience to
+my will, of penitence for faults I never knew, and grateful prayers for
+my peace.
+
+My last hope died then, and for many days I dwelt alone, living over all
+that happy year with painful vividness. I dreamed again of those fair
+days, and woke to curse the selfish blindness which had hidden my best
+blessing from me till it was forever lost.
+
+How long I should have mourned thus unavailingly I cannot tell. A more
+sudden, but far less grievous loss befell me. My fortune was nearly
+swept away in the general ruin of a most disastrous year. This event
+roused me from my despair and made me strong again,--for I must hoard
+what could be saved, for Effie's sake. She had known a cruel want with
+me, and she must never know another while she bore my name. I looked my
+misfortune in the face and ceased to feel it one; for the diminished
+fortune was still ample for my darling's dower, and now what need had I
+of any but the simplest home?
+
+Before another month was gone, I was in the quiet place henceforth to be
+mine alone, and nothing now remained for me to do but to dissolve the
+bond that made my Effie mine. Sitting over the dim embers of my solitary
+hearth, I thought of this, and, looking round the silent room, whose
+only ornaments were the things made sacred by her use, the utter
+desolation struck so heavily upon my heart, that I bowed my head upon
+my folded arms, and yielded to the tender longing that could not be
+repressed.
+
+The bitter paroxysm passed, and, raising my eyes, the clearer for that
+stormy rain, I beheld Effie standing like an answer to my spirit's cry.
+
+With a great start, I regarded her, saying, at length, in a voice that
+sounded cold, for my heart leaped up to meet her, and yet must not
+speak,--
+
+"Effie, why are you here?"
+
+Wraith-like and pale, she stood before me, with no sign of emotion but
+the slight tremor of her frame, and answered my greeting with a sad
+humility:--
+
+"I came because I promised to cleave to you through health and sickness,
+poverty and wealth, and I must keep that vow till you absolve me from
+it. Forgive me, but I knew misfortune had befallen you, and, remembering
+all you had done for me, came, hoping I might comfort when other friends
+deserted you."
+
+"Grateful to the last!" I sighed, low to myself, and, though deeply
+touched, replied with the hard-won calmness that made my speech so
+brief,--
+
+"You owe me nothing, Effie, and I most earnestly desired to spare you
+this."
+
+Some sudden hope seemed born of my regretful words, for, with an eager
+glance, she cried,--
+
+"Was it that desire which prompted you to part from me? Did you think I
+should shrink from sharing poverty with you who gave me all I own?"
+
+"No, dear,--ah, no!" I said, "I knew your grateful spirit far too well
+for that. It was because I could not make your happiness, and yet had
+robbed you of the right to seek it with some younger and some better
+man."
+
+"Basil, what man? Tell me; for no doubt shall stand between us now!"
+
+She grasped my arm, and her rapid words were a command.
+
+I only answered, "Alfred Vaughan."
+
+Effie covered up her face, crying, as she sank down at my feet,--
+
+"Oh, my fear! my fear! Why was I blind so long?"
+
+I felt her grief to my heart's core; for my own anguish made me pitiful,
+and my love made me strong. I lifted up that drooping head and laid it
+down where it might never rest again, saying, gently, cheerily, and with
+a most sincere forgetfulness of self,--
+
+"My wife, I never cherished a harsh thought of you, never uttered a
+reproach when your affections turned from a cold, neglectful guardian,
+to find a tenderer resting-place. I saw your struggles, dear, your
+patient grief, your silent sacrifice, and honored you more truly than I
+can tell. Effie, I robbed you of your liberty, but I will restore it,
+making such poor reparation as I can for this long year of pain;
+and when I see you blest in a happier home, my keen remorse will be
+appeased."
+
+As I ceased, Effie rose erect and stood before me, transformed from a
+timid girl into an earnest woman. Some dormant power and passion woke;
+she turned on me a countenance aglow with feeling, soul in the eye,
+heart on the lips, and in her voice an energy that held me mute.
+
+"I feared to speak before," she said, "but now I dare anything, for I
+have heard you call me 'wife,' and seen that in your face which gives me
+hope. Basil, the grief you saw was not for the loss of any love
+but yours; the conflict you beheld was the daily struggle to subdue
+my longing spirit to your will; and the sacrifice you honor but the
+renunciation of all hope. I stood between you and the woman whom you
+loved, and asked of death to free me from that cruel lot. You gave me
+back my life, but you withheld the gift that made it worth possessing.
+You desired to be freed from the affection which only wearied you, and I
+tried to conquer it; but it would not die. Let me speak now, and then I
+will be still forever! Must our ways lie apart? Can I never be more to
+you than now? Oh, Basil! oh, my husband! I have loved you very truly
+from the first! Shall I never know the blessedness of a return?"
+
+Words could not answer that appeal. I gathered my life's happiness close
+to my breast, and in the silence of a full heart felt that God was very
+good to me.
+
+Soon all my pain and passion were confessed. Fast and fervently the tale
+was told; and as the truth dawned on that patient wife, a tender peace
+transfigured her uplifted countenance, until to me it seemed an angel's
+face.
+
+"I am a poor man now," I said, still holding that frail creature fast,
+fearing to see her vanish, as her semblance had so often done in the
+long vigils I had kept,--"a poor man, Effie, and yet very rich, for I
+have my treasure back again. But I am wiser than when we parted; for I
+have learned that love is better than a world of wealth, and victory
+over self a nobler conquest than a continent. Dear, I have no home but
+this. Can you be happy here, with no fortune but the little store set
+apart for you, and the knowledge that no want shall touch you while I
+live?"
+
+And as I spoke, I sighed, remembering all I might have done, and
+dreading poverty for her alone.
+
+But with a gesture, soft, yet solemn, Effie laid her hands upon my head,
+as if endowing me with blessing and with gift, and answered, with her
+steadfast eyes on mine,--
+
+"You gave me your home when I was homeless; let me give it back, and
+with it a proud wife. I, too, am rich; for that old man is gone and left
+me all. Take it, Basil, and give me a little love."
+
+I gave not little, but a long life of devotion for the good gift God had
+bestowed on me,--finding in it a household spirit the daily benediction
+of whose presence banished sorrow, selfishness, and gloom, and, through
+the influence of happy human love, led me to a truer faith in the
+Divine.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MUSE.
+
+  Whither? albeit I follow fast,
+  In all life's circuit I but find
+  Not where thou art, but where thou wast,
+  Fleet Beckoner, more shy than wind!
+  I haunt the pine-dark solitudes,
+  With soft, brown silence carpeted,
+  And think to snare thee in the woods:
+  Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled!
+  I find the rock where thou didst rest,
+  The moss thy skimming foot hath prest;
+  All Nature with thy parting thrills,
+  Like branches after birds new-flown;
+  Thy passage hill and hollow fills
+  With hints of virtue not their own;
+  In dimples still the water slips
+  Where thou hast dipped thy finger-tips;
+  Just, just beyond, forever burn
+  Gleams of a grace without return;
+  Upon thy shade I plant my foot,
+  And through my frame strange raptures shoot;
+  All of thee but thyself I grasp;
+  I seem to fold thy luring shape,
+  And vague air to my bosom clasp,
+  Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!
+
+  One mask and then another drops,
+  And thou art secret as before.
+  Sometimes with flooded ear I list
+  And hear thee, wondrous organist,
+  Through mighty continental stops
+  A thunder of strange music pour;--
+  Through pipes of earth and air and stone
+  Thy inspiration deep is blown;
+  Through mountains, forests, open downs,
+  Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns,
+  Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on,
+  From Maine to utmost Oregon;
+  The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum;
+  From brawling parties concords come;--
+  All this I hear, or seem to hear;
+  But when, enchanted, I draw near
+  To fix in notes the various theme,
+  Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam,
+  History a Swiss street-singer's thrum,
+  And I, that would have fashioned words
+  To mate that music's rich accords,
+  By rash approaches startle thee,
+  Thou mutablest Perversity!
+  The world drones on its old _tum-tum_,
+  But thou hast slipped from it and me,
+  And all thine organ-pipes left dumb.
+
+  Not wearied yet, I still must seek,
+  And hope for luck next day, next week.
+  I go to see the great man ride,
+  Ship-like, the swelling human tide
+  That floods to bear him into port,
+  Trophied from senate-hall or court:
+  Thy magnetism, I feel it there,
+  Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare,
+  Making the mob a moment fine
+  With glimpses of their own Divine,
+  As in their demigod they see
+  Their swart ideal soaring free;
+  'Tis thou that bear'st the fire about,
+  Which, like the springing of a mine,
+  Sends up to heaven the street-long shout:
+  Full well I know that thou wast here;
+  That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear;
+  But vainly, in the stress and whirl,
+  I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.
+
+  Through every shape thou well canst run,
+  Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun,
+  Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
+  As where Milan's pale Duomo lies
+  A stranded glacier on the plain,
+  Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
+  Melted in many a quaint device,
+  And sees, across the city's din,
+  Afar its silent Alpine kin;
+  I track thee over carpets deep
+  To Wealth's and Beauty's inmost keep;
+  Across the sand of bar-room floors,
+  'Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
+  Where drowse the hayfield's fragrant heats,
+  Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats;
+  I dog thee through the market's throngs,
+  To where the sea with myriad tongues
+  Laps the green fringes of the pier,
+  And the tall ships that eastward steer
+  Curtsy their farewells to the town,
+  O'er the curved distance lessening down;--
+  I follow allwhere for thy sake,--
+  Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,--
+  Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
+  Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,--
+  But thou another mask hast donned,
+  And lurest still, just, just, beyond!
+
+  But here a voice, I know not whence,
+  Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
+  Saying, "See where she sits at home,
+  While thou in search of her dost roam!
+  All summer long her ancient wheel
+  Whirls humming by the open door,
+  Or, when the hickory's social zeal
+  Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
+  Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
+  It modulates the household mirth
+  With that sweet, serious undertone
+  Of Duty, music all her own;
+  Still, as of old, she sits and spins
+  Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
+  With equal care she twines the fates
+  Of cottages and mighty states;
+  She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
+  The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
+  The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
+  The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
+  The piping west-wind's snowy care
+  For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
+  Or from the thorns of evil times
+  She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
+  Morning and noon and eve supply
+  To her their fairest tints for dye,
+  But ever through her twirling thread
+  There spires one strand of warmest red,
+  Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
+  The stamp and warrant of her art;
+  With this Time's sickle she outwears,
+  And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.
+
+  "Harass her not; thy heat and stir
+  The greater coyness breed in her:
+  Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
+  Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
+  Learning at last that Stygian Fate
+  Supples for him that knows to wait.
+  The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
+  Her love to him who pules and plains;
+  With proud, averted face she stands
+  To him who wooes with empty hands.
+  Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
+  Pull down thy barns and greater build;
+  The wood, the mountain, and the plain
+  Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
+  Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
+  Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
+  From fireside lone and trampling street
+  Let thy life garner daily wheat;
+  The epic of a man rehearse,
+  Be something better than thy verse,
+  Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
+  Shall court thy precious interviews,
+  Shall take thy head upon her knee,
+  And such enchantment lilt to thee,
+  That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow
+  From farthest stars to grass-blades low,
+  And find the Listener's science still
+  Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!"
+
+
+
+SCREW-PROPULSION:
+
+
+ITS RISE AND PROGRESS.
+
+The earliest conception of an auxiliary motive power in navigation
+is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the
+inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of
+ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the
+paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced
+to play the secondary part of an auxiliary.
+
+Scarce was man in possession of this means of _impressing_ the wind, and
+resting his weary oar, than, scorning longer confinement to the coast,
+he boldly ventured upon the conquest of the main. Under the same
+impulse, the tiny skiff, in which he hardly dared to quit the river's
+bank, was enlarged, and made fit companion of his distant emprise. These
+footprints of the infant steps of navigation may all still be traced
+among the maritime tribes of the Pacific.
+
+From that period sails became the chief motor, and the paddle and the
+sweep auxiliaries,--which position they still hold to some extent, even
+in vessels of considerable burden. But as the proportions of naval
+architecture enlarged, these puny instruments were thrown aside;
+although the importance and necessity of some such auxiliary in the
+ordinary exigencies of marine life have always been felt and it has long
+been earnestly sought.
+
+From the first successful application of steam to navigation--by Fulton,
+in 1803--it was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world to
+provide ships with an auxiliary motor; but the result has shown the
+fallacy of this conception.
+
+For more than twenty years steam-navigation has advanced with giant
+strides, overstepping several times the limits which science had
+assigned it; but the paddle-wheel, by which the agency of steam has
+been applied, forms so bad an alliance with canvas, and supplies so
+indifferently the requirements of a man-of-war, that it has been
+impossible by this intermediary to render steam the efficient coadjutor
+of sails; and it is for this reason that steam so speedily took rank
+as a primary motor upon the ocean; for, in all the successful marine
+applications of steam by means of the paddle, steam is the dominant
+power, and sails the accessory, or almost superfluous auxiliary. It is
+the screw alone, in some of its modifications, which offers the means of
+a successful and economical adaptation of steam to ships of war or of
+commerce; for it is susceptible of a more complete protection than, the
+paddle, and of an easy and advantageous combination with canvas.
+
+The screw-propeller, in fact, has assumed so important a part in all
+naval enterprise, that it may not be without interest to trace briefly
+its rise and progress to the consideration it now commands, and
+to review, in general terms, the various experiments by which the
+screw-frigate has been brought to its present high state of efficiency,
+excelling, for purposes of war, all other kinds of vessels.
+
+As early as 1804, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, engaged in
+experiments to devise some means of driving a vessel through the water
+by applying the motive power at the stern, and with a screw-propeller
+and a defective boiler attained for short distances a speed of seven
+knots; and it is surprising, that, with the genius and determination so
+characteristic of his race, he should have abandoned the path on which
+he appears to have so fairly entered.
+
+Within the last half-century numerous attempts of a similar character
+have been made in Europe and America; but although many of the
+contrivances for this purpose were exceedingly ingenious, and the
+success of some of the experiments sufficient, one would suppose, to
+excite the interest of the public and encourage perseverance in the
+undertaking, yet in no instance were they followed by any practical and
+useful results until the year 1836, when both Captain Ericsson and
+Mr. F. P. Smith so fully demonstrated the speed and safety with which
+vessels could be moved by the screw-propeller, as to convince every
+intelligent and unprejudiced mind of the importance of their inventions,
+and immediately to attract the attention of the principal naval powers
+of the world.
+
+Captain Ericsson is a native of Sweden, but for some years previous to
+1836 he had resided in England, where he had become known as an engineer
+and mechanician of distinguished ability.
+
+In July, 1836, he took out a patent in England for his method of
+propelling vessels; and during that year the results of his experiments
+with a small boat were so satisfactory, that in the following year he
+built a vessel forty-five feet long, with eight feet beam, and drawing
+three feet of water, called the Francis B. Ogden, in compliment to the
+gentleman then consul of the United States at Liverpool, who was the
+first person to appreciate the merits of his invention, and to encourage
+him in his efforts to perfect it. This vessel was tried upon the Thames
+in April, 1837, and succeeded admirably. She made ten knots an hour, and
+towed the American ship Toronto at the rate of four and a half knots an
+hour; and in the following summer, Sir Charles Adam, one of the Lords
+of the Admiralty, Sir William Symonds, the Surveyor of the Navy, and
+several other scientific gentlemen and officers of rank, were towed by
+her in the Admiralty barge at the speed of ten miles an hour.
+
+Notwithstanding this demonstration of the powers of his vessel, Captain
+Ericsson did not succeed in exciting the interest of any of the persons
+who witnessed the performance; and it seems almost incredible that no
+one of them had the intelligence to perceive or the magnanimity to admit
+the importance of his invention. But, fortunately for Ericsson and the
+reputation of our country, he soon after met with Captain Stockton, of
+the United States navy, who at once took the deepest interest in
+his plans. The result of one experiment with Ericsson's steamer was
+sufficient to convince a man of Stockton's sagacity of the immense
+advantages which the new motor might confer upon the commerce and upon
+the navy of his country, and forthwith he ordered an iron steamer to be
+built and fitted with Ericsson's propeller. This vessel was named the
+Stockton, and was launched in July, 1838, and, after being thoroughly
+tested and her success demonstrated, she was sent under sail to the
+United States in April of the next year, and was soon after followed by
+Captain Ericsson; when, in consequence of the representations of Captain
+Stockton, the government ordered the Princeton to be built under
+Ericsson's superintendence, and to be fitted with his propeller.
+
+The Princeton, of 673 tons, was launched in April, 1842, and her
+propeller, of six blades, of thirty-five feet pitch, and of fourteen
+feet diameter, was driven by a semi-cylinder engine of two hundred and
+fifty horse-power, and all her machinery placed _below_ the water-line.
+Her smoke-stack was so arranged that the upper parts could be let into
+the lower, so as not to be visible above the rail; and as the anthracite
+coal which she used evolved no smoke, she could not, at a short
+distance, be distinguished from a sailing-ship.
+
+Her best speed under steam alone, _at sea_, was 8.6, and under sail
+alone, 10.1 knots; her mean performance under steam and sail, 8.226; and
+considering the imperfect form of boiler employed, and the small
+amount of fuel consumed, it may be doubted if this has since been much
+excelled. She worked and steered well under canvas or steam alone, or
+under both combined; was dry and weatherly, but pitched heavily, and was
+rather deficient in stability.
+
+[Footnote: For a particular account of the Princeton, by B. F.
+Isherwood, U. S. N., see _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ for June,
+1853. Taking everything into consideration, the Princeton was a most
+successful experiment, and, in her day, the most efficient man-of-war of
+her class. By her construction the government of the United States had
+placed itself far in advance of all the world in the path of naval
+improvement, and it is deeply to be regretted that it did not avail
+itself of the advantage thus gained; that it did not immediately order
+the construction of other vessels, in which successively the few defects
+of the Princeton might have been corrected; that it did not persist in
+that path of improvement into which it had fortunately been directed,
+instead of suffering our great naval rivals to outstrip us in the race,
+and compel us at last to resort to them for instruction in that science
+the very rudiments of which they had learned from us.]
+
+The success of the Princeton was followed by the general adoption in
+America of the screw-propeller. When Ericsson left England, he confided
+his interests to Count Rosen, who, in 1843, placed an Ericsson propeller
+in the French frigate Pomone, and soon afterwards the British Admiralty
+determined to place it in the Amphion. Not only was the performance of
+these vessels highly satisfactory, but they were the first ships in the
+navies of Europe in which the great desideratum was secured of placing
+the machinery below the load-line. Ericsson's propeller having been the
+first introduced into France, it was generally adopted; but afterwards,
+in consequence of the accounts of Smith's screw received from England,
+it underwent various modifications.
+
+Such was the result of Ericsson's labors; it now remains to relate the
+success of Smith. The efforts of either had been sufficient to have
+secured to navigation the inestimable advantages of screw-propulsion,
+but their rivalry probably hastened the solution of the problem.
+
+In May, 1836, Mr. F. P. Smith, a farmer of Hendon, in England, took out
+a patent for his screw-propeller, and exhibited some experiments with it
+attached to a model boat, and in the following autumn built a boat of
+six tons' burden, of ten horse-power, and fitted with a wooden screw.
+This vessel was kept running upon the Thames for nearly a year, and her
+performance was so satisfactory, that Mr. Smith determined to try her
+qualities at sea; and in the course of the year 1837, he visited in her
+several ports on the coast of England, and proved that she worked well
+in strong winds and rough water.
+
+These trials attracted much attention, and at last awakened the interest
+of the Admiralty, who requested Mr. Smith to try his propeller on a
+larger vessel, and the Archimedes, of ninety horse-power and 237 tons,
+built for this purpose, was launched in October, 1838, and made her
+experimental trip in 1839. It was thought that her performance would be
+satisfactory, if she could make four or five knots an hour; but she
+made nearly ten! In May, 1839, she went from Gravesend to Portsmouth,
+a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, and made the run in twenty
+hours.
+
+In April, 1840, Captain Chappel, R. N., and Mr. Lloyd, Chief Engineer of
+Woolwich Dockyard, were appointed by the Admiralty to try a series
+of experiments with her at Dover. The numerous trials made under the
+superintendence of these officers fully proved the efficiency of the new
+propeller, and their report was entirely favorable.
+
+The Archimedes next circumnavigated Great Britain under command of
+Captain Chappel, visiting all the principal ports: she afterwards
+went to Oporto, Antwerp, and other places, and everywhere excited the
+admiration of engineers and seamen.
+
+Up to this period, the British engineers were nearly unanimous in the
+opinion that the use of the screw involved a great loss of power, and
+they had concluded that it could not be adopted; but it was impossible
+any longer to resist the impressions made on the public by the
+demonstration which had been given both by Smith and Ericsson; and
+although the engineers were still unwilling to admit the screw to a
+comparison with the paddle, it was evident that their first conclusions
+regarding it were erroneous, and thereafter it was viewed by them with
+less disdain and spoken of more hopefully. One of the great objections
+by engineers to the use of the screw was their inability, at the time of
+its introduction, to construct properly a screw engine,--that is to say,
+a direct-acting horizontal engine, working at a speed of from sixty to
+one hundred revolutions per minute,--all their experience having been in
+paddle-wheel engines, working from ten to fifteen revolutions per
+minute. The peculiar mechanical details required in the screw engine,
+the necessity for accurate counterbalancing, etc., were then unknown,
+and had to be learned from a long succession of expensive failures. In
+England, the first machines applied to the screw were paddle-wheel
+engines, working it by gearing; there were consequently lost all the
+advantages of the reduced cost, bulk, and weight of the screw engine
+proper, including, for war purposes, the important feature of its being
+placed below the water-line. At first, the screw had not only to contend
+with physical difficulties, but to struggle against nearly universal
+prejudice; many inventors had succumbed to these obstacles, and
+therefore too much applause cannot be bestowed upon those who,
+unsustained by public sympathy, and in defiance of a prevailing
+skepticism, maintained their faith and courage unshaken, and gallantly
+persisted in their efforts, until crowned with a world-wide success.
+
+Ericsson, before interesting himself with the screw, was, as has been
+seen, an engineer and mechanician of distinguished ability; whereas
+Smith, in commencing his new vocation, had all to acquire but his first
+conception. Ericsson could rely upon the fertility of his own genius,
+was his own draughtsman, and designed his own engines, accommodating
+them to the new propeller by dispensing with gearing, and adapting
+them to a speed of from thirty to forty revolutions,--a great and bold
+advance for an initiative step. Smith, on the contrary, not being an
+engineer, had to intrust the execution of his plans to others, whose
+knowledge of construction was in the routine of paddle-wheel engines;
+and this accounts for the fact, that all the earliest British
+screw-steamers were driven by gearing. This want of mechanical resources
+on the part of Smith added to the difficulties of his career; but his
+resolution and perseverance rose superior to all obstacles, and carried
+him to the goal in triumph. Briefly, then, these were the respective
+merits of Smith and Ericsson, in the introduction of screw-propulsion;
+and it is much to their honor, that, throughout their career, no
+narrow-spirited jealousies dimmed the lustre of a noble rivalry.
+
+Such was the origin of the new motor,--the mighty engine by which
+armadas are marshalled in battle-array, the burdens of commerce borne to
+distant marts, the impatient emigrant transferred to the promised land,
+and by which the breathings of affection, the pangs of distress, and the
+sighs of love are wafted to far-off continents.
+
+In consequence of the success of the Archimedes, the Admiralty ordered
+the Rattler to be fitted with a screw, and it was no small satisfaction
+to find that her double-cylinder engines could be easily adapted to the
+new propeller. She is of 888 tons, and two hundred horse-power, and was
+launched in the spring of 1843, being the first screw-vessel in the
+British navy.
+
+In the course of the two succeeding years, she was tried with a great
+many different screws, and numerous experiments were made to discover
+the length, diameter, pitch, and number of blades of the screw, most
+effective in all the various conditions of wind and sea. A screw of two
+blades, each equal to one-sixth part of a convolution, and of a uniform
+pitch, was, on the whole, found to be the most efficient, and this is
+the screw now adopted in most of the ships of all classes in the British
+navy.[1]
+
+A propeller of very different construction, which had given great
+results in a ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and
+was afterwards exhibited in the docks at Southampton, here claims a
+passing notice. This propeller is so constructed as to enable the
+engineer to regulate the speed of the piston; for _the pitch of the
+screw can be increased or diminished at pleasure_. Thus, with a fair
+wind, by increasing the pitch, without increasing the revolutions, the
+full power of the engine is effectually exerted in driving the ship,
+instead of consuming fuel in driving the engine to no purpose; and with
+a headwind, by diminishing the pitch, the engines are made to do their
+utmost duty; and when the ship is under canvas only, the blades of the
+propeller may be placed in line with the stern-post, and thus offer
+little resistance. Another advantage claimed for this propeller (known
+as Griffith's) is, that, in the event of breaking a blade, it may be
+readily replaced by "tipping the ship"; which method merits careful
+consideration by engineers, as does especially every new propeller which
+promises a more perfect alliance with canvas.
+
+To resume the narrative,--the speed of the Rattler was afterwards tested
+by a trial with the Alecto, a paddle-wheel steamer of equal power,
+built from the same moulds; and the result was so favorable, that the
+Admiralty ordered the construction or conversion of _twenty-three_
+vessels as screw-steamers, and thus was laid the foundation of the
+present formidable steam-navy of England.
+
+The superiority which has been asserted for the Princeton was
+established during the Mexican War by her performance before Vera Cruz
+as a blockading ship of unprecedented efficiency, which, having been
+displayed under the admiring observation of a British squadron, tended
+more than any other single event to confirm the Admiralty in the
+conclusions to be drawn from the experiments just related, and to decide
+them in the adoption of the screw as the best auxiliary of sail, the
+best mechanical motor upon the ocean. Thus did England, in embracing at
+once the practical demonstration of the Princeton, display that forecast
+by which she won her ascendency at sea, and the vigilance with which
+she maintains it; whilst our own government awaited, in unbecoming
+hesitation, the results which England's more extended trials with the
+screw might develop.
+
+This cautious policy, rather than the bold and liberal course which the
+maritime genius of the country demands, condemned us for long years to
+inaction, until, at length, the absolute necessity for the renewal of a
+portion of our naval force produced the "Minnesota" class of frigates.
+Although they developed little that was absolutely new, they are very
+far from being imitations; but in model, capacity, equipment, and above
+all in their armament, they have challenged admiration throughout the
+world, and called from a distinguished British admiral in command the
+significant declaration, that, until he had seen them, he had never
+realized his ideal of a perfect man-of-war.
+
+A leading idea in the conception of these ships was to reduce the number
+of gun-decks from two and three to a single deck, and, consequently, the
+space in which shells could be lodged. This is a consideration which
+must, it is believed, sooner or later govern in naval construction;
+although France and England, long accustomed to measure the power of
+ships by the number of gun-decks, may be more slow in following our lead
+in this respect than in imitating the increased calibre of our ordnance.
+
+The new classes of steamers preparing for sea, of which the Hartford and
+Iroquois are types, promise to be most efficient ships, and to reflect
+much credit upon our naval authorities for their bold, yet judicious
+departure from traditions which had long hampered the administration of
+this important branch of the public service. Although the reflection is
+seldom made, it is nevertheless true, that much of the reputation
+enjoyed and of the influence exercised by the United States is due to
+the efficiency of her navy; and if these are to remain undiminished,
+then it is of the utmost consequence that the national ships should
+always represent the highest advancement of nautico-military science.
+
+[Footnote 1: A series of experiments with the screw were made on board
+the Dwarf in 1845, and on board the Minx in 1847 and 1848, but the
+results did not materially differ from those previously obtained. In the
+Rattler, Dwarf, and Minx twenty-nine different propellers were tried.]
+
+The efficiency of the screw having been demonstrated, it was seen that
+the next requirement for a war-steamer was to place her machinery below
+the waterline; and hence arose a demand for an entirely new description
+of engines, which it was clear would make a great change in all the
+labors of the engineer and machinist. Such change it was evident would
+greatly enhance the risk of failure, and therefore it was determined by
+the Admiralty to insure success in this very difficult task by enlisting
+all the best talent of the country. Accordingly, for the twenty-three
+ships an equal number of screw engines were ordered; and as with the
+constructors, so with the engineers, each was required to comply
+with certain conditions, yet each was permitted to put forth his own
+individuality, and each has illustrated his views of what was required
+by a distinct plan of engine.
+
+The wise and liberal action of the British Admiralty, which faltered at
+no expense, and made trial of every improvement in machinery that gave
+assurance of good performance and promised in any way to increase
+the efficiency of the fleet, produced no less than fourteen distinct
+varieties of the screw engine. Among them all, Penn's horizontal
+trunk-engine appears to be the favorite, and had performed so well
+in the Encounter of fourteen guns, the Arrogant of forty-six, the
+Imperieuse of fifty, and the Agamemnon of ninety, that two years ago
+it had been placed, in about equal proportions of two hundred, four
+hundred, six hundred, and eight hundred horse-power, on board of forty
+ships and many smaller vessels of the British navy; it had fulfilled all
+the promises made for it, without in any instance requiring repairs.
+These engines comply with all the conditions reasonably demanded in
+the machinery of a man-of-war; they lie very low, and the fewness and
+accessibility of their parts leave scarcely anything to be desired;--a
+lighter, more compact, or more simple combination has yet to be
+conceived.[1]
+
+In all the ships above referred to the connection of the engines is
+direct, and many of them are driven at rates varying from fifty to
+seventy-five revolutions. This point is dwelt upon because it is
+observed that many engineers find difficulty in freeing themselves from
+early impressions made by long-stroke engines, express apprehensions at
+fifty and sixty revolutions, and stand ready to obviate the difficulty
+by gearing,--which it is hoped may not henceforth be adopted in our
+national ships. Geared engines are much heavier than those of direct
+connection, and occupy more space,--a great consideration in ships where
+room for fuel is in such demand, besides making it more difficult to
+place them below the waterline,--a consideration which in men-of-war
+should be regarded of paramount importance, as the engines of a
+war-steamer should be as secure from shot as her magazine. Experience
+has shown that the apprehensions entertained from the quick stroke of
+direct engines were without foundation; and that, in auxiliary ships,
+with a properly modelled propeller, there will be no necessity for a
+very high speed of piston.
+
+The form of engine generally adopted with great success in the later
+screw-ships.
+
+[Footnote 1: "Its large amount of friction" is an objection often
+speciously urged against the trunk-engine, although the friction diagram
+shows it to be actually less in this than in most other engines.] of
+the United States navy is the "horizontal direct action," with the
+connecting-rod returning from a cross-head towards the cylinder;
+these engines make from sixty to eighty revolutions per minute.
+The steam-valve is a packed slide with but little lap, and the
+expansion-valve is an adjustable slide working on the back of the
+steam-valve. The boilers are of the vertical water-tube type, with the
+tubes above the furnaces, and are supplied with fresh water by tubular
+surface-condensers, which, together with the air-pumps, are placed
+opposite the cylinders.
+
+While the vessels ordered by the Admiralty were on the stocks, it was
+suggested by Mr. Lloyd that the model of their after-bodies was not that
+most favorable to speed,--that they were too "full," and that a "finer
+run" would be preferable. To settle this question, the Dwarf, a vessel
+of fine run, was taken into dock, and her after-body filled out by three
+separate layers of planking, so as to give it the form and proportions
+of the vessels then building. These layers of planking could be removed
+in succession, and the effects of a fuller or finer run upon the speed
+of the vessel easily ascertained. A trial was then made, and the result
+proved the correctness of Mr. Lloyd's opinion; the removal of the
+different layers of planking increasing the speed from 3.75 to 5.75,
+to 9, and finally to 11 knots. A trial between the Rifleman and the
+Sharpshooter, vessels of four hundred and eighty tons and two hundred
+horse-power, and the Minx and Teaser, of three hundred tons and one
+hundred horse-power, gave similar results,--the speed in each trial
+being twenty-four per cent. in favor of the finer run.
+
+Although great efficiency and economy had now been attained, there was
+still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to
+speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller;
+which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into
+which the propeller can be raised at pleasure; and there is no longer
+anything to prevent the construction of a screw-frigate which shall be
+fit to accompany, under canvas only, a fleet of fast sailers, with the
+assurance that she may arrive at the point of destination in company
+with her consorts, having in reserve all her steam-power.
+
+The mechanism by which the emersion of the screw is effected is as
+follows:--There are two stern-posts; between these, and connecting them
+with each other and with the keel, is a massive metallic frame, in which
+rests another frame, or _chassis_, in which the screw is suspended; near
+the water-line, the deck and wales are extended to the after stern-post,
+and through an opening or trunk in this overhanging stern the frame
+suspending the screw is raised by worms, working in a rack secured to
+the frame, and operated from the deck, as shown in the accompanying
+drawing,--or by a tackle, as is now most common. In the British ship
+Agamemnon, of ninety guns, the propeller is raised by a hydrostatic
+pump,--a neat arrangement, but liable to get out of order. When it is
+desirable to raise the propeller, the blades are first placed in a
+vertical position, and the operation of lifting is performed in a few
+minutes.
+
+The relative advantages of the propeller fitted to lift, and that which
+is permanently fixed, have long been the subject of much discussion.
+
+For merchant steamers, having an established route to perform, on which
+the aid of steam is in constant demand, it is generally conceded that
+the position of the screw should be permanent. The construction of the
+ship is then less costly, while greater strength is preserved; and as
+these vessels are out of port but for short intervals, should repairs be
+needed, they have access to the docks. But for men-of-war the case is
+widely different. Having frequently to keep the sea for long periods,
+much under canvas, and often far distant from a dock-yard, they should
+be provided with the means of lifting the screw to repair or to clear
+it, or to be relieved from the impediment it offers to sailing and to
+evolution, and also from the injurious "shake" occasioned by a dragging
+propeller.
+
+[Illustration: MODE OF LIFTING SCREW.]
+
+On the other hand, the construction of a trunk or well impairs the
+solidity of the stern, renders it much more vulnerable, and weakens its
+defences, while it opposes to speed the very considerable resistance of
+the after stern-post.[*] Nevertheless, no modern ship of the British
+navy is without the means of raising her propeller, and the best opinion
+of commanders and engineers of that service, of longest experience in
+screw-ships, goes to establish the conviction, that, for men-of-war, the
+advantages of being able to lift the propeller far more than outweigh
+the objections urged against lifting. In this connection we mention the
+fact, that all screw-ships "by the wind" have a strong tendency to
+gripe. Would not this be obviated by having a gate or slide to fill out
+the dead-wood when the screw is lifted?
+
+[Footnote *: Might not a metallic stern-post, combining strength,
+lightness, and little resistance, be introduced?]
+
+The best illustration of the effects of a dragging propeller was
+afforded on the departure of a Russian squadron from Cronstadt, bound to
+the Amoor, in 1857-'58, consisting of three sloops of war bark-rigged,
+and three three-masted schooners, under the flag of Commodore
+Kouznetsoff. The vessels of each class were built from the same
+moulds, and at the time of the experiment were of the same draft and
+displacement. On clearing the land, signal was made to lift screws and
+make sail. Soon after, all the squadron reported the execution of the
+order, except the Voyerada sloop, which had the misfortune to break a
+key in the couplings, and therefore could not lift her screw. Every
+effort was tried to get out the key, and meanwhile a very instructive
+example was presented to the squadron of the effect of a dragging
+propeller on the speed of the vessel. The circumstances were as
+follows:--The wind, a gentle breeze, right aft; the Voyerada carrying
+all sail but the main course; the other two sloops holding way with
+her with their topsails on the cap, and the schooners with their peaks
+dropped. Under these conditions, the Voyerada, having her screw-blades
+fixed horizontally, could scarcely keep her position, running two and a
+half and three knots. The Voyerada next succeeded in getting her screw
+vertical, when, without any change in the wind, the speed increased to
+four and a half knots. The other sloops then mastheaded their topsails,
+and the schooners peaked their gaffs. At length the Voyerada succeeded
+in lifting her screw, when immediately all the sloops under the same
+canvas continued their course, making six to six and a half knots. A
+better example of the obstruction offered by a dragging propeller could
+not have been afforded.[1]
+
+The "shake," to which reference has been made, is the tremulous or
+vibratory motion communicated to the after-body of the ship, and
+particularly to the stern, by the revolution of the propeller, often
+opening the seams, and in old ships sometimes starting the butts and
+causing dangerous leaks. This movement arises from two causes,--one
+inherent in the screw, the other due to its position in the deadwood.
+The first cause is the difference in the propelling efficiency of the
+upper and lower blades when in any other position than horizontal. The
+centre of pressure of the lower blade, being at a greater depth below
+the surface than the centre of pressure of the upper blade, acts upon a
+medium of greater resistance to displacement, and the differential of
+the pressures of the two blades produces inevitably a vibratory motion
+in the stern of the vessel. This effect is greatly increased when the
+clearance given to the screw in the dead-wood is too small; for the
+reduction of the hydrostatic pressure at the stern-post, and the
+increase of it at the rudder-post, on each passage of the blades, must
+be followed by concussion. Therefore, if the "well," or distance between
+the posts, be made sufficiently long in proportion to the screw, the
+"shake" due to the latter cause can be almost entirely obviated.
+
+In 1851, the British Admiralty selected three auxiliary screw-ships, of
+different classes and qualities, for an experimental cruise, namely:--
+
+[Footnote 1: _Russian Nautical Magazine_, No. XLI., December, 1857.]
+
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  | Guns. | Horse  | Screw. | Speed. | Day's |    Sail
+  |       | Power. |        |        | Fuel. |  Equipment
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |   9    |   8   |
+  Arrogant  |  46   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship full rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |  11    |  11   |
+  Dauntless |  24   |  580   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship light rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    | 10-1/2 |   6   |
+  Encounter |  14   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Barque
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+They were ordered to pass round the Azores, each ship holding
+her course, and using sail or steam, or both, as was deemed most
+advantageous. An officer was sent on board each ship to keep a record of
+her performance, and to note the time when and the position where, the
+coal being entirely consumed, the contest ended. In this trial, the
+Arrogant was found superior to the Dauntless, and both of them far
+excelled the Encounter; indeed, no very different result was expected,
+the object of the trial being to ascertain their relative as well as
+positive value. These ships afterwards formed a part of the experimental
+squadron stationed at Lisbon in the same year, which was composed of the
+finest ships in the British navy.
+
+It was believed by many officers, that a fast-sailing frigate, in a
+reefed-topsail breeze, would be able to get away from any screw-ship;
+but in a trial that took place between the Arethusa and the Encounter,
+and the Phaeton and Arrogant, under circumstances the most favorable to
+the sail-ships, it was found that the screw-ships, using both steam and
+sail, had decidedly the superiority,--and that in fresh gales, with one,
+two, or three reefs in the topsails, either "by the wind," or "going
+free," the Phaeton and the Arethusa, the fastest sail-frigates in
+the navy, were always beaten by the Arrogant. This result operated
+powerfully in removing the repugnance to steam existing among all
+classes of seamen; and the vast superiority of well-organized
+screw-ships for the purposes of war is now so apparent, as to render
+them the most important and indispensable part of every navy.
+
+While the English were engaged in the trials here related, their rivals
+on the opposite coast were not indifferent spectators. The French
+were nearly as soon in the field of modern screw experiment as their
+neighbors; and did the limits of this paper permit, it would be
+instructive, as well as interesting, to trace the ingenious and
+persevering steps by which they also approached the solution of that
+difficult problem, the construction of a screw-man-of-war.
+
+The first result of their efforts, La Pomone, screw-frigate, was shown
+to the world in 1844, and after careful inspection, (in 1853,) it is
+affirmed, such was the perfection of her general organization, that she
+has hardly been excelled by any of her younger sisters.
+
+The most complete course of experiments ever made, perhaps, with the
+new motor, was that carried out by MM. Bourgois and Moll, of the French
+navy, in 1847 and '48, which they verified by a second series in 1849.
+These experiments were instituted to ascertain the relative efficiency
+of all varieties of the screw-propeller, upon vessels of different
+models and dimensions, and under all the varying conditions of wind and
+sea, in order to determine the propeller best adapted to each particular
+description of ship.[*]
+
+Necessarily brief as is the notice of Gallic ingenuity and skill, the
+acknowledgment must be made, that, for the invention of the trunk or
+well, with its attendant advantages, navigation is indebted to Commander
+Labrousse, of the French navy; and for a novel arrangement of the screw-
+propeller, which has not attracted all the notice it deserves,
+obligations are due to M. Allix, a distinguished engineer of that
+service; and the propeller more recently introduced by M. Mangin, of the
+same corps, if it performs all that is claimed for it, namely, that it
+does away with the "shake," will be of great value.
+
+[Footnote *: For a most interesting and instructive memoir upon these
+experiments, the reader is referred to that admirable work, by Captain
+E. Paris, of the French navy, _L'Helice Propulsive_.]
+
+In concluding this recognition of the contributions by France to
+screw-propulsion, it is desired to submit a few general observations on
+the French navy; for, although upon every sea the tri-color waves
+over ships proudly comparing with those under any other flag, it is
+nevertheless too commonly believed that the docks of France are crowded
+and her navy-list swollen with hulks which are but the mouldering
+mementos of the vast armaments hastily created during the Consulate and
+the Empire; an illusion most hazardous to our interests abroad and our
+security at home.
+
+At the period of _the coup d'etat_ of 1851, a Committee of Inquiry,
+composed of the most experienced and intelligent officers and
+distinguished legislators, had visited all departments of the navy, and
+made the most careful investigations into every branch of the service.
+Upon the evidence thus obtained, a report was submitted, providing for
+the improvement of the condition of the officers and seamen, and the
+increase, renewal, and remodelling of the _materiel_,--in fine, for the
+correction of every abuse, the remedy of every evil, and the development
+of all good existing in the navy. This report, stamped on every page
+with patriotism and intelligence, commanded, even in the midst of
+revolution, the support of all parties, the adhesion of every faction;
+and has since, through all changes in the Ministry of the Marine, formed
+the basis of the action of that department.
+
+Under these auspices, France has in the last seven years organized the
+means of promptly putting to sea a numerous fleet, composed of the most
+modern and most powerful steamers, manned by efficient crews, commanded
+by skilful officers; and now worthily maintains a position as a naval
+power second only to that of Great Britain. At this moment, whilst
+the British fleet includes but thirty-six screw line-of-battle ships,
+mounting 3,400 guns, and propelled by 19,759 horse-power, that of France
+may boast of forty such ships, mounting 3,700 guns, propelled by 27,500
+horse-power; and while England has but thirty-eight screw-frigates,
+France has forty-two.
+
+In thus briefly summing up the forces of our ocean rivals, we cannot
+avoid making some reflections suggested by the unpreparedness of this
+country to meet any sudden burst of hostility. This not only involves
+the risk of national humiliation, but paralyzes our diplomacy; since it
+deprives us of that influence among the nations, which otherwise--from
+the breadth of our territory, the value of our products, the activity
+of our industry, the importance of our commerce, and the extent of our
+maritime resources--we of right should hold.
+
+No country is more interested than the United States in the maintenance
+of peace; yet, even on the principle of economy, we may argue in favor
+of a degree of preparation for war; for that calamity may best be
+averted by taking from foreign powers the temptation to interfere with
+us: all history showing that the justice and friendship of military
+states are but slender guaranties for the peace of a nation unprepared
+for attack.
+
+It is vain to talk of husbanding financial resources for war, without
+other preparation. When once embarked in hostilities, and in a position
+to maintain our ground, large finances, judiciously used, will
+ultimately command success; but no accumulation of funds can provide a
+timely remedy for that weakness which cannot resist the first blow.
+
+The national safety should no longer be left to chance, but be
+established on a basis of certainty. A navy cannot be manufactured nor a
+fortress built to meet an emergency, but should be kept ready-made.
+
+In considering the auxiliary screw-frigate under the views already
+offered, and in determining the canvas with which she should be
+supplied, it will be well to refer, as the best guide, to the fastest
+sail-ships,--the class which presents the greatest similarity in form to
+that demanded in screw-ships. In these ships the great length of deck
+offers every facility for the most advantageous spread of canvas;
+consequently the centre of effort may he kept low, and the requisite
+power and stability combined.
+
+Intimately connected with her sailing-power is another branch of the
+equipment of a screw-ship, which requires the most earnest, patient, and
+intelligent consideration. Prepared to endure all the wear and tear of a
+sail-ship, she should at the same time be ready for transmutation into
+a steam-ship; namely, when, for any urgent service, her best powers of
+steaming are required, she should be able to divest herself speedily of
+yards and top-masts, and, the special service completed, resume all her
+perfection as a sail-ship.
+
+It would be out of place here to enter into details of equipment. In
+naval affairs nothing is improvised, and a satisfactory conclusion upon
+these points can be arrived at only through long experiment, and perhaps
+frequent disappointment. Yet it is not doubted that the same ship may
+exhibit a handy and efficient rig, develop a high velocity canvas, and,
+without great power, a sufficient speed under steam.
+
+In our navy, away from our own coast, sail must of necessity be the
+rule, and steam the reserve or special power; and without abandonment of
+our anti-colonial policy--with the depots of our rivals upon every sea,
+yet not a ton of coal upon which we can rely--we should not dare to send
+abroad a single ship which, whenever she gets up her anchor, must needs
+also get up her steam.
+
+Fortunately, in the creation of a steam-fleet, the United States will
+not have to encounter tedious and costly experiments, nor to incur the
+risk of failure.[1] The best form of hull, model of propeller, and plan
+of engine are already so well established, that it is not easy to fall
+into error; that which is most to be guarded against is the popular
+demand, the prevailing mania for high speed,--for which single advantage
+there is such a proneness to sacrifice every other warlike quality. That
+measure of speed or power which will enable a ship to stem the currents
+of rivers, to enter or leave a port in the face of a moderate gale, or
+to meet the dangers of a lee-shore, should, it is conceived by many, be
+sufficient; and for these exigencies a ship, which, with four months
+supplies on board, can in calm weather and smooth water make nine to ten
+knots under steam, has ample power. This moderate rate is far below the
+popular mark; but, in considering this important question, it should not
+be forgotten, that, unlike the paddle, the screw will always cooeperate
+with sail,--and that, if a ship would go far under steam, she must be
+content to go gently. The natural law regulating the speed of a ship
+is, that the power requisite to propel her varies as the cube of the
+velocity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The constructors and engineers of the navy are unsurpassed
+in professional art or science, and when conjoined with naval
+officers--who should always determine the war-like essentials of
+ships--they are capable of producing a steam-fleet that would meet the
+requirements of all reasonable conditions. We venture to say, that
+the failures with which they have been charged would be found,
+on investigation, to be solely attributable to undue extraneous
+influences.]
+
+Let it be distinctly understood what power is here meant. As the power
+applied to the propulsion of a vessel is only that which acts upon her
+in the direction of the keel,--and as, of the gross indicated power
+developed by her engine, one portion is absorbed in working the organs
+of its mechanism, another in overcoming the friction of the load, while
+still other proportions are expended in the slip of the propeller and
+in the friction of its surfaces on the water,--only that portion of
+the gross power which remains is applied to propulsion; and it is this
+remainder which varies in the ratio of the cube of the speed.
+
+Hence a steamer, that with five hundred horse-power can make eight knots
+per hour, will require rather more than one thousand horse-power to
+drive her at the speed of ten knots,--the law being thus modified by the
+increased resistance consequent upon the greater weight of the large
+engines; and thus a limit to speed is imposed, depending upon the weight
+of machinery which, relative to her dimensions, a ship can carry. A
+ship, that at the rate of ten knots under steam may run twelve hundred
+miles, can, at the speed of eight knots, and with the expenditure of
+rather less fuel, run the distance of eighteen hundred miles; and
+therefore it is, many contend, that a man-of-war for distant service
+should not be laden with large engines, whose full power can rarely be
+wanted, and which monopolize so great a space and displacement as to
+render it impossible to carry fuel for their proper development.
+
+It is true, that, with large power of engine, the vessel may command,
+so long as her coals last, the advantage of high speed, and her large
+cylinders will enable her, by working the steam very expansively, to use
+her fuel with great economy; but there still remains the disadvantage of
+the increased first cost of the machinery, and its greater weight and
+bulk, to be permanently carried, whether used or not, and which, by
+increasing the displacement of the vessel, proportionally diminishes her
+speed.
+
+The last great improvement in connection with the screw remains to
+be noticed, namely, lining the "bushings" and "bearings" with
+lignum-vitae,--the invention of Mr. Penn, of Greenwich, near London.
+
+The lignum-vitae is introduced in the manner shown in the drawing. In
+connection therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of
+bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years.
+The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger
+than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of
+the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any
+number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of
+spare strips becomes a short and simple operation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Strange as it appears, these wooden bearings are far more durable than
+those of metal, and in some ships they have endured for years without
+any perceptible wear in those parts which, previously to this invention,
+had occasioned so much trouble and expense. But for this important
+discovery, it is thought by some of the most competent engineers that
+they would have been compelled to abandon the use of the screw in heavy
+ships.
+
+The Napoleon, the type of the new steam-ships of the line in the French
+navy, is a good illustration of a first-class, full-powered steamer.
+
+  Her dimensions are as follows:--
+
+  FT.  IN.
+  Length extreme.                          262 6.40
+  Length at load-line.                     234 0.94
+  Beam.                                     53 8.38
+  Height between decks.                      6 8.72
+  Height of lower port sill.                 7 2.63
+  Depth of hold.                            26 9.34
+  Deep-load draft.                          25 3
+  Immersed cross section, sq. ft. 1063.48
+  Displacement.                tons. 6050
+  Diameter of cylinders.                     8 2.45
+  Length of stroke.                          5 3.06
+  Diameter of propeller. (4 bladed)         19 0.70
+  Pitch    "     "            mean)         37 11
+
+She has eight boilers, each having five furnaces, consuming, at full
+speed, (12.14 knots,) 143 tons of coal per day, for which she stows five
+days' supply. The boilers and engines occupy eighty-two feet in the
+length of the ship.
+
+The trial of this ship has established the practicability of adapting a
+propeller to a ship of the largest class, so as to insure great speed,
+and constitute a most effective man-of-war for certain purposes and
+in certain situations; but when the great weight of the engines is
+considered, and the large space they occupy in the vessel,--thereby
+diminishing the stowage of supplies,--and further, that, after the coal
+is exhausted, the ninety-gun ship has but the sail of a sixty-gun ship
+to rely upon, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion, that, however
+useful such a vessel may be for short passages,[1] and in those seas in
+which her supplies of coal and provisions may be constantly replenished,
+her sphere of action must be very limited, and she could not be relied
+upon for the long cruises and various services on which an ordinary
+line-of-battle ship is employed.
+
+[Footnote 1: For debarking a regiment or two of Zouaves on the shores of
+the Adriatic or upon the coast of Ireland.]
+
+A ship constructed on the plan of the Napoleon, for the sake of gaining
+a speed of twelve knots per hour for the distance of about two thousand
+two hundred miles, is compelled to sacrifice a great part of her
+efficiency in several most important particulars.
+
+In time of war, at short distances from port, for the defence of bays or
+harbors or the Florida channel, for the speedy transport of troops to an
+adjacent coast, or to force a blockade, such a vessel would undoubtedly
+be a most valuable addition to our navy: but her employment must
+necessarily be confined to such circumstances and such situations; for
+should she unluckily fall in with an enemy's squadron, with her coal
+expended, or her machinery rendered useless by any of the numerous
+accidents to which steam-machinery is so constantly exposed, with her
+comparatively light rig, and want of stability in consequence of losing
+so great a weight of coals, she would hardly prove a very formidable
+opponent.
+
+Therefore, while admitting the importance and necessity of providing
+for special service a small class of fast, full-power steamers, it is
+submitted that the auxiliary screw-steamer is the description of ship to
+which the largest and best consideration should be devoted; for to the
+nation possessing the most efficient fleet of such vessels must belong
+the dominion of the sea. And while their cost is counted, let it at the
+same time be remembered that their value can be estimated only by the
+character of the service they may render, and that their capacity for
+aggression abroad makes them the best defence at home.
+
+Having briefly referred to the various views entertained in regard to
+the steam-power with which the navy should be furnished, it will be
+seen that a difference of opinion on this important subject may most
+reasonably be entertained.
+
+None can doubt the advantages of celerity to a man-of-war, yet many
+believe it would be too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of space to
+such an extent as would require supplies to be often replenished; as
+this necessity would in war confine the operations of the navy to our
+own shores.
+
+On the other hand, it is admitted, that, without high speed, a ship of
+war cannot exercise many of her most important functions,--that she can
+neither choose an engagement, protect a convoy, nor enforce a blockade.
+
+The best experience affirms the policy of giving to our cruisers as
+large steampower as is consistent with a due development of all other
+warlike qualities; for what would avail the superior armament of a ship,
+if the option of fighting or flying remain with her adversary, which
+must be the case when the latter commands higher speed? The introduction
+of improved ordnance, throwing heavy shells with great precision at
+long ranges, gives increased importance to celerity; for in any future
+fleet-fight, victory should belong to that flag having at command a
+steam-squadron of superior speed, which may thereby be concentrated upon
+any point without having been long under fire.
+
+May not the command of a maximum speed of thirteen knots be obtained
+from the machinery now employed for a maximum speed of ten knots? It
+evidently may, and with great economy, too, by the simple introduction
+of artificial draft, and the use of steam of higher pressure, when
+requiring the highest speed. At present, in our men-of-war, the boilers
+are proportioned for natural draft, burning about twelve pounds of coal
+per square foot of grate per hour, and for a steam-pressure of fifteen
+pounds per square inch. If, then, the boilers be proportioned to burn at
+the maximum, with blowers, say twenty-two pounds of coal to the square
+foot of grate, and to generate steam of forty pounds to the square inch,
+we shall double the power developed by the machinery, and consequently
+derive from it the same speed that could be attained without blowers
+from double the machinery; while the natural draft and the usual
+pressure of fifteen pounds would give sufficient speed for ordinary
+service. The inconvenience of the higher pressure with blowers could
+well be endured for the short and occasional periods during which they
+would be required.
+
+To create a perfect screw-frigate, a ship with sail-power complete, and
+efficient for any service that may be required, the endeavor should be
+made--by getting rid of every dispensable article of weight or bulk, and
+without reducing supplies below three months' provisions and six weeks'
+water--to find space and displacement for an engine of sufficient force
+to drive her thirteen knots an hour, together with at least ten
+days' full consumption of fuel; and this, it is believed, might be
+successfully accomplished in ships of the dimensions of the Wabash,
+beginning with a judicious reduction of spare spars, spare sails, and
+spare gear, and by the addition of blowers to their present machinery: a
+subject which should immediately receive the earnest consideration of a
+commission of the most intelligent officers.
+
+Having fixed upon the proportions of hull and spars, the form of
+propeller, and the plan of engine, a cautious discrimination should be
+exercised in multiplying the types of either. Besides economy, many
+other advantages would flow from a judicious regard to similarity in
+build; as it would permit us to relieve our ships of many of the spare
+spars with which they are incumbered, and we should probably not again
+hear of suspending the operations of a frigate thousands of miles away,
+until a crank or rod could be sent to her; because, when ships of the
+same class are cruising together, by a careful distribution of spare
+spars and machinery among them, it is hardly probable that damage would
+be sustained, or loss of spars or "break down" occur, which might not be
+remedied by the resources of the squadron.
+
+On the other hand, this system not be carried to a Chinese extreme, lest
+we follow too long a false direction,--thus losing the advantage of
+improvements constantly being made. For such is the change in all things
+pertaining to maritime war, that neither model of hull, plan of engine,
+nor mould of ordnance is best, unless of the latest creation. True
+progress will be most judiciously sought in not departing too suddenly
+and widely from the established order.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE MICE.
+
+
+A great many circumstances led me to decide on leaving the convenient
+boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail: a house correctly described as
+containing several "modern improvements": improperly, as being "in the
+immediate vicinity of all the places of public amusement." For, as the
+Central Park of New York is a place of public amusement, so likewise is
+Barnum's Museum; and these two places being at a distance of about five
+miles from each other, how could any one house be in the immediate
+vicinity of both? But it was not upon this incompatibility that any of
+my objections were founded.
+
+If I have a prejudice, it is against being talked _at_ instead of _to_.
+Now Mrs. Silvernail, who, like the katydid of the poplar-tree, if small,
+was shrill, had a way of conveying instructions to her boarders by
+means of parables ostensibly directed at Catharine, the tall Irish
+serving-maid, but in reality meant for the ear of the obnoxious boarder
+who had lately transgressed some important statute of the house, made
+and provided to meet a case or cases.
+
+A landing-place on the stairs was usually the platform selected for the
+delivery of a monologue, in which Catharine was always assumed to be
+the person addressed; although I have known instances in which that
+"excellent wench" was, at the time of being so conferred with, in the
+grocery at the corner, about half a block distant, as I could see from
+the window where I sat and viewed her protracting her doorway dalliance
+with Jeremiah Tomaters, the grocer's efficient young man.
+
+"Catharine," my landlady would say in a loudish whisper, close by a
+malefactor's chamber-door, and probably when Catharine was yet far down
+the street,--"Catharine, who let the water in the bathroom run over just
+now? If the slippers he left behind him a'n't Mr. Jennings's, I declare!
+Boarders must be warned an' watched, elseways we shall hev all in the
+house afloat, 'cepting the stoves an' flat-irons, by-'n'-by. Somebody at
+Mrs. Moyler's acted so, and the house was like a roarin' sea, with the
+baby adrift in his little cradle, and the roaches a-swimmin' round. Oh,
+dear!"
+
+Now Mr. Jennings was the serious boarder, who lodged in the room just
+over mine: a man who, from general indications, had never had a bath in
+his life; certainly he had never troubled the waters in that house. I
+was the supposed delinquent, and at me the parable was levelled.
+
+"Catharine, whose pass-key was that you found in the door? It's a mussy
+we wasn't all a-murdered and a-plundered in cold blood, by the light
+o' the moon! Mr. Jennings's night-key it must have been, to be sure!
+Boarders must be warned and watched. When Mrs. Toyler's nephew's
+night-key was found in the door of Number Forty-Seven, the boarders all
+went off at daylight in an omnibus, takin' away custom and character
+from the house forever."
+
+Now Mr. Jennings, the serious boarder, was always in bed and asleep long
+before latch-key time came round; and even supposing he ever _had_ let
+himself in by means of that mischievous little convenience, he would as
+soon have thought of taking the door up to bed with him as of leaving
+the key in it. The parable was intended for the hearing of a young man
+who occupied the room opposite mine, and who, being connected with
+clubs, came home nobody ever knew when or in what condition, but had red
+eyes o' mornings and a general odor of the convivial kind.
+
+Then, again, Mrs. Silvernail had a way of being always about the doors
+of the rooms, and a faculty, as I thought, of hovering near several of
+them at one and the same moment. There are men who will turn the least
+promising circumstance to advantage,--even that of being listened at
+through a keyhole, while they discourse to themselves about affairs
+connected with their most cherished and secret designs. One Captain
+Dunnitt, who lived in the house before I came, adroitly made his account
+of this eavesdropping propensity of the landlady, by settling his weekly
+bill with a silver-mounted pistol, instead of the dollars justly due.
+He had been a tragedian as well as a captain, and was saturated with
+Shakspeare and other bards to a far greater amount than with money; and
+when his week came round, he used to stride up and down his room with
+much gnashing of teeth and other stage indications of distress, finally
+settling down into a chair before the table, on which he would place and
+replace a packet of letters and a wisp of unromantic-looking hair. Then
+he would take the little silver pistol from his breast, and, after the
+usual soliloquy of "To be or not to be," or something equally to the
+purpose, would point it at his temples just as the landlady came
+bursting into the room, begging him for all sakes not to "ruin the
+character of her second-best room, and the walls newly painted at that!"
+Remorse would then double up the manly form of Captain Dunnitt, who
+would fall on his knees before the landlady,--"his benefactress! his
+better angel!"--and then arrangements would be entered into by which he
+was not to commit suicide for the present, but could avail himself of
+the landlady's indulgence and wait for "that remittance," which was
+always coming, but which never came.
+
+But there were more serious objections, even than a landlady of shrill
+parables and an inquiring turn of mind, to my prolonging the delights of
+a residence at the first-class boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail. Not
+the least of these was the fact of its _being_ a boarding-house,--a
+community. In such communities, from the inevitable intercourse over
+the social board, your circle of acquaintance is always liable to be
+extended rather than improved. In them there is no escape from the
+disinterested offers of those who would be your perpetual friends. I am
+still under lasting obligations to a man who, at a boarding-house in
+which I sojourned for but three days, forced on me a pipeful of an
+extremely choice and luxurious kind of tobacco, to dilate on the
+properties of which he came and smoked about a quarter of a pound of it
+in my room that very evening, and far on into the morning light. His
+goodness is the more impressed upon my memory, because, on the same
+occasion, he drank the greater part of the contents of a large
+willow-bound bottle of old St. Croix rum, which I had just received
+from a friend who had imported it direct. Then, in boarding-house
+communities, one's magnetism is as much at fault as that of a ship
+sailing up a river whose rock-bound shores are impregnated with iron
+elements. I knew a man who was over-magnetized to the extent of
+matrimony by the lady of the house,--a widow, and a shrew. He hated, or
+at least professed to hate her, and had ridiculous stories about her to
+no end; but she married him, and he still lives. Another, of a
+rather unsociable turn, rejected the proffered civilities of all his
+fellow-boarders who ever came to offer him rations of curious
+tobacco or to assist him in performing a libation of old and valuable
+Hollands. The only one of the party to whom he ever "cottoned" was the
+latest comer, a smoothed-out, blandulose kind of man, who smoked up all
+his cunning cigars, made sad havoc among his Hollanders of gin, departed
+from that house in an unexpected manner and his friend's best trousers,
+in the pockets of which he had bestowed that friend's rarest gems and
+gold, and is now serving out a term allotted to him in the State Prison,
+in recognition of the remarkable abilities displayed by him in the
+character of what the police call a "confidence man."
+
+And yet there are more objectionable boarding-house acquaintances than
+people who insist upon sharing with you their friendship, be they
+"confidence men" or not. I suppose we may allow, in these advanced
+times, that it is something like magnetism which decides the question of
+affinity and its reverse. But, in granting this, I will take the liberty
+of observing that external and palpable facts have a considerable effect
+in directing the currents of magnetism. For example, and to adopt the
+language of scientific men, the insignificant circumstance of a person
+habituating himself to the partial deglutition of his knife, while
+partaking of food, may produce antipathetic emotions on the part of
+others, whom prejudice or superstition has led to regard the knife as
+an article designed for cutting only. This kind of outrage I allude
+to merely for the purpose of illustrating a case. In first-class
+boarding-houses, like that of Mrs. Silvernail, such rusticities have
+long since become traditional, and of the things that have passed away;
+and, indeed, so particular was that lady with regard to her knives,
+that, had a boarder swallowed even a part of one, he would undoubtedly
+have heard the deed alluded to through the keyhole of his chamber-door
+on the following day, in the form of a parable having for its hero the
+justified Mr. Jennings, our serious young man.
+
+If external and palpable circumstances, then, are admitted to have a
+decided effect upon streams of magnetism, I suppose we may assume that
+they have also a certain power of determining impressions by themselves,
+without the intervention of any of the more subtile agencies whatever.
+The granting of this postulate will put me on quite easy terms with
+regard to the very positive objection entertained by me towards
+a certain Mr. Desole Arcubus, who, by provision of an immutable
+Medo-Persic edict promulgated by Mrs. Silvernail, occupied the
+chair next mine at the first-rate table of that rigid expounder of
+boarding-house law.
+
+Mr. Desole Arcubus, a young man of some three or four and twenty, had no
+special nationality about him from which one could guess how he came by
+his rather uncommon names. He was reputed to be learned, particularly
+in the modern languages; had a profusion of long, wild hair of a
+greenish-drab hue, which matched his complexion exactly,--this prevalent
+tint being infused also into the _cornea_ or "white" of his eye,--and,
+in physical proportions, was of weedy and unwholesome growth. He was not
+a young man of cheerful disposition. On the contrary, his deportment at
+table, where alone his fellow-boarders had any opportunity of observing
+him, was such as to induce a very general belief that his mind must have
+been affected by some terrible calamity; and his presence, indeed, was
+looked upon as undesirable by many of the guests, whose health had begun
+to suffer seriously from the manner in which Arcubus used to groan
+between his instalments of food. Sometimes, in the interval between
+the soup and the solids, he would lean his elbows upon the table, and,
+burying his face in his hands, so that his long, sad hair swept the
+board, would abandon himself for a brief space to private despondency,
+until the boiled leg of mutton brought with it a necessity for renewed
+action.
+
+Nor was the social feeling of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed
+when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that
+Mr. Desole Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that
+the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no
+romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of
+science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting his
+mind. For fourteen hours a day he worked assiduously in the laboratory
+of an eminent analytical chemist, whose practice in connection with the
+coroner was of a flourishing and increasing kind, owing to the growing
+taste for suicide, and the preference given to poisons over any other
+means for accomplishing that irrevocable wrong. In this chamber of
+horrors,--a court of which the tests were the stern, incorruptible
+ordinances of Nature,--he had already gone steadily through a course
+which gave him a mastery over the secrets of the relative poisons, with
+which he laughed secretly now, and played as securely as a child might
+with a dog-rose of whose thorns he had been made aware. But of late, his
+haggard features, and the start with which he would wake into life when
+a guest haply plucked a flower from the bouquets on the table, or when
+the handmaiden came round to him with a dish of leguminous vegetables,
+could readily have been traced by a clairvoyant to associations
+connected with the ghastly belladonna and with the deadly bean of
+St. Ignatius the Martyr. For Mr. Arcubus had now arrived at the
+investigation of the positive poisons,--a fact which might have revealed
+itself to the man of science by the general narcotico-acrid expression
+into which he had settled down bodily; while the most casual observer
+might have gathered from his incoherent contributions to the table-talk
+that some noxious drug was envenoming the cup of his life.
+
+He had a way of thinking aloud, and, as his thoughts always ran on the
+subject of his studies, the expression of them sometimes dovetailed
+curiously with the general conversation.
+
+"Miss Rocket will not come down to dinner, poor thing!" said Mrs.
+Silvernail, in her choicest table-manner. "She has lost her beautiful
+Angola kitten. It slipped into the glass globe, this morning, among the
+gold-fishes, and was drowned."
+
+"Digested in water, several of its constituents are dissolved," said Mr.
+Arcubus, in a husky voice, looking wildly at the picture on his plate.
+
+"You have a _specialite_ for puddings, I perceive, Madam," remarked a
+smiling old gentleman, a new-comer, addressing himself to the hostess;
+"may I ask now of what this very excellent one is composed?"
+
+"Sulphate of lime, potash, oil, resin, extractive matter, gluten, _et
+cetera, et cetera_," put in Mr. Arcubus, still following out his train
+of thought.
+
+"During the process of evaporation, a black substance is precipitated,"
+continued he; and at that very moment, the small colored boy, running
+to pour out some water for the wild boarder, who had just arrived in an
+excited condition from a rowing match, caught his foot in the carpet,
+and came to the floor with a crash.
+
+"Black oxide of Mercury, called _Ethiops per se_," pursued Mr. Arcubus,
+grappling with his tangled hair.
+
+"Do just try a drop or two of this Hollands of mine in that iced water;
+it is positively dangerous to drink it so," said an attentive boarder to
+Mrs. Silvernail, who certainly _did_ look warm.
+
+"Absorbs oxygen readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus,
+abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints
+crack.
+
+"Who is the tall lady who dined here yesterday with Miss Rocket, and
+talked so enthusiastically about woman's rights?" inquired the serious
+boarder of Mrs. Silvernail.
+
+"Prepared by deflagration in a crucible, one part of nitre with two of
+powdered tartar," proceeded Mr. Arcubus.
+
+"What do you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?"
+asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of
+with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of
+a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably
+affecting the nose and eyes."
+
+"I hope you are not going to bring another dog into the house, Mr.
+Puglock," remonstrated Mrs. Silvernail, addressing the wild boarder, to
+whose conversation she had been lending a sharp ear. "Re'lly now, I must
+restrict the number of dogs; we have three here already, I believe."
+
+"There is a strong analogy between the virus injected into wounds made
+by the teeth of a rabid dog and that found in the poison-apparatus of
+venomous snakes," brought in Mr. Arcubus, diving his fork truculently
+into a ripe tomato.
+
+This last observation of Mr. Arcubus, together with the fact that the
+blade of his knife had manifestly turned black, while all the other
+blades at table were as bright as silver, decided me. I packed up my
+portmanteau and writing-case that evening, and, having settled with
+my wondering landlady, to whom I accounted for my sudden departure
+by pleading expediency as to important affairs, took leave of that
+estimable widow, and drove away to a distant hotel, from which I sallied
+forth early next morning to look for lodgings,--furnished lodgings for
+single gentlemen, without board,--for against boarding-houses I had set
+my face forever.
+
+A peculiar feature of life in lodgings in New York, as in other large
+cities, is the incomparable solitude attainable in that blessed state of
+deliverance from promiscuous "board." One may dwell for a twelvemonth
+in lodgings for single gentlemen, without incurring the obligation of
+knowing by sight, or even by name, the lodger who occupies the very
+room opposite to his, on the same landing. Fifty lodgers may have
+successively lived in those "apartments" during the twelve months, on
+the same terms of perfect isolation from one who would rather mind his
+own business than make any inquiries regarding theirs. And so it is,
+that, of all the stage-pieces which have achieved popularity in our day,
+none is more faithful to the facts than the often-repeated one of "Box
+and Cox"; yet, but for the exigencies of the drama, which, of course,
+has for its principal object the development of a plot, there would have
+been no necessity whatever for bringing Box on a footing of acquaintance
+with Cox,--still less for attributing to either of them an idea of his
+landlady's name.
+
+For several months I lived contentedly in the house selected by me, up
+one pair of stairs, in a room looking out into a busy street,--a street
+so narrow, that the trees at one side of it, whenever a reviving breeze
+brought with it a subject for greeting and congratulation, shook hands
+in quite a friendly manner with those at the other. To illustrate the
+isolation of a residence in these lodgings, I may as well state,
+that, during all the time of my sojourn there, I never arrived at the
+knowledge of my landlady's name. It was not graven upon the house-door,
+and, as a knowledge of it was of no immediate consequence to any of my
+occupations, nor likely to be, I never asked about it from the old woman
+who kept the rooms in order, and to whom I seldom spoke, except upon the
+weekly occasion of handing to her the amount due to the landlady, with
+whom I never had any interview after the day I agreed with her for the
+lodgings. I believe there was a landlord,--if that be the proper term to
+apply to a man who is the husband of a landlady, and nothing else. From
+my window I once observed a man who might have been the landlord, a man
+of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church.
+Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the
+same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a
+cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative
+manner with one word, the only one I ever heard him utter,--
+
+"Owasyerelthbin?"
+
+To which, as I supposed him to be a foreigner, unacquainted with the
+English tongue, I replied at random in the only word of German of which
+I happen to be master,--
+
+"Yaw!"
+
+And this was the only communication I ever had with people of the house,
+excepting occasional conversations with the dust-colored old woman who
+cleaned the windows and swept the floors; while, with regard to a dozen
+or two of lodgers who succeeded each other from time to time in the
+other disposable rooms of the house, I never saw one of them, nor was
+acquainted with them otherwise than by footstep,--and that rather
+infelicitously at one time, in the case of something which went either
+upon crutches or wooden legs, and which occupied the room immediately
+over mine. This was in charming contrast with life at Mrs. Silvernail's,
+in its freedom from parables, and from the uncared-for society of Miss
+Rocket's guests; likewise from that of the serious and vicious boarders,
+and above all of the poisonous young man.
+
+A day came for cleaning my windows, and, as it rained heavily, I could
+not give the old woman a clear stage by going out for a couple of hours,
+but told her to clean away and be as lively as she could, while I
+sat there and wrote. Lodgers, she told me, as she polished up the
+brightening panes, came and went week after week, so fast that she
+forgot one when another came, and never knew any of their names. She had
+an eye for character, though, and told me the peculiarities of some of
+them in a quaint way, nailing her sentences, now and then, with odd,
+hard words, put in independently of the general text.
+
+"And who lives in the room just under mine? Somebody who raises plants,
+I see,--unless the green things on the balcony belong to the house."
+
+"A gentleman as keeps emself quite _to_ emself. Lonesome and friendless,
+I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all
+the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder
+tea of 'em, or root-drink. Decoctifies."
+
+"And who in the room opposite, on this floor?"
+
+"Empty now. Two dark-featured little gentlemen had it for a fortnight,--
+Jews, I reckon,--and as like one another as two spots of dirt on
+this 'ere pane of glass. Spoke a hard-biled kind of tongue, and was
+furriners, I guess. Polyanders."
+
+The vacant room would just suit De Vonville, who had arrived a few days
+before from abroad. I told him of it, and he came in the next day, bag
+and baggage, a portion of which latter was curious and uncommon.
+
+De Vonville, with whom I had lived in lodgings two or three years
+previously, was a Belgian and a _savant_, and a man of rare
+companionable qualities besides. Professionally, I believe, he called
+himself a naturalist. He had already roamed over the greater part
+of America, North and South, investigating the mysteries of Nature,
+especially of the animal kingdom, and contributing, as he went, many
+specimens of rare animals to the principal collections of Europe. His
+latest adventures took him through Africa and the East, whence he
+brought to New York a number of living creatures of many species, all
+of which, however, he had shipped for Havre before I met him, with the
+exception of two or three of the least disreputable kinds, which he
+meant to keep about him as pets. The most valued of these treasures were
+a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of
+white mice.
+
+These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the
+rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of
+a perfect jet black. They were quite tame and familiar; but, on the
+approach of a cat, or any other cause for alarm, the whole family would
+concentrate their energies in a very remarkable way into one piercing
+squeak.
+
+The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly
+allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and
+active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog
+to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes
+for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner
+of the room. There were personal reminiscences connected with Mungo
+which rendered him particularly valuable to De Vonville, whom he had
+often saved from the stings of the noxious vermin to be encountered by
+those who dwell in tents. His instinct was for creeping things, though
+he looked as if he could have dined contentedly on a brace of white
+mice. One piece of mischief he committed, during the few days he was
+allowed to run about the rooms: he gnawed holes at the bottom of all the
+doors, through which he could let himself in and out. He used to lie in
+the sun, on my table, as I sat reading; and was generally companionable
+and trustworthy, notwithstanding his insidious look.
+
+Seeing the interest I took in his small menagerie, De Vonville begged me
+to undertake the superintendence of it, on his being called away for a
+brief tour to Baltimore and elsewhere, in pursuance of an engagement to
+deliver a course of traveller's tales. Numerous were the directions I
+had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to
+the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence
+expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly
+confined to his cage. There were parrots to be looked after, also,
+including an extremely vituperative old macaw, any verbal communication
+with whom laid the advancing party open to all manner of insult and
+objurgation.
+
+The very first day of my menagerial experience, the Mangouste got out of
+his cage while I was feeding him, and glided away into dark nooks and
+garrets unknown. I failed of recovering him by a stalking process among
+the giddy passes of the upper stairs; nor did he return that day to my
+often-repeated call; for I vociferated at intervals throughout the
+day the word "Mungo!" in a manner that must have led the mysterious
+inhabitants of that silent house to the conclusion that I was a
+spiritual medium, inviting revelations from the shade of the mighty
+Park.
+
+A hot, clammy night. No balmy essences arise from the kennels of this
+hollow street in which I live; whatever comes from that quarter must be
+malarious, if anything. The windows are thrown open as far as they were
+made to be thrown, and I get as far out of one of them as I safely can,
+by tilting my chair back, and extending my legs out into that undefined
+everywhere called the wide, wide world. The only newspaper within reach
+of my hand is one I have already looked over, but I glance at it again,
+reading backwards from the end an account of a terrible poisoning case
+lately brought to light in England, which I had already read forwards
+from the beginning. Throwing it away from me in disgust, I reach out
+my other hand for a book. The one I lay hold of is "Laurel-Water,"
+the melancholy drama of Sir Theodosius Boughton by insidious poisoner
+killed. I dashed it away, backwards, over my head, and, turning off the
+gas, abandoned myself to the strange influences that breathed hotly upon
+me from the clammy vegetation festering in the ropy night-air.
+
+Why do civic wood-rangers choose the ailantus-tree for a bouquet-holder
+to the close-pent inhabitants of towns? Nothing can be more graceful,
+certainly, than the ellipses arched by the boughs from its taper stem.
+Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long,
+feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are
+times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but
+a diluted upas-antiar of Macassar, tainting, albeit with no deadly
+essence, the muggy air that rocks its slumbering branches and rolls
+away thence along the parapets and in at the windows of the sleepers.
+Dead-horse chestnut it might reasonably be called, because of its heavy,
+carrion smell, which, under the influences of a July night, is but too
+perceptible to the dwellers of streets where it abides. The tree at
+my window was an ailantus, of stately dimensions, and bounteous in a
+proportionate enormity of smell; yet it had never before affected me so
+much as on this night, when I lay dozing in the ghastly gloom. Sleep
+must have overcome me, for I had a troublous dream or vision of which
+Poison was the predominant nightmare,--a dream and slumber broken by the
+convulsive sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination
+to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of
+half-and-half--half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane--handed
+to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in
+the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly
+be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony
+beneath,--the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter
+sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, with a weird watering-pot
+held forth in a fawn-colored hand?
+
+In a particular condition of the nerves,--say, when a man feels
+"shaky,"--it takes but little to convince him that anything which may
+possibly not be all right is to a moral certainty all wrong. To sleep
+another night in that room, with the windows open,--and who would shut
+his windows in July?--directly exposed to the exhalations of a rising
+forest of upas-antiars of Macassar, nurtured by the unwholesome hand
+of a mysterious vegetarian for purposes unavowed, was no longer to be
+thought of. De Vonville's room, which was at the back of the house, and
+had no fuming ailantus by its windows on which to browse nightmares
+of skunkish flavor, afforded a better climate for a night's rest,
+notwithstanding the singular ideas which these travelled men, especially
+naturalists, have of comfort, in a civilized sense. He invariably slept
+on the floor, converting his room, indeed, into the general semblance
+of a tent, by divesting it of all the appliances dear to a Christian
+gentleman, and one who loves to repose as such. Yet there was
+comparative freshness in that tent-like apartment, as I entered it that
+night, shutting the door of mine after me, to prevent ailantus and
+upas-antiar from following in my wake. The little beasts were all
+sleeping tranquilly in their cages, and the birds on their perches
+rested quietly, too,--excepting the old macaw, who cursed me in his
+sleep, as I lit up the gas. But the Mangouste had not returned, nor did
+I quite regret his absence for the present; because, although highly
+approving of the culture of four-footed beasts, be they large or small,
+I have a prejudice against having my jugular vein breathed, at midnight,
+by small animals of the weasel tribe,--an act of which Mungo, probably,
+would have been incapable. His relations _will_ do such things, however,
+and newspapers recording appalling instances of it may be found.
+
+Shutting the door, I turned the gas down to a mere spark, and stretched
+my weary limbs on the mat which served the travelled man for a bed,
+drawing over me a gauze-like fabric, which, I suppose, answers in
+tropical countries all the purposes of the more voluminous "bed-clothes"
+of ours. Sleep soon came upon me,--a heavy, but unquiet sleep, in which
+the same influences haunted me as those I felt when slumbering at the
+window. The malaria from the trees was there, and the planter of the
+balcony watering henbane and hellebore with boiling aquafortis; likewise
+the demon-waiter, with his leaden salver and poisoned tankard, wearing
+an ophidian smile on his features and a fresh sprig of hemlock in his
+third buttonhole.
+
+How long I slept thus I know not. Once I had a vague sense of the
+Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was
+still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a
+piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood
+upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.
+
+The sound which followed this was one which the man is not likely to
+forget who has once heard it,--whether beneath his foot, as he steps
+upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand,
+when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is
+clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and
+hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke up the obedient
+gas, which flashed tremulously on the scales of an enormous rattlesnake
+coiled round the mice's cage, tightening his folds as he whizzed his
+infernal warning, and darting out his lightning tongue with baffled fury
+at the trembling group in the middle of the cage. This I saw by the
+first flash. Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the
+walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the
+Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the
+serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing,
+headless mass.
+
+In the heavy dreams which haunted me during the sleep from which I had
+just been roused, I had a vision of the planter of the balcony with
+a snake coiled round his naked arm. Who so dull as to require an
+interpreter for such plain speakings? Rushing down-stairs, I burst open
+the door of that person's room with one kick, and there, in the middle
+of the floor, half-dressed and bending over a censer of red-hot
+charcoal, knelt Mr. Desole Arcubus, the poison-man of Mrs. Silvernails
+boarding-house. His features were collapsed and livid, and he held his
+left arm, which was much swollen and discolored, close over the red-hot
+coals, basting it wildly, the while, with ladlefuls of some hot liquid,
+while he crammed into his mouth, at intervals, a handful of herb-fodder
+of some kind from a salad-bowl on the floor beside him. He was rapidly
+growing faint and sinking, but indicated his wishes by signs, and one
+of several strangers who now entered the room continued the fomenting
+treatment, while another ran for medical assistance.
+
+There was an open letter on the table, which I had no hesitation in
+reading, when I saw at a glance that it threw light on the matter. The
+following is an exact copy of it:--
+
+"Hollow Rock----County. N. Y. 17 Jewly. 18--
+
+MR. HARKABUS dear Sir.
+
+a cording to promis i send the sneak by Xpress. He is the Largest and
+wust Sneak we have ketched In these parts. Bit a cow wich died in 2.40
+likeways her calf of fright. Hope the sneak weed growed up strong and
+harty. By eting and drinking of that wede the greatest sneak has no
+power. Smeling of it a loan will cure a small sneak ader or the like. I
+go in upon the dens tomorough and if we find any Pufing Aders will Xpres
+them to you per Xpress.
+
+Yr. oblgd. servt. SILENUS CLUCK."
+
+Here was the whole story in a nutshell. For his experiments in septic
+poisons, Mr. Arcubus had hired this apartment, with its convenient
+balcony for the cultivation of his antidotes. Having prepared his
+decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake,
+which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed
+with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the
+animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste
+underneath the doors. A cold shudder seized me when I guessed the
+reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The
+hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice,
+whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had
+fortunately roused me from my lethargy,--for the rattle of the snake is
+but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste
+came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might
+have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I
+missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room
+was lumbered.
+
+And these were the delights of lodgings,--of lodgings without board!
+And who could see the end of it all?--for, if snake-poison lurked on the
+stairs, probably hydrophobia was tied up in the cupboard. Brief time
+I expended in making my arrangements to quit, having first seen Mr.
+Arcubus carted away to a hospital, where by skilful treatment he
+slowly recovered. For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and
+the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a
+bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that
+I had departed from lodgings forever,--lodgings for single gentlemen,
+without board.
+
+But, on leaving the house, I did not forget the dust-colored old
+woman, whose last words to me, as I tipped her with a gratuity, were
+oracular:--"Forty long years and more have I lived in lodgin'-houses and
+never before seen a sarpint. It behooves all on us, now, to be watchful
+for what may be coming next, and wakeful. Circumspectangular."
+
+I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But
+what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar
+idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic
+ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the
+style and title of St. Mungo; and if ever surplus funds are discovered
+to my credit in any solvent bank, at present unknown to me, I will
+certainly devote a moiety of them to the foundation of a neat row of
+alms-cages, for the reception of decayed members of the family of White
+Mice.
+
+
+
+
+FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE.
+
+  Upon us falls the shadow of night,
+  And darkened is our day:
+  My love will greet the morning light
+  Four hundred miles away.
+  God love her, torn so swift and far
+  From hearts so like to break!
+  And God love all who are good to her,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  I know, whatever spot of ground
+  In any land we tread,
+  I know the Eternal Arms are round,
+  That heaven is overhead;
+  And faith the mourning heart will heal,
+  But many fears will make
+  Our spirits faint, our fond hearts kneel,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Good bye, dear! be they kind to you,
+  As though you were their ain!
+  My daisy opens to the dew,
+  But shuts against the rain.
+  Never will new moon glad our eyes
+  But offerings we shall make
+  To old God Wish, and prayers will rise
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Four years ago we struck our tent;
+  O'er homeless babes we yearned;
+  Our all--three darlings--with us went,
+  But only two returned!
+  While life yet bleeds into her grave,
+  Love ventures one more stake;
+  Hush, hush, poor hearts! if big, be brave,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  Like crown to most ambitious brows
+  Was Christie to us given,
+  To make our home a holy house
+  And nursery of heaven.
+  Oh, softer was her bed of rest
+  Than lily's on the lake!
+  Peace filled so deep each billowy breast,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  To music played by harps and hands
+  Invisible were we drawn
+  O'er charmed seas, through faery lands,
+  Under a clearer dawn:
+  We entered our new world of love
+  With blessings in our wake,
+  While prospering heavens smiled above,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  We gazed with proud eyes luminous
+  On such a gift of grace,--
+  All heaven narrowed down to us
+  In one dear little face!
+  And many a pang we felt, dear wife,
+  With hurt of heart and ache
+  All shut within like clasping knife,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  I would no tears might e'er run down
+  Her patient face, beside
+  Such happy pearls of heart as crown
+  Young mother, new-made bride!
+  For 'tis a face that, looking up
+  To passing heaven, might make
+  An angel stop, a blessing drop,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  If Love in that child's heart of hers
+  Should breathe and break its calm,
+  With trouble sweet as that which stirs
+  The brooding buds of balm,--
+  Listening at ear of peeping pearl,
+  Glistening in eyes that shake
+  Their sweet dew down,--God bless our girl,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  But, Father, if our babe must mourn,
+  Be merciful and kind!
+  And if our gentle lamb be shorn,
+  Attemper thou the wind!
+  Across the Deluge guide our Dove,
+  And to thy bosom take
+  With arm of love, and shield above,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  We have had sorrows many and strange:
+  Poor Christie I when I'm gone,
+  Some of my words will weirdly change,
+  If she read sadly on!
+  Lightnings, from what was dark of old,
+  With meanings strange will break
+  Of sorrows hid or dimly told,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Wife, we should still try hard to win
+  The best for our dear child,
+  And keep a resting-place within,
+  When all without grows wild:
+  As on the winter graves the snow
+  Falls softly, flake by flake,
+  Our love should whitely clothe our woe,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  For one will wake at midnight drear
+  From out a dream of death,
+  And find no dear head pillowed near,
+  No sound of peaceful breath!
+  May no weak wailing words arise,
+  No bitter thoughts awake
+  To see the tears in Memory's eyes:
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  And There, where many crownless kings
+  Of earth a crown shall wear,
+  The martyrs who have borne the pangs
+  Their palm at last shall bear,--
+  When with our lily pure of sin
+  Our heavenward way we take,
+  There may we walk with welcome in,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+
+
+
+THE NURSERY BLARNEY-STONE.
+
+
+Where is it kept? We have often longed for a sight of that precious bit
+of aerolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to
+which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must be religiously
+pressed.
+
+In vain have we searched in the closet, where the headless dolls and
+tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away.
+We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have
+surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by
+disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did
+not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the
+coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the
+Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad
+was wrecked, as the meteor which fell into the State of Connecticut and
+the volcanic island which rose out of the Straits of Messina, as the
+rock of Plymouth, or the philosopher's stone,--yet we have sought in
+vain for it, and only know of it as of the Great Carbuncle, by the light
+it sheds.
+
+"Pray, my good Sir," ask legions of fond parents, "what do you mean? Is
+it Dalby's Carminative, Daffy's Elixir, Brown's Syrup of Squills, or
+White's Magnetic Mixture? Is it of the soothing or the coercing system?
+a substitute for lollipops or for birch? rock candy or rock the cradle?"
+
+"Look" not "into your heart," responds our Muse, but into your nursery,
+and write!
+
+We invite a general review of all infantry divisions. We may be, for
+aught you know, Mrs. Ellis _incog_., warning the mothers of America, as
+of yore the Cornelias of England. What is the Nursery Blarney-Stone?
+You have none in your own airy and southern-exposed first-pair-back,
+(_Nov-Anglice>_, "the keeping-room chamber,") where you daily water
+and rake your young olive-sprouts? upon your word of honor, Madam, you
+have not? You never tell nursery-tales of ghosts or fairies; you have
+conscientiously stripped from the dark closet every vestige of a legend;
+you have permitted juvenile inspection of the chimney, to prove that
+Santa Claus could not descend its sooty flue without grievous nigritude
+of the anticipated doll's frock, and have logically appealed to Miss
+Bran Beeswax's satin silveriness in proof of the non-existence of
+the saint beloved of Christmas-tide. Nay, more, you tell us you have
+actually invited inspection of the overnight process of filling the
+stockings, (you brute!) and you appropriately label each gift, "From
+Papa," "From Uncle Edward," "From Sister Kate," "From dear Mamma," lest
+a figment of the supernatural untruth should linger in the infantile
+brain. The "Arabian Nights'" (and "Arabian Days'") "Entertainments" are
+on your _Index Expurgatorius_. You have banned Bluebeard, and treated
+Red Ridinghood as no better than the Bonnet Rouge of domestic
+Jacobinism.
+
+You are a model mother, with whom even the late Mr. Gradgrind might be
+satisfied. "Truth, crushed to earth" by the whole race of nurses of the
+good old time, rises again triumphant at your hearth-stone. Then answer
+us,--Why did you tell your little ones to-night, as the sparrows were
+making an unusually loquacious preparation for their dormitories,
+that the little birds were singing their evening hymns, and exhort,
+thereupon, your unwilling nestlings to a rival performance of the verses
+of Dr. Watts? You ought to be prepared to explain, also, for the benefit
+of any sucking Socrates, why it is that these feathered choristers
+have their "revival seasons," and are terrible backsliders during the
+moulting period. When you looked out of the nursery-window, into the
+poultry-yard, and heard the noisy confabulation of the motherly hens
+and pert pullets, you should be prepared to state upon what theological
+principles it is that psalmody is not the wont of the Gallinacae. Are
+the Biddies given over to a reprobate mind, because you don't happen to
+like their vocalization? Is it only the Piccolomini and Linds of the
+feathered kingdom who have a right to practise sacred music?
+
+And how about that other stupendous fiction of the harvest-moon? Tell
+us, since you are voluntarily in the confessional, tell us why you
+kept back that explanation of its dependence on the Precession of the
+Equinoxes, which, at Professor Cram's finishing examination, in your
+school-girl days, you so glibly recited before your admiring papa and
+mamma? Do you really believe that the solar and stellar system was
+arranged to accommodate "the reapers reaping early" of the little island
+of Great Britain?
+
+We think you said angels! When little Isabel Montgomery, with her long,
+sunny curls, and sweet, blue eyes, was taken away, you made a very
+touching application of her decease, to illustrate what all good people
+were to become in the unknown world. How did you get out of the scrape
+which followed the remark of your downright eldest, remembering also the
+departure of a good-natured, obese, elderly neighbor,--"Then I thpothe
+Mithter Thimmonth ith a big angel"? So he probably is; but Simmons's two
+hundred pounds of earthliness did not suit your sentimentality quite as
+readily as the little fairy who always wore such clean pantalets and
+never tore her pretty white frocks in a game of romps. Is beatification
+dependent upon the platform-balance? and what amount of flesh will turn
+the scale in favor of the _Avvocato del Diavolo?_
+
+Once upon a time, a little boy was allowed to ramble in the woods. Being
+an adventurous little boy, he saw and coveted, and also conquered, (in
+the good old English sense of the word,) a pretty bird's-nest and its
+contents, to wit, several shiny, speckled eggs. He brought them home for
+triumphant display. He set them out upon the drawing-room table, and
+called a family conclave to admire and exult. What was the surprise
+and grief of the infant Catiline, to find himself received, not with
+applause, but horror! He was accused of robbery, was threatened with
+Solomonic penalties, was finally condemned to penance at a side-table
+upon dry bread and water, while his innocent brothers and sisters were
+regaling upon chickens and custards. He was edified over his scanty meal
+by melting descriptions of the mother-bird returning to the desolated
+home, of her positive sorrow and her probable pining to death. And
+the same little boy, looking out through the prison-bars of the
+nursery-window, saw his mother take by the hand his weeping sister (much
+cast down by the fraternal wickedness) and lead her to the nest of
+another mother-bird, and then and there encourage her to perform the
+same act of spoliation. True, the eggs were not speckled and small, but
+of a very pretty white, and quite a handful for the juvenile fingers.
+But the bereaved "parient" was not slender and active,--in fact, was
+rather a tame, confiding, dumpy and dull, pepper-and-salt-colored dame.
+Her complaints were not touching, but rather ludicrous,--so much so,
+indeed, as to suggest to the human hen-bird that "Biddy was laughing to
+think what a nice breakfast little Carrie would have off her nice eggs!"
+The young Trenck, from aloft beholding, could not but stumble upon
+certain "glittering generalities," as, that "eggs was eggs," and that
+the return of them on the fowl's part, in consideration of an advance of
+corn, was not altogether a voluntary barter,--quite, in short, after the
+pattern of Coolie apprenticeship. And thus the high moral lesson of the
+morning was sadly shaken. Of course this boy did not belong to any of
+the model mammas, for whom we are writing.
+
+A large fragment of the Nursery Blarney-Stone has been made over, to
+have and to hold, to the writers of the Children's Astor-Place
+Library. We yawn over poetical justice in novels, and only tolerate it
+as an amusing absurdity in genteel comedy, for the sake of getting
+the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the
+virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very
+different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the
+heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain
+to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical
+domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as
+for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and if we did
+not know it to be so, and if we did not know that they know that we know
+it, we should perhaps feel very differently.
+
+Why must we, then, be conscientiously constrained to mark out such a
+very different plan for our children at home? Why is the life of little
+boys and girls in books always pictured on the foot-lights pattern? We
+remember that we were of those good little boys and girls,--quite as
+good as that one who saved his pennies for the missionary-box, or that
+other who hemmed a tiny pocket-handkerchief against the nasal needs of a
+forlorn infant in Burmah; but we don't remember ever (then or since) to
+have encountered any of those delightful (and strong-minded) mothers or
+those sensible and always well-informed fathers of whom we read. Neither
+in our own particularly pleasant home, nor in any where we went, (at
+three, P.M., to take an early tea with preparatory barmecidal rehearsals
+on doll's china,) did we ever meet them. Perhaps they were the
+progenitors of the authors of the books. Mr. Thackeray has introduced us
+to sundry gentlemen and ladies bearing a faint likeness to them; but
+he also permitted us to behold Lady Beckie Crawley _nee_ Sharpe boxing
+little Rawdon's ears, and to meet Mrs. Hobson Newcome at one of her
+delightful "at homes," where Runmun Loll, of East Indian origin, was the
+lion of the evening.
+
+We couldn't get through five pages of Hannah More, on a wet day, at the
+dreariest railway-station, when the expected train was telegraphed as
+"not due under two hours." What have the innocent heirs of our name
+done, that Hannah should continue under numberless _noms-de-plume_ to
+cater for them?
+
+We know there must have been a large lump of the Blarney-Stone,
+conglomerate probably, kept in the desk of our reverend instructor in
+the ways of syntax and the dismal paths of numbers. We have a lively
+recollection of the countless tables of foreign coins which we committed
+to memory, and of the provoking additions and subtractions we underwent
+to reduce to dollars and cents of the Federal denomination the
+fortunes of a score of Rothschilds. But when, under the shadow of the
+Drachenfels, we attempted to reimburse the Teutonic waiter for a cup of
+_cafe noir_, we were ignominiously constrained to hold forth a handful
+of coin and to await the white-jacketed and bearded one's pleasure, as
+he helped himself.
+
+We have a strong impression that we should never have attained to our
+present proud position of being allowed to write for (and be printed
+in) the "Atlantic Monthly," without much previous polish, through the
+companionship of the fairer sex. Why was it made a crime worthy of
+Draconian sternness to address our she-comrades in the pleasant paths of
+learning? Why did we behold the severe Magister Morum himself, in utter
+forgetfulness of his own rule, mingle in the mazy dance on an evening
+occasion, at which we were allowed to sit up? Did the girls of a larger
+growth lose their dangerous qualities on arriving at belle-hood? Why were
+our primary _billets-doux_ confiscated, and our offending palms, like
+Cranmer's, visited with the first penalty, though we had been obliged to
+walk blushingly the gauntlet of fifty pairs of maiden eyes and deliver
+to the "female principal" of the girls' school across the entry notes
+which we have since but too much reason to conclude bore no reference
+to the affairs of the school-realm? There is a bit of the Blarney-Stone
+(always of the nursery formation) which we are sure is discoverable to
+the true geologic eye in the underpinning of the Fifth Congregational
+Society's house of worship,--then called a meeting-house, now, we
+believe, styled a church. For all sermons therein delivered were
+supposed to be for our personal edification; albeit we were not, by
+reason of our tender years, specifically exposed to the heresies of
+Origen or Pelagius. It must have been on some afternoon when we were
+absent, then, that Dr. Baxter delivered the discourse of which we
+found a commentary written on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book in our
+pew,--"Terribly tedious this P.M., isn't he?" We have always felt that
+a great opportunity was lost to us. We should doubtless have been
+permitted to indulge unchecked in the solution of that lost mystery of
+our boyhood, as to the exact number of little brass rods in the front of
+the gallery, to scratch our initials with a pin upon the pew-side, or,
+propped by the paternal arm, to sweetly slumber till nineteenthly's
+close. No such sermon was ever pronounced in our hearing. Oh, golden
+time of youth! precious season thus lost! We intend yet revisiting that
+ancient and time-worn edifice, and, borrowing the keys of the sexton,
+we mean to revel in all and sundry those delights of "boyhood's breezy
+hour" from which we were debarred by that untimely absence. Like the
+old gentleman who visited nightly Van Amburg's exhibition of the
+head-in-the-lion's-mouth feat, in the moral certainty that a single
+absence would fall inevitably upon the one night when Leo would vary the
+programme by decapitation,--so we lost the one afternoon when that
+dull discourse diversified the pious eloquence of Jotham Baxter, D.D.,
+disciple of Dr. Hopkins and believer in Cotton Mather. Many a refreshing
+slumber has sealed our eyes under subsequent outpourings of divinity,
+but never with that entire sense of permissible indulgence which
+then would certainly have been ours. Why was it--except for the
+Blarney-Stone--that we were always checked in any Sabba'day notes and
+queries of what we had noticed in the sanctuary? Why was it wicked and
+deserving of a double infliction of catechism (Assembly's) for us to
+have seen that Bob Jones had a new jacket, and that he took five marbles
+and a jack-knife (in aggravating display) out of its pockets, while our
+mother and sisters were enabled, without let or hindrance to the most
+absorbing devotion, to chronicle every bonnet and ribbon within the
+walls of the temple?
+
+Certainly, the family-physician carried--as well he might--a bit of the
+precious rock in his waistcoat-pocket; for all our subsequent experience
+of _materia medica_ has never revealed to us the then patent fact, that
+all our bodily ailments were the consequence of those particular sports
+which damaged clothes and disturbed the quiet of the household. Surely,
+the connection between the measles and sailing on the millpond was about
+as obvious as that between Macedon and Monmouth; and whooping-cough must
+have had a very long road to travel, if it originated in our nutting
+frolic, when we returned home with a ghastly gash in our trousers-knee.
+
+The Blarney-Stone got into our "Manual of History"; for either it or
+the "Boston Centinel" must have made some egregious mistakes as to the
+character of some famous men who nursed our country's fortunes. So, too,
+did the author of "Familiar Letters on Public Characters"; for he was
+anything but an indorser of the History-Book, with its wood-cuts (after
+Trumbull and West) of the death of General Wolfe, exclaiming, "They
+run who run the French then I die happy," and of General Warren at the
+Battle of Bunker's Hill, with its amazing portraits of the first six
+Presidents, and the death of Tecumseh. Nay, we have found hard work to
+reconcile our faith, as per History-Book, in the loveliness of those
+gentlemen whom stress of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon
+Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a
+certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just
+after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the
+other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the
+Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed)
+the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of
+Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in
+Plutarch's Lives, the Charter Oak, and the existence of the Maelstroem
+all sliding away from under us. "Think," we said, "if New York had been
+Boston, how it would have fared with the good Knickerbockers!"
+
+Who was our geographer? Why did he insist upon our believing that all
+French men and women passed their time in mutual bows and "curchies,"
+and that all Italians were on their knees to fat priests, clean and
+rosy-looking? Why did he palm upon us that outrageous fiction of three
+kings (like those of Cologne) sitting in full ermine robes, with gold
+crowns on their heads, all alone in a sort of summer-parlor, where the
+heat, must have been at 80 deg. in the shade, engaged in disparting Poland?
+We have seen, say, a million of Frenchmen, and nearly the same of
+Italians, since then, with a dozen or so of kings and emperors,--but
+never the faintest likeness to those deluding pictures. We learned
+at the same time, by painful rote, the population of various capital
+cities; but we cannot find in any statistic-book gazetteer, neither in
+McCulloch nor in Worcester, any of the old, familiar numbers. Also in
+that same Wonder-Book of Malte-Brun, edited by Pietro il Parlatore, we
+recall a sketch of a boy running for life down a slope of at least 45 deg.,
+just before a snowball some five hundred times as big as the one our
+school-boys unitedly rolled up in the back-yard. It was a snowball,
+round, symmetrical, just such a magnified copy of the backyard one as
+might be expected to follow a boy in dreams after too much Johnny-cake
+for supper. And that was an avalanche. We have stood since then under
+the shadow of the Jungfrau, on the Wengern Alp, at the selfsame spot
+where Byron beheld the fall of so many. We had the noble lord's luck,
+(as most people have.) and saw dozens, but not one big snowball.
+
+We believe there has been reform since that day. Thanks to the London
+"Illustrated News" and the "Penny Magazine," juster ideas visit the
+ingenious youth of the present age. But we solemnly declare that we
+grew up in the belief that the President of the United States was
+daily ushered to his carriage by a long array of bareheaded and bowing
+menials, and that his official dress was a cocked hat and knee-breeches.
+We furthermore make affidavit that we supposed all the nobility of
+Europe to be in the habit of driving four-in-hand over wooden-legged
+beggars. And we also depose and say, that we had no other idea of
+royalty than as continually clad in coronation-robes, with six peers in
+the same, with huge wigs, as attendants. All this upon the faith of
+that same Malte-Brun, _a la_ P.P. Wasn't this a pretty dish to set
+before--not a king-but a young republican, who fancied himself the
+equal of kings? And lastly, upon the same authority, we held that "the
+horrible custom of eating human flesh does not belong exclusively to any
+nation." We have seen, we repeat, men and cities. We have dined at
+the Rocher de Cancale, the Maison Doree, at Delmonico's, at German
+Gasthauses, at Italian Trattorias, at "Joe's" in London, the Trosachs
+Inn in the Highlands, and upon all peculiar and national dishes, from
+the _sardines au gratin_ of Naples to the _sauer kraut_ of Berlin, from
+the "one fish-ball" of Boston to the hog and hominy of Virginia,--but
+never yet upon any _carte_ did we encounter "Cold Missionary" or
+"_Enfans en potage Fijien_."
+
+Where, we repeat, is the Nursery Blarney-Stone? or rather, where is it
+not?
+
+The gentle reader (prepared to corroborate with many a juvenile
+reminiscence) must by this time be prepared for our moral; and it is
+very briefly this:--Is it not time to consider the budding brain as
+entitled to fair play? We, the dear middle-aged people, must surely
+remember that it has taken us much toil and trouble to unlearn many
+things. We know, that, when we pen anything for our coevals, it is with
+due attention to such facts as we can command,--that we have a wholesome
+fear of criticism,--that, if we make blunders in our seamanship, even
+though professedly land-lubbers, some awful Knickerbocker stands by with
+the Marine Dictionary in hand to pounce upon us. But for the poor little
+innocents at home any cast-off rags of knowledge are good enough. We
+hand down to them the worn-out platitudes of history which we have
+carefully eschewed. We humbug their inexperience with the same nursery
+fables beneath whose leonine hide our matured vision detects the ass's
+ears.
+
+We have been writing lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as
+may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many
+other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising
+generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There
+is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave
+our pupils to disavow it when they can. History is still taught in our
+public and private schools, seasoned with all the exploded blunders of
+the past. Men grow up to full manhood with ideas of foreign lands as
+ridiculous and unfounded as the pictures over which we have been amusing
+ourselves just now in our old Geography. Young America is ignorant
+enough, Heaven knows, of a great deal he ought to learn; but what shall
+we say of our persistently cramming him with what he ought not to learn?
+No exploding process is strong enough, it would seem, to blow away the
+countless pretty stories with which juvenile histories are embroidered.
+Niebuhr and Arnold have forever finished Romulus and Remus and the
+Livian legends, for maturer beliefs; but childhood goes on in the same
+track. Lord Macaulay's Romance of English History has been riddled by
+the acute reviewers; but he will be abridged for the use of schools, and
+not a fiction about William Penn, or John of Marlborough, or Grahame of
+Claverhouse, be left out.
+
+Can you plant a garden with weeds and then pull them up again in secure
+trust that no lurking burdocks and Canada thistle shall remain? Dear
+model mothers and prudent papas, be not afraid of wholesome fiction,
+as such, duly labelled and left uncorked. It will be far better to
+administer plenty of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" and "Arabian
+Nights," good ringing old ballads with a healthy sentiment at bottom of
+manly honor and womanly affection, fairy stories and ancient legends,
+than all the mince-meat histories and biographies that nurse-wise have
+been chewed soft for the use of tender gums. Let us all, for the benefit
+of ourselves, keep clear of cant; but if cant we must, why let it be for
+those who will cant back again, laughing in their sleeves the while, and
+not for the dear little faces so solemnly upturned to ours, whose
+honest blue eyes (black or green, if you please, as you take your tea)
+confidingly meet ours.
+
+American education, especially home education, is wanting not in
+quantity so much as quality; in that it _is_ fearfully lacking, and we,
+the educators, are the ones to blame for it.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER.
+
+It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with
+residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some
+breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with
+two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation.
+Rockland was such a place.
+
+Some of the natural features of the town have been described already.
+The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed
+it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary
+country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which
+belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it
+dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it brooded
+than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate by
+cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat like a
+garden-wall. Peach-trees, which, on the northern side of the mountain,
+hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in Rockland.
+
+But there was still another relation between the mountain and the town
+at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and
+which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. Those
+high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would have
+called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had
+always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as
+if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare,
+precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide
+like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so
+sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled
+over on the valley of Goldau.
+
+Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short
+residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the thought
+of this awful green wall piled up into the air over their heads. They
+would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the muffled snapping of
+roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side were tugging to break
+away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees were
+clinging with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel
+away and crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by
+one of those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human
+nature, there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or
+forty years after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening
+mountain-side, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls.
+The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the
+mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they ought
+to be there. It was a fascination like that which the rattlesnake is
+said to exert.
+
+This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other source
+of danger which was an element in the everyday life of the Rockland
+people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a joke against
+them, that a Rocklander couldn't hear a bean-pod rattle without saying,
+"The Lord have mercy on us!" It is very true, that many a nervous old
+lady has had a terrible start, caused by some mischievous young rogue's
+giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy vegetable products in her
+immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons missed the
+excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite in other regions, where
+there were nothing but black and green and striped snakes, mean
+ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent without his venom,--
+poor crawling creatures, whom Nature would not trust with a poison-bag.
+Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably experience a certain
+gratification in this infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that
+the old people retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some
+said it was the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to
+the habit of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through
+the grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is
+often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their _creme de noyau_ with a
+peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that it
+may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case they
+will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into the earth
+through their brain and marrow.
+
+But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special
+character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its chief
+glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its elms made
+a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its extent. No
+natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that formed by two
+American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot across each
+other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of green.
+When one looks through a long double row of these, as in that lovely
+avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well,--
+
+  "Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear
+  As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!"--
+
+he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, with
+all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone.
+
+Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of its
+elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other vegetable
+creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is modest and
+patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in everywhere and
+makes arrangements for coming up by-and-by. So, in spring, one finds a
+crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very weak and small
+compared to those, succulent vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of
+them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, as meekly as
+Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has
+established a kind of right to stay. Three generations of carrot and
+parsnip-consumers have passed away, yourself among them, and now let
+your great-grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean
+girth, three hundred and sixty feet in the line that bounds its leafy
+circle, it covers the boy with such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed
+oak nor insect-haunted linden ever lifted into the summer skies.
+
+Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its
+Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, or
+"mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this street,
+also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were chiefly
+congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland dignitary to have a
+house in Elm Street.
+
+A New England "mansion-house" is naturally square, with dormer windows
+projecting from the roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round
+it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner
+shows a respectable expanse of clean shirt-front. It has a lateral
+margin beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white
+wrist-bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can
+properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate.
+Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of
+any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to button itself up
+tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin, will be advertising
+for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the New England
+mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas Abney's
+place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the family, and
+wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into consciousness in
+our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single verses, between the
+momenta of wandering and of stupor, when we lie dying, and sound over
+us when we can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears to the hot,
+aching eyes beneath the thick, black veils, and carrying the holy calm
+with them which filled the good man's heart, as he prayed and sung under
+the shelter of the old English mansion-house.
+
+Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story, trim, white-painted,
+"genteel" houses, which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred,
+crowded close up to the street, instead of standing back from it with
+arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very
+commonly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed
+to smother the lower story almost to the exclusion of light and air, so
+that, what with small windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness
+made by these choking growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of
+these houses were the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be
+found anywhere among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt
+to assist this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look
+discontented in little rooms, hair-cloth furniture, black and shiny as
+beetles' wing-cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the
+kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,--these
+things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged the
+current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance Documents,
+unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines with worn-out
+steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a
+distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to mention, a volume
+of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according to the tastes of the
+family, and the Good Book, which is always Itself in the cheapest and
+commonest company. The father of the family with his hand in the breast
+of his coat, the mother of the same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a
+print of the Last Supper, by no means Morghen's, or the Father of his
+Country, or the old General, or the Defender of the Constitution, or an
+unknown clergyman with an open book before him,--these were the usual
+ornaments of the walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the others
+according to politics and other tendencies.
+
+This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New
+England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They
+have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the
+farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The
+mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open
+to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a good
+warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with the
+rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These lesser
+country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent
+subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. The
+chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the
+warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, happy, and
+cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, plenty of it,
+and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't afford this, don't
+try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to the ways of the honest
+farm-house.
+
+There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about Rockland.
+The best of them were something of the following pattern, which is too
+often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but infinitely less
+pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back from the road,
+seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden building, two
+stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to within a few
+feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is copied from an
+old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be seen in Lancashire,
+for instance, always with the same honest, homely look, as if their
+roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil out of which they
+sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by the slow action of sun
+and air and rain to a quiet dove- or slate-color. An old broken mill-
+stone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing like a finger to the heavens,
+which the shining round of water beneath looked up at like a dark
+unsleeping eye,--a single large elm a little at one side,--a barn twice
+as big as the house,--a cattle-yard, with
+
+        "The white horns tossing above the wall,"--
+
+some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round them,--a
+row of beehives,--a garden-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and
+many-hued holly-hocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, seedling
+onions, and marigolds, and flower-de-luces, and lady's-delights, and
+peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the borders,
+and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they got a
+chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born children
+remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the
+recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling
+yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape;
+and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born
+merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm
+with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises,
+as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
+
+Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and
+looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in
+the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow
+out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes
+with their sharp-pointed weathercocks.
+
+The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England
+meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square
+tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs,
+out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at
+its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery
+running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the
+pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached
+the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., successor, after a number of
+generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus
+Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged
+heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and occasionally
+delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard-headed
+theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter fully and
+finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid down for
+the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform of his
+demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of preaching
+plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and showing his
+Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It was noticed by
+some few of his flock, not without comment, that the great majority of
+his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and more as he became
+interested in various benevolent enterprises which brought him into
+relations with ministers and kind-hearted laymen of other denominations.
+The truth is, that he was a man of a very warm, open, and exceedingly
+_human_ disposition, and, although bred by a clerical father, whose
+motto was "_Sit anima mea cum Puritanis_," he exercised his human
+faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such freedom that
+the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere greatly with the
+circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once in a while he
+seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand doctrinal sermon,
+and then he would lapse away for while into preaching on men's duties to
+each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at some of the actual
+vices of the time and place, and insist with such tenderness and
+eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian love and
+charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he had
+shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on
+Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was
+sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council
+held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which
+expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding
+officer, he did not vote, to be sure, but there was no doubt that he was
+all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't
+very well let him go wrong.
+
+The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern
+style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England
+model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its
+old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so,
+and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in
+what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and
+crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of
+pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked,
+and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed
+in imitation of stone,--first a dark-brown square, then two light-brown
+squares, then another dark-brown square, and so on, to represent the
+accidental differences of shade always noticeable in the real stones of
+which walls are built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting
+his party-colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those
+of a chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and
+serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural clumps
+know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and
+symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of
+throwing up into the air a peck of potatoes and sticking in a tree
+wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were
+the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together with a ledge
+before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to occasional
+contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, and a
+place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be
+deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by boots
+or crickets.
+
+In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a
+divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at that
+famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years ago, to
+have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms of heresy.
+His ministrations were attended with decency, but not followed with
+enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old story at last.
+"The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite a thrill of
+satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to be a dull
+business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, while he
+knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards and
+empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that the
+drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the statistics
+and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, however,
+the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against his
+neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; but it was a
+languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away from meeting in
+the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening services. The
+minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the way, was a
+down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching as he had been
+taught to preach, but he bad misgivings at times. There was a little
+Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill where his own was placed,
+which he always had to pass on Sundays. He could never look on the
+thronging multitudes that crowded its pews and aisles or knelt
+bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to get in among them and
+go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of devotional contact which
+makes a worshipping throng as different from the same numbers praying
+apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of scattered cinders.
+
+"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and
+working-women!" he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that
+atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies,
+and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of
+droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!"
+The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all the
+terrible things to natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to a
+minority. No person that looked at his thin and sallow cheek, his sunken
+and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who heard
+his querulous, though not unmusical voice, could fail to see that his
+life was an uneasy one, that he was engaged in some inward conflict. His
+dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed,
+and was all the more striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a
+belief which made him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was
+yet a most good-humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on
+week-days did one as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever
+delivered on a Sunday.
+
+A few miles from Rockland was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a
+roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained window, and
+a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral depth of
+utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his own
+mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had not
+ironed his surplice and put it on with her own hands.
+
+There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name
+of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city-people in the summer
+months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct
+ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a _table d'hote_ of some
+pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a
+two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a
+great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored
+elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the
+bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and
+coffee,--where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early
+passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and
+coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere,
+and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the
+neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the
+news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which
+the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the
+Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related
+by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and
+story-telling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was when there
+were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a hissing vessel
+of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four _loggerheads_ (long
+irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold
+season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of
+flip,---a goodly compound, speaking according to the flesh, made with
+beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a
+little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed to
+sizzle, there results a peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as
+a warning to remove themselves at once out of the reach of temptation.
+
+But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old
+attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. In
+place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they were
+commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a few
+lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long exposure,
+but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the whole ornamented
+by festoons of yellow and blue cut fly-paper. On the front shelf of the
+bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, and scattered about
+were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that always wanted picking, which
+burned red and smoked a good deal, and were apt to go out without any
+obvious cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the
+circumambient air.
+
+The common school-houses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of the
+Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk he was
+taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at the rows of
+desks and recalled his late experiences. He could not help laughing, as
+he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins.
+
+            "'A little _science_ is a dangerous thing.'
+
+as well as a little 'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's
+dangerous to the fellow you try it on." And he cut him a good stick and
+began climbing the side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous
+Rattlesnake Ledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
+the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
+one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
+their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
+not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
+indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
+you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
+A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
+Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to
+get good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management,
+he recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere
+among the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at
+the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual
+authority, the sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear
+answers to the pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the
+force without the form of a command, and the young man could not doubt
+that the good genius of the school stood before him in the person of
+Helen Darley.
+
+It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies and leaves a widow
+and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
+bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep
+a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
+herself the _prima donna_ in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas
+Peckham's educational establishment.
+
+What a miserable thing it is to be poor! She was dependent, frail,
+sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping,
+thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared
+for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have
+his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's
+worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English,
+overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,--sadder a
+great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much more fertile
+in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of
+headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera
+into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with half her brain while
+the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,--sometimes tightening
+round the brows as if her cap-band were Luke's iron crown,--and then her
+neuralgias, and her back-aches, and her fits of depression, in which she
+thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which
+men speak slightingly of as hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only
+not commonly fatal ones,--so many trials which belong to her fine and
+mobile structure,--that she is always entitled to pity, when she is
+placed in conditions which develop her nervous tendencies. The poor
+teacher's work had, of course, been doubled since the departure of Mr.
+Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the weariness of instruction
+is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin to be overtasked, but those
+who have tried it. The _relays_ of fresh pupils, each new set with its
+exhausting powers in full action, coming one after another, take out
+all the reserved forces and faculties of resistance from the subject of
+their draining process.
+
+The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she
+sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or
+compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the
+pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill
+stair of labor she was daily climbing.
+
+How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She
+was conscientious in her duties and would insist on reading every
+sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar or
+bad spelling. There might but have been twenty or thirty of these themes
+in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the leading
+sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the accidents
+of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence uncertain; that
+virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like the dew-drop
+from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; that life was
+o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue instilled by our
+beloved teachers were to be our guides through all our future career.
+The imagery employed consisted principally of roses, lilies, birds,
+clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated comparison of wayward genius to
+a meteor. Who does not know the small, slanted, Italian hand of these
+girls'-compositions,--their stringing together of the good old
+traditional copy-book phrases, their occasional gushes of sentiment, the
+profound estimates of the world, sounding to the old folks that read
+them as the experience of a bantam-pullet's last-hatched young one
+with the chips of its shell on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's
+chicken, who knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes?
+Yet every now and then one is liable to be surprised with strange
+clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, except by the
+mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a young girl and
+exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the
+sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and the
+Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. In the
+midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read over so
+carefully were two or three that had something of individual flavor
+about them, and here and there there was an image or an epithet which
+showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a fallen scarlet feather
+marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden.
+
+The young lady teacher read them with a certain indifference of manner,
+as one reads proofs,--noting defects of detail, but not commonly
+arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann Wood's poem,
+beginning
+
+  "How sweet at evening's balmy hour,"
+
+did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and
+Yankee beginners, _morn_ and _dawn_, and tossed the verses on the pile
+of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them
+in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was getting sleepy in
+spite of herself,--when she came to one which seemed to rouse her
+attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment
+before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and
+slid it off from the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it,
+or had some undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd
+fancies are common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of
+these young people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble
+the tips of their fingers in water, after touching the most inoffensive
+objects.
+
+This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long,
+slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something
+strangely suggestive about the look of it,--but exactly of what, Miss
+Darley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the
+paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive
+rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage
+scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have
+threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as
+well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind
+of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this strange
+paper she did not know what to make of. There was something in its
+descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not say
+what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not help
+reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her that the
+tired and overwearied girl's self-control left her entirely. She sobbed
+once or twice, then laughed convulsively, and flung herself on the bed,
+where she worked out a set hysteric spasm as she best might, without
+anybody to rub her hands and see that she did not hurt herself.
+By-and-by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a
+volume of Coleridge and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep and
+wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams.
+
+Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition
+which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state
+that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and
+it was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which
+made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance.
+The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, _E.
+Venner_, and was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had
+excited the master's curiosity and prompted his question, as before
+mentioned.
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher looked pale and wearied, naturally
+enough, but she was in her place at the usual hour, and Master Langdon
+in his own. The girls had not yet entered the schoolroom.
+
+"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard.
+
+"I was not well yesterday," she answered. "I had a worry and a kind of
+fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls
+and bodies! Every young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm in arm,
+between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought
+of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants--Tell me,
+are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural
+law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?"
+
+Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his
+profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with which
+individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, therefore, with
+a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very familiar class of
+facts.
+
+"Why, of course. Each of us is only footing-up of a double column of
+figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells,--and some of
+them are _plus_, and some _minus_. If the columns don't add up right, it
+is commonly because we can't make out all the figures. I don't mean to
+say that something may not be added by Nature to make up for losses and
+keep the race to its average, but we are mainly nothing but the answer
+to a long sum in addition and subtraction. No doubt there are people
+born with impulses at every possible angle to the parallels of Nature,
+as you call them. If they happen to cut these at right angles, of course
+they are beyond the reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are
+what we have most to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane
+asylums take care of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have
+put it too much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know.
+Pray, what set you--"
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher took to asking me this? "Any strange
+cases among the scholars?"
+
+The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with the
+question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that that she
+was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never
+rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies,
+amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses
+them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families.
+And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of
+the common multitude, they seek each other's company at once by the
+natural law of elective affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know
+their peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of two ship-wrecked
+vessels, were cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once
+address the other as "Our Royal Sister."
+
+Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering
+with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as those
+foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she look into
+them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm,
+steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, as she read his
+expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but exhausting glance.
+"A lady," he said to himself, as he met her questioning look,--so brief,
+so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had taught to read
+faces quickly without offence, as children read the faces of parents,
+as wives read the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was but a few
+seconds' work, and yet the main point was settled. If there had been any
+vulgar curiosity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression,
+she would have detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face
+so softly and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly,
+he would not have said to himself, "She is a _lady_," for that word
+meant a good deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the
+scholarly Langdons.
+
+"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I
+don't think our school-room is an exception. I am glad you believe in
+the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I did
+not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but
+God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my negligence or
+incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have
+charge of. Yet there, are mysteries I do not know how to account for."
+She looked all round the school-room, and then said, in a whisper, "Mr.
+Langdon, we had a girl that _stole_, in the school, not long ago. Worse
+than that, we had a girl that tried to set us on fire. Children of good
+people, both of them. And we have a girl now that frightens me so"----
+
+The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three
+types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have
+been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in
+the school.--_Hannah Martin_. Fourteen years and three months old.
+Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead,
+large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression.
+Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking her
+provisions in school-hours.--_Rosa Milburn_. Sixteen. Brunette, with
+a rare ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes
+wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be passionate,
+if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back and
+walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, with a slight rocking
+movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,--a
+hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to
+read in school-time.--_Charlotte Ann Wood_. Fifteen. The poetess before
+mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate
+child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go
+much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry,
+underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast,
+not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the
+accustomed phrases. Undervitalized. Sensibilities not covered with their
+normal integuments. A negative condition, often confounded with genius,
+and sometimes running into it. Young people that _fall_ out of line
+through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those
+that _step_ out of it through strength of the intellectual ones.
+
+The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups,
+until the school-room was nearly full. Then there was a little pause,
+and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes
+turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same
+direction.
+
+A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but
+rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes
+sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of
+graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the
+very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a
+splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth that
+was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered
+dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little
+fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a
+short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing
+listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling
+it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her
+long, delicate fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes,
+not large,--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley
+bust,--black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not
+help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from
+for something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes.
+They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own away,
+and let them wander over the other scholars. But they could not help
+coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. The diamond
+eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books,
+as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited
+long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl.
+The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her kerchief to her
+forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost
+shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse,
+which she could not resist, she left her place and went to the young
+girl's desk.
+
+_"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?_" It was a strange question to
+put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come
+to her.
+
+"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke
+in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her
+articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect.
+
+"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a rare
+alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The
+Mountain.
+
+"Where it grew," said Elsie Venner. "Take it." The teacher could not
+refuse her. The girl's finger-tips touched hers as she took it. How cold
+they were for a girl of such an organization!
+
+The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting the
+school-room soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling the
+flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second was to
+wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. A
+poor, overtasked, nervous creature,--we must not think too much of her
+fancies.
+
+After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which had
+been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which may
+prove interesting by-and-by, but there are other matters we must first
+attend to. IS THE RELIGIOUS WANT OF THE AGE MET?
+
+
+To answer this question intelligently, we must first glance at the
+characteristics of the age. It is an age of remarkable activity. There
+have been industrious men in other days; there have been nations of whom
+it might be truly said, They were an industrious people, they lost no
+time in idleness: but their rate of speed was low. Such a people could
+hardly be deemed enterprising. They might continue uncomplainingly in
+their accustomed round of labors, but would lack impulse to attempt
+anything new. Circumstances did not compel them to unwonted efforts,
+and their capabilities lay dormant. The world was wide, the population
+comparatively sparse, and the means of subsistence not difficult of
+attainment.
+
+Our age is very unlike to that. People begin to crowd one another. There
+is competition. The more active and ingenious will have the advantage;
+they do have the advantage; and this fact is a constant stimulus. It has
+been operating for thirty years past with ever-increasing power. We seem
+to be approaching a climax,--a point beyond which flesh and blood cannot
+go. The enterprise of the more active spirits of our day is astounding;
+we begin to ask, "Will they stop at anything? What will they not
+undertake?" There are a great many unsuccessful attempts; but these are
+not necessarily observed, they pass quietly into obscurity, while we
+hasten to observe the successes, which are wonderful, and so numerous
+as to keep us ever on tiptoe, looking for new wonders. Having seen the
+railways, the magnetic telegraph, and Hoe's press, in full operation,
+and having been brought to accept these as a common measure of time and
+motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older usages. We find our
+age an age of daring and of doing. We are ready to discard the word
+_impossible_; from our vocabulary; we deny that anything is the less
+probable because of being unprecedented. For doing new things we look
+about for new means,--being full charged with the belief that for all
+worthy or desirable ends there must be adequate and available means.
+In this regard, it is an age of unprecedented faith, of expectation of
+success; and we all know the natural and necessary influence of such
+an expectation. Sanguine expectation lights up the fires of genius;
+invention is quickened for the attainment of the highest speed and the
+greatest momentum. In no former age has there been anything to compare
+in rapidity and power of movement with the every-day achievements of
+this age. The relation of books to men, and the sphere assigned to
+books, are materially modified by the characteristics of the age. Books,
+as books, are no longer a charm to conjure with. The few really superior
+books have a wider and greater influence than ever before; while
+the great mass of common books have less, and pass more easily into
+oblivion. Good books may and must help us; but books cannot make us men
+of the nineteenth century, and a power in it. A thorough knowledge of
+the world within us, as it stands related to the world without us, is
+something quite different from mere book-knowledge. This is an element
+of influence not only not confined to the bookmen, but often possessed
+in a transcendent degree by those whose devotion to books is altogether
+subordinate to other avocations. Our common-school education may be said
+to bring the entire people upon a common plane. We are no longer the
+esoteric and the exoteric; we understand our rights in the common fund
+of sense and truth very well. We are not very patient with those who
+affect to know better than ourselves what we want and what we ought to
+desire. Most men are exceedingly in earnest, and determined to be heard
+in their own cause, and well able to make themselves understood. Scribes
+and Pharisees compassing sea and land to make one proselyte are
+a good and bad type of our activity in the pursuit of our own ends.
+Innumerable and infinitely varied are the shifts employed to secure
+attention, to effect the sale of merchandise, and to increase income.
+Nor are the learned professions much behind the men of merchandise. The
+contest of life thickens. Competition for the fruits of labor waxes
+continually more fierce. Mother Earth is too moderate in her labors; the
+ranks of the producers suffer from desertion; the plough is forsaken;
+the patient ox is contemned; silence, seclusion, and meditation are a
+memory of the past. The world's axis is changed; there is more heat in
+the North. The world has advanced, in our age, from a speed of five
+miles an hour, to twenty or thirty, or more.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the advantages and disadvantages accruing
+from these movements, there can be no question of the fact, that they
+have greatly affected the position and the relations of speakers and
+hearers. The million have been driven to do so much for themselves, that
+they are in no little danger of jumping to the conclusion, that they no
+longer need teachers of religion. A conclusion so fraught with mischief
+to the race will not be arrested by a pertinacious adhesion to modes of
+preaching which men under the old-time training could be made to endure,
+but which latter-day contrasts have rendered intolerable.
+
+It is just here, if anywhere, that a special backwardness on the part of
+the clergy to meet the religious wants of the age may, without injustice
+or unkindness, be alleged. It comes about very naturally; the training
+of the clergy is not in harmony with the exigencies of the position they
+are intended to occupy. The endeavors of the preparatory schools are
+not to be depreciated. It is scarcely possible to say too much of the
+fundamental importance of thoroughness and of minute accuracy in the
+rudiments of learning. But that extreme zeal in this behalf has produced
+an unnatural divorce of the practical from the critical, it is vain
+to deny. The devotion to the latter, which is inaugurated in the
+preparatory school, is by the college inflamed to the utmost, and
+the young man reaches his climax when he receives the appointment of
+valedictorian; that is his end; he reaches it, and we may say it is
+the death of him. He may, indeed, enter the theological seminary,
+industriously resolved on more of the same supremacy; but, in most
+instances, the great practical ends of a Christ-like life of doing good
+have been already lost from his view, and the ways and means by which
+alone such ends can be reached have become offensive to him. The
+student, as he delights in calling himself, has become greatly more
+interested in knowledge than in the people for whom he is to use his
+knowledge. A certain unknown God, an idol, in short, quite unsuspected,
+whose name is _Critical Dignity_, is installed in his heart, in
+the place of the Son of God. And the man endures the trials of his
+ministerial life under the mistaken impression that he is a martyr for
+Christ. He compels himself to be satisfied with a measure of attention
+to his utterances, which would content no sane and sensible man in any
+other department of teaching. He will tell you that it is one of the
+inevitable infelicities of his vocation, that to nothing are men such
+unwilling listeners as to religious truth; than which nothing can
+be more untrue; for to nothing are men so prepared to listen as to
+religious truth, properly presented.
+
+In order to a more generally happy and successful prosecution of the
+duties of a minister of Christ, a preliminary fact requires to be
+considered. That a man is found or finds himself in any calling is no
+evidence whatever that he is fitted for that calling. This is just as
+true of the ministry as of any other vocation. Every man-of-business
+knows this. The clergy seem to us behind the age in being astonishingly
+blind to it. Men-of-business know that only a very small fraction of
+their number can ever attain eminent success. They know, that, in a term
+of twenty years, ninety-seven men in a hundred _fail_. Here and there
+one develops a remarkable talent for the specific business in which he
+is engaged. The ninety-and-nine discover that they have a weary contest
+to maintain with manifold contingencies and combinations which no
+foresight can preclude.
+
+The application of this general truth to their profession the clergy are
+backward to perceive. The consequences of this backwardness are very
+hurtful to their interests. Because of this, we have an indefinite
+amount of puerile and undignified complaint from disappointed men, of
+disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered
+upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake
+their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and
+they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of
+incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their
+flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural
+splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for
+something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have
+been put forward, as a screen, by many an unsuccessful preacher, who
+failed,--simply failed,--not in selling horns or hides, shirtings or
+sugars,--but failed to recommend Christ and his gospel,--failed for want
+of head, or heart, or industry, or all three.
+
+The man who embarks his all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk
+of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster,
+work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might
+suffice for both. This unalterable fact every business-man accepts.
+
+Do you inquire, To what good purpose do you thrust the possibility of
+failure upon the attention of the candidate for the ministry? Would you
+utterly discourage those who are already more alive to the perils of
+their undertaking than we could wish them?
+
+We answer, It is no kindness to encourage men to enter a ministry whose
+inexorable requirements and whose incidental possibilities they may
+not look in the face. It is no kindness to represent to them that the
+qualities which they possess _ought_ to engage attention; and that
+their talents will command respect, or else it will be the fault of the
+people.
+
+Men go into business in the face of a possibility of failure through
+uncontrollable circumstances; not in defiance of an ascertainable,
+insufferable incompetency. They toil on, accepting adversity with such
+equanimity as God gives them, so long as they are permitted to believe
+that their misfortunes are not chargeable upon their incapacity or
+self-indulgence. But when it is made apparent that they are not in their
+proper sphere, they think it no shame to say so, to withdraw, and
+to apply their energies to something suited to their tastes and
+capabilities. And it should be with the ministry; but as things now are,
+with the conceptions of the ministry now entertained, pride interposes
+to forbid the rectification of the most serious mistakes. It is a
+question of dignity and of scholarship; whereas it should be a question
+of love to God and man, and of real ability and conscious power to bring
+them together,--to reconcile man to God.
+
+Our age is an age of great devotion to secular affairs,--of men who are
+great in the conduct of such affairs,--in every department in life. To
+counterbalance this, our ministry must be filled with an equally earnest
+devotion to God and salvation. In real ability our ministers ought to be
+not a whit behind. But ability is not necessarily scholarship; though it
+may, and as far as possible should, include that, and a great deal more.
+Let it be fully understood, once for all, that we have no disparaging
+remark to make of scholarship; a man must be foolish beyond expression,
+who pretends to argue that the highest scholarship is less than a most
+important and almost indispensable auxiliary to the minister of Christ.
+All our concern in the matter, just here, is, that it shall be fully
+understood that piety and real ability make the minister of Christ,
+and not scholarship; in the words of Augustine, "the heart makes the
+minister";--but we may safely assume that he meant the heart of a really
+able man; otherwise we can accord but a qualified respect to this
+remark.
+
+The prevailing impression among the ministry appears to be, that the man
+who cannot write "an able doctrinal discourse" is but an inferior man,
+fit only to preach in an inferior place; and that it would be a great
+gain to the Church, if scholarship were only so general that the
+standard of the universities could be applied, and only Phi-Beta-Kappa
+men allowed to enter the ministry. No doubt, those who incline to this
+view are quite honest, and not unkindly in it. But those who think this
+grievously misunderstand the necessities of the age in which we live.
+Reading men know where to find better reading than can possibly be
+furnished by any man who is bound to write two sermons weekly, or
+even one sermon a week; and to train any corps of young men in the
+expectation that any considerable fraction of them will be able to win
+and to maintain a commanding influence in their parishes mainly by the
+weekly production of learned discourses is to do them the greatest
+injury, by cherishing expectations which never can be realized. Why
+do our educated men of other professions so seldom and so reluctantly
+contribute to the addresses in our religious assemblies? Precisely
+because they understand the difficulty of meeting the popular
+expectation which is created by the prevailing theory; a theory which
+demands that sermons, and not only that sermons, but also that all
+religious addresses, should be chiefly characterized as learned, acute,
+scholastic even. An Irish preacher is reported in an Edinburgh paper as
+saying lately, that "he had been led to think of his own preaching and
+of that of his brethren. He saw very few sermons in the New Testament
+shaped after the forms and fashion in which they had been accustomed to
+shape theirs. He was not aware of a sermon there, in which they had
+a little motto selected, upon which a disquisition upon a particular
+subject was hung. The sort of sermons which the people in his locality
+were desirous to hear were sermons delivered on a large portion of the
+Word of God, carrying through the ideas as the Spirit of God had done."
+And it is, in part at least, because of the prevailing disregard of this
+most reasonable desire, that parishes so soon weary of their ministers.
+
+It need not discourage ministers to accept the fact that there will be
+failures in the ministry,--and a great many failures among those who
+rely for their success mainly upon the weekly production of learned
+disquisitions. Discouragement is not in accepting a fact that accords
+with all just theories of truth, but in adopting a theory which is sure
+to be invalidated by the almost universal experience of men in, as well
+as out of, the ministry. A right-minded minister _may_ have many falls
+in struggling up his Hill of Difficulty; but the Lord will lift him
+up, and will save him from adding to the temperate grief proper to any
+measure of short-coming the intolerable poignancy that comes of cheating
+by false pretences,--of assuming to do what he knows or should know that
+he cannot do, namely, produce any considerable number of great sermons.
+
+Let it, then, be frankly owned, that men, very good men, very capable
+men, have failed in the ministry. A. failed, because he did not study;
+B., because he did not visit his people; C., because he could not talk;
+D., because he was too grave; E., because he was too frivolous; F. could
+not, or would not, control his temper; G. alienated by exacting more
+than he received; and all of them because of not having what Scougal
+calls "the life of God in the soul of man."
+
+It is not worth while for any man to go into the ministry who cannot
+relish the Apostle's invitation, running thus:--"I beseech you,
+therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
+bodies _a living sacrifice_, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
+reasonable service." If that seem not reasonable, ay, and exceedingly
+inviting too, better let it alone. All men cannot do all things. Better
+raise extraordinary potatoes than hammer out insignificant ideas. You do
+not see the connection? you were a Phi-Beta-Kappa man in college, and
+know that you can write better than many a man in a metropolitan pulpit?
+Very likely; but we of the few go to church to be made better men, and
+not by fine writing, but by significant ideas, which may come in a
+homely garb, so they be only pervaded with affectionate piety, but which
+can come to us only from one who has laid all ambitious self-seeking on
+the altar of God. There is a power of persuasion in every minister who
+follows God as a dear child, and who walks in love, as Christ loved
+us, which the hardest heart cannot long resist,--which will win the
+congregation, however an individual here and there may be able to harden
+himself against it. You think that the great power of the pulpit is in
+high doctrine, presented with metaphysical precision and acuteness. We
+have no disparagement to offer of your doctrinal knowledge, nor of your
+ability to state it with metaphysical precision and hair-splitting
+acuteness. But we know, from much experience, that there is a divine
+truth, and a fervor and power in imparting it, with which God inspires
+the man who is wholly devoted to Him, in comparison with which the
+higher achievements of the man who lacks these are trumpery and rubbish.
+Many, _many_ men have failed in the ministry, are failing in the
+ministry every day, because their principal reliance has been upon what
+they deem their thorough mastery of the soundest theories of doctrine
+and of duty. They were confident they could administer to minds and
+hearts diseased the certain specific laid down in the book, admeasured
+to the twentieth part of a scruple. Confident in their theoretical
+acquisitions, they could not comprehend the indispensable necessity of a
+large experience in actual cases of mental malady. And for the want of
+such experience, it was absolutely impossible that they should be _en
+rapport_ with the souls they honestly desired to benefit. Can you heal a
+heart-ache with a syllogism? There is no dispensing with the precept and
+prescription,--"Weep with those that weep!" "Be of the same mind one
+toward another!"
+
+Theories of doctrine and of practice are not without their value; but
+the minister who is merely or chiefly a theorist, whether in doctrines
+or in measures, is an adventurer; and the chances against him are as
+many as the chances against the precise similarity of any two cases
+presented to his attention,--as many as the chances against the
+education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every
+particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be
+solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician;
+"_surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows._" Theories
+shirk that. "_In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and
+in His pity, He redeemed them._" And precisely in this way his ministers
+are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less
+tolerant of formality,--less and less willing to accept metaphysical
+disquisition in place of a warm-hearted, loving, fervent expansion of
+the Word of God, recommended to the understanding and to the sensibility
+by lively illustrations of spiritual truth, derived from all the
+experience of life, from all observation, from all analogies in the
+natural world,--in short, from every manner of illumination, from the
+heavens above, from the earth beneath, and from the waters which are
+under the earth. God is surely everywhere, and hath made all things, and
+all to testify of Him; and the innumerable voices all agree together.
+
+And when this is both understood and felt, what rules shall be given to
+guide and control the construction and the delivery of discourses? Shall
+we say, The people must be brought back to the old-time endurance--ay,
+_endurance_, that is the word--of long-drawn, laborious ratiocinations,
+wherein the truth is diligently pursued for its own sake, with an
+ultimate reference, indeed, to the needs and uses of the hearer, but so
+remote as rarely to be noticed, except by that very small fraction of
+any customary congregation who may chance to have an interest in
+such doings,--some of whom watch the clergyman as they would the
+entomologist, running down a truth that he may impale it, and add one
+more specimen to his well-ordered collection of common and of uncommon
+bugs? Our neighbors in the South do better than this; for they hunt with
+the lasso, and never throw the noose except to capture something which
+can be harnessed to the wheels of common life.
+
+No, the people are not going back to the endurance of any such misery.
+They have found out that still-born rhetoric is by no means the one
+thing needful, and care far less for the _art_ of speech than for the
+_nature_ of a holy heart. They want a man to speak less of what he
+believes and more of what he feels. The expectation of bringing the
+people again to endure prolonged metaphysical discriminations, spun out
+of commonplace minds, cobwebs to cloak their own nakedness and universal
+inaptitude, if indulged, is absurdly indulged. The whole Church is sick
+of such trifling. She knows well that it has made her most unsavory to
+those who might have found their way into the temples of God, or kept
+their places there, but for the memory of an immense amount of wearisome
+readings from the pulpit,--too often a vocabulary of words seldom or
+never found out of sermons,--a manner of speech which, when tried by the
+sure test of natural, animated conversation, must be pronounced absurd
+and abominable. It is a wonder of wonders, that, in spite of such
+drawbacks, an individual here and there has been reclaimed from
+worldliness to the love and service of God.
+
+The student-habits of the clergy most naturally lead them to prefer the
+formal statement, the studied elaboration of ideas, which their own
+training cannot but render facile and dear to them. And there is here
+and there a man who, in virtue of extraordinary genius, can infuse new
+life into worn-out phrases,--a man or two who can for a moment or for an
+hour, by the very weight and excellence of their thoughts, and because
+they truly and deeply feel them, arrest the age, and challenge and
+secure attention, in spite of all the infelicities of an antiquated
+style and an unearthly delivery. But in this age, more than ever before,
+we are summoned to surrender our scholastic preferences and esoteric
+honors to the exigencies of the million. And the men of this generation
+have, without much conference, come with great unanimity to the
+determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the
+pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of
+words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or
+lack of sympathies,--and especially that they will not endure dull
+declamation from the pulpit.
+
+If any man really wish to know how he is preaching, let him imagine
+himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted,
+but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger
+children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an
+eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused
+sensibilities of his hearers?
+
+How long ought a sermon to be? As long as you can read in the eye of
+seven-eighths of your audience, _Pray, go on_. If you cannot read that,
+you have mistaken your vocation; you were never called to the ministry.
+The secret of the persuasive power of our favorite orators is in their
+constant recognition of the ebb and flow of the sensibilities they are
+acting upon. Their speech is, in effect, an actual conversation,
+in which they are speaking for as well as to the audience; and the
+interlocutors are made almost as palpably such as at the "Breakfast-
+Table" of our dramatic "Autocrat" In contrast with this, the dull
+preacher, falling below the dignity and the privilege of his office,
+addresses himself, not to living men, but to an imaginary sensibility
+to abstract truth. The effect of this is obvious and inevitable; it
+converts hearers into doubters as to whether in fact there be any such
+thing as a religion worth recommending or possessing, and preachers into
+complainers of the people as indifferent and insensible to the truth,--a
+libel which ought to render them liable to fine and punishment. God's
+truth, _fairly presented_, is never a matter of indifference or of
+insensibility to an intelligent, nor even to an unintelligent audience.
+However an individual here and there may contrive to withdraw himself
+from the sphere of its influence, truth can no more lose her power than
+the sun can lose his heat.
+
+The people, under the quickening influences characteristic of our age,
+are awaking to the consciousness, that, on the day which should be the
+best of all the week, they have been defrauded of their right, in having
+solemn dulness palmed upon them, in place of living, earnest, animated
+truth. Let not ministers, unwisely overlooking this undeniable fact,
+defame the people, by alleging a growing facility in dissolving the
+pastoral relation,--a disregard of solemn contracts,--a willingness to
+dismiss excellent, godly, and devoted men, without other reason than the
+indisposition to retain them. Be it known to all such, that capable men
+very department of life were never in such request as at this very hour;
+and never, since the world began, was there an audience so large and so
+attentive to truth, well wrought and fitted to its purpose, as now.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph
+Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.
+
+
+FIRST NOTICE.
+
+
+Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any
+satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried,
+(1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by
+Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often
+of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical
+publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of
+information respecting the great master, and the history of his works,
+available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen"
+are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's
+"Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed
+to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or
+in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal
+knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,--perhaps
+has given sufficient occasion for it,--but we must bear this testimony
+to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries
+give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some
+twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always
+careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written
+anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but
+have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are
+constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we
+find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New
+American," published by the Appletons.
+
+A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers,
+combined with the materials scattered through other publications,--even
+though no original researches were made,--was still a desideratum,
+when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander
+Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German
+musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven
+into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that
+now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something
+worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and
+articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's
+history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.
+
+Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two
+works,--"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg,
+1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A
+very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works--in
+French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,--consists principally of
+an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are
+indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has
+plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the
+critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took
+only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique,
+chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great
+industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the
+principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the
+pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the
+"Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."
+
+The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben
+des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the
+"Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a
+biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much
+original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected;
+but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which
+he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a
+logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is
+not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;--at
+all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him
+and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,--apropos of
+nothing,--has called--out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical
+journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation.
+In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his
+"Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single
+work.
+
+Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against
+Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title,
+"Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig,
+1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions
+to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's
+life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of
+Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,--not in real life,--as
+to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction
+is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first
+twenty-five years of the present century,--a supplement to his famous
+view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of
+Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled,
+save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer
+Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy.
+Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. _We_ can
+forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in
+seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.
+
+But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the
+public--at all events, our public--demands. We wish his biography,--the
+history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite.
+We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored,
+and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers
+above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their
+publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when
+he shall appear.
+
+It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we
+saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the
+head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very
+careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice,
+granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in
+any German publication which has come under our notice, because out
+of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at
+home,--whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without
+honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.
+
+Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving
+that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in
+a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from
+Schilling's "Encyclopaedie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft,"
+Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,--a work which deserves to be better known in
+our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart
+fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and
+a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and
+a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.
+
+Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many
+of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He
+studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his
+profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,--the
+well-known contrapuntist, Tuerk, being his instructor in musical theory
+and composition. "He [Tuerk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told
+Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."[1]
+
+Soon after finishing his legal studies, Marx removed to Berlin, as the
+place where he could best enjoy the means of artistic culture. "For one
+quite without fortune, merely to live in a strange city demands great
+strength of character; but to go farther and fit one's self for a career
+and for a position in the future, which even under the best auspices
+is of very difficult attainment, and, beside all this, to have others
+dependent upon him for the necessaries of life,--what a burden to bear!
+..... By a very intellectual system of instruction in singing and in
+composition, and, at a later period, (1824-81,) by editing the 'Berliner
+Allgemeine Musikzeitung,' and several theoretical and practical musical
+works, he earned the means of subsistence. Never was a periodical more
+conscientiously edited. It was for Marx like an official station, and
+his seven years upon that paper were in fact a preparation for the
+position of Public Teacher, to which in 1830 he was appointed, in the
+University at Berlin, after having declined a judicial position offered
+to him, with a fair salary, in one of the provinces. Honorably has he
+since that period filled his station, however great the pains which
+have been taken in various quarters that it should not be said of him,
+'Virtus post nummos!'"[2]
+
+"The diploma of Doctor of Music Marx received from the University at
+Marburg; and thereupon (?) obtained the greatest applause for a course
+of lectures, in part strictly scientific for the musician, and in part
+upon the history of music, its philosophy, etc.; also, as Music-Director
+of the University, he has brought (1841,) the academic choir into such
+a flourishing state, both as to numbers and skill, as to be adequate to
+the most difficult music."[3]
+
+Again we read,--"We remember, that, some time since, Fetis, at Paris,
+pointed out Marx as the one who had introduced the philosophy of Kant
+into music." Were this so, so much the more credit to Marx, who, at that
+time, we are informed, had never studied the works of the philosopher
+of Koenigsberg, and his basing music upon the Kantian philosophy is
+therefore but a proof of the profundity of his genius.
+
+From the same article we extract the following list of his
+productions:--1. A work on Singing, in three parts; the second and third
+of which "contain throughout admirable and novel remarks." 2. "Maigruss"
+(Maygreeting). "This pamphlet, humorous and delicate, yet powerfully
+written," calls attention to certain novel views of its author in regard
+to music. 3. Articles in the "Caecilia," a musical periodical. 4. Essay
+on Handel's works. 5. A work on Composition. 6. Several biographies and
+other articles in Schilling's Encyclopaedia,--"indeed, all the articles
+signed A. B. M." 7. Editions of several of Bach's and Handel's works.
+To these we may now add his extensive treatise upon Musical Science, in
+four volumes, his "Music in the Nineteenth Century," and the work which
+is now before us.
+
+Of musical compositions we find the
+
+[Footnote 1: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 2: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.] following noticed:--1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und
+Baetely,"--which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly _damned_;--but
+then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische
+Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of
+revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance
+waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at
+the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was
+the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture
+and _entr'actes_, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and
+profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given
+in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the
+work _did not succeed_." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouque, with
+a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present
+Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,--but then, it was badly
+executed! 4. Symphony,--"The Fall of Warsaw,"--still manuscript. "The
+music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character
+of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their
+terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange
+soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to
+add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,--preferring
+Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,--"one of Marx's
+most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"--a series of songs, the music of
+which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the
+Baptist," an oratorio,--twice performed by the University choir in one
+of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar
+sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos
+and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,--the
+music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed
+vigorously after the sense of the text,--are distinguished from those
+in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public
+preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer,
+Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the
+list of his works at that time.
+
+"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an
+oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in
+its profound conception of character will have but few equals."
+
+The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several
+places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares
+no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.
+
+We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in
+Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the
+basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England
+and the United States;--for, singular as the fact may appear, we are
+unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and
+gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach,
+whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from
+the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna
+and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,--a
+writer upon music.
+
+There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article
+from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of
+Marx,--modesty, the ornament of true greatness,--may (or may not) add
+weight to the extracts we have made from it,--namely, that the article
+was written for Schilling by Marx himself.
+
+We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood
+fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician
+by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and
+musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path
+of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for
+thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor
+of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both
+social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of
+information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical
+libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven
+papers are preserved,--a city, moreover, in which more than in any
+other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly
+performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so
+much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.
+
+We have no extravagant ideas of the value of the so-called
+Conversation-Books of Beethoven. We are aware that they seldom contain
+anything from the hand of the master himself,--being made up, of course,
+of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such
+books--though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled
+together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his
+brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper,
+upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists,
+poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases even from
+England, and in one from America--must contain a great mass of matter,
+which places one amidst those by whom the master was surrounded, makes
+one to "know his goings-out and his comings-in," and occasionally facts
+of high importance in the study of his character, and the circumstances
+in which he spent his last years. For some twelve years these books
+have been in Berlin and at the disposal of Marx. The numerous files of
+musical periodicals and the mass of musical biography and recent musical
+history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to
+the writer on Beethoven,--a value which Marx must fully appreciate,
+both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as
+contributor of biographical articles to Schilling's Encyclopedia.
+
+As we take up this new life of Beethoven, then, the measure of our
+expectations is the reputation of the author, plus the means, the
+materials, at his command. And certainly the first impression made
+by these two goodly volumes is a very favorable one; for, making due
+allowance for the music scattered through them with not too lavish a
+hand, by way of examples, we have still some six hundred solid pages of
+reading matter,--space enough in which to answer many a vexed question,
+clear up many a dark point, give us the results of widely extended
+researches, and place Beethoven the Man and the Composer before us in
+"Leben und Schaffen,"--in his life and his labors.
+
+In the first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an
+apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have
+taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion
+really exists. We find that in the first volume, four works,--the First,
+Second, and Third Symphonies and the opera "Leonore" or "Fidelio" occupy
+136 of the 875 pages; in the second, that the other five Symphonies and
+the "Missa Solemnis" fill out 123 of the 330 pages. Bearing in mind that
+the works of Beethoven which have _Opus_ numbers--not to speak of the
+others--amount to 137, and that, in some cases, three and even six
+compositions, so important as the Rasoumowsky Quartetts, for instance,
+are included in a single _Opus_, the disproportion really appears
+very great. We notice, moreover, that just those works which are most
+familiar to the public, which have for thirty years or more been
+subjects of never-ending discussion, and which one would naturally
+suppose might be dismissed in fewest words,--that these are the works
+which occupy so much space. What is there so new to be said of the
+"Heroic Symphony" that fifty pages should be allotted to it, while the
+ballet "Prometheus," still strange to nearly every reader, should be
+dismissed in three?
+
+We find it also somewhat remarkable that Marx thinks it necessary to
+give his own notions of musical form to the extent of nineteen pages,
+(Vol. I. pp. 79 _et seq_.,) preparatory to his discussion of the
+greater works of the master, and yet is able to condense the history of
+Beethoven's first twenty-two years--the period, in our view, the most
+important in making him what he was--in sixteen! We have not space to
+follow this out farther, and only add, that, were this work a mere
+catch-penny affair by an unknown writer, we should suspect him of
+"drawing out the thread of his verbosity" on topics where materials are
+plenty and talk is easy, in preference to the labor of original research
+on points less known.
+
+In reading the work carefully, two points strike us in relation to his
+printed authorities: first, that the list of those quoted by Lenz in his
+"Catalogue" and "Leben des Meisters" comprises nearly all those cited by
+Marx; the principal additions being the works of Lenz, Oulibichef, and
+A. B. Marx,--the latter of which he exhibits great skill in finding
+and making opportunities to advertise;--and secondly, that, where the
+Russian writer, through haste, carelessness, or the want of means
+to verify facts and correct errors, falls into mistakes, the Berlin
+Professor generally agrees with him. As it is impossible to suppose that
+a gentleman who for nearly thirty years "writes himself, in any bill,
+warrant, quittance, or obligation," Extraordinary Professor of a great
+German University, should simply adopt the labors of an obscure Russian
+writer without acknowledgment, we can only suppose these resemblances to
+be coincidences. These coincidences are, nevertheless, so numerous,
+that we may say in general, what Lenz knew of the history of the man
+Beethoven and his works is known to Marx,--what was unknown to the
+former is equally unknown to the latter. Marx, however, occasionally
+quotes passages from Schindler, Wegeler, and Ries at length, to which
+Lenz only gives references. We will note a few of the coincidences
+between the two writers.
+
+Here is the first sentence of the biography:--
+
+"Ludwig van Beethoven was born to his father, a singer in the chapel of
+the _Elector Max Franz_, Archbishop of Cologne, Dec. 17, 1770." (Marx,
+Vol. I. p. 4.) Beethoven was fourteen years old when this Elector
+came to Bonn. Max Franz is confounded with Max Friedrich,--a singular
+mistake, since Wegeler writes the name in full. It may, however, be a
+typographical error, or a _lapsus pennae_ on the part of Marx. We give
+him all the benefit of the doubt; but, unluckily, we read on p. 12, that
+the Archbishop, "brother of Joseph II.," called the Protestant Neefe
+from the theatre to the organ-loft of the Electoral Chapel,--this
+appointment having in fact been made four years before the "brother of
+Joseph II." had aught to do with appointments in that part of the world.
+Lenz confounds the two Electors in precisely the same manner.
+
+Both Lenz and Marx (p. 9) relate the old exploded story of the child
+Beethoven and the spider. The former found it in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," and probably had not authorities
+at hand to correct it. Had Marx sent to the Library for Disjouval's
+"Arachnologie," the work which he gives as _his_ authority, he would
+have found, that, not Beethoven, but the French violinist Berthaume, was
+the hero of the anecdote,--as, indeed, is also related in Schilling's
+Encyclopaedia, not many pages after Marx's own article on Beethoven in
+that work.
+
+That Lenz should misdate Beethoven's visit to Berlin is not strange;
+that Marx, a Berliner, should, is. Nor is it remarkable that Lenz knows
+nothing of Beethoven's years of service as member of the Electoral
+orchestra at Bonn; but how Marx should have overlooked it, in case he
+has made _any_ researches into the composer's early history, is beyond
+our comprehension.
+
+Schindler has mistaken the date of certain letters written by Beethoven
+long before he had any personal intercourse with him,--the notes to
+Julia Guicciardi,--which he dates 1806. Both Lenz and Marx follow him
+in the date; both quote Beethoven's words, that the lady in question
+married Count Gallenberg before the departure of the latter to Italy;
+both coincide in overlooking the circumstance related in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," that, _before_ June, 1806, a grand
+performance of music, composed and directed by Gallenberg, took place at
+Naples in honor of Joseph Bonaparte;--proof sufficient that Beethoven
+could not in July of that year have addressed the lady in these terms:
+"Mein Engel, mein Alles, mein Ich!"
+
+Both Marx and Lenz relate the following anecdote. Haydn, meeting
+Beethoven, praised the Septett of the latter; upon which the young man
+exclaimed, deprecatingly, "Ah, it is far from being a 'Creation'!" To
+which Haydn replied, "_That_ you could not have written, for you are an
+atheist!"
+
+That the absurdity of making Beethoven, then a man of thirty and
+supposed to be possessed of common sense, hint at any comparison of a
+piece of chamber-music with one of the grandest of oratorios, and that,
+too, to the author himself, should not have struck Marx, is strange; nor
+is it less so, that, in the course of his researches, he has not met
+with the correction of the story, by the late Alois Fuchs of Vienna.
+
+In fact, the ballet "Prometheus," in which the progress of man from a
+state of rude nature to the highest culture and refinement is depicted,
+and the "Creation," were both given for the first time within a few
+weeks of each other. The affinity of the subjects is clear, and the
+remark of the young man, "Ah, dear papa, it is far from being a
+'Creation'!" is only natural. "No," said Haydn, "it is indeed not a
+'Creation,' nor do I think its author will ever reach that!"
+
+In the dates given by Marx to Beethoven's compositions he generally
+coincides with Lenz, in his "Catalogue," particularly when the latter is
+wrong,--and when he differs from him, he is as apt to be wrong as right.
+Any person who has both works at command may easily verify this remark.
+
+But we cannot dwell longer on this point.
+
+
+
+_Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, The Great American Advocate_. By EDWARD
+G. PARKER. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.
+
+
+We think it our duty to state our judgment of this book, because it
+professes to give personal reminiscences, by a familiar friend, of a
+remarkable and distinguished man of our own time and country, has been
+much read and discussed, and has gained a good deal of popularity of a
+certain sort; it therefore belongs _somewhere_ in the literature of the
+day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if
+we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign
+justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary
+and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to
+some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman
+among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the
+extraordinary alacrity with which this book was produced the author got
+a little the start of criticism, perhaps; but we should fail in our duty
+as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound,
+for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has
+exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate,
+the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task.
+
+For the purposes of the bookseller, nothing could have been happier than
+the publication, within a few months after the death of Mr. Choate, of
+such a book as this promised to be. Throughout the country his name had
+been generally accounted the synonyme of all that was most original,
+mysterious, and fascinating, in the arts of the advocate and the
+scholar. Perhaps we have none of us ever known a man in regard to whom
+a greater degree of _curiosity_ existed among his countrymen. Those
+who saw him every day never ventured to believe that they quite ever
+understood him, so various and so peculiar were the aspects he exhibited
+even here at home. Those who attempted to study him were as much
+perplexed as charmed. The avidity with which a cheap book, easily read,
+professing to give personal recollections of such a man, would be seized
+upon by the mass of reading people, was not overestimated.
+
+It is not the purpose of this notice to discuss Mr. Choate,--his
+eloquence, his wit, his scholarship, or his personal characteristics.
+Our office is simply to examine the manner of Mr. Parker's performing
+what he set out to perform. Our business is with the book, not with the
+subject of it. And, in our judgment, the book is the very worst that
+could well be written on such a subject. It is done with bad taste, bad
+judgment, bad style, It is precisely the book to mortify and disgust Mr.
+Choate's admirers, and to fix more firmly than ever such unfavorable
+notions of him as may have existed in the minds of others.
+
+Mr. Parker does not appear to have considered what he undertook, when he
+stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man.
+We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating
+account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of
+perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of
+scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that
+he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his
+enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been _said_, as well as
+how little was _known_ about Mr. Choate; what wonderfully loose and idle
+notions of him had got abroad; how the most essential and notable points
+of his character and genius had been so clumsily handled by flippant or
+careless critics, that the popular impression of him was, to a great
+degree, extravagant and absurd. Remembering all this, and properly
+_respecting_ the subject in which he appears to have interested himself
+so ardently, Mr. Parker should have applied to his task a somewhat
+gentle hand; gratifying, if that must be done, the curiosity of his
+readers as far as he safely could, but refraining altogether from those
+aspects of Mr. Choate's mind and character which he must have known
+could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly
+executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled
+off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called
+indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected.
+We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious
+talk about Mr. Choate,--and that is the whole of it. For our own
+part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little
+amusement it has afforded us was probably not exactly designed by the
+author.
+
+We would fain be excused from the duty of remarking upon the merely
+literary character of the book, but that may not be. As we said before,
+the book is somewhere in the literature of the day, and its place must
+be ascertained. The following gems of rhetoric it will be useful, for
+that end, to notice:--"With me, as with every young man of a taste
+that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh
+topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains";
+"newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor";
+"severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the
+maiden-mother,"--alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a
+mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, _facile
+princeps_"; not to forget an extraordinary quotation from the title,
+which the author says he found at the head of one of Mr. Choate's
+manuscript plans for daily study, in these words, "_faciundo ad munus
+nuper impositum_." Now it must really in justice be said that to write
+a biography of Mr. Choate in such a lingo as this is an insult to the
+subject. We believe we are fair with Mr. Parker's style. Indeed, where
+it is not relieved by such barbarisms as we have quoted, it purls along
+with a certain weak smartness which is inexpressibly tiresome.
+
+A much more tolerable book, however, would be spoiled by such arrant
+egotism as our author displays on every page. We are never rid of _Mr.
+Parker_ for a moment. Wherever Mr. Choate is visible, Mr. Parker is
+strutting by his side. He exhibits, indeed, all the intrusiveness of
+Boswell, without any of that honest, self-forgetting, simple-hearted
+admiration of his distinguished friend which makes Boswell positively
+respectable. A single illustration of this weakness is so apt that we
+quote it. "Mr. Choate said, 'Some one should write a History of the
+Ancient Orators. There is no book in all my library where I can find
+all there is extant about any ancient orator.' He earnestly advised
+the author to undertake it. In pursuance of the idea, an article
+on 'Hortensius' appeared in a Review as a beginning. He spoke with
+enthusiasm of the satisfaction it gave him; saying it was a new
+revelation to him, for he never _knew_ Hortensius before."
+
+Again, Mr. Parker is continually assuring us, in more or less direct
+terms, of the intimacy which existed between himself and Mr. Choate. In
+a matter of this sort, once telling is enough; and then it should
+be done with modesty, and so as simply to assure the reader of the
+genuineness of the reminiscences. All beyond that is vulgar. One more
+remark upon Mr. Parker's _behavior_ as an author. He permits himself to
+speak of individuals of decided personal and public dignity with quite
+too much familiarity. This is, of course, nothing more than an offence
+against good taste. But it is so prevalent in his pages that we cannot
+omit it from anything like a summary of the faults which they display.
+And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere
+else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one
+can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice.
+
+We have yet to notice Mr. Parker's book in respect to its success as an
+attempt at biography. We suppose he intended to draw the portrait of
+a man of wit, eloquence, and scholarship. He constantly assures us in
+terms that Mr. Choate _was_ such a man; an assurance which certainly
+was not necessary to so extensive and brilliant a reputation. If he
+had stopped there, he would at least have done no harm. But the
+illustrations which he gives us are so very far from satisfactory, that,
+unless Mr. Choate's reputation in these particulars be surrendered, for
+which we are not quite prepared, it must be upon the ground that his
+biographer has failed entirely to appreciate him. That Mr. Choate was,
+for instance, a man of singularly keen and delicate wit, everybody
+knows. But we believe that any brother advocate who ever sat at the same
+courtroom table with him for three days, or any cultivated person who
+ever passed an evening in his company, was likely to hear from his lips,
+in that space of time, more real wit than Mr. Parker repeats in his
+whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in
+the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which
+Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert
+a sullen juror,--such turns of speech as _he_ certainly never thought
+were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,--to which
+he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the
+business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire
+to have forgotten,--make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's
+illustrations in the matter of wit. One faculty which Mr. Choate
+possessed in a remarkable degree, that of ready, elegant, and telling
+quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every
+one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have
+furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions.
+As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would
+seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up
+and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon
+these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as
+mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which they
+were charmed with his graceful and truly vigorous speech, his biographer
+loves to dwell. He has much to say of the length and complexity of
+the sentences, but nothing of the often exquisite elegance of their
+structure; much of the number and size of the words of which they
+consisted,--nothing of the extreme delicacy and dexterity of their use,
+the wonderful completeness with which they were made to express every
+particle of the orator's meaning. As to Mr. Choate's scholarship, we
+certainly learn nothing satisfactory from this unfortunate book. In the
+conversations which the author, clumsily, indeed, but, we are bound to
+believe, faithfully, details, we should expect to find something of
+the rich fruitage of a life-long cultivation in letters. But so poor a
+result does Mr. Parker show in this part of his work, that he drives us
+to the dilemma either of placing Mr. Choate in quite an unworthy rank as
+a scholar, or of concluding, that, in the case of these conversations,
+he bestowed upon his listener very little of any particular
+preciousness, or that what else was bestowed was not understood or
+remembered so as to be recorded.
+
+We cannot dismiss this book without noticing the extremely unhappy
+treatment which the personal and professional character of Mr. Choate
+has received at the author's hands. That he should have introduced into
+it, as he has done, such stories, or jokes, or anecdotes, or whatever
+else they may be called, as the commonest good taste or good sense
+should have told him to exclude, we suppose ought in charity to be
+attributed to mere uncontrollable garrulity. But he has also completely
+missed some of the most obvious and familiar characteristics of Mr.
+Choate, and his description of others which he professes to have
+perceived he spoils by unseemly and unintelligent illustration. We have
+not the patience to follow him through this part of his performance. It
+is enough to say that none who knew Mr. Choate would ever recognize the
+portrait.
+
+We regret extremely that Mr. Parker felt himself called upon to write
+and print his "Reminiscences." He has done himself no credit whatever;
+but that is comparatively a small matter. The book is in every way an
+injurious and indecorous one. And if he really respects the fame of the
+distinguished man whom he has attempted to describe, he must agree with
+us in the hope that his own work may be forgotten as soon as possible.
+
+
+
+
+_A History of the Whig Party_. By R. Mc KINLEY ORMSBY. Boston: Crosby
+Nichols, & Co.
+
+
+The duties of an historian, always difficult, are peculiarly so when he
+attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose
+mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him
+utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of
+judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid
+and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr.
+Ormsby, we propose to inquire.
+
+We are at first favorably impressed. Mr. Ormsby's Preface is most
+striking,--uniting not only touching candor, but innocence absolutely
+refreshing. The duties of historian, which we just now called so
+weighty, rest lightly upon his conscious strength. The historian
+remarks, that "he is aware that his outlines are very imperfect, and
+in many things may be erroneous. He has had no access to libraries or
+public documents; and his statistics are sometimes given from general
+recollection, and are but approximations to accuracy. But, feeling
+that some history of the parties of this country is needed, he has the
+temerity to offer this, till its place shall be supplied by one more
+reliable and satisfactory."
+
+Any man's apology for deficiencies in his book may be accepted, provided
+he be able to make good the suppressed premise upon which, after all,
+the whole depends, namely,--that there was need of his writing at all.
+Mr. Ormsby seems to think there was, but gives no reasons in support of
+his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated
+whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over
+the man so unlucky as not to possess it.
+
+We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
+scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
+nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
+smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
+is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
+these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
+introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
+description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
+rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.
+
+The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
+is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
+institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
+warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
+the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
+mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
+ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
+in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
+etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
+philanthropy,"--etc., etc.
+
+Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
+legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
+distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
+in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
+given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
+States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
+but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
+to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
+is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
+incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.
+
+We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
+pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
+instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
+Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
+their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
+Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
+acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
+March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
+not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
+anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
+Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
+South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
+principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
+did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
+is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
+evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
+by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
+disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
+If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
+leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
+of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
+was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
+has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
+refunding the pay.
+
+Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
+many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
+he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
+1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
+gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
+Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
+Democracy.
+
+It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
+from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
+swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
+and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
+alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
+other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
+party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
+North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
+that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
+Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
+assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
+carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
+slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
+Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
+endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
+thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
+admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
+gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
+denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
+the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
+that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
+blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.
+
+On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
+to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
+do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
+the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
+not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
+a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
+is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
+two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
+servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
+bondage" and "negro servitude!"
+
+Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
+assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
+arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
+refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
+have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
+irrelevant.
+
+"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
+them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
+ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
+He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
+necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
+of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
+_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
+they think?
+
+Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
+efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
+been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
+been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
+increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
+decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
+in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
+consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
+would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
+showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
+of Providence!
+
+"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
+the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
+best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
+based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
+any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.
+
+There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
+champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
+dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
+slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
+is the good of being opposed to it?
+
+The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
+to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
+Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
+Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
+the surviving Whigs?
+
+"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
+party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
+national party." p. 355.
+
+"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
+condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
+ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
+the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
+if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
+party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
+sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
+a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
+be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
+small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
+existence_." pp. 363-4.
+
+This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
+resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
+beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
+Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
+to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
+so obliging as to supply!
+
+After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
+books?
+
+
+
+_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
+"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
+8vo. pp. 395.
+
+This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
+England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
+of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
+taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
+style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
+shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
+Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
+and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
+much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
+real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
+and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
+he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
+him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
+Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
+gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
+varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
+the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
+but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
+merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
+parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
+has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
+conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
+he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
+may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
+to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.
+
+The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
+present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
+questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
+1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
+being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
+great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
+exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
+both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
+comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
+If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
+disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
+then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
+done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
+be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
+devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
+will have proved injurious.
+
+As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
+accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
+differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
+aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
+towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
+may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
+observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
+partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
+main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
+shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
+was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
+I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
+emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
+nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
+for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
+such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
+condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
+to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
+was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
+of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
+expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
+commencement of a struggle."
+
+This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
+suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
+satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
+the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
+from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
+temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
+to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
+regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
+in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
+little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
+work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
+is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
+Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
+and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
+causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
+especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
+the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
+a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
+expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
+full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
+work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
+labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
+means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.
+
+A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
+but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
+drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
+recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
+seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
+the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
+but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
+hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
+very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
+blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
+idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
+in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
+a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.
+
+But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
+neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
+and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
+its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
+occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
+of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
+as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
+mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
+thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
+thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
+degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
+still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
+sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
+equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
+their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
+There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
+sentence.
+
+But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
+to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
+has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preexisting
+slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
+emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
+"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
+the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
+this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
+has now fallen back into wilderness?"
+
+Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
+disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
+in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
+there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
+work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
+a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
+negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
+laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
+of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
+1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
+Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]
+
+Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
+and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
+in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
+the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
+Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
+demand for labor.
+
+In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
+brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
+depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
+freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
+ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
+India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
+prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
+so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
+immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
+Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
+the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
+of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
+of the immigration by yearly instalments.
+
+[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
+were and are_.]
+
+They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
+reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
+hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
+salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
+Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
+end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
+and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
+home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
+learned to husband their means, and put money together."
+
+We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
+animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
+part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
+which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
+negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
+to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
+population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
+or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
+himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
+to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
+the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
+but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
+improvement in the race.
+
+How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
+blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
+them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
+obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
+which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
+the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
+solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
+reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
+reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
+giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.
+
+There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
+other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
+readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
+country far more thorough and not less entertaining.
+
+Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
+transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
+Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
+must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
+venture over the same ground.
+
+
+
+
+_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
+Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.
+
+
+It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
+has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
+responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
+"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
+viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
+narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
+as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
+shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
+admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.
+
+There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
+one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
+to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
+thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
+newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
+his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
+him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
+a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
+excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
+in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
+him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
+of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
+biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
+most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
+entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
+its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
+of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
+and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
+and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
+have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
+would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
+Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
+pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
+previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
+partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
+statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
+continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
+his materials.
+
+The truth is, that a life of Brown was not now needed for those who
+already admired the stalwart nature of the man, even though they might
+deplore his course,--for those who had had their hearts touched and
+stirred by his manliness, his truth, his courage, and his unwavering
+fidelity to conscience and faith in God; but it was greatly needed for
+that much larger class,--the mass of the Northern community,-whose
+timidity had been startled at his rash attempt, whose sympathy had been
+more or less awakened by his bearing and his death, but who were and are
+in a painful state of perplexity, in the endeavor to reconcile their
+abhorrence, or at least their disapproval, of his attack on Virginia,
+with their sense of the admirable nature of the qualities he displayed.
+It was needed also for the very large class who received from the
+newspapers but a confused and imperfect account of the events which took
+place in Virginia from October to December, and who, according to their
+political predilections, condemn or applaud the course of Captain Brown.
+And, above all, it was needed for the men who have disgraced themselves
+by denying to Brown the possession of any virtues, and who have
+outstripped his Southern enemies in applying to him the most opprobrious
+and the falsest epithets. Now, none of these classes will Mr. Redpath's
+book reach with effect. Its tone is such, it is so violent, so
+extravagant, that it will offend all right-thinking men. Even those who
+have known how to hold a steady and clear opinion, in the midst of the
+confusion of the popular mind,--who have not applauded Brown's acts of
+violence, and have condemned his judgment, but who have, nevertheless,
+honored what was noble in him, and sympathized with him in his strong
+love of liberty,--who, while acknowledging him guilty under the law,
+mourned that the law should not be tempered with mercy,--and who
+have recognized in him at once the excellences and the errors of an
+enthusiast,--those who have most faithfully endeavored to find the truth
+concerning him, though they will obtain some interesting information
+from Mr. Redpath's book, will be the most dissatisfied with it.
+
+It has always been among the offences of the out-and-out Abolitionists,
+to abuse the force of words, and to make exclusive pretensions to virtue
+and the love of liberty. This book is written in the spirit and style
+of an Abolition tract. In representing John Brown as little more than a
+mere hero of the Abolitionists, the author has done essential disservice
+to the cause of freedom, and to the memory of a man who was as free from
+party-ties as he was from personal ambitions.
+
+Although John Brown's character was a simple one, a long time must pass
+before it will be generally understood, and justice be done to it. The
+passion and the prejudice which the later acts of his life have excited
+cannot die away for years. Mr. Redpath has done his best to perpetuate
+them. In seasons of excitement, and amid the struggles of political
+contention, the men who use the most extravagant and the most violent
+words have, for a time, the advantage; but, in the long run, they damage
+whatever cause they may adopt; and the truth, which their declamations
+have obscured or their falsehoods have violated, finally asserts itself.
+In our country, the worth and the strength of temperance and moderation
+of speech seem to be peculiarly forgotten. Words, which should stand
+for things, are too commonly used with no respect to their essential
+meaning. Political debates are embittered, personal feeling wounded,
+the tone of manners lowered, and national character degraded, by this
+disregard of words as the symbol and expression of truth. Moderation is
+brought into disrepute, and justice, fairness, and honesty of opinion
+tendered as rare as they are difficult of attainment. The manner in
+which John Brown has been spoken of affords the plainest illustration
+of these facts. Extravagance in condemnation has been answered by
+extravagance in praise of his life and deeds.
+
+The most interesting and the most novel part of Mr. Redpath's book is
+the letter written by John Brown in 1857, giving some account of his
+early life. It is, in all respects, a remarkable composition. It
+exhibits the main influences by which his character was formed; it
+affords a key to the history of his life; it illustrates the nature of
+the social institutions under which such a man could grow up; and it
+shows his natural traits, before they had become hardened and trained
+under the discipline of later experience and circumstance. Nothing has
+been more marked in the various exhibitions of his character, as they
+have come successively to view, than their complete consistency. This
+letter, this account of his youth, squares perfectly with what we
+know of his manhood. The whole of it should be read by all who would
+understand the man, with his native faculty of command, with his mingled
+sternness and tenderness, with his large heart, his steadfast will. The
+base of his soul was truth; and the motive power of his life, faith in
+the justice of God.
+
+He was a man of a rare type,--so rare in our times as to seem like a
+man of another age. He belonged to the same class with the Scottish
+Covenanters and the English Regicides. He belonged to the great company
+of those who have followed the footsteps of Gideon, and forgot that the
+armory of the Lord contained other weapons than the sword. He belonged
+to those who from time to time have adopted some cause,--the good old
+cause,--and have shrunk from no sacrifice which it required at their
+hands. "I have now been confined over a month," wrote John Brown to
+his children, in one of that most affecting series of letters from his
+prison, "with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as fair in the
+face as I am capable of doing, and I now feel most grateful that I am
+counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth."
+"Suffering is a gift not given to every one," wrote one of the
+Covenanters, who was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, in
+1684,--"and I desire to bless God's name with my whole heart and soul,
+that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of
+suffering."
+
+That John Brown was wrong in his attempt to break up slavery by
+violence, few will deny. But it was a wrong committed by a good
+man,--by one who dreaded the vengeance of the Almighty and forgot His
+long-suffering. His errors were the result of want of patience and want
+of imagination, and he paid the penalty for them. He had faith in the
+Divine ordering of the affairs of this world; but he forgot that
+the processes by which evils like that of slavery are done away are
+thousand-year-long,--that, to be effectual, they must be slow,--that
+wrong is no remedy for wrong. He was an anachronism, and met the fate of
+all anachronisms that strive to stem and divert the present current by
+modes which the world has outgrown. But now that he and those dearest
+to him have so bitterly expiated his faults, both charity and justice
+demand that his virtues should be honored, and he himself mourned. It
+will be a gloomy indication of the poor, low spirit of our days, if fear
+and falsehood, if passion or indifference, should cause the lesson of
+John Brown's life to be neglected, or should check a natural sympathy
+with the noble heart of the old man. That lesson is not for any one part
+of the country more than another; that sympathy may be given by the
+South as well as by the North. It is not sympathy for his acts, but
+for the spirit of his life and the heroism of his death. The lesson of
+manliness, uprightness, and courage, which his life teaches, is to be
+learned by us, not merely as lovers of liberty, not as opponents of
+slavery, but as men who need more manliness, more uprightness, more
+courage and simplicity in our common lives.
+
+All that is possible of apology for John Brown is to be found in his
+letters and in his speech to the court before his sentence. It is,
+perhaps, too soon to hope that these letters and this speech will be
+read with candor and a feeling of human brotherhood by those who now
+look with abhorrence or with indifference on his memory. But the time
+will come when they will be held at their true worth by all, as the
+expressions of a large, tender soul,--when they will be read with
+sympathetic pity, even by those who still find it difficult to forgive
+their author for his offence against society. These letters appeal to
+the better nature of every man and woman in America; and it will be a
+sad thing, if their appeal be disregarded.
+
+We trust, that, before long, a fairer and fuller biography than that by
+Mr. Redpath will remove the obstacle which this book now presents to the
+general appreciation of the character and life of John Brown.
+
+
+
+
+_Poems_. By SYDNEY DOBELL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
+
+
+Many of Mr. Dobell's poems have passages which are musical, vigorous,
+and peculiar, and hardly in any part can he be justly charged with
+prolonging an echo. He is not one of the many mocking-birds that infest
+the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be
+wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a
+heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep
+the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of
+that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity
+of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate
+master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping,
+and turn away from colors, however exquisite, that are strewn, as it
+were, on a palette, rather than wrought into picture and harmonized
+to the tone of life. The truth is, that the grandly designing hand is
+nowhere completely visible in the poetry of Young England. Many of her
+more youthful poets show a mass of rich materials, but they appear to
+have been upheaved by convulsions, half-blinding us with their splendor,
+while, like lava pouring from a volcano's crater, they take no
+prescribed channel, they flow into no immortal mould. It is this fiery
+gleam on the surface of matter hot from chaos, which the multitude honor
+as the highest manifestation of genius. But this is to desecrate a word
+which implies constructive power of the first order. Form is its highest
+expression. Without the shaping faculty, which artistically rounds
+to perfection, no glitter of decoration, nor even force and fire of
+expression, can keep the work from falling into ruins. If the beautiful,
+as Goethe said, includes in it the good, then perfect beauty alone is
+everlasting. This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made,
+but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is
+not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in
+"The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt
+out of the memory.
+
+
+
+
+_A Good Fight, and other Tales_. By CHARLES KEADE. New York: Harper &
+Brothers. 1859.
+
+About the middle of the fifteenth century, a youth named Gerard, a
+native of Tergou, in Holland, loved Margaret, the daughter of Peter,
+a learned man of the neighboring village of Zevenbergen. Expecting
+immediate marriage, their intimacy was restrained by no limits. The
+interference of Gerard's relations, however, separated them for a time,
+during which the young man visited Rome, and gained some distinction as
+a transcriber of ancient manuscripts. Learning, after a while, that he
+was about to return, his kindred caused a false report of Margaret's
+death to be conveyed to him, and, by thus crushing all the hopes of
+his young life, had the final satisfaction of seeing him take priestly
+orders, which threw his patrimony into their hands. Having broken two
+hearts, and brought a world of shame upon an innocent girl to get it, it
+is only fair to suppose they enjoyed it with tranquillity.
+
+Margaret, left alone, gave birth to a child, the greatness of whose
+manhood might have softened the remembrance of her earlier sorrows, had
+she lived to witness it. But she died when he was thirteen years old.
+Gerard, her true husband, who had never rejoined her while living, also
+died within a brief space. The son they left was the famous Erasmus.
+
+Mr. Reade has taken this little record, which would never have become
+historical but for the accidental consequence of the loves of Gerard and
+Margaret, and wrought it into a story of exquisite grace and delicacy.
+A dead and half-forgotten fact, he has warmed it into fresh life, and
+given it all the beauties with which his brilliant imagination could
+endow it. Though shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly inferior
+to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit.
+The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest
+books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is
+for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its
+power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents
+follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the
+interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the
+entire story. On the contrary, it follows pretty closely the old formula
+of troubled true-love until the closing chapter, when triumphant virtue
+sets in. But this takes nothing from the effect. All is so clear and
+vivid in description, so glittering with gleams of wit, relieved by soft
+shadows of purest pathos, so full of the spirit of tender humanity,
+that the reader finds no reason to complain, except that the end is so
+speedily reached.
+
+The author has sacrificed history, in his conclusion, to satisfy a
+natural feeling. No one will object because the "Good Fight" terminates
+victoriously in the right direction. The parents of Erasmus suffered;
+but it would be a pity, if readers, after the lapse of four hundred
+years, must mourn their woes to the extent that would inevitably be
+necessary, if Mr. Reade had not arranged it otherwise. And his object,
+which was to prove--if proof were needed--that all human lives, however
+obscure, have their own share of romance, is not disturbed by this
+variation from the severity of the chronicle.
+
+
+
+
+_The Undergraduate_. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and
+Professional Students in the United States and Europe. [Greek:_'Ekasto
+onmachoi pantos_]; January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New
+Haven, Conn.
+
+We are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have
+commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two
+or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes,
+a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a
+few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and
+jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would
+he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the
+opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A
+freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its
+promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not
+something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect the youth, and
+be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining
+the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three
+or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that
+many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will
+hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased,
+therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest
+pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and
+dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.
+
+But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor
+than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has
+almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that,
+promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and
+apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College,
+and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions.
+Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and
+Introduction. They are briefly these:--"To record the history, promote
+the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize
+the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and
+Professional Students, and their Institutions."
+
+The name, "Undergraduate," shows by whom it is to be managed; but its
+contributors are, and will doubtless continue to he, in part, of a more
+advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we
+have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they
+were contributed to a students' journal. The first paper, for instance,
+"German Student-Life and Travel," is not only well written, but full of
+excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of
+good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. "A Student's
+Voyage to Labrador" is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new
+to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account
+of the two ancient societies of Yale College, "Brothers in Unity" and
+"Linonia," rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their
+protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will
+interest all students, and many outside of the student-world, "The
+Undergraduate" would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them
+somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful
+character. Perhaps it might be safe to lay it down as a law, that, the
+tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the
+older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of
+discussion. It is safe to say that a young man's essay is most likely
+to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or
+experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions
+on "Virtue," "Honesty," "Shakspeare," "Human Nature," and such large
+subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.
+
+On the whole, "The Undergraduate" is most creditable to the enterprise
+that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If
+we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be,
+that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism
+should not be spelt Calv_a_nism, Thackeray Thack_a_ray, nor Courvoisier
+_Corvosier_,--neither should traveller be spelt _traveler_, nor theatre
+_theater_. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a
+place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking
+world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in
+the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring
+University, it should be a condition that the English standard of
+spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.
+
+With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical
+which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our
+educational institutions.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year
+1860. Boston, Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 399. $1.00.
+
+The New American Cyclopedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge.
+Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. VIII. Fugger-Haynau.
+New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 788, vii. $3.00.
+
+Life Without and Life Within: or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
+Poems. By Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth
+Century," "At Home and Abroad," etc. Edited by her Brother, Arthur B.
+Fuller. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & Chase. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.00.
+
+Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. With Narrative
+Illustrations. By Robert Dale Owen, formerly Member of Congress, and
+American Minister to Naples. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp.
+528. $1.25.
+
+Title-Hunting. By E. L. Llewellyn. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.
+pp. 357. $1.00.
+
+The Rivals. A Tale of the Times of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
+By Hon. Jere. Clemens, Author of "Bernard Lite" and "Mustang Gray."
+Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 286. 75 cts.
+
+Poems. By Sydney Dobell. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. 544. 75
+cts. An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco, in the Summer
+of 1859. By Horace Greeley. New York. Saxton, Barker, & Co. 12mo. pp.
+386. $1.00.
+
+Morphy's Games: a Selection of the Best Games played by the
+Distinguished Champion in Europe and America. With Analytical and
+Critical Notes by J Loewenthal. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp.
+xviii., 473. $1.25.
+
+Compensation: or, Always a Future. By Anne M. H. Brewster. Philadelphia.
+Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 297. 75 cts.
+
+The Eighteen Christian Centuries. By the Rev. James White, Author of a
+"History of France." With a Copious Index. From the Second Edinburgh
+Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 538. $1.25.
+
+An Appeal to the People in Behalf of their Rights as Authorized
+Interpreters of the Bible. By Catherine E. Beecher, Author of "Common
+Sense Applied to Religion," "Domestic Economy," etc. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. x., 380. $1.00.
+
+On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The
+Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles
+Darwin, M. A., Fellow of the Royal Geological, Linnaean, etc., Societies;
+Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round
+the World." New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.25.
+
+Life in Spain, Past and Present. By Walter Thornbury, Author of "Every
+Man his own Trumpeter," "Art and Nature," etc. With Illustrations. New
+York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 383. $1.00.
+
+Poems. By the Author of "A Life for a Life," "John Halifax, Gentleman,"
+etc. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp.270. 75 cts.
+
+The Female Skeptic: or, Faith Triumphant, New York. R. M. DeWitt. 12mo.
+pp. 449. $1.00.
+
+Report on Weights and Measures, read before the Pharmaceutical
+Association, at their Eighth Annual Session, held in Boston, September
+15, 1859. By Alfred B. Taylor, of Philadelphia, Chairman of the
+Committee of Weights and Measures. Boston. Press of Rand & Avery. 8vo.
+pamphlet, pp. 104. 50 cts.
+
+The Adopted Heir. By Miss Pardoe, Author of "The Confessions of a Pretty
+Woman," "Life of Maria de Medicis." etc. Complete and unabridged.
+Philadelphia. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.25.
+
+A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and
+his Companions, by Captain M'Clintock, R. N., LL.D. With Maps and
+Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 375. $1.50.
+
+The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By Peter
+H. Burnett. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xiv., 741. $2.50.
+
+Sermons on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. Delivered at Trinity
+Chapel, Brighton. By the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, M.A., the Incumbent.
+Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xii., 425. $1.00.
+
+Trinitarianism not the Doctrine of the New Testament. Two Lectures,
+delivered, partly in Review of Rev. Dr. Huntington's Discourse on the
+Trinity, in the Hollis Street Church, January 7 and 14,1860. By T. S.
+King. Printed by Request. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 8vo. pamphlet,
+pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Lyrics and other Poems. By S. J. Donaldson, Jr. Philadelphia. Lindsay &
+Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 208. 75 cts.
+
+Twenty Years Ago, and Now. By T. S. Arthur. Philadelphia. G. G. Evans.
+12mo. pp. 307. $1.00.
+
+The Water Witch: or, The Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale. By J. Fenimore
+Cooper. Illustrated from Designs by F. 0. C. Darley. New York. Townsend
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.50.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number
+29, March, 1860, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. V, NO. 29 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29,
+March, 1860, by Various
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860
+       A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9389]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 28, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. V, NO. 29 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, David Widger and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. V.--MARCH, 1860.--NO. XXIX.
+
+
+
+THE FRENCH CHARACTER.
+
+The American character is now generally acknowledged to be the most
+cosmopolitan of modern times; and a native of this country, all things
+being equal, is likely to form a less prescriptive idea of other nations
+than the inhabitants of countries whose neighborhood and history unite
+to bequeathe and perpetuate certain fixed notions. Before the frequent
+intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we
+derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian
+skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest
+association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous.
+All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism,
+strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a
+Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner
+stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice;
+for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to
+our childhood proved a poor _émigré_ who gained a precarious livelihood
+as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of
+smiles, shrugs, bows, and compliments, prided himself on _la belle
+France_, played the fiddle, and took snuff. A more dignified view
+succeeded, when we read "Télémaque," so long an initiatory text-book
+in the study of the language, blended as its crystal style was in our
+imaginations with the pure and noble character of Fénelon. Perhaps the
+next link in the chain of our estimate was supplied by the bust of
+Voltaire, whose withered, sneering physiognomy embodies the wit and
+indifference, the soulless vagabondage that forms the worst side of
+the national mind. As patriotic sentiment awakened, the disinterested
+enthusiasm of Lafayette, woven, as it is, into the record of the
+struggle which gave birth to our republic, yielded another and more
+attractive element to the fancy portrait. Then, as our reading expanded,
+came the tragic chronicle of the first French Revolution and the
+brilliant and dazzling melodrama of Napoleon, the traditions so pathetic
+and sublime of gifted women, the _tableaux_ so exciting to a youthful
+temper of military glory. And thus, by degrees, we found ourselves
+bewildered by the most vivid contrasts and apparently irreconcilable
+traits, until the original idea of a Frenchman expanded to the widest
+range of associations, from the ingenious devices of a mysterious
+_cuisine_ to the brilliant manoeuvres of the battle-field; infinite
+female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable _bon-mots_,
+exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined
+profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,--Ude, Napoleon, Madame Récamier,
+Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and
+desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical
+and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we
+first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. The society of one of those
+benign _savans_ who attract the sympathy and win the admiration of
+young students may yield a delightful and noble association to our
+future reminiscences; or an unmodified experience of cynical hearts
+joined to scenical manners may leave us nothing to regret, upon our
+departure, save the material advantages there enjoyed. But whoever knows
+life in Paris, unrelieved by some consistent and individual purpose,
+will find it a succession of excitements, temporary, yet varied,--full
+of the agreeable, yet barren of consecutive interest and satisfactory
+results,--admirable as a recreative hygiene, deplorable as a permanent
+resource; their inevitable consequence being a faith in the external, a
+dependence on the immediate, and a habit of vagrant pleasure-seeking,
+which must at last cloy and harden the manly soul. For this very reason,
+however, the scenes, characters, and society there exhibited are
+prolific of suggestion to the philosophic mind.
+
+In every phase of life, manners, and action, we see a characteristic
+excellence in detail and process, and an equally remarkable deficiency
+in grand practical idea and consistent moral sentiment. The French
+chemists have the art to extract quinine from Peruvian bark and conserve
+the juices of meats; but one of their most patriotic writers calls
+attention to the wholly diverse motives addressed by Napoleon and Nelson
+to their respective followers. "Soldiers," exclaimed the former, "from
+the summit of those Pyramids forty ages are looking down upon you."
+"England," said the latter, "expects every man to do his duty." In
+Paris, the science of dissection is perfect; in London, that of
+nutrition;--Dumas has reduced plagiarism to a fine art; Cobbett made
+common-sense a social lever;--a British merchant or statesman attaches
+his name to a document in characters of such individuality that the
+signature is known at a glance; a French official invents a flourish
+so intricate that the forger's ingenuity is baffled in the attempt to
+imitate it;--government, on one side of the Channel, employs a taster to
+detect adulteration in wine whose sensitive palate is a fortune; on
+the other, the hereditary fame of a brewery is the guaranty of the
+excellence of ale.
+
+This minute observance of detail has made the French leaders in fashion;
+it directs invention to the minutiæ of dress, and confirms the sway of
+the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an
+extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as
+characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with
+their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so
+imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as
+every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick,
+"nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and
+lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your
+clothes."
+
+The superiority of the French in the minor philosophy of life was
+curiously exemplified during our Revolutionary War. The octogenarians of
+Rhode Island used to expatiate on the remarkable difference between the
+troops of France and those of England when quartered among them. The
+former speedily made a series of little arrangements, and fell naturally
+into a pleasant routine, making the best of everything, adapting
+themselves to the ways and prejudices of the inhabitants, and, in a
+word, becoming assimilated at once to a new mode of life and form of
+society; their wit, cheerfulness, and gallantry are yet proverbial
+in that region. The English, on the other hand, even when in full
+possession of the country, made but an awkward use of their privileges,
+were ill-at-ease, failed to recognize anything genial in the habits and
+manners even of the Tory families. While the French officers introduced
+the mysteries of their _cuisine_, and brightened many a rustic
+household with song, anecdote, dance, and conversation, the English
+complained of the simple viands, regretted London fogs and beer,
+and made themselves and their hosts, whether forced or voluntary,
+uncomfortable. They exhibited no tact or facility in improving the
+resources at hand, and relied only on brute force to win advantage. We
+beheld the same contrast recently in the Crimea; while exposure and
+impatience thinned the ranks of the brave islanders, their Gallic
+allies constructed roads, dug where they could not build a shelter, and
+ingeniously prepared various dishes from a meagre larder, fighting off,
+meantime, chagrin and _ennui_ with as much alacrity as they did
+Cossacks.
+
+_Finesse_ characterizes servants not less than courtiers, the
+cab-driver as well as the notary, the composition of a dish as well as
+the drift of a comedy. This quality seems a result of the conflict of
+intelligences in a state of great, material civilization; nowhere is it
+more observable than in Paris life. What bullyism is to the English,
+shrewdness to the Yankee, and intrigue to the Italian, is _finesse_,
+which is a union of insight and address, to the French. This normal
+attribute is another proof how the economy of Gallic life is reduced to
+an art. It is the expression in manners of Rochefoucauld's maxims,
+of Richelieu's policy, of Talleyrand's cunning. It is favored by the
+tendency to minuteness of excellence and love of system before noted.
+To understand what superior range is afforded to such a principle in
+France, it is only requisite to consult the memoirs of a celebrated
+woman, or even an old Guide or Picture of Paris, such as in former days
+the provincial gentlemen used to study over their breakfast, in order
+to learn the _savoir vivre_ of the metropolis. Itineraries of other
+cities merely describe streets, public institutions, the fairs,
+the courts, and the places of fashionable amusement; one of these
+curiosities of literature now before us, published less than a century
+ago, describes, as available resources to the stranger, _Gouvernantes,
+Émeutes, Rêves Politiques, L'Art de Diner, Bureaux d'Esprit_,
+--corresponding to our modern blue-stocking coteries, _femmes de
+quarante ans_, with their "_deux ressources, la dévotion et le bel
+esprit"; Contre Poisons_,--indispensable in those days of jealousy
+and assassination; _Pots de Fleurs_ form an item of the most limited
+establishment; emblems, such as _Rubans_ and _Bonnets Rouges_, are
+described as essential to the intelligent conduct of the visitor; and a
+chapter is devoted to Gallantry, of which a modern author in the same
+department pensively remarks, "_Cette ancienne galanterie qui vivait
+d'esprit et d'infidélités est comptlètement dénaturée_."
+
+It is curious how municipal, economical, and social life are thus
+simultaneously daguerreotyped and indicate their mutual and intricate
+association in the French capital. Its history involves that of
+churches, congresses, academies, prisons, cemeteries, and police, each
+of which represents domestic and royal vicissitudes. What other city
+furnishes such a work as the Duchess D'Abrantes' "Histoire des Salons
+de Paris"? The _salons_ of Madame Necker, Polignac, De Beaumont, De
+Mazarin, Roland, De Genlis, of Condorcet, of Malmaison, of Talleyrand,
+and of the Hôtel Rambouillet, etc., embrace the career of statesmen
+and soldiers, the literary celebrities, the schools of philosophy,
+the revolutions, the court, the wars, diplomacy, and, in a word, the
+veritable annals of France. Society, according to this lively writer, in
+the proper acceptation of the term, was born in France in the reign of
+the Cardinal de Richelieu; and thenceforth, in its history, we trace
+that of the nation.
+
+Throughout the most salient eras of this history, therefore, is visible
+female influence. Cousin has just revived the career of Madame de
+Longueville, which is identified with the cabals, financial expedients,
+and war of the Fronde; tournaments, which formed so striking a feature
+in the diversions of Louis XIV.'s court, owed their revival to the whim
+of one of his mistresses; Montespan fostered a brood of satirists,
+and Maintenon one of devotees, while that extraordinary religious
+controversy which initiated the sect of the Quietists had its origin in
+the example and agency of Madame Guyon. Even now, although, as a late
+writer has quaintly observed, "no lady brings her distaff to the
+council-chamber," the influence of the sex on political opinion, in
+its operation as a social principle, is recognized. A friend of mine,
+returning from a dinner-party, described the free and witty sarcasm with
+which a fair Legitimist assailed the Imperial rule; a week afterwards,
+meeting her at the same table, she related, that, a few days after her
+imprudent conversation, she received a courteous invitation from the
+chief of police. "When they were seated alone in his bureau,--Madame,"
+said he, "you have position, conversational talent, and wield the pen
+effectively; are you disposed to exert this influence, henceforth, in
+behalf of, instead of against the government?" Before her indignant
+negative was fairly uttered, he opened a drawer that seemed full of
+Napoleons, and glanced at them and her significantly. Thus Montesquieu's
+observation continues true:--"The individual who would attempt to judge
+of the government by the men at the head of affairs, and not by the
+women who sway those men, would fall into the same error as he who
+judges of a machine by its outward-action, and not by its secret
+springs"; and the old base system of espionage is revived under the new
+despotism.
+
+It has become proverbial in France, that the life of woman has three
+eras,--in youth a coquette, in middle-life a wit, and in age a
+_dévote_,--which is but another mode of expressing that economy of
+personal gifts, that shrewd use of the most available social power,
+which distinguishes the Gallic from the Saxon woman, the worldly from
+the domestic instincts. There only can we imagine a royal favorite
+admitting her indebtedness to a royal wife. "To her," wrote Madame de
+Maintenon of the Queen of Louis; "I owe the King's affection. Picture
+a sovereign worn out with state affairs, intrigues, and ceremonies,
+possessed of a _confidante_ always the same, always calm, always
+rational, equally able to instruct and to soothe, with the intelligence
+of a confessor and the winning gentleness of a woman." It is peculiar
+to the sex there to escape outward soil, whatever may be their moral
+exposure; for one instinctively recognizes a Frenchwoman by her clean
+boots, even in the muddiest thoroughfare, her spotless muslin cap,
+kerchief, and collar. She retains also her individuality after marriage
+better than the fair of other nations, not only in character, but in
+name, the maiden appellative being joined to her husband's, so that,
+although a Madame, she keeps the world informed that she was _née_ of a
+family whose title, however modest, she will not drop. The maxims, so
+prevalent in France, which declare matrimony the tomb of love, are
+the legitimate result of a superficial theory of life and the mutual
+independence of the sexes thence arising; accordingly we are assured,
+"C'est surtout entre mari et femme que l'amour a le moins de chance de
+succès. Ils vieillirent ensemble comme deux portraits de famille, sans
+aucune intimité, aucun profit pour l'esprit, et arrivés au dernier
+relais de leur existence, le souvenir n'avait rien à faire entre eux."
+
+It is a curious illustration at once of the mobility and the isolation
+of the French mind, that, while it assimilates elements within its
+sphere which in other nations are kept comparatively apart, it rejects
+the process in regard to foreign material. Thus, in no other capital are
+politics and literature so interwoven with society; the love-affairs of
+a minister directly influence his policy; the tone of the _salon_
+often inspires and moulds the author; the social history of an epoch
+necessarily includes the genius of its statesmanship and of its letters,
+because they are identified with the intrigues, _the bon-mots_, and the
+conversation of the period; more is to be learned at a lady's morning
+reception or evening _soirée_ than in the writer's library or the
+official's cabinet. On the other hand, how few threads from abroad can
+be found in this mingled web of civic, literary, and social life! The
+vicinity of England and the influx of Englishmen have scarcely brought
+the ideas or the sentiment of that country into nearer recognition at
+Paris than was the case a century ago. Notwithstanding an occasional
+outbreak of Anglomania, the best French authors spell English proper
+names no better, the best French critics appreciate Shakspeare as
+little, and the majority of Parisians have no less partial and fixed a
+notion of the characteristics of their insular neighbors, than before
+the days of journalism and steam. The attempts to represent English
+manners and character are as gross caricatures now as in the time of
+Montaigne. However apt at fusion within, the national egotism is
+as repugnant to assimilation from without as ever. The stock seems
+incapable of vital grafting, as has been remarkably evidenced in all the
+colonial experiments of France.
+
+The excellence of the French character, intellectually speaking,
+consists in routine and detail. How well their authors describe and
+their artists depict peculiarities! how exact the evolutions of a French
+regiment, and the statements of a French naturalist! how apt is a
+Parisian woman in raising gracefully her skirts, throwing on a shawl, or
+carrying a basket! In loyalty to a method they are unrivalled, in the
+triumph of individualities weak; their artisans can make a glove fit
+perfectly, but have yet to learn how to cut out a coat; their authors,
+like their soldiers, can be marshalled in groups; means are superior
+to ends; manners, the exponent of Nature in other lands, there color,
+modify, and characterize the development of intellect; the subordinate
+principle in government, in science, and in life, becomes paramount;
+drawing, the elemental language of Art, is mastered, while the standard
+of expression remains inadequate; the laws of disease are profoundly
+studied, while this knowledge bears no proportionate relation to the
+practical art of healing; the ancient rules of dramatic literature are
+pedantically followed, while the "pity and terror" they were made to
+illustrate are unawakened; the programme of republican government is
+lucidly announced, its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded,
+while its spirit and realization continue in abeyance: and thus
+everywhere we find a singular disproportion between formula and fact,
+profession and practice, specific knowledge and its application. The
+citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions,
+the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he
+aspire to be a courtier or a chemist, a soldier or a _savant_, a dancer
+or a doctor; and yet, for complete equipment, he must temper each weapon
+he there acquires, or it will break in his hand.
+
+In every epoch a word rules or illustrates the dominant spirit:
+_citoyen_ in the Revolution, _moustache_ during the Consulate,
+_victoire_ under the Empire, to-day _la Bourse_. "To a Frenchman," says
+Mrs. Jameson, "the words that express things seem the things themselves,
+and he pronounces the words _amour, grâce, sensibilité_, etc., with a
+relish in his mouth as if he tasted them, as if he possessed them. They
+talk of "_le sentiment du métier_"; in travelling, Paris is the eternal
+theme. A sagacious observer has remarked in their language the "short,
+aphoristic phrase, the frequent absence of the copulative, avoidance of
+dependent phrases, and disdain of modifying adverbs. _Naiveté, abandon,
+ennui_, etc., are specific terms of the language, and designate national
+traits. When Beaumarchais ridiculed a provincial expression, the
+Dauphiness, we are told, composed a head-dress expressly to give it a
+local habitation and a name."
+
+The mania for equality, in the first Revolution, De Tocqueville shows
+was not so much the result of political aspiration as the fierce protest
+against those exclusive rights once enjoyed by the nobility, (shown by
+Arthur Young to have been the primary impulse to revolution,) to hunt,
+keep pigeons, grind corn, press grapes, etc. For a long period, the man
+of letters was never combined with the statesman, as in England. In
+France, speculation in government ran wild, because the thinkers,
+suddenly raised to influence in affairs, had enjoyed no ordeal of public
+duty. Hence certain imaginary fruits of liberty were sought, and its
+absolute worth misunderstood. And now that experience, dearly bought,
+has modified visionary and moulded practical theories, how much of the
+normal interest of the French character has evaporated! Even the love
+of beauty and the love of glory, proverbially its distinctions, are
+eclipsed by the sullen orb of Imperialism; the Bourse is more attractive
+than the battle-field, material luxury than artistic distinction.
+
+One of their own philosophers has summed up, with justice, the anomalous
+elements of the versatile national character:--
+
+"Did there ever appear on the earth another nation so fertile in
+contrasts, so extreme in its acts,--more under the dominion of
+feeling, less ruled by principle; always better or worse than was
+anticipated,--now below the level of humanity, now far above; a people
+so unchangeable in its leading features that it may be recognized by
+portraits drawn two or three thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in
+its daily opinions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to
+itself, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight of what it
+has done; naturally fond of home and routine, yet, when once driven
+forth and forced to adopt new customs, ready to carry principles to
+any lengths and to dare anything; indocile by disposition, but better
+pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a sovereign than
+with a free and regular government under its chief citizens; now fixed
+in hostility to subjection of any kind, now so passionately wedded to
+servitude that nations made to serve cannot vie with it; led by a thread
+so long as no word of resistance is spoken, wholly ungovernable when the
+standard of revolt is raised,--thus always deceiving its masters,
+who fear it too much or too little; never so free that it cannot be
+subjugated, never so kept down that it cannot break the yoke; qualified
+for every pursuit, but excelling in nothing but war; more prone to
+worship chance, force, success, _éclat_, noise, than real glory; endowed
+with more heroism than virtue, more genius than common sense; better
+adapted for the conception of grand designs than the accomplishment of
+great enterprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation
+of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred,
+terror, or pity, but never indifference?"[1]
+
+What other social sphere could afford room for the vocation so aptly
+described in the following sketch of his "ways and means," given in a
+recent picture of life in Paris by a sycophant of millionnaires, at
+a period when interests, not rights, are the watchwords of the
+nation?--"Mon rôle de familier dans une véritable population d'enrichis
+me donnait du crédit dans les boudoirs, et mon crédit dans les boudoirs
+ajoutait à ma faveur près ces pauvres diables de millionaires, presque
+tous vieux et blasés, courant toujours en chancelant après un plaisir
+nouveau. Les marchands de vin me font la cour comme les jolies femmes,
+pour que je daigne leur indiqner des connaisseurs assez riches pour
+payer les bonnes choses le prix qu'elles valent. Mon métier est de tout
+savoir,--l'anecdote de la cour, le scandale de la ville, le secret des
+coulisses." And this species of adventurer, we are told, has always the
+same commencement to his memoirs,--"_Il vint à Paris en sabots._"
+
+[Footnote 1: De Tocqueville.]
+
+The numerous avocations of women in the French capital explain, in a
+measure, their superior tact, efficiency, and force of character. This
+is especially true of females of the middle class, who have been justly
+described as remarkable for good sense and appropriate costumes. The
+participation of women in so many departments of art and industry
+affects, also, the social tone and the manners. Sterne, long ago,
+remarked it of the fair shopkeepers. "The genius of a people," he says,
+"where nothing but the monarchy is _Salique_, having ceded this
+department totally to the women, by a continual higgling with customers
+of all ranks and sizes, from morning to night, like so many rough
+pebbles in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their
+asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but
+will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant."
+
+How distinctly may be read the political vicissitudes of France in her
+literature,--classic, highly finished, keen, and formal, when a monarch
+was idolized and authors wrote only for courts and scholars: Bossuet,
+with his rhetorical graces; La Bruyère, with his gallery of characters,
+not one of which was moulded among the people; De la Rochefoucauld's
+maxims, drawn from the arcana of fashionable life; Racine, whose heroes
+die with an immaculate couplet and speak the faint echoes of Grecian or
+Roman sentiment! When politics became common property, and the walls of
+a prescriptive and conventional system fell, how wild ran speculation
+and sentiment in the copious and superficial Voltaire and the vague
+humanities of Rousseau! When an era of military despotism supervened
+upon the reign of license, how destitute of lettered genius seemed the
+nation, except when the pensive enthusiasm of Chateaubriand breathed
+music from American wilds or a London garret, and Madame de Staël gave
+utterance to her eloquent philosophy in exile at Geneva! "_Napoléon eût
+voulu faire manoeuvrer l'esprit humain comme il faisait manoeuvrer ses
+vieux bataillons_." Yet more emphatic is the reaction of political
+conditions upon literary development after the Restoration. The tragic
+horrors and protracted fever of the Revolution, and the passion for
+military glory exaggerated by the victories of Napoleon, legitimately
+initiated the intense school, which during the present century has
+signalized French literature. The _prestige_ of the scholar revived, and
+literary eclipsed warlike fame; but with the revival of letters came
+the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and
+in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the
+melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in
+dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Béranger;
+fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly
+artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the chaos and the
+earthquakes that laid bare and upheaved life and society in the
+preceding epochs; the journal became an intellectual gymnasium and
+Olympic game, where the first minds of the nation sought exercise and
+glory; the _feuilleton_ almost necessitated the novelist to concentrate
+upon each chapter the amount of interest once diffused through a volume;
+criticism, from tedious analysis, became a brilliant ordeal; egotism
+inspired a world of new confessions, political questions a new school
+of popular writing, the love of effect and the passion for excitement a
+multitude of dramatic, narrative, and biographical books, wherein the
+serenity of thought, the tranquil beauty of truth, and the healthful
+tone of nature were sacrificed, not without dazzling genius, to
+immediate fame, pecuniary reward, and the delight _d'éprouver une
+sensation_. Even in the history of the fine arts, we find the political
+element guiding the pencil and ruling the fortunes of genius. David was
+the government painter, and regarded Gros and Girodet as _suspects_.
+He effected a revolution in Art by going back to severe anatomical
+principles in design. There were conspiracies against him in the
+studios, and war was declared between color and design; the palette
+and the pencil were in conflict; David, the Napoleon of the
+former,--Prud'hon, Géricault, Delacroix, and others, leaders in the
+latter faction. Each party was surrounded by its respective corps of
+amateurs; and military terms were in vogue in the _atelier_ and academy.
+"_S'il est permis_" says Delacroix, speaking of his Sardanapalus,
+"de comparer les petites choses aux grandes, ce fut mon Waterloo. Je
+devenais l'abomination de la peinture; il fallait me refuser l'eau et
+le sel." "If you wish to share the favors of the government," said an
+official to another artist, "you must change your manner." From the
+tyranny of external influences have arisen the incongruities of the
+French schools of painting, and especially what has been well called
+"that meretricious breed which continue to depict the Magdalen with
+the united attractions of Palestine and the Palais Royal." The large
+pictures which Gros painted during the Empire were consigned to
+long obscurity at the Restoration. The lives, too, of many of these
+cultivators of the arts of peace had a tragic close. Haydon's fate made
+a deep impression in England, because it was an exceptional case; while,
+of the modern painters of France, whose career was far more harmonious
+and successful than his, Gros drowned himself, Robert cut his throat,
+Prud'hon died in misery, and Greuze was buried in Potter's Field. The
+side of life we naturally associate with tranquillity thus offers, in
+this dramatic realm, scenes of excitement and pity. It is the same in
+literature. Witness the fierce struggle between the Romantic and Classic
+schools,--the early victories of the _enfant sublime_, Victor Hugo.
+And we must acknowledge that "_les lettres et les arts ont aussi leurs
+émeutes et leurs révolutions_," and accept the inference of one of the
+_Parisian literati_,--that "_l'esprit a toujours quelque chose de
+satanique_." Every revolution is identified with some musical air: when
+Louis XVIII. first appeared at the theatre, after his long exile, he was
+greeted with the "Vive Henri IV.," and the new constitution of 1830 was
+ushered in by the "Marseillaise." The Vaudeville theatre, we are told,
+during the Revolution and under the Empire, was essentially political.
+An imaginary resemblance between _la chaste Suzanne_ and Marie
+Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which
+Cambacères took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it
+his official protection.
+
+In the family of nations France is the child of illusions, and excites
+the sympathy of the magnanimous because her destinies have been marred
+through the errors of the imagination rather than of the heart.
+Government, religion, and society--the three great elements of civil
+life--have nowhere been so modified by the dominion of fancy over fact.
+Take the history of French republicanism, of Quietism, of court and
+literary circles; what perspicuity in the expression, and vagueness
+in the realization of ideas! In each a mania to fascinate, in none a
+thorough basis of truth; abundance of talent, but no faith; gayety,
+gallantry, wit, devotion, dreams, and epigrams in perfection, without
+the solid foundation of principles and the efficient development in
+practice, either of polity, a social system, or religious belief,--the
+theory and the sentiment of each being at the same time luxuriant,
+attractive, and prolific.
+
+The popular writers are eloquent in abstractions, but each seems
+inspired by a thorough egotism. Descartes, their philosopher, drew all
+his inferences from consciousness; Madame de Sévigné, the epistolary
+queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love
+of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of
+self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the
+lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society
+through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyère elaborated
+generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial
+society; Boileau established a classical standard of criticism suggested
+by personal taste, which ignored the progress of the human mind.
+
+The redeeming grace of the nation is to be found in its wholesome sense
+of the enjoyable and the available in ordinary life, in its freedom
+from the discontent which elsewhere is born of avarice and unmitigated
+materialism. The love of pleasing, the influence of women, and a
+frivolous temper everywhere and on all occasions signalize them. "Why,
+people laugh at everything here!" naively exclaimed the young Duchess of
+Burgundy, on her arrival at the French court.
+
+The amount of commodities taken by French people on a journey, and the
+cool self-satisfaction with which they are appropriated as occasion
+demands, give a stranger the most vivid idea of sensual egotism. The
+_pâté_, the long roll of bread, the sour wine, the lap-dog, the snuff,
+and the night-cap, which transform the car or carriage into a refectory
+and boudoir, with the chatter, snoring, and shifting of legs, make an
+interior scene for the novice, especially on a night-jaunt, compared to
+which the humblest of Dutch pictures are refined and elegant.
+
+The intrinsic diversity and the national relations between the French
+and English are curiously illustrated by their respective history and
+literature. Compare, for instance, the plays of Shakspeare, which
+dramatize the long wars of the early kings, with the account given in
+the journals of the reception of Victoria at Paris and of Louis Napoleon
+in London; imagine the royal salutation and the official recognition of
+the once anathematized Napoleon dynasty; General Bonaparte becomes in
+his tomb Napoleon I. No wonder "Punch" affirmed that the statue of Pitt
+shook its bronze head and the bones of Castlereagh stirred in protest.
+
+"The English," says a celebrated writer, "like ancient medals, kept more
+apart, preserve the first sharpness which the fair hand of Nature has
+given them; they are not so pleasant to feel, but, in return, the legend
+is so visible, that, at the first look, you can see whose image and
+superscription they bear." This is a delicate way of setting forth
+the superior honesty and bluntness and the inferior smoothness and
+assimilating instinct of the Anglo-Saxon,--a vital difference, which
+no alliance or intercourse with his Gallic neighbors can essentially
+change.
+
+A century ago there were few better tests of popular sentiment in
+England than the plays in vogue. As indications of the state of the
+public mind, they were what the ballads are to earlier times, and the
+daily press is to our own,--generalized casual, but emphatic proofs of
+the opinions, prejudices, and fancies of the hour. Now a large English
+colony is domesticated in France; it is but a few hours' trip from
+London to Paris; newspapers and the telegraph in both capitals make
+almost simultaneous announcements of news; the soldiers of the two
+nations fight side by side; the French shopman declares on his sign that
+English is spoken within; the "Times," porter, and tea are obtainable
+commodities in Paris; and _fraternité_ is the watchword at Dover and
+Calais. Yet the normal idea which obtains in the conservative brain of a
+genuine _Anglais_, though doubtless expanded and modified by intercourse
+and treaties, may be found still in that once popular drama, Foote's
+"Englishman in Paris." "A Frenchman," says one of the characters, "is a
+fop. Their taste is trifling, and their politeness pride. What the deuse
+brings you to Paris, then? Where's the use? It gives Englishmen a true
+relish for their own domestic happiness, a proper veneration for their
+national liberties, and an honor for the extended generous commerce of
+their country. The men there are all puppies, the women painted dolls."
+Monsieur Ragout and Monsieur Rosbif bandy words; the former is said to
+"look as if he had not had a piece of beef or pudding in his paunch for
+twenty years, and had lived wholly on frogs,"--and the latter pines to
+leap a five-barred gate, and is afraid of being entrapped by "a rich
+she-Papist." His fair countrywoman is invited by a French marquis to
+marry him, with this programme,--"A perpetual residence in this paradise
+of pleasures; to be the object of universal adoration; to say what you
+please,--go where you will,--do what you like,--form fashions,--hate
+your husband, and let him see it,--indulge your gallant,--run in debt,
+and oblige the poor devil to pay it."
+
+As a pendant, take the description of one of the last French novels:--"À
+Paris tout s'oublie, tout se pardonne. Par convenance, par décence,
+quelquefois par crainte, on s'absente, ou fait un entr'acte: puis le
+rideau se rèleve pour le spectacle de nouvelles fautes et de nouvelles
+folies; toute la question est de savoir s'y prendre."
+
+Comedy is native to French genius and appreciation; it follows the
+changes of social life with marvellous celerity; it is the best school
+of the French language; and is refined and subdivided, as an art, both
+in degree and kind, in France more than in any other country. The
+prolific authors in this department, and the variety and richness of
+invention they display, as well as the permanent attraction of the Comic
+Muse, are striking peculiarities of the French theatre. No capital
+affords the material and the audience requisite for such triumphs like
+Paris; and there is always a play of this kind in vogue there, wherein
+novelty of combination, significance of dialogue, and artistic
+felicities quite unrivalled elsewhere, are exhibited.
+
+It is quite the reverse with the serious drama. In England this is a
+form of literature which goes nearest to the normal facts and conditions
+of human nature; it teaches the highest and deepest lessons, wins the
+most profound sympathy, and is remarkable and interesting through its
+subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters
+of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French
+tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of
+a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or
+melodramatic invention,--not to the universal and existing passions.
+There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies--those of
+modern civilization--with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas
+or Grecian mantles rehearse the sentiments of fatalism, the creed of
+ancient mythology, or Gallic rhetoric in a classic dress; and these
+disguises so envelope the love, ambition, despair, hate, or patriotism,
+that we are always conscious of the theatrical, and it requires the
+extraordinary gifts of a Rachel to enlist other than artistic interest.
+
+The French have manuals for breathing and composing the features
+to secure artistic effects; they offer academic prizes for every
+conceivable achievement; their very lamp-posts are designed with taste;
+a huckster in the street will exhibit dramatic tact and wonderful
+mechanical dexterity. "Quand il paraît un homme de génie en France,"
+says Madame de Staël, "dans quelque carrière que ce soit, il atteint
+presque toujours à un degré de perfection sans exemple; car il réunit
+l'audace qui fait sortir de la route commune au tact du bon goût." And
+yet in vast political interests they are victims,--in the more earnest
+developments of the soul, children. A new artificial lake in the Bois de
+Boulogne, a grand military reception, news of a victory in some distant
+corner of the globe, the distribution of eagles to brave survivors,--in
+a word, an appeal to the love of amusement, of display, and of
+glory,--quiets the murmur about to rise against interference with human
+rights or usurpation of the national will. Political interests of the
+gravest character are treated with flippancy: one writer calls the
+formation of a new government Talleyrand's table of whist; and another
+casually observes that "_tous les gouvernements nouveaux ont leur lune
+de miel_."
+
+That great principle of the division of labor, which the English carry
+into mechanical and commercial affairs, the French also apply to the
+economy of life and to Art; but, as these latter interests are more
+spontaneous and unlimited, the result is often a perfection in detail,
+and a like deficiency in general effect. Thus, there are schools of
+painting in France more distinct and apart than exist elsewhere; usually
+the followers of such are distinguished for excellence in the mechanical
+aptitudes of their vocation; the figure is admirably drawn, the costume
+rightly disposed, and sometimes the degree of finish quite marvellous;
+but, usually, this superiority is attained at the expense of the
+sentiment of the picture. French historic Art, like French life, is
+apt to be extravagant and melodramatic, or over-refined in unimportant
+particulars; it often lacks moral harmony,--the grand, simple, true
+reflection of Nature in its nicety. Delaroche, who, of all French
+painters, rose most above the adventitious, and gave himself to the soul
+of Art, to pure expression, was, for this very reason, thought by his
+brother artists to be cold and unattractive. There is one sphere,
+however, where this exclusiveness of style and partition of labor are
+productive of the most felicitous results: namely, the minor drama. In
+England and America the same theatre exhibits opera, melodrama, tragedy,
+comedy, rope-dancing, and legerdemain; but in Paris, each branch and
+element of histrionic art has its separate temple, its special corps of
+actors and authors, nay, its particular class of subjects; hence their
+unrivalled perfection. Ingenuity, science, and Art are concentrated by
+thus assigning free and individual scope to the dramatic niceties and
+phases of life, of history, of genius, and of society. At the Opera
+Comique you find one kind of musical creation; at the Italiens the
+lyrical drama of Southern Europe alone; at the Variétés a unique order
+of comic dialogue; and at the Porte St. Martin yet another species of
+play. One theatre gives back the identical tone of existing society and
+current events; another deals with the classical ideas of the past.
+Satire and song, the horrible and the brilliant, the graceful and the
+highly artistic, pictorial, elocutionary, pantomimic, tragic, vocal,
+statuesque, the past and present, all the elements of Art and of life,
+find representation in the plot, the language, the sentiment, the
+costume, the music, and the scenery of the many Parisian theatres.
+
+Yet how much of this superiority is fugitive! how little in the whole
+dramatic development takes permanent hold upon popular sympathy! Much
+of its significance is purely local, and of its interest altogether
+temporary. Scholars and the higher classes can talk eloquently of
+Corneille and Racine; the beaux and _spirituelle_ women of the day can
+repeat and enjoy the last hit of Scribe, or the new _bon-mot_ of
+the theatre: but contrast these results with the national love and
+appreciation of Shakspeare,--with the permanent reflection of Spanish
+life in Lope de Vega,--the patriotic aspirations which the young Italian
+broods over in the tragedies of Alfieri. The grace of movement, the
+triumph of tact and ingenuity, the devotion to conventionalism, either
+pedantry or the genius of the hour, also rules the drama in Paris. With
+all its brilliancy, entertainment, grace, wit, and popularity,--there
+exists not a permanently vital and universally recognized type of this
+greatest department of literature, familiar and endeared alike to
+peasant and peer, a representative of humanity for all time,--like the
+bard around whose name and words cluster the Anglo-Saxon hearts and
+intelligence from generation to generation.
+
+But nowhere do life and the drama so trench upon each other; nowhere is
+every incident of experience so dramatic. Miss H.M. Williams told the
+poet Rogers that she had seen "men and women, waiting for admission at
+the door of the theatre, suddenly leave their station, on the passing of
+a set of wretches going to be guillotined, and then, having ascertained
+that none of their relations or friends were among them, very
+unconcernedly return to the door of the theatre." A child is born at the
+Opera Comique during the performance, and it is instantly made an event
+of sympathy and effect by the audience; a subscription is raised, the
+child named for the dramatic heroine of the moment, and the fortunate
+mother sent home in a carriage, amid the plaudits of the crowd. You are
+listening to a play; and a copy of the "Entr'acte" is thrust into your
+hand, containing a minute account of the death of a statesman two
+squares off whose name fills pages of history, or a battle in the East,
+where some officer whom you met two months before on the Boulevard has
+won immortal fame by prodigies of valor. So do the actualities and the
+pastimes, the real and the imaginary drama, miraculously interfuse at
+Paris; the comedy of life is patent there, and often the spectator
+exclaims, "_Arlequin avait bien arrangé les choses, mais Colombine
+dérange tout!_"
+
+The Parisian females are "unexceptionably shod,"--but the agricultural
+instruments now in use in the rural districts of France are of a form
+and mechanism which, to a Yankee farmer, would seem antediluvian; the
+cooks, gardeners, and other working-people, have annually the most
+graceful festivals,--but the traveller sees in the fields women so
+bronzed and wrinkled by toil and exposure that their sex is hardly to be
+recognized. When the Gothamite passes along Pearl or Broad Street,
+he beholds the daily spectacle of unemployed carmen reading
+newspapers;--there may be said to be no such thing as popular literature
+in France; mental recreation, such as the German and Scotch peasantry
+enjoy, is unknown there. The Art and letters of the kingdom flourished
+in her court and were cultivated as an aristocratic element for so long
+a period, that neither has become domesticated among the lower classes;
+we find in them the sentiment of military glory, of religion in its
+superstitious phase, of music perhaps, of rustic festivity,--but not the
+enjoyments which spring from or are associated with thought and poetic
+sympathies such as national writers like Burns inspired. An exception
+comparatively recent may be found in the popular appreciation of
+Béranger and Souvestre.
+
+There is not a natural object too beautiful or an occasion too solemn
+to arrest the French tendency to the theatrical. Even one of their most
+ardent eulogists remarks,--"All that can be said against the French
+sublime is this,--that the grandeur is more in the word than in the
+thing; the French expression professes more than it performs"; and old
+Montaigne declares that "lying is not a vice among the French, _but a
+way of speaking_." Both observations admit too much; and indicate an
+habitual departure from Nature and simplicity as a national trait.
+Who but Frenchmen ever delighted in reducing to artificial shapes the
+graceful forms of vegetable life, or can so far lay aside the sentiment
+of grief as to engage in rhetorical panegyrics over the fresh graves
+of departed friends? Compare the high dead wall with its range of
+flower-pots, the porches undecked by woodbines or jessamine, the formal
+paths, the proximate kitchen, stables, and ungarnished _salon_ of
+a French villa, with the hedges, meadows, woodlands, and trellised
+eglantine of an English country-house; and a glance assures us that
+to the former nation the country is a _dernier ressort_, and not an
+endeared seclusion. Yet they romance, in their way, on rural subjects:
+"_À la campagne_," says one of their poets, "_où chaque feuille qui
+tombe est une élégie toute faite_." Through an avenue of scraggy poplars
+we approach a dilapidated _château_, whose owner is playing dominoes
+at the café of the nearest provincial town, or exhausting the sparse
+revenues of the estate at the theatres, roulette-tables, or balls of
+Paris. People leave these for a rural vicinage only to economize, to
+hide chagrin, or to die. So recognized is this indifference to Nature
+and inaptitude for rural life in France, that, when we desire to
+express the opposite of natural tastes, we habitually use the word
+"Frenchified." The idea which a Parisian has of a tree is that of a
+convenient appendage to a lamp. The traveller never sees artificial
+light reflected from green leaves, without thinking of his evening
+promenades in the French capital, or a dance in the groves of
+Montmorency. The old verbal tyranny of the French Academy, the
+painted wreaths sold at cemetery-gates, the colored plates of fashions,
+powdered hair, and rouged cheeks, typify and illustrate this irreverent
+ambition to pervert Nature and create artificial effects; they are but
+so many forms of the theatrical instinct, and proofs of the ascendency
+of meretricious taste. It is this want of loyalty to Nature, and
+insensibility to her unadulterated charms, which constitute the real
+barrier between the Gallic mind and that of England and Italy, and
+which explain the fervent protest of such men as Alfieri and Coleridge.
+Simplicity and earnestness are the normal traits of efficient character,
+whether developed in action or Art, in sentiment or reflection; and
+manufactured verse, vegetation, and complexions indicate a faith in
+appearances and a divorce from reality, which, in political interests,
+tend to compromise, to theory, and to acquiescence in a military
+_régime_ and an embellished absolutism.
+
+It is this incompleteness, this comparative untruth, that gives rise to
+the dissatisfaction we feel in the last analysis of French character.
+It is delusive. The promise of beauty held out by external taste is
+unfulfilled; the fascination of manner bears a vastly undue proportion
+to the substantial kindness and trust which that immediate charm
+suggests. "Just Heaven!" exclaims Yorick, "for what wise reasons hast
+thou ordered it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance
+in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?" The
+bearing of an Englishman seldom awakens expectation of courtesy
+or entertainment; yet, if vouchsafed, how to be relied on is the
+friendship! how generous the hospitality! The urbane salutation with
+which a Frenchman greets the female passenger, as she enters a public
+conveyance, is not followed by the offer of his seat or a slice of his
+reeking _pâtè_,--while the roughest backwoodsman in America, who never
+touched his hat or inclined his body to a stranger, will guard a
+woman from insult, and incommode himself to promote her comfort, with
+respectful alacrity. It is so in literature. How often we eagerly follow
+the clear exposition of a subject in the pages of a French author, to
+reach an impotent conclusion! or suffer our sympathies to be enlisted by
+the admirable description of an interior or a character in one of their
+novels, to find the plot which embodies them an absurd melodrama!
+Evanescence is the law of Parisian felicities,--selfishness the
+background of French politeness,--sociability flourishes in an inverse
+ratio to attachment; we become skeptical almost in proportion as we are
+attracted. If we ask the way, we are graciously directed; but if we
+demand the least sacrifice, we must accept volubility for service. Thus
+the perpetual flowering in manners, in philosophy, in politics, and in
+economy, is rarely accompanied by fruit in either. To enjoy Paris, we
+must cease to be in earnest;--to pass the time, and not to wrest from it
+a blessing or a triumph, is the main object. The badges, the gardens,
+the smiles, the agreeable phrase, the keen repartee, the tempting dish,
+the ingenious _vaudeville_, the pretty foot, the elegant chair and
+becoming curtain, the extravagant gesture, the pointed epigram or
+alluring formula, must be taken as so many agreeabilities,--not for
+things performed, but imaginatively promised. The folly of war has been
+demonstrated to the entire sense of mankind; at best, it is now deemed
+a painful necessity; yet the most serious phase of life in France is
+military. Depth and refinement of feeling are lonely growths, and can no
+more spring up in a gregarious and festal life than trees in quicksands;
+citizenship is based on consistent acts, not on verbosity; and
+brilliant accompaniments never reconcile strong hearts to the loss of
+independence, which some English author has acutely declared the first
+essential of a gentleman. The civilization of France is an artistic and
+scientific materialism; the spiritual element is wanting. Paris is the
+theatre of nations; we must regard it as a continuous spectacle, a
+boundless museum, a place of diversion, of study,--not of faith, the
+deepest want and most sacred birthright of humanity.
+
+The want of directness, the absence of candor, the non-recognition of
+truth in its broad and deep sense, is, indeed, a characteristic phase
+of life, of expression, and of manners in France. A lover of his nation
+confesses that even in "_galantes aventures l'esprit prenait la place
+du coeur, la fantaisie celle du sentiment_." Voltaire's creed was, that
+"_le mensonge n'est un vice que quand il fait du mal; c'est une grande
+vertu quand il fait du bien_." "_L'exagération_" says De Maistre, "_est
+le mensonge des honnêtes gens_."
+
+In every aspect the histrionic prevails,--by facility of association and
+colloquial aptitude in the common intercourse of life,--by the inventive
+element in dress, furniture, and material arrangements, plastic to the
+caprice of taste and ingenuity,--by the habitudes of out-of-door life,
+giving greater variety and adaptation to manners,--and by a national
+temperament, susceptible and demonstrative. The current vocabulary
+suggests a perpetual recourse to the casual, a shifting of the
+life-scene, a recognition of the temporary and accidental. Such
+oft-recurring words as _flâneur_, _liaison_, _badinage_, etc., have no
+exact synonymes in other tongues. All that is done, thought, and felt
+takes a dramatic expression. Lamartine elaborates a "History of
+the Restoration" from two reports,--the one monarchical, the other
+republican,--and, by making the facts picturesque and sentimental, wins
+countless readers. Comte elaborates a masterly analysis of the sciences,
+proclaims a fascinating theory of eras or stages in human development;
+but the positive philosophy, of which all this is but the introduction,
+to be applied to the individual and society, eludes, at last, direct and
+complete application. A popular _savant_ dies, and students drag the
+hearse and scatter flowers over the grave; a philosopher lectures, and
+immediately his disciples form a school, and advocate his system with
+the ardor of partisans; a disappointed soldier commits suicide by
+throwing himself from Napoleon's column, while a _grisette_ and her
+lover make their exit through a last embrace and the fumes of charcoal;
+a wit seeks revenge with a clever repartee instead of his fists or cane.
+A lady is the centre of attraction at a reception, and, upon inquiry, we
+are gravely informed that the charm lies in the fact, that, though now
+fat and more than forty, as well as married to an old noble, in her
+youth she was the mistress of a celebrated poet. Notoriety, even when
+scandalous, is as good a social distinction as birth, fame, or beauty.
+Rousseau wrote a love-story, and sentiment became the rage. An artisan
+has a day to spare, and takes his family to a garden or a dance. Human
+existence, thus embellished, impulsive, and caricatured, becomes
+a continuous melodrama, with an occasional catastrophe induced by
+political revolutions. Louis XIV., the most characteristic king France
+ever had, is a genuine representative of this theatrical instinct and
+development.
+
+Herein may we find a key to the riddle of governmental vicissitudes
+in France. People so easily satisfied with illusions, so fertile in
+superficial expedients, are like children and savages in their sense of
+what is novel and amusing, and their love of excitement,--and make
+no such demands upon reality as full-grown men and educated citizens
+instinctively crave. Their powers, in this regard, have not been
+disciplined,--their wants but vaguely realized. Accustomed to look out
+of themselves for a law of action, to consult authority upon every
+occasion, to defer to official sources for guidance in every detail of
+municipal and personal affairs,--the lesson of self-dependence,
+the courage and the knowledge needful for efficiency are wanting.
+"_Savez-vous_," asks an epicure, "_ce qui a chassé la gaîté? C'est la
+politique_." They rally at the voice of command, submit to interference,
+and take for granted a prescribed formula, partly because it is
+troublesome to think, and partly on account of inexperience in assuming
+responsibility. De Tocqueville has remarked, that, in every instance
+of attempted colonization, they have adapted themselves to, instead of
+elevating savage tribes. They have never gone through the process of
+state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the
+Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability
+realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow
+reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things
+that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and
+will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of
+political training. But those who look deeper know that this political
+inefficiency is but the external manifestation or the latent cause of
+more serious defects: by impeding healthful development in one way, it
+occasions a morbid development in another. If citizenship in its most
+free and active privilege were enjoyed, there would be less devotion to
+amusement, a more virile national character, and the sanctities of
+life would have observance. Public spirit and a political career are
+incentives to manly ambition,--to an employment of mind and feeling
+that wins men from trifling pursuits and vain diversion; they are the
+national basis of private usefulness; to thwart them is to condemn
+humanity to perpetual childhood,--to render members of a state machines.
+
+The social evils and kinds of crime in France are referable in no
+small degree to the absence of great motives,--the limited spheres and
+hopeless routine involved in arbitrary government, unsustained by any
+elevated sentiment. Such a rule makes literature servile, enterprise
+mercenary, and manners profligate: all history proves this. It is not,
+therefore, rational to infer, from the apparent want of ability in the
+nation to take care of its own affairs, that a military despotism is
+justifiable; when the truth is equally demonstrated, that such a sway,
+by indefinitely postponing the chance to acquire the requisite training,
+keeps down and throws back the national impulse and destiny. The man who
+thus abuses power is none the less a traitor and a parricide.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+"Mr. Geer!"
+
+Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.
+
+This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently warm appreciation of Mrs.
+Geer's social charms; but the enormity of the offence will be greatly
+modified by a brief review of the attending circumstances. If you will
+but consider that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
+stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies,--that the cushion of a
+capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted as if with a single eye
+to a delicious dose, nay, to a long succession of doses, is a powerful
+temptation to a sleepy soul,--that the regular, and, it must be
+confessed, somewhat monotonous _click, click, click_ of Mrs. Geer's
+knitting-needles only served to measure, without disturbing the
+silence,--and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife for thirty
+years,--you will not cease to wonder that Mr. Geer
+
+  "was glorious,
+  O'er all the ills of life victorious."
+
+To most men, an interruption at such a time would have been particularly
+annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or
+awake, always made a point of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned
+his round, honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his bosom,
+who went on,--
+
+"Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall."
+
+"Possible?" replied Mr. Geer. "Who'd 'a' thunk it?"
+
+Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker, or rather, a
+free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact, he tyrannized over
+all parts of speech: wrested nouns and verbs from their original shape,
+till you could hardly recognize their distorted faces; and committed
+that next worst sin to murdering one's mother, namely,--murdering one's
+mother-tongue, with an _abandon_ that was absolutely fascinating. Having
+delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he at once subsided, closed
+his placid eyes, and retired into his inner world of--thought, perhaps.
+
+"_Mr. Geer!_"
+
+This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about him scared,
+blinking eyes.
+
+"Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time so?"
+
+"Sleep? I--I--am sure, I was never wider awake in my life."
+
+"Well, then, tell me what I said."
+
+"Said? Eh,--eh,--something about Ivy, wasn't it?"
+
+And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced
+his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had
+been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her
+own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; so she answered,--
+
+"Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?"
+
+"Lud, lud! What's the matter?" asked Mr. Geer, wildly.
+
+"Matter? Why, she'll be seventeen, come fall, and doesn't know a thing."
+
+"O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'."
+
+And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair once more.
+He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of smallpox, cholera, and
+throat-distemper, the worst evils that he could think of and dread for
+his darling, had been conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found
+the real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly fallen on
+his heart, was as suddenly lifted.
+
+"But I tell you it _is_ something," continued Mrs. Geer, energetically.
+"Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been ten miles from home in her
+life, and to no school but our little district"----
+
+"And she's as pairk a gal," interrupted Mr. Geer, "as any you'll find in
+all the ten miles round, be the other who she will."
+
+"She's well enough in her way," replied Mrs. Geer, in all the humility
+of motherly pride; "and so much the more reason why she shouldn't be let
+go so. There's Mr. Dingham sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's
+seminary. (I wonder if he expects they'll ever turn out anything.) And
+here's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well able to maintain
+her like a lady, and have done nothing but turn her out to grass all her
+life, till she's fairly run wild. I declare it's a shame. She ought to
+be sent to school to-morrow."
+
+"Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' lo have no such doin's.
+Sha'n't go off to school. What's the use havin' her, if she can't stay
+at home with us? Let Mr. Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to.
+All the book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy with
+only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin' up high-falutin'
+notions. She's all gold now. She don't need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge
+an inch. Sha'n't stir a step."
+
+"But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us some time. We
+can't have her always."
+
+"Why can't we?" exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides you and me, I
+suppose, that thinks she's pairk. What's John Herricks and Dan Norris
+hangin' round for all the time?"
+
+"And they may hang round till the cows come home! Nary hair of Ivy's
+head shall they touch,--nary one on em!"
+
+Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question bounded into
+the room.
+
+"Come here, Ivy," said the old man; "your mother's been a-slanderin'
+you; says you don't know nothin'."
+
+Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and turned upon him
+a pair of palpably roguish eyes.
+
+"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."
+
+"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
+Herricks, do you?"
+
+"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"
+
+"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"
+
+"Never a one, father."
+
+"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
+for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
+You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
+to go away, Ivy."
+
+"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
+syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
+live."
+
+"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"
+
+And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
+with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
+parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
+She had said she would not, and of course she would not."
+
+"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
+could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his
+everlasting smirk, and his diddling walk, and take care of all the
+Herricks' sisters and mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and
+horses and pigs--and--hens--and--and"----
+
+But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer than ever before
+in her life; and ere she had finished the inventory of John Herricks's
+personal property and real estate, the blue eyes were closed in the
+sweet, sound sleep of youth and health.
+
+Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments, was partly
+right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been "finished" at Mrs. Porter's
+seminary, and was consequently in a highly unfinished condition. "Small
+Latin and less Greek" jostled each other in her head. German and French,
+Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy. She could not dance,
+nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor work little dogs on footstools.
+
+What, then, could she do?
+
+_Imprimis_, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. _Secundo_, she could
+walk across the great beam in the barn like a year-old kitten. In the
+pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold,
+from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
+under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some
+inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure.
+With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly
+and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer
+consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
+behind. Without saddle or bridle she could
+
+  "Ride a black horse
+  To Banbury Cross."
+
+(N.B.--I don't say she actually did. I only say she could; and under
+sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt she would.) She knew
+where the purple violets and the white innocence first flecked the
+spring turf, and where the ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs.
+All the little waddling, downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and
+faint-hearted, desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and
+shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the
+morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool,
+and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True
+Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
+Legion!
+
+From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have faithfully
+reported, a casual observer, particularly if young and inexperienced,
+might infer that the question of Miss Ivy's education was definitively
+settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof.
+I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and
+intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
+a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that
+appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something,
+and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow
+over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
+does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman
+can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to
+tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything
+will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,--one to his
+farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs
+just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor of her way
+unmoved:
+
+  "Beware! beware!
+  Trust her not; she is fooling thee."
+
+Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like Napoleon, she was
+never more elated than after a defeat. Before consulting her husband
+at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had
+deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the
+senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
+and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
+notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the
+next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly,
+as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that departure had been
+fixed.
+
+Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time. She had a sublime
+faith in herself. She felt in her soul the divine afflatus, and pressed
+forward gloriously to her goal. Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to
+say obstinacy, as falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more;
+and as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, "A woman in
+the very house has such deused opportunities!" so Farmer Geer grumbled,
+and squirmed, and remonstrated, and--yielded.
+
+Mrs. Geer was _not_ right. She had reckoned without her host. Her
+affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way of prosperity in a
+chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders, when, presto! they turned
+a sharp and unexpected corner, and over went the whole establishment
+into a mirier mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.
+
+To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira was announced to
+Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady, to the ill-concealed vexation of
+her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed exultation of her
+father, expressed decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she
+was the chief _dramatis persona_, the very Hamlet of the play, this
+unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All
+the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one
+point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty
+were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any
+allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only
+hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own
+will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth.
+One last resort, one forlorn hope,--one expedient, which had never
+failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her
+parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst
+into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father
+and mother by going away from them. This drove the nail into her old
+father's heart, and then the little vixen clenched it by throwing
+herself into his arms, and sobbing, "Oh, papa! would you turn your Ivy
+out of doors and break her heart?"
+
+Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she was the only and
+beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy passed unchallenged; the
+strong arms closed around the naughty girl; and the soothing voice
+murmured, "There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you sha'n't
+be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!" and the _status quo_ was
+restored.
+
+  "It is not in the sea nor in the strife
+  We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
+  But in the after silence on the shore,
+  When all is lost, except a little life,"
+
+said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
+fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
+be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
+her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
+been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
+authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
+emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
+disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
+miserable.
+
+"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
+were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
+decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
+care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
+a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
+be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
+heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
+if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
+would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
+_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
+and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
+just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
+whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
+Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
+B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
+enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
+Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be
+sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric, and I don't believe he knows
+much, either; and there's nobody else in town that knows any more than
+anybody else; and there's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I
+am ever to know anything." (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted for several
+minutes.) "There's Mr. Clerron!" (A sudden cessation.) "I suppose he
+knows more than the whole town tumbled into one; and writes books,
+and--mercy! there's no end to his knowledge; and he's rich, and does
+everything he likes, all day long. Oh, if I only _did_ know him! I would
+ask him straight off to teach me. I should be scared to death. I've a
+great mind to ask him, as it is. I can tell him who I am. He never will
+know any other way, for he isn't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
+as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would rather ask
+him than go to school. He might just as well do something as not. I am
+sure, if God had made me him, and him me, I should be glad to help him.
+I'll go straight to him the first thing to-morrow morning."
+
+Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow vanished.
+Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did she sing about the
+house that night; for she was summoning all her powers to prepare an
+introductory speech to Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar.
+Her elocutionary attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
+she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she took heart of
+grace, slung her broadbrimmed hat over her arm, and began her march
+"over the hills and far away," in search of her--fate.
+
+"And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on such an errand,
+to a perfect stranger?"
+
+Humanly speaking, nothing was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a
+prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such
+an--to use the mildest term--unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact
+is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of the plan.
+
+"Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without leave? without even
+informing her parents?"
+
+I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life, one
+cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper, not to say
+indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres generally. Duty
+compels me to adhere closely to the truth; and for whatever of obloquy
+may be heaped upon me, or upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the
+words of the illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious
+Taylor; I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
+Washington:--"Do right, and let the consequences take care of
+themselves." I am therefore obliged to say, that Ivy's departure in
+pursuit of knowledge was entirely unknown to her respected and beloved
+parents. But you must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
+child,--spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents, somewhat
+advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do not defend Ivy. On
+the contrary, notwithstanding my regard for her, I hand her over to the
+reprobation of an enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
+persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take warning by the
+fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any important undertaking, until
+they have, to say the least, consulted those who are their natural
+guides, their warmest friends, and their most experienced counsellors.
+
+While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart, fleet of foot,
+and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and
+across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron,
+Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that
+enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
+breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat
+stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance
+of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; but
+in her excitement she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the
+door-step, as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before, (not
+in the same place,) with the "wind blowing her fair hair about her
+beautiful cheeks."
+
+There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague rumor, that,
+instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian, with your own good
+knuckles, for such case made and provided, modern fashion had introduced
+"the ringing and the dinging of the bells." This vague rumor found
+a local habitation, when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
+established himself, his men and women and horses and cattle; but as
+Ivy stood on his door-step, looking upward, downward, sidewise, with
+earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and no sign of bell, was visible;
+nothing unusual, save a little door-knob at the right-hand side of the
+door,--a thing which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
+deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must be inside,
+and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So she tried to twist it,
+first one way, then the other; but twist it would not. In despair she
+betook herself to her fingers and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again.
+No use. Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled path,
+selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her station before the
+door, and began to pound away. In a moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown
+and smoking-cap, with a cigar between his fingers, came round the
+corner. Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
+bowed, and, with a polite "allow me," stepped to the door, pulled the
+bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not so confused at being
+detected in her assault and battery on the door of a respectable,
+peaceable, private gentleman, as not to make the silent reflection,
+"Pulled the knob, instead of twisting it. How easy it is to do a
+thing, if you only know how!"
+
+The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into
+a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully
+fresh and _green_-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,--then a step in
+the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
+the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single glance showed her
+that he was the person who had rung the bell for her, though the gay
+dressing-gown had been changed for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed.
+Ivy, hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, "I am Ivy Geer." A
+half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered behind the heavy beard, and
+gleamed beneath the heavy eyebrows, as he answered, "I am happy to
+make your acquaintance"; but another glance at the trembling form, the
+frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile into one
+that was very good-natured, and even kind; and he added, playfully,--
+
+"I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service."
+
+"You write books and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly,
+never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her
+hat-strings.
+
+There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing a little
+diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct bit of information. She
+made the assertion with the air of one who has a disagreeable piece of
+business on hand, and is determined to go through with it as soon as
+possible. He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily,--since, as I
+have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed on the carpet. A
+slight pause for breath and she pitched ahead again.
+
+"I am very ignorant, and I am growing old. I am almost seventeen. I
+don't know anything to speak of. Mamma wishes me to go to school. Papa
+did not, but now he does. I won't go. I would rather be stupid all my
+life long than leave home. But mamma is vexed, and I want to please
+her, and I thought,--Mr. Brownslow is so busy,--and you,--if you have
+nothing to do,--and know so much,--I thought"------
+
+She stopped short, utterly unable to proceed. Wonderfully different did
+this affair seem from the one she had planned the preceding evening. My
+dear Sir, Madam,--have not we, too, sometimes found it an easier thing
+to fight the battle of life in our own chimney-corner, by the ruddy and
+genial firelight, than in broad day on the world's great battle-field?
+
+Mr. Clerron, seeing Ivy's confusion, kindly came to her aid. "And you
+thought my superfluous time and wisdom might be transferred to you, thus
+making a more equal division of property?"
+
+"If you would be so good,--I,--yes, Sir."
+
+"May I inquire how you propose to effect such an exchange?"
+
+He really did not intend to be anything but kind, but the whole matter
+presented itself to him in a very ludicrous light; and in endeavoring to
+preserve proper gravity, he became severe. Ivy, all-unused to the world,
+still had a secret feeling that he was laughing at her. Tears, that
+would not be repressed, glistened in her downcast eyes, gathered on the
+long lashes, dropped silently to the floor. He saw that she was entirely
+a child, ignorant, artless, and sincere. His better feelings were
+roused, and he exclaimed, with real earnestness,--
+
+"My dear young lady, I should rejoice to serve you in any way, I beg you
+to believe."
+
+His words only hastened the catastrophe which seems to be always
+impending over the weaker sex. Ivy sobbed outright,--a perfect tempest.
+Felix Clerron looked on with a bachelor's dismay. "What in thunder?
+Confound the girl!" were his first reflections; but her utter
+abandonment to sorrow melted his heart again,--not a very susceptible
+heart either; but men, especially bachelors, are so--_green!_ (the word
+is found in Cowper.)
+
+He sat down by her side, stroked the hair from her burning forehead, as
+if she had been six instead of sixteen, and again and again assured her
+of his willingness to assist her.
+
+"I must go home," whispered Ivy, as soon as she could command, or rather
+coax her voice.
+
+His hospitality was shocked.
+
+"Indeed you must not, till we have at least had a consultation. Tell me
+how much you know. What have you studied?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, Sir. I am very stupid."
+
+"Ah! we must begin with the Alphabet, then. Blocks or a primer?"
+
+Ivy smiled through her tears.
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, Sir."
+
+"You do know your letters? Perhaps you can even count, and spell your
+name; maybe write it. Pray, enlighten me."
+
+Ivy grew calm as he became playful.
+
+"I can cipher pretty well. I have been through Greenleaf's Large."
+
+"House or meadow? And the exact dimensions, if you please."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I understood you to say you had traversed Greenleaf's large. You did
+not designate what."
+
+He was laughing at her now, indeed, but it was open and genial, and she
+joined.
+
+"My Arithmetic, of course. I supposed everybody knew that. Everybody
+calls it so."
+
+"Time is short. Yes. We are an abbreviating nation. Do you like
+Arithmetic?"
+
+"Pretty well, some parts of it. Fractions and Partial Payments. But I
+can't bear Duodecimals, Position, and such things."
+
+"Positions are occasionally embarrassing. And Grammar?"
+
+"I think it's horrid. It's all 'indicative mood, common noun, third
+person, singular number, and agrees with John.'"
+
+"_Bravissima!_ A comprehensive sketch! _A multum in parvo!_ A bird's-eye
+view, as one may say,--and not entertaining, certainly. What other
+branches have you pursued? Drawing, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, no, Sir!"
+
+"Nor Music?"
+
+"No, Sir."
+
+"Good, my dear! excellent! An overruling Providence has saved you and
+your friends from many a pitfall. Shall we proceed to History? Be so
+good as to inform me who discovered America."
+
+"I believe Columbus has the credit of it," replied Ivy, demurely.
+
+"Non-committal, I see. Case goes strongly in his favor, but you reserve
+your judgment till further evidence."
+
+"I think he was a wise and good and enterprising man."
+
+"But are rather skeptical about that San Salvador story. A wise course.
+Never decide till both sides have been fairly presented. 'He that
+judgeth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto
+him,' said the wise man. Occasionally his after-judgment is
+equally discreditable. That is a thousand times worse. Exit Clio.
+Enter--well!--Geographia. My young friend, what celebrated city has
+the honor of concentrating the laws, learning, and literature of
+Massachusetts, to wit, namely, is its capital?"
+
+"Boston, Sir."
+
+"My dear, your Geography has evidently been attended to. You have
+learned the basis fact. You have discovered the pivot on which the world
+turns. You have dug down to the ante-diluvian, ante-pyrean granite,--the
+primitive, unfused stratum of society. The force of learning can no
+farther go. Armed with that fact, you may march fearlessly forth to do
+battle with the world, the flesh, and--the--ahem--the King of Beasts!
+Do you think you should like me for a teacher?"
+
+"I can't tell, Sir. I did not like you as anything awhile ago."
+
+"But you like me better now? You think I improve on acquaintance? You
+detect signs of a moral reformation?"
+
+"No, Sir, I don't like you now. I only don't dislike you so much as I
+did."
+
+"Spoken like a major-general, or, better still, like a brave little
+Yankee girl, as you are. I am an enthusiastic admirer of truth. I
+foresee we shall get on famously. I was rather premature in sounding the
+state of your affections, it must be confessed,--but we shall be rare
+friends by-and-by. On the whole, you are not particularly fond of
+books?"
+
+"I like some books well enough, but not studying-books," said Ivy, with
+a sigh, "and I don't see any good in them. If it wasn't for mamma, I
+never would open one,--never! I would just as soon be a dunce as not; I
+don't see anything very horrid in it."
+
+"An opinion which obtains with a wonderfully large proportion of our
+population, and is applied in practice with surprising success. There is
+a distinction, however, my dear young lady, which you must immediately
+learn to make. The dunce subjective is a very inoffensive animal,
+contented, happy, and harmless; and, as you justly remark, inspires no
+horror, but rather an amiable and genial self-complacency. The dunce
+objective, on the contrary, is of an entirely different species. He is a
+bore of the first magnitude,--a poisoned arrow, that not only pierces,
+but inflames,--a dull knife, that not only cuts, but tears,--a cowardly
+little cur, that snaps occasionally, but snarls unceasingly; whom,
+which, and that, it becomes the duty of all good citizens to sweep from
+the face of the earth."
+
+"What is the difference between them? How shall one know which is
+which?"
+
+"The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point of view,--the
+dunce with his eyes turned inward,--confining his duncehood to the bosom
+of his family. The dunce objective is the dunce butting against his
+neighbor's study-door,--intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid
+folly and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He is a
+creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's angels, in one
+respect at least: you may thrust him through and through with the
+two-edged sword of your satire, and at the end he shall be as intact and
+integral as at the beginning. Am I sufficiently obvious?"
+
+"It is very obvious that I am both, according to your definition."
+
+"It is very obvious that you are neither, I beg to submit, but a
+sensible young girl,--with no great quantity of the manufactured
+article, perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being wrought
+into fabric of the finest quality."
+
+"Do you really think I can learn?" asked Ivy, with a bright blush of
+pleasure.
+
+"Demonstrably certain."
+
+"As much as if I went to school?"
+
+"My dear miss, as the forest oak, 'cabined, cribbed, confined' with
+multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby, and dwarfed, but,
+brought into the open fields alone, stretches out its arms to the blue
+heavens and its roots to the kindly earth, so that the birds of the air
+lodge in the branches thereof, and men sit under its shadow with great
+delight,--so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care, flourish
+like a green bay-tree; that is, if I am to have the honor."
+
+"Yes, Sir, I mean--I meant--I was thinking as if you were teaching me--I
+mean were going to teach me."
+
+"Which I also mean, if time and the favoring gods allow, and your
+parents continue to wish it."
+
+"Oh, they won't care!"
+
+"Won't care?"
+
+"No, Sir, they will be glad, I think. Papa, at least, will be glad to
+have me stay at home."
+
+"Did not they direct you to come to me to-day?"
+
+Ivy blushed deeply, and replied, in a low voice, "No, Sir; I knew mamma
+would not let me come, if I asked her."
+
+"And to prevent any sudden temptation to disobedience, and a consequent
+forfeiture of your peace of mind, you took time by the forelock and came
+on your own responsibility?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Very ingenious, upon my word! An accomplished casuist! A born Jesuit!
+But, my dear Miss Geer, I must confess I have not this happy feminine
+knack of keeping out of the way of temptation. I should prefer to
+consult your friends, even at the risk of losing the pleasure of your
+society."
+
+"Oh, yes, Sir! I don't care, now it is all settled."
+
+And so, over hill-side, along wood-path, and through meadow-land, with
+light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy back again. To Mrs. Geer
+shelling peas in the shady porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with
+his straw hat on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her
+adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was
+lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase;
+Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed
+the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron
+rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the points of his
+Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's scarlet verbena, and assured
+them he should be very glad to refresh his own early studies, and also
+to form an acquaintance with the family,--he knew very few in the
+village,--and if Mrs. Geer would drive over when Ivy came to recite,--or
+perhaps they would rather he should come to their house. Oh, no! Mrs.
+Geer could not think of that. Just as they pleased. Mrs. Simm, the
+housekeeper, would be very glad of Mrs. Geer's company while Miss Ivy
+was reciting, in case Mrs. Geer should not wish to listen; and the house
+and grounds would be shown by Mrs. Simm with great pleasure. By the way,
+Mrs. Simm was a thrifty and sensible woman, and he was sure they would
+be mutually pleased.--When, in short, all this and much more had been
+said, it was decided that Ivy should be regularly installed pupil of Mr.
+Felix Clerron.
+
+"_Eureka!_" cries the professional novel-reader, that far-sighted and
+keen-scented hound that snuffs a _dénouement_ afar off; and anon there
+rises before his eyes the vision of poor little Stella drinking in love
+and learning, especially love, from the divine eyes of the anything but
+divine Swift,--of Shirley, the lioness, the pantheress, the leopardess,
+the beautiful, fierce creature, sitting, tamed, quiet, meek, by the side
+of Louis Moore, her tutor and master,--and of all the legends of all the
+ages wherein Beauty has sat at the feet of Wisdom, and Love has crept
+in unawares, and spoiled the lesson while as yet half-unlearnt;--so
+he cries, "She is going the way of all heroines. The man and the
+girl,--they will fall in love, marry, and live happily all the rest of
+their days."
+
+Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should not? If any man
+can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
+him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.
+
+I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should,
+in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall
+in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital
+principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye
+sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning
+words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling
+work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a
+weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and
+heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not?
+Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming,
+floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid _soupçon_ of
+curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite
+distress, Adolphus and Miranda have made
+
+  "One of the very best matches,
+  Both well mated for life:
+  She's got a fool for her husband,
+  He's got a fool for his wife."
+
+Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry that gilds
+with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of many a prosaic life.
+"Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime"; tramp behind the plough,
+hammer on the lapstone, beat the anvil, drive the plane, "from morn till
+dewy eve"; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams soft and
+golden over the far-off pinetrees, but
+
+  "The star that lightens your bosom most,
+  And gives to your weary feet their speed,
+  Abides in a cottage beyond the mead."
+
+It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare. Threadbare
+it may be to you, enervated and _blasé_ man of pleasure, worn and
+hardened man of the world; but it is not for you I write. The fountain
+which leaps up fresh and living in every new life can never be exhausted
+till the springs of all life are dry. Tell me, O lover, gazing into
+those tender eyes uplifted to yours, twining the silken rings around
+your bronzed finger, pressing reverently the warm lips consecrated to
+you,--does it abate one jot or tittle of your happiness to know that
+eyes just as tender, curls just as silken, lips just as red, have
+stirred the hearts of men for a thousand years?
+
+Love, then, is a _sine qua non_ in stories; and if love, why not
+marriage? What pleasure can a humane and benevolent man find in
+separating two individuals whose chief, perhaps whose sole happiness,
+consists in being together? For certain inscrutable reasons, Divine
+Benevolence permits evil to exist in the world. All who have a taste for
+misery can find it there in exhaustless quantities. Johns are every day
+falling in love with Katys, but marrying Isabels, and Isabels the same,
+_mutatis mutandis_. We submit to it because there is no alternative; and
+we believe that good shall finally be wrought and wrested from evil.
+Don't, for heaven's sake, let us in mere wantonness introduce into
+our novel-world the work of our own hand, an abridged edition, a
+daguerreotype copy of the world without, of which we know so little and
+so much. I always do and always shall read the last page of a novel
+first; and if I perceive there any indications that matters are not
+coming out "shipshape," my reading invariably terminates with the last
+page.
+
+For the rest, please to remember that I am not writing about a princess
+of the blood, nor of the days of the bold barons, but only the life of
+a quiet little girl in a quiet little town in the eastern part of
+Massachusetts; and so far as my experience and observation go, men and
+women in the eastern part of Massachusetts are not given to thrilling
+adventures, hairbreadth escapes, wonderful concatenations of
+circumstances, and blood and thunder generally,--but pursue the even
+tenor of their way, and of their love, with a sober and delightful
+equanimity. If you want a plot, go to the "Children of the Abbey,"
+"Consuelo," and myriads of that kin, and help yourself. As for me, I
+must confess I hate plots. I see no pleasure in stumbling blindfolded
+through a story, unable to see a yard ahead, fancying every turn to be
+the last, and the road to go straight on to a glorious goal,--and,
+lo! we are in a more hopeless labyrinth than ever. I have a sense of
+restraint. I want to breathe freely, and can't. I want to have leisure
+to observe the style, the development of character, the author's tone of
+thought, and not be galloped through on the back of a breathless desire
+to know "how they are coming out."
+
+But, my dear plot-loving friend, be easy. I will not leave you in
+the lurch. I am not going to marry my man and woman out of hand. An
+obstacle, of which I suppose you have never heard,--an obstacle entirely
+new, fresh, and unhackneyed, will arise; so, I pray you, let patience
+have her perfect work.
+
+Wonderful was the new world opened to Ivy Geer. It was as if a corpse,
+cold, inert, lifeless, had suddenly sprung up, warm, invigorated,
+informed with a spirit which led her own spell-bound. Grammar,--Grammar,
+which had been a synonyme for all that was dry, irksome, useless,--a
+beating of the wind, the crackling of thorns under a pot,--Grammar even
+assumed for her a charm, a wonder, a glory. She saw how the great and
+wise had shrined in fitting words their purity, and wisdom, and sorrow,
+and suffering, and penitence; and how, as this generation passed away,
+and another came forth which knew not God, the golden casket became dim,
+and the memory of its priceless gem faded away; but how, at the touch of
+a mighty wand, the obedient lid flew back, and the long-hidden thought
+"sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and
+freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the
+poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged
+for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect
+mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod
+with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul
+of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself
+in words. Roaming in the dense forest with the stern and bloody
+Druid,--bounding over the waves with the fierce pirates who supplanted
+them, and in whose blue eyes and beneath whose fair locks gleamed indeed
+the ferocity of the savage, but lurked also, though unseen and unknown,
+the tender chivalry of the English gentleman,--gazing admiringly on the
+barbaric splendor of the cloth-of-gold, whereon trod regally, to the
+sound of harp and viol, the beauty and bravery of the old Norman
+nobility, she delighted to see how the mother-tongue, our dear
+mother-tongue, had laid all the nations under contribution to enrich
+her treasury,--gathering from one its strength, from another its
+stateliness, from a third its harmony, till the harsh, crude, rugged
+dialect of a barbarous horde became worthy to embody, as it does, the
+love, the wisdom, and the faith of half a world.
+
+So Grammar taught Ivy to reverence language.
+
+History, in the light of a guiding mind, ceased to be a bare record of
+slaughter and crime. Before her eyes filed, in a statelier pageant than
+they knew, the long procession of "simple great ones gone for ever and
+ever by," and the countless lesser ones whose names are quenched in the
+darkness of a night that shall know no dawn. She saw the "great world
+spin forever down the ringing grooves of change"; but amid all the
+change, the confusion, the chaos, she saw the finger of God ever
+pointing, and heard the sublime monotone of the Divine voice ever saying
+to the children of men, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And Ivy
+thought she saw, and rejoiced in the thought, that, even when this
+warning was unheeded,--when on the brow of the mournful Earth "Ichabod,
+Ichabod," was forever engraven,--when the First Man with his own hand
+put from him the cup of innocence, and went forth from the happy garden,
+sin-stained and fallen, the whole head sick, and the whole heart
+faint,--even then she saw within him the divine spark, the leaven of
+life, which had power to vitalize and vivify what Crime had smitten with
+death. Though sea and land teemed with strange perils, though night
+and day pursued him with mysterious terrors, though the now unfriendly
+elements combined to check his career, still, with unswerving purpose,
+undaunted courage, she saw him march constantly forward. Spirits of evil
+could not drive from his heart the prescience of greatness; and his soul
+dwelt calmly under the foreshadow of a mighty future.
+
+And as Ivy looked, she saw how the children of men became a great
+nation, and possessed the land far and wide. They delved into the bosom
+of the pleased earth, and brought forth the piled-up treasures of
+uncounted cycles. They unfolded the book of the skies, and sought to
+read the records thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible
+ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they plucked from hers.
+And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their
+restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the
+dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond
+their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests,
+there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of
+marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering of the
+feet of little children. Many a day and many a night she saw them wander
+on towards the setting sun, till the Unseen Hand led them to a fair
+and fruitful country that opened its bounteous arms in welcome. Broad
+rivers, green fields, laughing valleys wooed them to plant their
+household gods,--and the foundations of Europe were laid. Here were sown
+the seeds of those heroic virtues which have since leaped into luxuriant
+life,--seeds of that irresistible power which fastened its grasp on
+Nature and forced her to unfold the secret of her creation,--seeds of
+that far-reaching wisdom which in the light of the unveiled past has
+read the story of the unseen future.
+
+And still under Ivy's eye they grouped themselves. Some gathered on the
+pleasant hills of the sunny South, and the beauty of earth and sea and
+sky passed into their souls forever. They caught the evanescent gleam,
+the passing shadow, and on unseemly canvas limned it for all time in
+forms of unuttered and unutterable loveliness. They shaped into glowing
+life the phantoms of grace that were always flitting before their
+enchanted eyes, and poured into inanimate marble their rapt and
+passionate souls. They struck the lyre to wild and stirring songs whose
+tremulous echoes still linger along the corridors of Time. Some sought
+the icebound North, and grappled with dangers by field and flood. They
+hunted the wild dragon to his mountain-fastnesses, and fought him at
+bay, and never quailed. Death, in its most fearful forms, they met with
+grim delight, and chanted the glories of the Valhalla waiting for heroes
+who should forever quaff the "foaming, pure, and shining mead" from
+skulls of foes in battle slain. Some crossed the sea, and on
+
+  "that pale, that white-faced shore,
+  Whose foot spurns back tho ocean's swelling
+  tide,"
+
+they reared a sinewy and stalwart race, whose "morning drum-beat
+encircles the world."
+
+And History taught Ivy to reverence man.
+
+But there was one respect in which Ivy was both pupil and teacher.
+Never a word of Botany had fallen upon her ears; but through all the
+unconscious bliss of infancy, childhood, and girlhood, for sixteen happy
+years, she had lived among the flowers, and she knew their dear faces
+and their wild-wood names. She loved them with an almost human love.
+They were to her companions and friends. She knew their likings and
+dislikings, their joys and sorrows,--who among them chose the darkest
+nooks of the old woods, and who bloomed only to the brightest
+sunlight,--who sent their roots deep down among the mosses by the brook,
+and who smiled only on the southern hill-side. Around each she wove a
+web of beautiful individuality, and more than one had received from her
+a new christening. It is true, that, when she came to study from a
+book, she made wry faces over the long, barbarous, Latin names which
+completely disguised her favorites, and in her heart deemed a great many
+of the definitions quite superfluous; but she had strong faith in her
+teacher, and when the technical was laid aside for the real, then,
+indeed, "her foot was on her native heath, and her name was MacGregor."
+A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
+night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air,
+treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be
+otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship
+of a mind vigorous, cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen
+and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to
+the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her
+horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life
+dilate her whole being with a fine ecstasy.
+
+And what was the end of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She
+had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,--a buoyant, elastic
+gladness,--a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her
+sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth.
+Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her
+summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered
+down through the leafiness, only to span her with a rainbow in the glory
+of the setting sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains of
+her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The secret chord was to be
+smitten by a master-hand,--a chord which, once stirred, may never cease
+to quiver.
+
+At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the
+embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to
+see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell
+from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all
+the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
+Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the
+past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with
+him; and in fact, if these three men and Felix Clerron had all stood
+before her, and offered each a different opinion on any given subject, I
+have scarcely a doubt as to whose would have commended itself to her
+as combining the soundest practical wisdom and the highest Christian
+benevolence.
+
+So the summer passed on, and her shyness wore off,--and their intimacy
+became less and less that of teacher and pupil, and more and more that
+of friend and friend. With the sudden awakening of her intellectual
+nature, there woke also another power, of whose existence she had never
+dreamed. It was natural, that, in ranging the fields of thought so
+lately opened to her, she should often revert to him whose hand had
+unbarred the gates; she was therefore not startled that the image of
+Felix Clerron was with her when she sat down and when she rose up, when
+she went out and when she came in. She ceased, indeed, to think _of_
+him. She thought _him_. She lived him. Her soul fed on his life. And
+so--and so--by a pleasant and flowery path, there came into Ivy's heart
+the old, old pain.
+
+Now the thing was on this wise:--
+
+One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find Mr. Clerron in
+the library, where he usually awaited her. After spending a few moments
+in looking over her lessons, she rose and was about to pass to the door
+to ring, when Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her
+that Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come out. Ivy
+immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden. On the south side of the
+house was a piazza two stories high. Along the pillars which supported
+it a trellis-work had been constructed, reaching several feet above the
+roof of the piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which not
+only completely screened nearly the whole front of the piazza, but,
+reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by the aid of a few pieces
+of fine wire, and overran a part of the roof of the house. Thus the roof
+of the piazza was the floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and
+ceiling were broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
+innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
+
+From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried, "Hail to thee, my
+twining vine!" Ivy turned and looked up, with the uncertain, inquiring
+smile we often wear when conscious that, though unseeing, we are not
+unseen; and presently two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
+sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could come up there!" cried Ivy, clasping her hands with
+childish eagerness.
+
+"The wish is father to the deed."
+
+"May I?"
+
+"Be sure you may."
+
+"But how shall I get in?"
+
+"Are you afraid to come up the ladder?"
+
+"No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where you are, after I am
+up?"
+
+"Oh, never fear! I'll draw you in safely enough."
+
+"Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?" cried Mrs. Simm, in
+terror.
+
+Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she stopped and
+answered, hesitatingly,--"He said I might."
+
+"He said you might, yes," continued Mrs. Simm,--talking _to_ Ivy, but
+_at_ Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared to remonstrate in a more
+direct way. "And if he said you might throw yourself down Vineyard
+Cliff, it don't follow that you are bound to do it. He goes into all
+sorts of hap-hazard scrapes himself, but you can't follow him."
+
+"But it looks so nice up there," pleaded Ivy, "and I have been twice as
+high at home. I don't mind it at all."
+
+"If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your life, it's none
+of my look-out, but I a'n't going to have you breaking your neck right
+under my nose. If you want to get up there, I'll show you the way in the
+house, and you can step right out of the window. Just wait till I've
+told Ellen about the dinner."
+
+As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to Ivy, "Come!"--and
+in a moment Ivy bounded up the ladder and through an opening in the
+vine, and stood by his side.
+
+"I'm ready now, Miss Ivy," said Mrs. Simm, reappearing. "Miss Ivy! Where
+is the child?"
+
+A merry laugh greeted her.
+
+"Oh, you good-for-nothing!" cried the good-natured old housekeeper,
+"you'll never die in your bed."
+
+"Not for a good while, I hope," answered Mr. Clerron.
+
+Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the great basket the
+finest cluster of grapes.
+
+"Is that reward enough for coming?"
+
+"Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you read
+yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, 'its own exceeding great reward.'"
+
+"And you don't want the grapes?"
+
+"I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them as a free
+gift. It was only the principle that I opposed."
+
+"Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half for the free
+gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little tendril, you look
+as fresh as the morning."
+
+"Don't I always?"
+
+"I should say there was a _little_ more dew than usual. Stand up and let
+me survey you, if perchance I may discover the cause."
+
+Ivy rose, made a profound curtsy, and then turned slowly around, after
+the manner of the revolving fashion-figures in a milliner's window.
+
+"I don't know," continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a couple of
+revolutions, resumed her seat. "You seem to be the same. I think it must
+be the frock."
+
+"I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve my style of
+beauty, if I did. Papa wears one sometimes."
+
+"And what kind of a frock, pray, does 'papa' wear?"
+
+"Oh, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his knees. Made of some
+kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!"
+
+"And what name do you give to that white thing with blue sprigs in it?"
+
+"This?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a dress."
+
+"No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash are your dress.
+This is a frock."
+
+Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"You know a great deal, I know."
+
+"So you informed me once before."
+
+"Oh, don't mention that!" said Ivy, blushing, and quickly added, "Do you
+know I have discovered the reason why you like me this morning?"
+
+"And every morning."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Go on. What is the reason?"
+
+"It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with my owny-dony
+hands; and that, you know, is the reason it looks nicer than usual."
+
+"Ah, me! I wish I wore dresses."
+
+"You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to hinder you."
+
+"Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have
+asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little
+speech all ready for you,--a veritable compliment"
+
+"It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve of compliments,
+and perhaps it would have made me vain."
+
+"Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech was, and thus give
+me an opportunity to relieve myself. Why, a body might die of a plethora
+of flattery, if he had nobody but you to discharge it against."
+
+"He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed the demand."
+
+"Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have next?"
+
+"Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally, indeed, prefer it to
+the other, I am told."
+
+"Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!"
+
+He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes. Ivy did not
+care to interrupt his thinking. Presently he said,--
+
+"Ivy, how old are you?"
+
+"I shall be seventeen the last day of this month."
+
+A short pause.
+
+"And then eighteen."
+
+"And then nineteen."
+
+"And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty."
+
+"Horrid old, isn't it?"
+
+He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what Ivy thought a
+curious kind of smile, but only said,--
+
+"You must not say 'horrid' so much."
+
+By-and-by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and watching the
+rustle of the leaves, which hid every other prospect; she turned her
+face a little so that she could look at him. He sat with folded arms,
+looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
+expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
+wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
+sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
+should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
+wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
+there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
+softly,--
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."
+
+"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"
+
+"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."
+
+"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
+atmosphere?"
+
+"Yes, Sir, I am ready."
+
+Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
+had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
+would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.
+
+He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
+through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,
+while he carried the grapes to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and
+proposed to walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went home.
+
+"You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the city to-morrow,
+on business, to be gone a week or two. So, as you must perforce take a
+vacation then, why, we may as well begin to vacate today, and enjoy it."
+
+"I am sorry you are going away."
+
+"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
+
+"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to
+you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without
+you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you,
+or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
+
+"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,--the last, for
+instance,--what would you do?"
+
+"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
+
+Mr. Clerron laughed.
+
+"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me
+well again?"
+
+"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving
+it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
+
+"So you love your papa and mamma better than"----
+
+He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
+
+"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems
+strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,--oh, you don't
+know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I
+have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."
+
+"Do you always pity people, when they love you very much?"
+
+"Oh, no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough to be pitied,
+except papa.--Isn't it pleasant here? How very green it is! It looks
+just like summer. Oh, Mr. Clerron, did you see the clouds this morning?"
+
+"There were none when I arose."
+
+"Why, yes, Sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise."
+
+"I am not prepared to contradict you."
+
+"Perhaps you were not up at sunrise."
+
+"I have an impression to that effect."
+
+He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying, though she was
+half afraid he might not be pleased,--
+
+"I wonder whether you are an early riser."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe I have been
+up every morning but one, this week, by nine o'clock."
+
+Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of "early to bed and early to
+rise" received a great shock, as her looks plainly showed. He laughed
+gayly at her amazed face.
+
+"You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer."
+
+"'Nine o'clock!'" repeated Ivy, slowly,--"'every morning but one!' and
+it is Tuesday to-day."
+
+"Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day, and excellent for
+sleeping."
+
+"But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up when I come. And
+when do you write?"
+
+"Always in the evening."
+
+"But the evenings are so short,--or have been."
+
+"Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is about long enough
+for one sitting."
+
+"I should think so. And you must be so tired!"
+
+"Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or six, and running
+round all day, become so tired that you have to go to bed by nine;
+of course you have no time for reflection and meditation. I, on the
+contrary, take life easily,--write in the night, when everything is
+still and quiet,--take my sleep when all the noise of the world's
+waking-up is going on,--and after creation is fairly settled for the
+day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely, and
+leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil."
+
+"Mr. Clerron!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
+
+"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
+
+"What is the use of telling it, then?"
+
+"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising
+from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come
+to a better understanding. Go on."
+
+"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
+
+"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
+
+"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and
+wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
+
+"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and
+mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to
+extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate,
+destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture
+to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."
+
+"Now, Sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question. And I
+really wish you did not. Before I knew you, I thought it was almost as
+bad to smoke as it was to steal. I know, however, now, that it cannot
+be; still"--
+
+"Feminine logic."
+
+"I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to say, Sir,
+I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of subjection to
+anything."
+
+"Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often don't smoke
+for months together. To prove it, I promise you I won't smoke for the
+next two months."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad! Oh, I am so much obliged to you! And you are not in
+the least vexed that I spoke to you about it?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, Sir, I have been afraid
+of, the last few days. You know when I first knew you, or before I knew
+you, I supposed you did nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all
+day. But now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that you
+could not well spare two hours every day for me,--particularly in the
+morning, which are almost always considered the best. But if you like
+to write in the evening, you would just as soon I would come in the
+morning?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any time, hesitate
+to tell me. I have no claim on a moment,--only"--
+
+"My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to understand,
+henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into my house at any time
+when you are not wanted; nor stay any longer than I want you; nor say
+anything that will not please me;--well, I am not quite sure about
+that;--but, at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
+teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never hope to do you as
+much good as you do me every day of your blessed life."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Clerron!" exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of gratitude and
+happiness; "do I, can I, do _you_ any good?"
+
+"You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element that was wanting in
+my life. You make every day beautiful to me. The flutter of your robes
+among these trees brings sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in
+my garden as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you turn
+into the lane; and every day I watch you till you disappear. You are
+fresh and truthful and natural, and you give me new life. And now, my
+dear little trembling benefactor, because we are nearly through the
+woods, I can go no farther with you; and because I am going away
+to-morrow, not to see you again for a week, and because I hope you will
+be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think I must let you--kiss
+me!"
+
+Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression, at
+first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then gradually changing
+into waiting wonder; but when his sentence finally closed, she stood
+still, scarcely able to comprehend. He placed his hands on her temples,
+and, smiling involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
+sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back, kissed brow,
+cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, "Go now! God bless you for ever and
+ever, my darling!" and, turning, walked hastily down the winding path.
+As for Ivy, she went home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great
+joy.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+
+
+
+"IMPLORA PACE."
+
+  No more Joy-roses! their perfume
+  To this dull pain brings short surcease:
+  But tell me, if ye know, where bloom
+  The golden lily-bells of Peace.
+
+  Leap, winnowing all the air of light,
+  Ye wild wraiths of the waterfall!
+  But for that fabled fountain's sight,
+  That giveth sleep, I'd give you all.
+
+  Bound, gay barks, o'er the bounding main!
+  Shake all your white wings to the breeze!
+  My joy was erst the hurricane,
+  The plunging of the purple seas;
+
+  My hope to find the mystic marge
+  Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
+  But bear me now to yon still barge,
+  Calm cradled by a tideless shore!
+
+  Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
+  With May-time matins loud and long,
+  Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
+  Its pulses time not to your song!
+
+  But know ye where she hides her nest,
+  Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
+  The Dove that bears on her white breast
+  The sacred green of olive-leaves?
+
+  Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
+  From white foam of the Northern snows;
+  Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
+  The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:
+
+  But when amid the templed hills,
+  Deep drained from every purple vine,
+  Soft for her dying lips distils
+  The Summer's sacramental wine;
+
+  While all her woodland priests put on
+  Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
+  And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
+  A rhythmic silence holds the skies;
+
+  What time the Day-spring softly wells
+  From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
+  In long, melodious, tidal swells,
+  Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;--
+
+  Oh, open then my dungeon door!
+  Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
+  If haply I may _feel_ once more
+  The pillars of the steadfast skies;
+
+  If haply there may fall for me
+  Some strange assurance in my fears,--
+  As he who heard on Galilee,
+  That stormy night in wondrous years,
+
+  The "It is I," and o'er the foam
+  Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
+  Saw glory of the kingdom come,
+  The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!
+
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
+
+
+  "Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
+   the end of the world."
+                           PSALMS, xix. 4.
+
+Among the impossibilities enumerated to convince Job of his ignorance
+and weakness, the Almighty asks,--
+
+"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here
+we are?"
+
+At the present day, every people in Christendom can respond in the
+affirmative.
+
+The lines of electric telegraph are increasing so rapidly, that the
+length in actual use cannot be estimated at any moment with accuracy. At
+the commencement of 1848, it was stated that the length in operation
+in this country was about 3000 miles. At the end of 1850, the lines in
+operation, or in progress, in the United States, amounted to 22,000. In
+1853, the total number of miles of wire in America amounted to 26,375.
+
+It is but fifteen years since the first line of electric telegraph was
+constructed in this country; and at the present time there are not less
+than 50,000 miles in successful operation on this continent, having over
+1400 stations, and employing upwards of 10,000 operators and clerks.
+
+The number of messages passing over all the lines in this country
+annually is estimated at upwards of 5,000,000, producing a revenue of
+$2,000,000; in addition to which, the press pays $200,000 for public
+despatches.
+
+In Europe there are lines rivalling those in America. The electric wire
+extends under the English Channel, the German Ocean, the Black and Red
+Seas, and the Mediterranean; it passes from crag to crag on the Alps,
+and runs through Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Russia.
+
+India, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and several of the South American States
+have also their lines; and the wires uniting the Pacific and Atlantic
+States will shortly meet at the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+The electric telegraph, which has made such rapid strides, is yet in its
+infancy. The effect of its future extension, and of new applications,
+cannot be estimated, when, as a means of intercourse at least, its
+network shall spread through every village, bringing all parts of our
+republic into the closest and most intimate relations of friendship and
+interest. In connection with the railroad and steamboat, it has
+already achieved one important national result. It has made possible,
+on this continent, a wide-spread, yet closely linked, empire of States,
+such as our fathers never imagined. The highest office of the electric
+telegraph, in the future, is thus to be the promotion of unity, peace,
+and good-will among men.
+
+In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland have the greatest number of miles
+of electric telegraph,--namely, 40,000. France has 26,000; Belgium,
+1600; Germany, 35,000; Switzerland, 2000; Spain and Portugal, 1200;
+Italy, 6600; Turkey and Greece, 500; Russia, 12,000; Denmark and Sweden,
+2000.
+
+In Italy, Sardinia has the largest share of lines, having about 1200
+miles; and in Germany, after Austria and Prussia, the largest share
+belongs to Bavaria, which has 1050. Saxony has 400 miles; Würtemberg,
+195.
+
+The distance between stations on lines of Continental telegraph is from
+ten to twelve miles on the average, and the number of them is about
+3800.
+
+In France the use of the electric telegraph has rapidly increased within
+the last few years. In 1851, the number of despatches transmitted
+was 9014, which produced 76,723 francs. In 1858, there were 463,973
+despatches transmitted, producing 3,516,634 francs. During the last four
+years, that is to say, since all the chief towns in France have been in
+electric communication with Paris, and consequently with each other,
+there have been sent by private individuals 1,492,420 despatches, which
+have produced 12,528,591 francs. Out of the 97,728 despatches exchanged
+during the last three months of 1858, 23,728 were with Paris, and 15,409
+with the thirty most important towns of France. These 15,409 despatches
+are divided, as to their object or nature, as follows:--Private and
+family affairs, 3102; journals, 523; commerce and manufactures, 6132;
+Bourse affairs, 5253; sundry affairs, 399.
+
+In Australia, the electric telegraph is in constant use, affording a
+remunerating revenue, and the amount of business has forced on the
+government the necessity of additional wires.
+
+Cuba has six hundred miles of wire in operation. Messages can be
+transmitted only in Spanish, and the closest surveillance is
+maintained by the government officials over all despatches offered for
+transmission. From the fact that no less than a dozen errors occurred in
+a dispatch transmitted by a Boston gentleman from Cardenas to Havana,
+we judge that the telegraphic apparatus, invented by our liberty-loving
+American, Professor House, rebels at such petty tyranny.
+
+Several hundred miles of electric telegraph have been constructed in
+Mexico; but the unfortunate condition of the country for the last few
+years has precluded the possibility of maintaining it in working order,
+and it has, like everything else in the land of Monteznma, gone to
+decay.
+
+The English and Dutch governments have come to an understanding upon a
+system of cables which will unite India and Australia, and eventually be
+extended to China. The arrangements between the governments are:--That
+the Indian and Imperial governments shall connect India with Singapore;
+that the Dutch government shall connect Singapore with the southeast
+point of Java; that the Australian governments shall connect their
+continent with Java. The cable for the Singapore-Java section was to
+have been laid during the last month; the Indian-Singapore section is
+to be laid this spring; and the connection with Australia will, it is
+believed, be completed in the course of next year.
+
+The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company have announced the arrangements
+under which they are prepared to transmit messages for the public
+between Alexandria and Aden. Messages for Australia and China will be
+forwarded by post from Aden. It is considered probable that a direct
+communication with Alexandria will be established through Constantinople
+in the course of a few weeks, and then the news from India will reach
+London in ten or eleven days.
+
+A late European steamer brings a report that two Russian engineers
+have proceeded to Pekin, China, to make preparations for a telegraphic
+connection between that place and the Russian territory.
+
+There is reason to believe that arrangements will soon be made at St.
+Petersburg, through private companies and government subsidies, for
+completing the line of telegraph from Novgorod to the mouth of the
+Amoor, and thence across the straits to Russian America. In the mean
+time, a company has already been formed and incorporated in Canada,
+under the name of the Transmundane Telegraphic Company, which will
+afford important aid in continuing the proposed line through British
+America. The plan is, to carry the wires from the mouth of the Amoor
+across Behring's Strait, to and through Russian and British America.
+From Victoria a branch will be extended to San Francisco, and another to
+Canada. The line from San Francisco to Missouri is under way, and Mr.
+Collins, who is engaged in the Russian and Canadian enterprise, thinks
+that by the time it is in operation he shall have extended his line to
+San Francisco.
+
+This is unquestionably the most feasible route for telegraphic
+communication between America and Europe; and, though the longest
+by several thousand miles, it would afford the most rapid means of
+communication, owing to the great superiority of aërial over subaqueous
+lines.
+
+No limit has yet been found to aërial telegraphing; for, by inserting
+transferrers into the more extended circuits, renewed energy can be
+attained, and lines of several thousands of miles in length can be
+worked, if properly insulated, as surely as those of a hundred. The
+lines between New York and New Orleans are frequently connected together
+by means of transferrers, and direct communication is had over a
+distance of more than, two thousand miles. No perceptible retardation of
+the current takes place; on the contrary, the lines so connected work as
+successfully as when divided into shorter circuits.
+
+This is not the case with subaqueous lines. The employment of submarine,
+as well as of subterranean conductors, occasions a small retardation in
+the velocity of the transmitted electricity. This retardation is not due
+to the length of the path which the electric current has to traverse,
+since it does not take place with a conductor equally long, insulated in
+the air. It arises, as Faraday has demonstrated, from a static reaction,
+which is determined by the introduction of a current into a conductor
+well insulated, but surrounded outside its insulating coating by a
+conducting body, such as sea-water or moist ground, or even simply by
+the metallic envelope of iron wires placed in communication with the
+ground. When this conductor is presented to one of the poles of a
+battery, the other pole of which communicates with the ground, it
+becomes charged with static electricity, like the coating of a Leyden
+jar,--electricity which is capable of giving rise to a discharge
+current, even after the voltaic current has ceased to be transmitted.
+
+Professor Wheatstone experimented upon the cable intended to unite La
+Spezia, upon the coast of Piedmont, with the Island of Corsica. It was
+one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires
+one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and
+each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in
+thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two
+ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as
+to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles
+in length, through which the electric current could circulate in the
+same direction. This current was itself furnished by an insulated
+battery formed of one hundred and forty-four Wheatstone's pairs, equal
+to fifty of Grove's. In the first series of experiments, it was proved,
+that, if one of the ends of the long wire, whose other end remained
+insulated, were made to communicate with one of the poles of the
+battery, the wire became charged with the electricity of that pole,
+which, so long as it existed, gave rise to a current which was made
+evident by a galvanometer: but, in order to obtain this result, the
+second pole of the battery must communicate with the ground, or with
+another long wire similar to the first.
+
+In a second series of experiments, Professor Wheatstone interposed three
+galvanometers in the middle and at the ends of the circuit, determining
+in this manner the progress of the current by the order which they
+followed in their deviation. If the two poles of the battery were
+connected by the long conductor of six hundred and sixty miles, the
+precaution having been taken to divide it into two portions of equal
+length, it was observed, on connecting the two free extremities of these
+two portions in order to close the circuit, that the galvanometer placed
+in the middle was the first to be deflected, whilst the galvanometers
+placed in the vicinity of the poles were not deflected until later.
+
+By a third series of experiments, Wheatstone, with the galvanometer, has
+shown that a continuous current may be maintained in the circuit of the
+long wire of an electric cable, of which one of the ends is insulated,
+whilst the other communicates with one of the poles of a battery whose
+other pole is connected with the ground. This current is due to the
+uniform and continual dispersion of the statical electricity with which
+the wire is charged along its whole length, as would happen to any other
+conducting body placed in an insulating medium.
+
+It was owing to the retardation from this cause that communication
+through the Atlantic Cable was so exceedingly slow and difficult, and
+not, as many suppose, because the cable was defective. It is true that
+there was a fault in the cable, discovered by Varley, before it left
+Queenstown; but it was not of so serious a character as to offer any
+substantial obstacle to the passage of the electric current.
+
+As everything pertaining to the actual operation of the Atlantic Cable
+has been studiously withheld from the public, until it has come to be
+seriously doubted whether any despatches were ever transmitted through
+it, we presume it will not be out of place here to give the actual
+_modus operandi_ of this great wonder and mystery.
+
+The only instrument which could be used successfully in signalling
+through the Atlantic Cable was one of peculiar construction, by
+Professor Thompson, called the marine galvanometer. In this instrument
+momentum and inertia are almost wholly avoided by the use of a needle
+weighing only one and a half grains, combined with a mirror reflecting a
+ray of light, which indicates deflections with great accuracy. By these
+means a gradually increasing or decreasing current is at each instant
+indicated at its due strength. Thus, when this galvanometer is placed
+as the receiving instrument at the end of a long submarine cable, the
+movement of the spot of light, consequent on the completion of a circuit
+through the battery, cable, and earth, can be so observed as to furnish
+a curve representing very accurately the arrival of an electric current.
+Lines representing successive signals at various speeds can also be
+obtained, and, by means of a metronome, dots, dashes, successive _A_-s,
+etc., can be sent with nearly perfect regularity by an ordinary Morse
+key, and the corresponding changes in the current at the receiving end
+of the cable accurately observed. The strength of the battery employed
+was found to have no influence on the results; curves given by batteries
+of different strengths could be made to coincide by simply drawing them
+to scales proportionate to the strengths of the two currents. It was
+also found that the same curve represented the gradual increase of
+intensity due to the arrival of a current and the gradual decrease due
+to the ceasing of that current. The possible speed of signalling was
+found to be very nearly proportional to the squares of the lengths
+spoken through. Thus, a speed which gave fifteen dots per minute in a
+length of 2191 nautical miles reproduced all the effects given by a
+speed of thirty dots in a length of 1500. At these speeds, with ordinary
+Morse signals, speaking would be barely possible. In the Red Sea, a
+speed of from seven to eight words per minute was attained in a length
+of 750 nautical miles. Mechanical senders, and attention to the
+proportion of the various contacts, would materially increase the speed
+at which signals of any kind could be transmitted. The best trained hand
+cannot equal the accuracy of mechanism, and the slightest irregularity
+causes the current to rise or fall quite beyond the limits required for
+distinct signals. No important difference was observed between signals
+sent by alternate reverse currents and those sent by the more usual
+method. The amount of oscillation, and the consequent distinctness of
+signalling, were nearly the same in the two cases. An advantage in the
+first signals sent is, however, obtained by the use of Messrs. Sieman's
+and Halske's submarine key, by which the cable is put to earth
+immediately on signalling being interrupted, and the wire thus kept at
+a potential half-way between the potentials of the poles of two
+counter-acting batteries employed, and the first signals become legible,
+which, with the ordinary key, would be employed in charging the wire.
+
+A system of arbitrary characters, similar to those used upon the Morse
+telegraph, was employed, and the letter to be indicated was determined
+by the number of oscillations of the needle, as well as by the length of
+time during which the needle remained in one place. The operator, who
+watched the reflection of the deflected needle in the mirror, had a key,
+communicating with a local instrument in the office, in his hand, which
+he pressed down or raised, as the needle was deflected; and another
+operator occupied himself in deciphering the characters thus produced
+upon the paper. As the operator at Trinity Bay had no means of arresting
+the operations at Valentia, and _vice versâ_, and as the fastest rate of
+speed over the cable could not exceed three words per minute, it will
+not surprise the reader that the operators were nearly two days in
+transmitting the Queen's despatch.
+
+However, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, there were
+transmitted from Ireland to Newfoundland, through the Atlantic Cable,
+between the 10th of August and the 1st of September, 97 messages,
+containing 1102 words; and from Newfoundland to Ireland, 269 messages
+and 2840 words, making a total of 366 messages, containing 3942 words.
+Among these were the message from the Queen to the President of the
+United States, and his reply; the one announcing the safety of the
+steamer Europa, her mails and passengers, after her collision with
+the Arabia; and two messages for Her Majesty's War-Office, which last
+effected a very large saving to the revenue of the English government.
+
+In Liverpool, £150,000 have already been subscribed to the project of
+completing or relaying the Atlantic Cable.
+
+A contract has been recently made by the English government for a cable
+to be laid from Falmouth to Gibraltar, 1200 miles, which is to be ready
+in June next. This will be succeeded by one from Gibraltar to Malta
+and Alexandria, thus giving England an independent line, free from
+Continental difficulties.
+
+Steamers were to have left Liverpool at the end of the last month, with
+the remainder of the cable to connect Kurrachee with Aden. The cable to
+connect Alexandria with England is now to be laid through the islands
+of Rhodes and Scio to Constantinople, and not by way of Candia, as
+previously intended; it is expected to be laid this season. Hellaniyah,
+one of the Kuria-Muria Islands, has been decided on as a station for the
+Red Sea Telegraph.
+
+The new electric cable between Malta and the opposite coast of Sicily at
+Alga Grande is safely laid. Two previous attempts had been made; but, in
+consequence of the late strong winds, nothing could be done. The
+shore end on the Malta side had been laid down and connected with the
+company's offices before the expedition started; the outer end, about
+one mile off the Marsamuscetto harbor, into which the cable has been
+taken, being buoyed ready to complete the communication from shore to
+shore the moment the cable was submerged. The operation of paying out
+the cable was completed without the least accident. The mid-portion of
+the cable is of great strength, being able to sustain a strain of ten
+or twelve tons without parting, and the shore ends are of nearly double
+that strength. The depth of water throughout is within eighty fathoms;
+so that, if any accident should ever occur, it may be remedied without
+much difficulty.
+
+A great change in the rates to Sicily and the Italian States will result
+from the completion of this new line, a reduction in some cases of
+seventy-five per cent. being made,--a great boon to the English
+merchants. Messages in French, English, or Italian will be transmitted,
+and we must congratulate the company upon their success in inducing the
+Neapolitan government to make this concession, and upon the exceedingly
+low tariff proposed.
+
+Mr. De Sauty is the electrician of this company. He will be remembered
+by the reader as the mysterious operator at Trinity Bay, from whom an
+occasional vague and exceedingly brief despatch was received in relation
+to the working of the cable. Nothing really satisfactory could ever be
+obtained, and, when visited by some officers connected with the United
+States Coast Survey, he would not permit them to enter the office or
+examine the apparatus. His name was published in the daily journals with
+several different varieties of spelling, and for this reason, and in
+consequence of his extreme reticence, one of them perpetrated the
+following:--
+
+  "Thou operator, silent, glum,
+  Why wilt them act so naughty?
+  Do tell us _what_ your name is,--come:
+  De Santy, or De Sauty?
+
+  "Don't think to humbug any more,
+  Shut up there in your shanty,--
+  But solve the problem, once for all,--
+  De Sauty, or De Santy?"
+
+Electric telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire has within a few months had
+a remarkable development. Several lines are already in course of
+construction. A direct line from Varna to Toultcha, passing by
+Baltschik. A line from Toultcha to Odessa, passing by Reni and joining
+the Russian telegraph at Ismail. The subaqueous cable from Toultcha to
+Reni, on the Danube, is the sixth in the Ottoman Empire. This line,
+which will place Constantinople in direct communication with Odessa,
+will not only have the advantage of increasing and accelerating the
+communications, but will very considerably reduce their cost.
+
+There is also to be a line from Rodosto to Enos and Salonica; and from
+Salonica to Monastir, Valona, and Scutari in Albania. The line from
+Salonica to Monastir and Valona will be joined by a submarine cable
+crossing the Adriatic to Otranto, and carried on to Naples. It will
+have the effect of placing Southern Italy in communication with
+Constantinople, and also of reducing the cost of messages. A convention
+to this effect has been signed by a delegate of the Neapolitan
+government and the director-general of the telegraphic lines of the
+Ottoman Empire, touching this line to Naples. The ratification of the
+two governments will shortly be given to this convention.
+
+A line from Scutari in Albania to Bar-Bournon, and thence to
+Castellastua, passing round the Montenegrin territory by a submarine
+cable. This line is already laid, and will begin working immediately on,
+the completion of the Austrian lines to the point where it ends.
+
+A line from Constantinople to Bagdad. Three sections of this are being
+simultaneously laid down. The first from Constantinople to Ismid,
+Angora, Yuzgat, and Sivas: the works on this have been already carried
+to Sabanja, between Ismid and Angora. The second section, from Sivas
+to Moussoul: the works on this line are in a state of favorable
+preparation, and the line will be actively gone on with. The third
+section, from Bagdad to Moussoul: for this also the preparations have
+been made, and the works will begin when the season opens, the materials
+being all ready along the line. From Bagdad this line will extend to
+Bassora, to join a submarine cable to be carried thence to British
+India.
+
+A projected line from Constantinople to Smyrna. For this, two routes
+are thought of: one, the shortest, but most difficult, would run from
+Constantinople to the Dardanelles, Adramyti, and Smyrna; the other,
+the longest, but offering fewest difficulties, would pass from
+Constantinople by Muhalitch, Berliek-Hissar, and Maneesa, to Smyrna.
+
+A line from Mostar to Bosna-Serai. Mostar is already connected with the
+Austrian telegraphs at Metcovich.
+
+Other lines have been in the mean time completed and extended, and will
+soon be opened to the public. Thus, a third and fourth wire are being
+laid on the line from Constantinople to Rodosto; from the latter point
+three wires have been carried to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, two of
+which are for messages from Gallipoli to the Dardanelles, and the third
+is to join the submarine cable connecting Constantinople, Candia, Syra,
+and the Piraeus. The communications between Constantinople and Candia
+would already have begun but for an accident to the engineer. Those
+with Syra and the Piraeus will begin as soon as the ratification of the
+convention entered into between the Ottoman and Greek governments on
+this subject shall have taken place. The laying of the cable between
+Candia and Alexandria, which has not yet succeeded, will be resumed this
+spring.
+
+Thus, after the completion of these lines, Constantinople will be in
+communication with nearly all the chief provinces and towns of the
+empire, with Africa, and with Europe, by five different channels,--by
+the Principalities, by Odessa, by Servia, by Dalmatia, and the Kingdom
+of the Two Sicilies. With such a development of the system, it will
+be imperatively necessary to increase the telegraphic working-staff.
+Already the number of despatches arriving every day renders the service
+very difficult, and occasions much confusion and many grievous mistakes.
+Nothing is easier than to remedy all this by increasing the number of
+the _employés_.
+
+The great distinguishing feature of the telegraphs used in Great Britain
+is, that they are of the class known as oscillating telegraphs,--that
+is, telègraphs in which the letters are denoted by the number of motions
+to the right or left of a needle or indicator. Those of France are of
+the class called dial telegraphs, in which an index, or needle, is
+carried around the face of a dial, around the circumference of which are
+placed the letters of the alphabet; any particular letter being
+designated by the brief stopping of the needle. A similar system has
+been used in Prussia; but, recently, the American, or recording
+instrument of Professor Morse, has been introduced into this, as well
+as every other European country; and even in England, the national
+prejudice is gradually giving way, and our American system is being
+introduced.
+
+In America none but recording instruments have ever been used. Of
+these we have many kinds, but only five are in operation at present,
+namely:--The electro-magnetic timing instrument of Professor Morse;
+the electro-magnetic step-by-step printing of Mr. House; the
+electro-magnetic synchronous printing of Mr. Hughes; the
+electro-chemical rhythmic of Mr. Bain; and the combination-printing,
+combining the essential parts of the Hughes instrument with portions of
+the House. The Morse apparatus is, however, most generally used in this
+country and every other. Out of the two hundred and fifty thousand
+miles of electric telegraph now in operation or in the course of
+construction in the world, at least two hundred thousand give the
+preference to it.
+
+Although the Morse apparatus is a recording one, yet, for the last six
+years, the operators in this country have discontinued the use of the
+paper, and confined themselves to reading by the ear, which they do
+with the greatest facility. By this means a great saving is made in the
+expense of working the telegraph, and far greater correctness insured;
+as the ear is found much more reliable in comprehending the clicks of
+the instrument, than the eye in deciphering the arbitrary alphabet of
+dots and lines.
+
+The rapidity of the several instruments in use may be given as
+follows:--Cooke and Wheatstone's needle telegraph of Great Britain, 900
+words per hour; Froment's dial telegraph, of France, 1200; Bregnet's
+dial telegraph, also French, 1000; Sieman's dial telegraph, formerly
+used upon the Prussian lines, 900; Bain's chemical, in use between
+Liverpool and Manchester, and formerly to a considerable extent in the
+United States, 1500; the Morse telegraph, in use all over the world,
+1500; the House printing, used in the United States to a limited extent,
+and in Cuba, 2800; Hughes's and the combination instruments, 2000. The
+three last systems are American inventions; thus it will be seen, that
+to our country is due the credit of inventing the most rapid and the
+most universally used telegraphic systems.
+
+But though we surpass all other nations in the value of our electric
+apparatus, we are far behind many, and indeed most countries, in the
+construction of our lines. This does not arise from want of knowledge or
+of means, but from the custom which obtains to a great extent among all
+classes and professions in this country, of providing something which
+will answer for a time, instead of securing a permanent success.
+
+"But to my mind,--though I am native here, And to the manner born,--it
+is a custom More honored it in the breach than the observance,"--
+especially in building lines of electric telegraph, where the best are
+always the cheapest.
+
+When Shakspeare made Puck promise to "put a girdle round about the earth
+in forty minutes," he undoubtedly supposed he would thereby accomplish a
+remarkable feat; but when the great Russo-American line _via_ Behring's
+Strait and the Amoor is completed, and the Atlantic Cable is again in
+operation, we can put an electric girdle round about the earth before
+Puck could have time to spread his wings!
+
+In view of what must actually take place at no distant day,--the
+girdling of the earth by the electric wires,--a singular question
+arises:--If we send a current of electricity east, it will lose
+twenty-four hours in going round the globe; if we send one west, it
+will gain twenty-four, or, in other words, will get back to the
+starting-place twenty-four hours before it sets out. Now, if we send
+a current half-way round the world, it will get there twelve hours in
+advance of, or twelve hours behind our time, according as we send it
+east or west; the question which naturally suggests itself, therefore,
+is, What is the time at the antipodes? is it _yesterday_ or _to-morrow?_
+LOVE AND SELF-LOVE.
+
+
+"Friendless, when you are gone? But, Jean, you surely do not mean that
+Effie has no claim on any human creature, beyond the universal one of
+common charity?" I said, as she ceased, and lay panting on her pillows,
+with her sunken eyes fixed eagerly upon my own.
+
+"Ay, Sir, I do; for her grandfather has never by word or deed
+acknowledged her, or paid the least heed to the letter her poor mother
+sent him from her dying bed seven years ago. He is a lone old man, and
+this child is the last of his name; yet he will not see her, and cares
+little whether she be dead or living. It's a bitter shame, Sir, and the
+memory of it will rise up before him when he comes to lie where I am
+lying now."
+
+"And you have kept the girl safe in the shelter of your honest home all
+these years? Heaven will remember that, and in the great record of good
+deeds will set the name of Adam Lyndsay far below that of poor Jean
+Burns," I said, pressing the thin hand that had succored the orphan in
+her need.
+
+But Jean took no honor to herself for that charity, and answered simply
+to my words of commendation.
+
+"Sir, her mother was my foster-child; and when she left that stern old
+man for love of Walter Home, I went, too, for love of her. Ah, dear
+heart! she had sore need of me in the weary wanderings which ended only
+when she lay down by her dead husband's side and left her bairn to me.
+Then I came here to cherish her among kind souls where I was born; and
+here she has grown up, an innocent young thing, safe from the wicked
+world, the comfort of my life, and the one thing I grieve at leaving
+when the time that is drawing very near shall come."
+
+"Would not an appeal to Mr. Lyndsay reach him now, think you? Might not
+Effie go to him herself? Surely, the sight of such a winsome creature
+would touch his heart, however hard."
+
+But Jean rose up in her bed, crying, almost fiercely,--
+
+"No, Sir! no! My child shall never go to beg a shelter in that hard
+man's house. I know too well the cold looks, the cruel words, that would
+sting her high spirit and try her heart, as they did her mother's. No,
+Sir,--rather than that, she shall go with Lady Gower."
+
+"Lady Gower? What has she to do with Effie, Jean?" I asked, with
+increasing interest.
+
+"She will take Effie as her maid, Sir. A hard life for my child! but
+what can I do?" And Jean's keen glance seemed trying to read mine.
+
+"A waiting-maid? Heaven forbid!" I ejaculated, as a vision of that
+haughty lady and her three wild sons swept through my mind.
+
+I rose, paced the room in silence for a little time, then took a sudden
+resolution, and, turning to the bed, exclaimed,--
+
+"Jean, I will adopt Effie. I am old enough to be her father; and she
+shall never feel the want of one, if you will give her to my care."
+
+To my surprise, Jean's eager face wore a look of disappointment as she
+listened, and with a sigh replied,--
+
+"That's a kind thought, Sir, and a generous one; but it cannot be as you
+wish. You may be twice her age, but still too young for that. How could
+Effie look into that face of yours, so bonnie, Sir, for all it is so
+grave, and, seeing never a wrinkle on the forehead, nor a white hair
+among the black, how could she call you father? No, it will not do,
+though so kindly meant. Your friends would laugh at you, Sir, and idle
+tongues might speak ill of my bairn."
+
+"Then what can I do, Jean?" I asked, regretfully.
+
+"Make her your wife, Sir."
+
+I turned sharply and stared at the woman, as her abrupt reply reached my
+ear. Though trembling for the consequences of her boldly spoken wish,
+Jean did not shrink from my astonished gaze; and when I saw the
+wistfulness of that wan face, the smile died on my lips, checked by the
+tender courage which had prompted the utterance of her dying hope.
+
+"My good Jean, you forget that Effie is a child, and I a moody, solitary
+man, with no gifts to win a wife or make home happy."
+
+"Effie is sixteen, Sir,--a fair, good lassie for her years; and you--ah,
+Sir, _you_ may call yourself unfit for wife and home, but the poorest,
+saddest creature in this place knows that the man whose hand is always
+open, whose heart is always pitiful, is not the one to live alone, but
+to win and to deserve a happy home and a true wife. Oh, Sir, forgive me,
+if I have been too bold; but my time is short, and I love my child so
+well, I cannot leave the desire of my heart unspoken, for it is my
+last."
+
+As the words fell brokenly from her lips, and tears streamed down her
+pallid cheek, a great pity took possession of me, the old longing to
+find some solace for my solitary life returned again, and peace seemed
+to smile on me from little Effie's eyes.
+
+"Jean," I said, "give me till to-morrow to consider this new thought. I
+fear it cannot be; but I have learned to love the child too well to see
+her thrust out from the shelter of your home to walk through this evil
+world alone. I will consider your proposal, and endeavor to devise some
+future for the child which shall set your heart at rest. But before you
+urge this further, let, me tell you that I am not what you think me.
+I am a cold, selfish man, often, gloomy, often stern,--a most unfit
+guardian for a tender creature like this little girl. The deeds of mine
+which you call kind are not true charities; it frets me to see pain,
+and I desire my ease above all earthly things. You are grateful for
+the little I have done for you, and deceive yourself regarding my true
+worth; but of one thing you may rest assured,--I am an honest man, who
+holds his name too high to stain it with a false word or a dishonorable
+deed."
+
+"I do believe you, Sir," Jean answered, eagerly. "And if I left the
+child to you, I could die this night in peace. Indeed, Sir, I never
+should have dared to speak of this, but for the belief that you loved
+the girl. What else could I think, when you came so often and were so
+kind to us?"
+
+"I cannot blame you, Jean; it was my usual forgetfulness of others which
+so misled you. I was tired of the world, and came hither to find peace
+in solitude. Effie cheered me with her winsome ways, and I learned to
+look on her as the blithe spirit whose artless wiles won me to forget a
+bitter past and a regretful present." I paused; and then added, with a
+smile, "But, in our wise schemes, we have overlooked one point: Effie
+does not love me, and may decline the future you desire me to offer
+her."
+
+A vivid hope lit those dim eyes, as Jean met my smile with one far
+brighter, and joyfully replied,--
+
+"She _does_ love you, Sir; for you have given her the greatest happiness
+she has ever known. Last night she sat looking silently into the fire
+there with a strange gloom on her bonnie face, and, when I asked what
+she was dreaming of, she turned to me with a look of pain and fear, as
+if dismayed at some great loss, but she only said, 'He is going, Jean!
+What shall I do?'"
+
+"Poor child! she will miss her friend and teacher, when I'm gone; and I
+shall miss the only human creature that has seemed to care for me for
+years," I sighed,--adding, as I paused upon the threshold of the door,
+"Say nothing of this to Effie till I come to-morrow, Jean."
+
+I went away, and far out on the lonely moor sat down to think. Like a
+weird magician, Memory led me back into the past, calling up the hopes
+and passions buried there. My childhood,--fatherless and motherless,
+but not unhappy; for no wish was ungratified, no idle whim denied. My
+boyhood,--with no shadows over it but those my own wayward will called
+up. My manhood,--when the great joy of my life arose, my love for
+Agnes, a midsummer dream of bloom and bliss, so short-lived and so
+sweet! I felt again the pang that wrung my heart when she coldly gave me
+back the pledge I thought so sacred and so sure, and the music of her
+marriage-bells tolled the knell of my lost love. I seemed to hear them
+still wafted across the purple moor through the silence of those fifteen
+years.
+
+My life looked gray and joyless as the wide waste lying hushed around
+me, unblessed with the verdure of a single hope, a single love; and as I
+looked down the coming years, my way seemed very solitary, very dark.
+
+Suddenly a lark soared upward from the heath, cleaving the silence with
+its jubilant song. The sleeping echoes woke, the dun moor seemed to
+smile, and the blithe music fell like dew upon my gloomy spirit,
+wakening a new desire.
+
+"What this bird is to the moor might little Effie be to me," I thought
+within myself, longing to possess the cheerful spirit which had power to
+gladden me.
+
+"Yes," I mused, "the old home will seem more solitary now than ever; and
+if I cannot win the lark's song without a golden fetter, I will give
+it one, and while it sings for love of me it shall not know a want or
+fear."
+
+Heaven help me! I forgot the poor return I made my lark for the sweet
+liberty it lost.
+
+All that night I pondered the altered future Jean had laid before me,
+and the longer I looked the fairer it seemed to grow. Wealth I cared
+nothing for; the world's opinion I defied; ambition had departed,
+and passion I believed lay dead;--then why should I deny myself the
+consolation which seemed offered to me? I would accept it; and as I
+resolved, the dawn looked in at me, fresh and fair as little Effie's
+face.
+
+I met Jean with a smile, and, as she read its significance aright,
+there shone a sudden peace upon her countenance, more touching than her
+grateful words.
+
+Effie came singing from the burn-side, as unconscious of the change
+which awaited her as the flowers gathered in her plaid and crowning her
+bright hair.
+
+I drew her to my side, and in the simplest words asked her if she would
+go with me when Jean's long guardianship was ended. Joy, sorrow, and
+surprise stirred the sweet composure of her face, and quickened the
+tranquil beating of her heart. But as I ceased, joy conquered grief and
+wonder; for she clapped her hands like a glad child, exclaiming,--
+
+"Go with you, Sir? Oh, if you knew how I long to see the home you have
+so often pictured to me, you would never doubt my willingness to go."
+
+"But, Effie, you do not understand. Are you willing to go with me as my
+wife?" I said,--with a secret sense of something like remorse, as I
+uttered that word, which once meant so much to me, and now seemed such
+an empty title to bestow on her.
+
+The flowers dropped from the loosened plaid, as Effie looked with a
+startled glance into my face; the color left her cheeks, and the smile
+died on her lips, but a timid joy lit her eye, as she softly echoed my
+last words,--
+
+"Your wife? It sounds very solemn, though so sweet. Ah, Sir, I am not
+wise or good enough for that!"
+
+A child's humility breathed in her speech, but something of a woman's
+fervor shone in her uplifted countenance, and sounded in the sudden
+tremor of her voice.
+
+"Effie, I want you as you are," I said,--"no wiser, dear,--no better.
+I want your innocent affection to appease the hunger of an empty heart,
+your blithe companionship to cheer my solitary home. Be still a child to
+me, and let me give you the protection of my name."
+
+Effie turned to her old friend, and, laying her young face on the pillow
+close beside the worn one grown so dear to her, asked, in a tone half
+pleading, half regretful,--
+
+"Dear Jean, shall I go so far away from you and the home you gave me
+when I had no other?"
+
+"My bairn, I shall not be here, and it will never seem like home with
+old Jean gone. It is the last wish I shall ever know, to see you safe
+with this good gentleman who loves my child. Go, dear heart, and be
+happy; and Heaven bless and keep you both!"
+
+Jean held her fast a moment, and then, with a whispered prayer, put her
+gently away. Effie came to me, saying, with a look more eloquent than
+her meek words,--
+
+"Sir, I will be your wife, and love you very truly all my life."
+
+I drew the little creature to my breast, and felt a tender pride in
+knowing she was mine. Something in the shy caress those soft arms gave
+touched my cold nature with a generous warmth, and the innocence of
+that confiding heart was an appeal to all that made my manhood worth
+possessing.
+
+Swiftly those few weeks passed, and when old Jean was laid to her last
+sleep, little Effie wept her grief away upon her husband's bosom, and
+soon learned to smile in her new English home. Its gloom departed when
+she came, and for a while it was a very happy place. My bitter moods
+seemed banished by the magic of the gentle presence that made sunshine
+there, and I was conscious of a fresh grace added to the life so
+wearisome before.
+
+I should have been a father to the child, watchful, wise, and tender;
+but old Jean was right,--I was too young to feel a father's calm
+affection or to know a father's patient care. I should have been her
+teacher, striving to cultivate the nature given to my care, and fit it
+for the trials Heaven sends to all. I should have been a friend, if
+nothing more, and given her those innocent delights that make youth
+beautiful and its memory sweet.
+
+I was a master, content to give little, while receiving all she could
+bestow.
+
+Forgetting her loneliness, I fell back into my old way of life. I
+shunned the world, because its gayeties had lost their zest. I did not
+care to travel, for home now possessed a charm it never had before. I
+knew there was an eager face that always brightened when I came, light
+feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every
+want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a
+pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite
+whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a
+picture or a flower,--a little better than my horse and hound,--but
+far less than I loved my most unworthy self.
+
+And she,--always so blithe when I was by, so diligent in studying
+my desires, so full of simple arts to win my love and prove her
+gratitude,--she never asked for any boon, and seemed content to live
+alone with me in that still place, so utterly unlike the home she had
+left. I had not learned to read that true heart then. I saw those happy
+eyes grow wistful when I went, leaving her alone; I missed the roses
+from her cheek, faded for want of gentler care; and when the buoyant
+spirit which had been her chiefest charm departed, I fancied, in my
+blindness, that she pined for the free air of the Highlands, and tried
+to win it back by transient tenderness and costly gifts. But I had
+robbed my lark of heaven's sunshine, and it could not sing.
+
+I met Agnes again. She was a widow, and to my eye seemed fairer than
+when I saw her last, and far more kind. Some soft regret seemed shining
+on me from those lustrous eyes, as if she hoped to win my pardon for
+that early wrong. I never could forget the deed that darkened my best
+years, but the old charm stole over me at times, and, turning from the
+meek child at my feet, I owned the power of the stately woman whose
+smile seemed a command.
+
+I meant no wrong to Effie, but, looking on her as a child, I forgot
+the higher claim I had given her as a wife, and, walking blindly on my
+selfish way, I crushed the little flower I should have cherished in my
+breast. "Effie, my old friend Agnes Vaughan is coming here to-day; so
+make yourself fair, that you may do honor to my choice; for she desires
+to see you, and I wish my Scotch harebell to look lovely to this English
+rose," I said, half playfully, half earnestly, as we stood together
+looking out across the flowery lawn, one summer day.
+
+"Do you like me to be pretty, Sir?" she answered, with a flush of
+pleasure on her upturned face. "I will try to make myself fair with the
+gifts you are always heaping on me; but even then I fear I shall not do
+you honor, nor please your friend, I am so small and young."
+
+A careless reply was on my lips, but, seeing what a long way down the
+little figure was, I drew it nearer, saying, with a smile, which I knew
+would make an answering one,--
+
+"Dear, there must be the bud before the flower; so never grieve, for
+your youth keeps my spirit young. To me you may be a child forever; but
+you must learn to be a stately little Madam Ventnor to my friends."
+
+She laughed a gayer laugh than I had heard for many a day, and soon
+departed, intent on keeping well the promise she had given. An hour
+later, as I sat busied among my books, a little figure glided in, and
+stood before me with its jewelled arms demurely folded on its breast. It
+was Effie, as I had never seen her before. Some new freak possessed her,
+for with her girlish dress she seemed to have laid her girlhood by. The
+brown locks were gathered up, wreathing the small head like a coronet;
+aerial lace and silken vesture shimmered in the light, and became her
+well. She looked and moved a fairy queen, stately and small.
+
+I watched her in a silent maze, for the face with its shy blushes and
+downcast eyes did not seem the childish one turned frankly to my own an
+hour ago. With a sigh I looked up at Agnes's picture, the sole ornament
+of that room, and when I withdrew my gaze the blooming vision had
+departed. I should have followed it to make my peace, but I fell into
+a fit of bitter musing, and forgot it till Agnes's voice sounded at my
+door.
+
+She came with a brother, and seemed eager to see my young wife; but
+Effie did not appear, and I excused her absence as a girlish freak,
+smiling at it with them, while I chafed inwardly at her neglect,
+forgetting that I might have been the cause.
+
+Pacing down the garden paths with Agnes at my side, our steps were
+arrested by a sudden sight of Effie fast asleep among the flowers. She
+looked a flower herself, lying with her flushed cheek pillowed on her
+arm, sunshine glittering on the ripples of her hair, and the changeful
+lustre of her dainty dress. Tears moistened her long lashes, but her
+lips smiled, as if in the blissful land of dreams she had found some
+solace for her grief.
+
+"A 'Sleeping Beauty' worthy the awakening of any prince!" whispered
+Alfred Vaughan, pausing with admiring eyes.
+
+A slight frown swept over Agnes's face, but vanished as she said, with
+that low-toned laugh that never seemed unmusical before,--
+
+"We must pardon Mrs. Ventnor's seeming rudeness, if she welcomes us with
+graceful scenes like this. A child-wife's whims are often prettier than
+the world's formal ways; so do not chide her, Basil, when she wakes."
+
+I was a proud man then, touched easily by trivial things. Agnes's
+pitying manner stung me, and the tone in which I wakened Effie was far
+harsher than it should have been. She sprang up; and with a gentle
+dignity most new to me received her guests, and played the part of
+hostess with a grace that well atoned for her offence.
+
+Agnes watched her silently as she went before us with young Vaughan, and
+even I, ruffled as my temper was, felt a certain pride in the loving
+creature who for my sake conquered her timidity and strove to do me
+honor. But neither by look nor word did I show my satisfaction, for
+Agnes demanded the constant service of lips and eyes, and I was only too
+ready to devote them to the woman who still felt her power and dared to
+show it.
+
+All that day I was beside her, forgetful in many ways of the gentle
+courtesies I owed the child whom I had made my wife. I did not see the
+wrong then, but others did, and the deference I failed to show she could
+ask of them.
+
+In the evening, as I stood near Agnes while she sang the songs we both
+remembered well, my eye fell on a mirror that confronted me, and in it
+I saw Effie bending forward with a look that startled me. Some strong
+emotion controlled her, for with lips apart and eager eyes she gazed
+keenly at the countenances she believed unconscious of her scrutiny.
+
+Agnes caught the vision that had arrested the half-uttered compliment
+upon my lips, and, turning, looked at Effie with a smile just touched
+with scorn.
+
+The color rose vividly to Effie's cheek, but her eyes did not fall,--
+they sought my face, and rested there. A half-smile crossed my lips;
+with a sudden impulse I beckoned, and she came with such an altered
+countenance I fancied that I had not seen aright.
+
+At my desire she sang the ballads she so loved, and in her girlish voice
+there was an undertone of deeper melody than when I heard them first
+among her native hills; for the child's heart was ripening fast into the
+woman's.
+
+Agnes went, at length, and I heard Effies sigh of relief when we were
+left alone, but only bid her "go and rest," while I paced to and fro,
+still murmuring the refrain of Agnes's song.
+
+The Vaughans came often, and we went often to them in the summer-home
+they had chosen near us on the riverbank. I followed my own wayward
+will, and Effie's wistful eyes grew sadder as the weeks went by.
+
+One sultry evening, as we strolled together on the balcony, I was
+seized with a sudden longing to hear Agnes sing, and bid Effie come with
+me for a moonlight voyage down the river.
+
+She had been very silent all the evening, with a pensive shadow on her
+face and rare smiles on her lips. But as I spoke, she paused
+abruptly, and, clenching her small hands, turned upon me with defiant
+eyes,--crying, almost fiercely--
+
+"No, I will not go to listen to that woman's songs. I hate her! yes,
+more than I can tell! for, till she came, I thought you loved me; but
+now you think of her alone, and chide me when I look unhappy. You treat
+me like a child; but I am not one. Oh, Sir, be more kind, for I have
+only you to love!"--and as her voice died in that sad appeal, she
+clasped her hands before her face with such a burst of tears that I had
+no words to answer her.
+
+Disturbed by the sudden passion of the hitherto meek girl, I sat down on
+the wide steps of the balcony and essayed to draw her to my knee, hoping
+she would weep this grief away as she had often done a lesser sorrow.
+But she resisted my caress, and, standing erect before me, checked
+her tears, saying, in a voice still trembling with resentment and
+reproach,--
+
+"You promised Jean to be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask
+for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a
+pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is
+not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will not bear it!"
+
+If she had spared reproaches, deserved though they were, and humbly
+pleaded to be loved, I should have been more just and gentle; but her
+indignant words, the sharper for their truth, roused the despotic spirit
+of the man, and made me sternest when I should have been most kind.
+
+"Effie," I said, looking coldly up into her troubled face, "I have given
+you the right to be thus frank with me; but before you exercise that
+right, let me tell you what may silence your reproaches and teach you
+to know me better. I desired to adopt you as my child; Jean would not
+consent to that, but bid me marry you, and so give you a home, and win
+for myself a companion who should make that home less solitary. I could
+protect you in no other way, and I married you. I meant it kindly,
+Effie; for I pitied you,--ay, and loved you, too, as I hoped I had fully
+proved."
+
+"You have, Sir,--oh, you have! But I hoped I might in time be more to
+you than a dear child," sighed Effie, while softer tears flowed as she
+spoke.
+
+"Effie, I told Jean I was a hard, cold man,"--and I was one as those
+words passed my lips. "I told her I was unfitted to make a wife happy.
+But she said you would be content with what I could offer; and so I gave
+you all I had to bestow. It was not enough; yet I cannot make it more.
+Forgive me, child, and try to bear your disappointments as I have
+learned to bear mine."
+
+Effie bent suddenly, saying, with a look of anguish, "Do you regret that
+I am your wife, Sir?"
+
+"Heaven knows I do, for I cannot make you happy," I answered,
+mournfully.
+
+"Let me go away where I can never grieve or trouble you again! I will,--
+indeed, I will,--for anything is easier to bear than this. Oh, Jean, why
+did you leave me when you went?"--and with that despairing cry Effie
+stretched her arms into the empty air, as if seeking that lost friend.
+
+My anger melted, and I tried to soothe her, saying gently, as I laid her
+tear-wet cheek to mine,--
+
+"My child, death alone must part us two. We will be patient with each
+other, and so may learn to be happy yet."
+
+A long silence fell upon us both. My thoughts were busy with the thought
+of what a different home mine might have been, if Agnes had been true;
+and Effie--God only knows how sharp a conflict passed in that young
+heart! I could not guess it till the bitter sequel of that hour came.
+
+A timid hand upon my own aroused me, and, looking down, I met such an
+altered face, it touched me like a mute reproach. All the passion bad
+died out, and a great patience seemed to have arisen there. It looked so
+meek and wan, I bent and kissed it; but no smile answered me as Effie
+humbly said,--
+
+"Forgive me, Sir, and tell me how I can make you happier. For I am truly
+grateful for all you have done for me, and will try to be a docile child
+to you."
+
+"Be happy yourself, Effie, and I shall be content. I am too grave and
+old to be a fit companion for you, dear. You shall have gay faces and
+young friends to make this quiet place more cheerful. I should have
+thought of that before. Dance, sing, be merry, Effie, and never let your
+life be darkened by Basil Ventnor's changeful moods."
+
+"And you?" she whispered, looking up.
+
+"I will sit among my books, or seek alone the few friends I care to see,
+and never mar your gayety with my gloomy presence, dear. We must begin
+at once to go our separate ways; for, with so many years between us, we
+can never find the same paths pleasant very long. Let me be a father to
+you, and a friend,--I cannot be a lover, child."
+
+Effie rose and went silently away; but soon came again, wrapped in her
+mantle, saying, as she looked down at me, with something of her former
+cheerfulness,--
+
+"I am good now. Come and row me down the river. It is too beautiful a
+night to be spent in tears and naughtiness."
+
+"No, Effie, you shall never go to Mrs. Vaughan's again, if you dislike
+her so. No friendship of mine need be shared by you, if it gives you
+pain."
+
+"Nothing shall pain me any more," she answered, with a patient sigh. "I
+will be your merry girl again, and try to love Agnes for your sake. Ah!
+do come, _father_, or I shall not feel forgiven."
+
+Smiling at her April moods, I obeyed the small hands clasped about my
+own, and through the fragrant linden walk went musing to the river-side.
+
+Silently we floated down, and at the lower landing-place found Alfred
+Vaughan just mooring his own boat. By him I sent a message to his
+sister, while we waited for her at the shore.
+
+Effie stood above me on the sloping bank, and as Agnes entered the
+green vista of the flowery path, she turned and clung to me with sudden
+fervor, kissed me passionately, and then stole silently into the boat.
+
+The moonlight turned the waves to silver, and in its magic rays the face
+of my first love grew young again. She sat before me with water-lilies
+in her shining hair, singing as she sang of old, while the dash of
+falling oars kept time to her low song. As we neared the ruined bridge,
+whose single arch still cast its heavy shadow far across the stream,
+Agnes bent toward me, softly saying,--
+
+"Basil, you remember this?"
+
+How could I forget that happy night, long years ago, when she and I went
+floating down the same bright stream, two happy lovers just betrothed?
+As she spoke, it all came back more beautiful than ever, and I forgot
+the silent figure sitting there behind me. I hope Agnes had forgotten,
+too; for, cruel as she was to me, I never wished to think her hard
+enough to hate that gentle child.
+
+"I remember, Agnes," I said, with a regretful sigh. "My voyage has been
+a lonely one since then."
+
+"Are you not happy, Basil?" she asked, with a tender pity thrilling her
+low voice.
+
+"Happy?" I echoed, bitterly,--"how can I be happy, remembering what
+might have been?"
+
+Agnes bowed her head upon her hands, and silently the boat shot into the
+black shadow of the arch. A sudden eddy seemed to sway us slightly from
+our course, and the waves dashed sullenly against the gloomy walls;
+a moment more and we glided into calmer waters and unbroken light. I
+looked up from my task to speak, but the words were frozen on my lips
+by a cry from Agnes, who, wild-eyed and pale, seemed pointing to some
+phantom which I could not see. I turned,--the phantom was Effie's empty
+seat. The shining stream grew dark before me, and a great pang of
+remorse wrung my heart as that sight met my eyes.
+
+"Effie!" I cried, with a cry that rent the stillness of the night, and
+sent the name ringing down the river. But nothing answered me, and the
+waves rippled softly as they hurried by. Far over the wide stream went
+my despairing glance, and saw nothing but the lilies swaying as they
+slept, and the black arch where my child went down.
+
+Agnes lay trembling at my feet, but I never heeded her,--for Jean's
+dead voice sounded in my ear, demanding the life confided to my care. I
+listened, benumbed with guilty fear, and, as if summoned by that weird
+cry, there came a white flash through the waves, and Effie's face rose
+up before me.
+
+Pallid and wild with the agony of that swift plunge, it confronted me.
+No cry for help parted the pale lips, but those wide eyes were luminous
+with a love whose fire that deathful river could not quench.
+
+Like one in an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it.
+One instant the terror held me,--the next I was far down in those waves,
+so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind
+struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm,
+and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing
+waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the
+boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and we laid it
+down, a piteous sight for human eyes to look upon. Of that swift voyage
+home I can remember nothing but the still face on Agnes's breast, the
+sight of which nerved my dizzy brain and made my muscles iron.
+
+For many weeks there was a darkened chamber in my house, and anxious
+figures gliding to and fro, wan with long vigils and the fear of death.
+I often crept in to look upon the little figure lying there, to watch
+the feverish roses blooming on the wasted cheek, the fitful fire burning
+in the unconscious eyes, to hear the broken words so full of pathos to
+my ear, and then to steal away and struggle to forget.
+
+My bird fluttered on the threshold of its cage, but Love lured it back,
+for its gentle mission was not yet fulfilled.
+
+The _child_ Effie lay dead beneath the ripples of the river, but the
+_woman_ rose up from that bed of suffering like one consecrated to
+life's high duties by the bitter baptism of that dark hour.
+
+Slender and pale, with serious eyes and quiet steps, she moved through
+the home which once echoed to the glad voice and dancing feet of that
+vanished shape. A sweet sobriety shaded her young face, and a meek smile
+sat upon her lips, but the old blithesomeness was gone.
+
+She never claimed her childish place upon my knee, never tried the
+winsome wiles that used to chase away my gloom, never came to pour her
+innocent delights and griefs into my ear, or bless me with the frank
+affection which grew very precious when I found it lost.
+
+Docile as ever, and eager to gratify my lightest wish, she left no
+wifely duty unfulfilled. Always near me, if I breathed her name, but
+vanishing when I grew silent, as if her task were done. Always smiling a
+cheerful farewell when I went, a quiet welcome when I came. I missed the
+April face that once watched me go, the warm embrace that greeted me
+again, and at my heart the sense of loss grew daily deeper as I felt the
+growing change.
+
+Effie remembered the words I had spoken on that mournful night;
+remembered that our paths must lie apart,--that her husband was a
+friend, and nothing more. She treasured every careless hint I had given,
+and followed it most faithfully. She gathered gay, young friends about
+her, went out into the brilliant world, and I believed she was content.
+
+If I had ever felt she was a burden to the selfish freedom I desired,
+I was punished now, for I had lost a blessing which no common pleasure
+could replace. I sat alone, and no blithe voice made music in the
+silence of my room, no bright locks swept my shoulder, and no soft
+caress assured me that I was beloved.
+
+I looked for my household sprite in girlish garb, with its free hair
+and sunny eyes, but found only a fair woman, graceful in rich attire,
+crowned with my gifts, and standing afar off among her blooming peers.
+I could not guess the solitude of that true heart, nor see the captive
+spirit gazing at me from those steadfast eyes.
+
+No word of the cause of that despairing deed passed Effie's lips, and
+I had no need to ask it. Agnes was silent, and soon left us, but her
+brother was a frequent guest. Effie liked his gay companionship, and I
+denied her nothing,--nothing but the one desire of her life.
+
+So that first year passed; and though the ease and liberty I coveted
+were undisturbed, I was not satisfied. Solitude grew irksome, and
+study ceased to charm. I tried old pleasures, but they had lost their
+zest,--renewed old friendships, but they wearied me. I forgot Agnes,
+and ceased to think her fair. I looked at Effie, and sighed for my lost
+youth.
+
+My little wife grew very beautiful to me, for she was blooming fast into
+a gracious womanhood. I felt a secret pride in knowing she was mine,
+and watched her as I fancied a fond brother might, glad that she was so
+good, so fair, so much beloved. I ceased to mourn the plaything I
+had lost, and something akin to reverence mingled with the deepening
+admiration of the man.
+
+Gay guests had filled the house with festal light and sound one winter's
+night, and when the last bright figure had vanished from the threshold
+of the door, I still stood there, looking over the snow-shrouded lawn,
+hoping to cool the fever of my blood, and case the restless pain that
+haunted me.
+
+I shut out the keen air and wintry sky, at length, and silently ascended
+to the diverted rooms above. But in the soft gloom of a vestibule my
+steps were stayed. Two figures, in a flowery alcove, fixed my eye. The
+light streamed full upon them, and the fragrant stillness of the air was
+hardly stirred by their low tones.
+
+Effie was there, sunk on a low couch, her face bowed upon her hands; and
+at her side, speaking with impassioned voice and ardent eyes, leaned
+Alfred Vaughan.
+
+The sight struck me like a blow, and the sharp anguish of that moment
+proved how deeply I had learned to love.
+
+"Effie, it is a sinful tie that binds you to that man; he does not love
+you, and it should be broken,--for this slavery will wear away the life
+now grown so dear to me."
+
+The words, hot with indignant passion, smote me like a wintry blast, but
+not so coldly as the broken voice that answered them:--
+
+"He said death alone must part us two, and, remembering that, I cannot
+listen to another love."
+
+Like a guilty ghost I stole away, and in the darkness of my solitary
+room struggled with my bitter grief, my newborn love. I never blamed
+my wife,--that wife who had heard the tender name so seldom, she could
+scarce feel it hers. I had fettered her free heart, forgetting it would
+one day cease to be a child's. I bade her look upon me as a father; she
+had learned the lesson well; and now what right had I to reproach her
+for listening to a lover's voice, when her husband's was so cold? What
+mattered it that slowly, almost unconsciously, I had learned to love her
+with the passion of a youth, the power of a man? I had alienated that
+fond nature from my own, and now it was too late.
+
+Heaven only knows the bitterness of that hour;--I cannot tell it. But
+through the darkness of my anguish and remorse that newly kindled love
+burned like a blessed fire, and, while it tortured, purified. By its
+light I saw the error of my life: self-love was written on the actions
+of the past, and I knew that my punishment was very just. With a child's
+repentant tears, I confessed it to my Father, and He solaced me, showed
+me the path to tread, and made me nobler for the blessedness and pain of
+that still hour.
+
+Dawn found me an altered man; for in natures like mine the rain of a
+great sorrow melts the ice of years, and their hidden strength blooms
+in a late harvest of patience, self-denial, and humility. I resolved to
+break the tie which bound poor Effie to a joyless fate; and gratitude
+for a selfish deed, which wore the guise of charity, should no longer
+mar her peace. I would atone for the wrong I had done her, the suffering
+she had endured; and she should never know that I had guessed her tender
+secret, nor learn the love which made my sacrifice so bitter, yet so
+just.
+
+Alfred came no more; and as I watched the growing pallor of her cheek,
+her patient efforts to be cheerful and serene, I honored that meek
+creature for her constancy to what she deemed the duty of her life.
+
+I did not tell her my resolve at once, for I could not give her up so
+soon. It was a weak delay, but I had not learned the beauty of a perfect
+self-forgetfulness; and though I clung to my purpose steadfastly, my
+heart still cherished a desperate hope that I might be spared this loss.
+
+In the midst of this secret conflict, there came a letter from old Adam
+Lyndsay, asking to see his daughter's child; for life was waning slowly,
+and he desired to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven when the last hour
+came. The letter was to me, and, as I read it, I saw a way where-by I
+might be spared the hard task of telling Effie she was to be free. I
+feared my new-found strength would desert me, and my courage fail, when,
+looking on the woman who was dearer to me than my life, I tried to give
+her back the liberty whose worth she had learned to know.
+
+Effie should go, and I would write the words I dared not speak. She
+would be in her mother's home, free to show her joy at her release, and
+smile upon the lover she had banished.
+
+I went to tell her; for it was I who sought her now, who watched for her
+coming and sighed at her departing steps,--I who waited for her smile
+and followed her with wistful eyes. The child's slighted affection was
+atoned for now by my unseen devotion to the woman.
+
+I gave the letter, and she read it silently.
+
+"Will you go, love?" I asked, as she folded it.
+
+"Yes,--the old man has no one to care for him but me, and it is so
+beautiful to be loved."
+
+A sudden smile touched her lips, and a soft dew shone in the shadowy
+eyes, which seemed looking into other and tenderer ones than mine. She
+could not know how sadly I echoed those words, nor how I longed to tell
+her of another man who sighed to be forgiven.
+
+"You must gather roses for these pale cheeks among the breezy moorlands,
+dear. They are not so blooming as they were a year ago. Jean would
+reproach me for my want of care," I said, trying to speak cheerfully,
+though each word seemed a farewell.
+
+"Poor Jean! how long it seems since she kissed them last!" sighed Effie,
+musing sadly, as she turned her wedding-ring.
+
+My heart ached to see how thin the hand had grown, and how easily that
+little fetter would fall off when I set my captive lark at liberty.
+
+I looked till I dared look no longer, and then rose, saying,--
+
+"You will write often, Effie, for I shall miss you very much."
+
+She cast a quick look into my face, asking, hurriedly,--
+
+"Am I to go alone?"
+
+"Dear, I have much to do and cannot go; but you need fear nothing; I
+shall send Ralph and Mrs. Prior with you, and the journey is soon over.
+When will you go?"
+
+It was the first time she had left me since I took her from Jean's arms,
+and I longed to keep her always near me; but, remembering the task I had
+to do, I felt that I must seem cold till she knew all.
+
+"Soon,--very soon,--to-morrow;--let me go to-morrow, Sir. I long to be
+away!" she cried, some swift emotion banishing the calmness of her usual
+manner, as she rose, with eager eyes and a gesture full of longing.
+
+"You shall go, Effie," was all I could say; and with no word of thanks,
+she hastened away, leaving me so calm without, so desolate within.
+
+The same eagerness possessed her all that day; and the next she went
+away, clinging to me at the last as she had clung that night upon the
+river-bank, as if her grateful heart reproached her for the joy she felt
+at leaving my unhappy home.
+
+A few days passed, bringing me the comfort of a few sweet lines from
+Effie, signed "Your child." That sight reminded me, that, if I would do
+an honest deed, it should be generously done. I read again the little
+missive she had sent, and then I wrote the letter which might be my
+last;--with no hint of my love, beyond the expression of sincerest
+regard and never-ceasing interest in her happiness; no hint of Alfred
+Vaughan; for I would not wound her pride, nor let her dream that any eye
+had seen the passion she so silently surrendered, with no reproach to
+me and no shadow on the name I had given into her keeping. Heaven knows
+what it cost me, and Heaven, through the suffering of that hour, granted
+me an humbler spirit and a better life.
+
+It went, and I waited for my fate as one might wait for pardon or for
+doom. It came at length,--a short, sad letter, full of meek obedience to
+my will, of penitence for faults I never knew, and grateful prayers for
+my peace.
+
+My last hope died then, and for many days I dwelt alone, living over all
+that happy year with painful vividness. I dreamed again of those fair
+days, and woke to curse the selfish blindness which had hidden my best
+blessing from me till it was forever lost.
+
+How long I should have mourned thus unavailingly I cannot tell. A more
+sudden, but far less grievous loss befell me. My fortune was nearly
+swept away in the general ruin of a most disastrous year. This event
+roused me from my despair and made me strong again,--for I must hoard
+what could be saved, for Effie's sake. She had known a cruel want with
+me, and she must never know another while she bore my name. I looked my
+misfortune in the face and ceased to feel it one; for the diminished
+fortune was still ample for my darling's dower, and now what need had I
+of any but the simplest home?
+
+Before another month was gone, I was in the quiet place henceforth to be
+mine alone, and nothing now remained for me to do but to dissolve the
+bond that made my Effie mine. Sitting over the dim embers of my solitary
+hearth, I thought of this, and, looking round the silent room, whose
+only ornaments were the things made sacred by her use, the utter
+desolation struck so heavily upon my heart, that I bowed my head upon
+my folded arms, and yielded to the tender longing that could not be
+repressed.
+
+The bitter paroxysm passed, and, raising my eyes, the clearer for that
+stormy rain, I beheld Effie standing like an answer to my spirit's cry.
+
+With a great start, I regarded her, saying, at length, in a voice that
+sounded cold, for my heart leaped up to meet her, and yet must not
+speak,--
+
+"Effie, why are you here?"
+
+Wraith-like and pale, she stood before me, with no sign of emotion but
+the slight tremor of her frame, and answered my greeting with a sad
+humility:--
+
+"I came because I promised to cleave to you through health and sickness,
+poverty and wealth, and I must keep that vow till you absolve me from
+it. Forgive me, but I knew misfortune had befallen you, and, remembering
+all you had done for me, came, hoping I might comfort when other friends
+deserted you."
+
+"Grateful to the last!" I sighed, low to myself, and, though deeply
+touched, replied with the hard-won calmness that made my speech so
+brief,--
+
+"You owe me nothing, Effie, and I most earnestly desired to spare you
+this."
+
+Some sudden hope seemed born of my regretful words, for, with an eager
+glance, she cried,--
+
+"Was it that desire which prompted you to part from me? Did you think I
+should shrink from sharing poverty with you who gave me all I own?"
+
+"No, dear,--ah, no!" I said, "I knew your grateful spirit far too well
+for that. It was because I could not make your happiness, and yet had
+robbed you of the right to seek it with some younger and some better
+man."
+
+"Basil, what man? Tell me; for no doubt shall stand between us now!"
+
+She grasped my arm, and her rapid words were a command.
+
+I only answered, "Alfred Vaughan."
+
+Effie covered up her face, crying, as she sank down at my feet,--
+
+"Oh, my fear! my fear! Why was I blind so long?"
+
+I felt her grief to my heart's core; for my own anguish made me pitiful,
+and my love made me strong. I lifted up that drooping head and laid it
+down where it might never rest again, saying, gently, cheerily, and with
+a most sincere forgetfulness of self,--
+
+"My wife, I never cherished a harsh thought of you, never uttered a
+reproach when your affections turned from a cold, neglectful guardian,
+to find a tenderer resting-place. I saw your struggles, dear, your
+patient grief, your silent sacrifice, and honored you more truly than I
+can tell. Effie, I robbed you of your liberty, but I will restore it,
+making such poor reparation as I can for this long year of pain;
+and when I see you blest in a happier home, my keen remorse will be
+appeased."
+
+As I ceased, Effie rose erect and stood before me, transformed from a
+timid girl into an earnest woman. Some dormant power and passion woke;
+she turned on me a countenance aglow with feeling, soul in the eye,
+heart on the lips, and in her voice an energy that held me mute.
+
+"I feared to speak before," she said, "but now I dare anything, for I
+have heard you call me 'wife,' and seen that in your face which gives me
+hope. Basil, the grief you saw was not for the loss of any love
+but yours; the conflict you beheld was the daily struggle to subdue
+my longing spirit to your will; and the sacrifice you honor but the
+renunciation of all hope. I stood between you and the woman whom you
+loved, and asked of death to free me from that cruel lot. You gave me
+back my life, but you withheld the gift that made it worth possessing.
+You desired to be freed from the affection which only wearied you, and I
+tried to conquer it; but it would not die. Let me speak now, and then I
+will be still forever! Must our ways lie apart? Can I never be more to
+you than now? Oh, Basil! oh, my husband! I have loved you very truly
+from the first! Shall I never know the blessedness of a return?"
+
+Words could not answer that appeal. I gathered my life's happiness close
+to my breast, and in the silence of a full heart felt that God was very
+good to me.
+
+Soon all my pain and passion were confessed. Fast and fervently the tale
+was told; and as the truth dawned on that patient wife, a tender peace
+transfigured her uplifted countenance, until to me it seemed an angel's
+face.
+
+"I am a poor man now," I said, still holding that frail creature fast,
+fearing to see her vanish, as her semblance had so often done in the
+long vigils I had kept,--"a poor man, Effie, and yet very rich, for I
+have my treasure back again. But I am wiser than when we parted; for I
+have learned that love is better than a world of wealth, and victory
+over self a nobler conquest than a continent. Dear, I have no home but
+this. Can you be happy here, with no fortune but the little store set
+apart for you, and the knowledge that no want shall touch you while I
+live?"
+
+And as I spoke, I sighed, remembering all I might have done, and
+dreading poverty for her alone.
+
+But with a gesture, soft, yet solemn, Effie laid her hands upon my head,
+as if endowing me with blessing and with gift, and answered, with her
+steadfast eyes on mine,--
+
+"You gave me your home when I was homeless; let me give it back, and
+with it a proud wife. I, too, am rich; for that old man is gone and left
+me all. Take it, Basil, and give me a little love."
+
+I gave not little, but a long life of devotion for the good gift God had
+bestowed on me,--finding in it a household spirit the daily benediction
+of whose presence banished sorrow, selfishness, and gloom, and, through
+the influence of happy human love, led me to a truer faith in the
+Divine.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MUSE.
+
+  Whither? albeit I follow fast,
+  In all life's circuit I but find
+  Not where thou art, but where thou wast,
+  Fleet Beckoner, more shy than wind!
+  I haunt the pine-dark solitudes,
+  With soft, brown silence carpeted,
+  And think to snare thee in the woods:
+  Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled!
+  I find the rock where thou didst rest,
+  The moss thy skimming foot hath prest;
+  All Nature with thy parting thrills,
+  Like branches after birds new-flown;
+  Thy passage hill and hollow fills
+  With hints of virtue not their own;
+  In dimples still the water slips
+  Where thou hast dipped thy finger-tips;
+  Just, just beyond, forever burn
+  Gleams of a grace without return;
+  Upon thy shade I plant my foot,
+  And through my frame strange raptures shoot;
+  All of thee but thyself I grasp;
+  I seem to fold thy luring shape,
+  And vague air to my bosom clasp,
+  Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!
+
+  One mask and then another drops,
+  And thou art secret as before.
+  Sometimes with flooded ear I list
+  And hear thee, wondrous organist,
+  Through mighty continental stops
+  A thunder of strange music pour;--
+  Through pipes of earth and air and stone
+  Thy inspiration deep is blown;
+  Through mountains, forests, open downs,
+  Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns,
+  Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on,
+  From Maine to utmost Oregon;
+  The factory-wheels a rhythmus hum;
+  From brawling parties concords come;--
+  All this I hear, or seem to hear;
+  But when, enchanted, I draw near
+  To fix in notes the various theme,
+  Life seems a whiff of kitchen-steam,
+  History a Swiss street-singer's thrum,
+  And I, that would have fashioned words
+  To mate that music's rich accords,
+  By rash approaches startle thee,
+  Thou mutablest Perversity!
+  The world drones on its old _tum-tum_,
+  But thou hast slipped from it and me,
+  And all thine organ-pipes left dumb.
+
+  Not wearied yet, I still must seek,
+  And hope for luck next day, next week.
+  I go to see the great man ride,
+  Ship-like, the swelling human tide
+  That floods to bear him into port,
+  Trophied from senate-hall or court:
+  Thy magnetism, I feel it there,
+  Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare,
+  Making the mob a moment fine
+  With glimpses of their own Divine,
+  As in their demigod they see
+  Their swart ideal soaring free;
+  'Tis thou that bear'st the fire about,
+  Which, like the springing of a mine,
+  Sends up to heaven the street-long shout:
+  Full well I know that thou wast here;
+  That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear;
+  But vainly, in the stress and whirl,
+  I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.
+
+  Through every shape thou well canst run,
+  Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun,
+  Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
+  As where Milan's pale Duomo lies
+  A stranded glacier on the plain,
+  Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
+  Melted in many a quaint device,
+  And sees, across the city's din,
+  Afar its silent Alpine kin;
+  I track thee over carpets deep
+  To Wealth's and Beauty's inmost keep;
+  Across the sand of bar-room floors,
+  'Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
+  Where drowse the hayfield's fragrant heats,
+  Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats;
+  I dog thee through the market's throngs,
+  To where the sea with myriad tongues
+  Laps the green fringes of the pier,
+  And the tall ships that eastward steer
+  Curtsy their farewells to the town,
+  O'er the curved distance lessening down;--
+  I follow allwhere for thy sake,--
+  Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,--
+  Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
+  Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,--
+  But thou another mask hast donned,
+  And lurest still, just, just, beyond!
+
+  But here a voice, I know not whence,
+  Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
+  Saying, "See where she sits at home,
+  While thou in search of her dost roam!
+  All summer long her ancient wheel
+  Whirls humming by the open door,
+  Or, when the hickory's social zeal
+  Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
+  Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
+  It modulates the household mirth
+  With that sweet, serious undertone
+  Of Duty, music all her own;
+  Still, as of old, she sits and spins
+  Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
+  With equal care she twines the fates
+  Of cottages and mighty states;
+  She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
+  The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
+  The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
+  The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
+  The piping west-wind's snowy care
+  For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
+  Or from the thorns of evil times
+  She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
+  Morning and noon and eve supply
+  To her their fairest tints for dye,
+  But ever through her twirling thread
+  There spires one strand of warmest red,
+  Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
+  The stamp and warrant of her art;
+  With this Time's sickle she outwears,
+  And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.
+
+  "Harass her not; thy heat and stir
+  The greater coyness breed in her:
+  Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
+  Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
+  Learning at last that Stygian Fate
+  Supples for him that knows to wait.
+  The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
+  Her love to him who pules and plains;
+  With proud, averted face she stands
+  To him who wooes with empty hands.
+  Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
+  Pull down thy barns and greater build;
+  The wood, the mountain, and the plain
+  Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
+  Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
+  Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
+  From fireside lone and trampling street
+  Let thy life garner daily wheat;
+  The epic of a man rehearse,
+  Be something better than thy verse,
+  Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
+  Shall court thy precious interviews,
+  Shall take thy head upon her knee,
+  And such enchantment lilt to thee,
+  That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow
+  From farthest stars to grass-blades low,
+  And find the Listener's science still
+  Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!"
+
+
+
+SCREW-PROPULSION:
+
+
+ITS RISE AND PROGRESS.
+
+The earliest conception of an auxiliary motive power in navigation
+is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the
+inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of
+ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the
+paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced
+to play the secondary part of an auxiliary.
+
+Scarce was man in possession of this means of _impressing_ the wind, and
+resting his weary oar, than, scorning longer confinement to the coast,
+he boldly ventured upon the conquest of the main. Under the same
+impulse, the tiny skiff, in which he hardly dared to quit the river's
+bank, was enlarged, and made fit companion of his distant emprise. These
+footprints of the infant steps of navigation may all still be traced
+among the maritime tribes of the Pacific.
+
+From that period sails became the chief motor, and the paddle and the
+sweep auxiliaries,--which position they still hold to some extent, even
+in vessels of considerable burden. But as the proportions of naval
+architecture enlarged, these puny instruments were thrown aside;
+although the importance and necessity of some such auxiliary in the
+ordinary exigencies of marine life have always been felt and it has long
+been earnestly sought.
+
+From the first successful application of steam to navigation--by Fulton,
+in 1803--it was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world to
+provide ships with an auxiliary motor; but the result has shown the
+fallacy of this conception.
+
+For more than twenty years steam-navigation has advanced with giant
+strides, overstepping several times the limits which science had
+assigned it; but the paddle-wheel, by which the agency of steam has
+been applied, forms so bad an alliance with canvas, and supplies so
+indifferently the requirements of a man-of-war, that it has been
+impossible by this intermediary to render steam the efficient coadjutor
+of sails; and it is for this reason that steam so speedily took rank
+as a primary motor upon the ocean; for, in all the successful marine
+applications of steam by means of the paddle, steam is the dominant
+power, and sails the accessory, or almost superfluous auxiliary. It is
+the screw alone, in some of its modifications, which offers the means of
+a successful and economical adaptation of steam to ships of war or of
+commerce; for it is susceptible of a more complete protection than, the
+paddle, and of an easy and advantageous combination with canvas.
+
+The screw-propeller, in fact, has assumed so important a part in all
+naval enterprise, that it may not be without interest to trace briefly
+its rise and progress to the consideration it now commands, and
+to review, in general terms, the various experiments by which the
+screw-frigate has been brought to its present high state of efficiency,
+excelling, for purposes of war, all other kinds of vessels.
+
+As early as 1804, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, engaged in
+experiments to devise some means of driving a vessel through the water
+by applying the motive power at the stern, and with a screw-propeller
+and a defective boiler attained for short distances a speed of seven
+knots; and it is surprising, that, with the genius and determination so
+characteristic of his race, he should have abandoned the path on which
+he appears to have so fairly entered.
+
+Within the last half-century numerous attempts of a similar character
+have been made in Europe and America; but although many of the
+contrivances for this purpose were exceedingly ingenious, and the
+success of some of the experiments sufficient, one would suppose, to
+excite the interest of the public and encourage perseverance in the
+undertaking, yet in no instance were they followed by any practical and
+useful results until the year 1836, when both Captain Ericsson and
+Mr. F. P. Smith so fully demonstrated the speed and safety with which
+vessels could be moved by the screw-propeller, as to convince every
+intelligent and unprejudiced mind of the importance of their inventions,
+and immediately to attract the attention of the principal naval powers
+of the world.
+
+Captain Ericsson is a native of Sweden, but for some years previous to
+1836 he had resided in England, where he had become known as an engineer
+and mechanician of distinguished ability.
+
+In July, 1836, he took out a patent in England for his method of
+propelling vessels; and during that year the results of his experiments
+with a small boat were so satisfactory, that in the following year he
+built a vessel forty-five feet long, with eight feet beam, and drawing
+three feet of water, called the Francis B. Ogden, in compliment to the
+gentleman then consul of the United States at Liverpool, who was the
+first person to appreciate the merits of his invention, and to encourage
+him in his efforts to perfect it. This vessel was tried upon the Thames
+in April, 1837, and succeeded admirably. She made ten knots an hour, and
+towed the American ship Toronto at the rate of four and a half knots an
+hour; and in the following summer, Sir Charles Adam, one of the Lords
+of the Admiralty, Sir William Symonds, the Surveyor of the Navy, and
+several other scientific gentlemen and officers of rank, were towed by
+her in the Admiralty barge at the speed of ten miles an hour.
+
+Notwithstanding this demonstration of the powers of his vessel, Captain
+Ericsson did not succeed in exciting the interest of any of the persons
+who witnessed the performance; and it seems almost incredible that no
+one of them had the intelligence to perceive or the magnanimity to admit
+the importance of his invention. But, fortunately for Ericsson and the
+reputation of our country, he soon after met with Captain Stockton, of
+the United States navy, who at once took the deepest interest in
+his plans. The result of one experiment with Ericsson's steamer was
+sufficient to convince a man of Stockton's sagacity of the immense
+advantages which the new motor might confer upon the commerce and upon
+the navy of his country, and forthwith he ordered an iron steamer to be
+built and fitted with Ericsson's propeller. This vessel was named the
+Stockton, and was launched in July, 1838, and, after being thoroughly
+tested and her success demonstrated, she was sent under sail to the
+United States in April of the next year, and was soon after followed by
+Captain Ericsson; when, in consequence of the representations of Captain
+Stockton, the government ordered the Princeton to be built under
+Ericsson's superintendence, and to be fitted with his propeller.
+
+The Princeton, of 673 tons, was launched in April, 1842, and her
+propeller, of six blades, of thirty-five feet pitch, and of fourteen
+feet diameter, was driven by a semi-cylinder engine of two hundred and
+fifty horse-power, and all her machinery placed _below_ the water-line.
+Her smoke-stack was so arranged that the upper parts could be let into
+the lower, so as not to be visible above the rail; and as the anthracite
+coal which she used evolved no smoke, she could not, at a short
+distance, be distinguished from a sailing-ship.
+
+Her best speed under steam alone, _at sea_, was 8.6, and under sail
+alone, 10.1 knots; her mean performance under steam and sail, 8.226; and
+considering the imperfect form of boiler employed, and the small
+amount of fuel consumed, it may be doubted if this has since been much
+excelled. She worked and steered well under canvas or steam alone, or
+under both combined; was dry and weatherly, but pitched heavily, and was
+rather deficient in stability.
+
+[Footnote: For a particular account of the Princeton, by B. F.
+Isherwood, U. S. N., see _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ for June,
+1853. Taking everything into consideration, the Princeton was a most
+successful experiment, and, in her day, the most efficient man-of-war of
+her class. By her construction the government of the United States had
+placed itself far in advance of all the world in the path of naval
+improvement, and it is deeply to be regretted that it did not avail
+itself of the advantage thus gained; that it did not immediately order
+the construction of other vessels, in which successively the few defects
+of the Princeton might have been corrected; that it did not persist in
+that path of improvement into which it had fortunately been directed,
+instead of suffering our great naval rivals to outstrip us in the race,
+and compel us at last to resort to them for instruction in that science
+the very rudiments of which they had learned from us.]
+
+The success of the Princeton was followed by the general adoption in
+America of the screw-propeller. When Ericsson left England, he confided
+his interests to Count Rosen, who, in 1843, placed an Ericsson propeller
+in the French frigate Pomone, and soon afterwards the British Admiralty
+determined to place it in the Amphion. Not only was the performance of
+these vessels highly satisfactory, but they were the first ships in the
+navies of Europe in which the great desideratum was secured of placing
+the machinery below the load-line. Ericsson's propeller having been the
+first introduced into France, it was generally adopted; but afterwards,
+in consequence of the accounts of Smith's screw received from England,
+it underwent various modifications.
+
+Such was the result of Ericsson's labors; it now remains to relate the
+success of Smith. The efforts of either had been sufficient to have
+secured to navigation the inestimable advantages of screw-propulsion,
+but their rivalry probably hastened the solution of the problem.
+
+In May, 1836, Mr. F. P. Smith, a farmer of Hendon, in England, took out
+a patent for his screw-propeller, and exhibited some experiments with it
+attached to a model boat, and in the following autumn built a boat of
+six tons' burden, of ten horse-power, and fitted with a wooden screw.
+This vessel was kept running upon the Thames for nearly a year, and her
+performance was so satisfactory, that Mr. Smith determined to try her
+qualities at sea; and in the course of the year 1837, he visited in her
+several ports on the coast of England, and proved that she worked well
+in strong winds and rough water.
+
+These trials attracted much attention, and at last awakened the interest
+of the Admiralty, who requested Mr. Smith to try his propeller on a
+larger vessel, and the Archimedes, of ninety horse-power and 237 tons,
+built for this purpose, was launched in October, 1838, and made her
+experimental trip in 1839. It was thought that her performance would be
+satisfactory, if she could make four or five knots an hour; but she
+made nearly ten! In May, 1839, she went from Gravesend to Portsmouth,
+a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, and made the run in twenty
+hours.
+
+In April, 1840, Captain Chappel, R. N., and Mr. Lloyd, Chief Engineer of
+Woolwich Dockyard, were appointed by the Admiralty to try a series
+of experiments with her at Dover. The numerous trials made under the
+superintendence of these officers fully proved the efficiency of the new
+propeller, and their report was entirely favorable.
+
+The Archimedes next circumnavigated Great Britain under command of
+Captain Chappel, visiting all the principal ports: she afterwards
+went to Oporto, Antwerp, and other places, and everywhere excited the
+admiration of engineers and seamen.
+
+Up to this period, the British engineers were nearly unanimous in the
+opinion that the use of the screw involved a great loss of power, and
+they had concluded that it could not be adopted; but it was impossible
+any longer to resist the impressions made on the public by the
+demonstration which had been given both by Smith and Ericsson; and
+although the engineers were still unwilling to admit the screw to a
+comparison with the paddle, it was evident that their first conclusions
+regarding it were erroneous, and thereafter it was viewed by them with
+less disdain and spoken of more hopefully. One of the great objections
+by engineers to the use of the screw was their inability, at the time of
+its introduction, to construct properly a screw engine,--that is to say,
+a direct-acting horizontal engine, working at a speed of from sixty to
+one hundred revolutions per minute,--all their experience having been in
+paddle-wheel engines, working from ten to fifteen revolutions per
+minute. The peculiar mechanical details required in the screw engine,
+the necessity for accurate counterbalancing, etc., were then unknown,
+and had to be learned from a long succession of expensive failures. In
+England, the first machines applied to the screw were paddle-wheel
+engines, working it by gearing; there were consequently lost all the
+advantages of the reduced cost, bulk, and weight of the screw engine
+proper, including, for war purposes, the important feature of its being
+placed below the water-line. At first, the screw had not only to contend
+with physical difficulties, but to struggle against nearly universal
+prejudice; many inventors had succumbed to these obstacles, and
+therefore too much applause cannot be bestowed upon those who,
+unsustained by public sympathy, and in defiance of a prevailing
+skepticism, maintained their faith and courage unshaken, and gallantly
+persisted in their efforts, until crowned with a world-wide success.
+
+Ericsson, before interesting himself with the screw, was, as has been
+seen, an engineer and mechanician of distinguished ability; whereas
+Smith, in commencing his new vocation, had all to acquire but his first
+conception. Ericsson could rely upon the fertility of his own genius,
+was his own draughtsman, and designed his own engines, accommodating
+them to the new propeller by dispensing with gearing, and adapting
+them to a speed of from thirty to forty revolutions,--a great and bold
+advance for an initiative step. Smith, on the contrary, not being an
+engineer, had to intrust the execution of his plans to others, whose
+knowledge of construction was in the routine of paddle-wheel engines;
+and this accounts for the fact, that all the earliest British
+screw-steamers were driven by gearing. This want of mechanical resources
+on the part of Smith added to the difficulties of his career; but his
+resolution and perseverance rose superior to all obstacles, and carried
+him to the goal in triumph. Briefly, then, these were the respective
+merits of Smith and Ericsson, in the introduction of screw-propulsion;
+and it is much to their honor, that, throughout their career, no
+narrow-spirited jealousies dimmed the lustre of a noble rivalry.
+
+Such was the origin of the new motor,--the mighty engine by which
+armadas are marshalled in battle-array, the burdens of commerce borne to
+distant marts, the impatient emigrant transferred to the promised land,
+and by which the breathings of affection, the pangs of distress, and the
+sighs of love are wafted to far-off continents.
+
+In consequence of the success of the Archimedes, the Admiralty ordered
+the Rattler to be fitted with a screw, and it was no small satisfaction
+to find that her double-cylinder engines could be easily adapted to the
+new propeller. She is of 888 tons, and two hundred horse-power, and was
+launched in the spring of 1843, being the first screw-vessel in the
+British navy.
+
+In the course of the two succeeding years, she was tried with a great
+many different screws, and numerous experiments were made to discover
+the length, diameter, pitch, and number of blades of the screw, most
+effective in all the various conditions of wind and sea. A screw of two
+blades, each equal to one-sixth part of a convolution, and of a uniform
+pitch, was, on the whole, found to be the most efficient, and this is
+the screw now adopted in most of the ships of all classes in the British
+navy.[1]
+
+A propeller of very different construction, which had given great
+results in a ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and
+was afterwards exhibited in the docks at Southampton, here claims a
+passing notice. This propeller is so constructed as to enable the
+engineer to regulate the speed of the piston; for _the pitch of the
+screw can be increased or diminished at pleasure_. Thus, with a fair
+wind, by increasing the pitch, without increasing the revolutions, the
+full power of the engine is effectually exerted in driving the ship,
+instead of consuming fuel in driving the engine to no purpose; and with
+a headwind, by diminishing the pitch, the engines are made to do their
+utmost duty; and when the ship is under canvas only, the blades of the
+propeller may be placed in line with the stern-post, and thus offer
+little resistance. Another advantage claimed for this propeller (known
+as Griffith's) is, that, in the event of breaking a blade, it may be
+readily replaced by "tipping the ship"; which method merits careful
+consideration by engineers, as does especially every new propeller which
+promises a more perfect alliance with canvas.
+
+To resume the narrative,--the speed of the Rattler was afterwards tested
+by a trial with the Alecto, a paddle-wheel steamer of equal power,
+built from the same moulds; and the result was so favorable, that the
+Admiralty ordered the construction or conversion of _twenty-three_
+vessels as screw-steamers, and thus was laid the foundation of the
+present formidable steam-navy of England.
+
+The superiority which has been asserted for the Princeton was
+established during the Mexican War by her performance before Vera Cruz
+as a blockading ship of unprecedented efficiency, which, having been
+displayed under the admiring observation of a British squadron, tended
+more than any other single event to confirm the Admiralty in the
+conclusions to be drawn from the experiments just related, and to decide
+them in the adoption of the screw as the best auxiliary of sail, the
+best mechanical motor upon the ocean. Thus did England, in embracing at
+once the practical demonstration of the Princeton, display that forecast
+by which she won her ascendency at sea, and the vigilance with which
+she maintains it; whilst our own government awaited, in unbecoming
+hesitation, the results which England's more extended trials with the
+screw might develop.
+
+This cautious policy, rather than the bold and liberal course which the
+maritime genius of the country demands, condemned us for long years to
+inaction, until, at length, the absolute necessity for the renewal of a
+portion of our naval force produced the "Minnesota" class of frigates.
+Although they developed little that was absolutely new, they are very
+far from being imitations; but in model, capacity, equipment, and above
+all in their armament, they have challenged admiration throughout the
+world, and called from a distinguished British admiral in command the
+significant declaration, that, until he had seen them, he had never
+realized his ideal of a perfect man-of-war.
+
+A leading idea in the conception of these ships was to reduce the number
+of gun-decks from two and three to a single deck, and, consequently, the
+space in which shells could be lodged. This is a consideration which
+must, it is believed, sooner or later govern in naval construction;
+although France and England, long accustomed to measure the power of
+ships by the number of gun-decks, may be more slow in following our lead
+in this respect than in imitating the increased calibre of our ordnance.
+
+The new classes of steamers preparing for sea, of which the Hartford and
+Iroquois are types, promise to be most efficient ships, and to reflect
+much credit upon our naval authorities for their bold, yet judicious
+departure from traditions which had long hampered the administration of
+this important branch of the public service. Although the reflection is
+seldom made, it is nevertheless true, that much of the reputation
+enjoyed and of the influence exercised by the United States is due to
+the efficiency of her navy; and if these are to remain undiminished,
+then it is of the utmost consequence that the national ships should
+always represent the highest advancement of nautico-military science.
+
+[Footnote 1: A series of experiments with the screw were made on board
+the Dwarf in 1845, and on board the Minx in 1847 and 1848, but the
+results did not materially differ from those previously obtained. In the
+Rattler, Dwarf, and Minx twenty-nine different propellers were tried.]
+
+The efficiency of the screw having been demonstrated, it was seen that
+the next requirement for a war-steamer was to place her machinery below
+the waterline; and hence arose a demand for an entirely new description
+of engines, which it was clear would make a great change in all the
+labors of the engineer and machinist. Such change it was evident would
+greatly enhance the risk of failure, and therefore it was determined by
+the Admiralty to insure success in this very difficult task by enlisting
+all the best talent of the country. Accordingly, for the twenty-three
+ships an equal number of screw engines were ordered; and as with the
+constructors, so with the engineers, each was required to comply
+with certain conditions, yet each was permitted to put forth his own
+individuality, and each has illustrated his views of what was required
+by a distinct plan of engine.
+
+The wise and liberal action of the British Admiralty, which faltered at
+no expense, and made trial of every improvement in machinery that gave
+assurance of good performance and promised in any way to increase
+the efficiency of the fleet, produced no less than fourteen distinct
+varieties of the screw engine. Among them all, Penn's horizontal
+trunk-engine appears to be the favorite, and had performed so well
+in the Encounter of fourteen guns, the Arrogant of forty-six, the
+Impérieuse of fifty, and the Agamemnon of ninety, that two years ago
+it had been placed, in about equal proportions of two hundred, four
+hundred, six hundred, and eight hundred horse-power, on board of forty
+ships and many smaller vessels of the British navy; it had fulfilled all
+the promises made for it, without in any instance requiring repairs.
+These engines comply with all the conditions reasonably demanded in
+the machinery of a man-of-war; they lie very low, and the fewness and
+accessibility of their parts leave scarcely anything to be desired;--a
+lighter, more compact, or more simple combination has yet to be
+conceived.[1]
+
+In all the ships above referred to the connection of the engines is
+direct, and many of them are driven at rates varying from fifty to
+seventy-five revolutions. This point is dwelt upon because it is
+observed that many engineers find difficulty in freeing themselves from
+early impressions made by long-stroke engines, express apprehensions at
+fifty and sixty revolutions, and stand ready to obviate the difficulty
+by gearing,--which it is hoped may not henceforth be adopted in our
+national ships. Geared engines are much heavier than those of direct
+connection, and occupy more space,--a great consideration in ships where
+room for fuel is in such demand, besides making it more difficult to
+place them below the waterline,--a consideration which in men-of-war
+should be regarded of paramount importance, as the engines of a
+war-steamer should be as secure from shot as her magazine. Experience
+has shown that the apprehensions entertained from the quick stroke of
+direct engines were without foundation; and that, in auxiliary ships,
+with a properly modelled propeller, there will be no necessity for a
+very high speed of piston.
+
+The form of engine generally adopted with great success in the later
+screw-ships.
+
+[Footnote 1: "Its large amount of friction" is an objection often
+speciously urged against the trunk-engine, although the friction diagram
+shows it to be actually less in this than in most other engines.] of
+the United States navy is the "horizontal direct action," with the
+connecting-rod returning from a cross-head towards the cylinder;
+these engines make from sixty to eighty revolutions per minute.
+The steam-valve is a packed slide with but little lap, and the
+expansion-valve is an adjustable slide working on the back of the
+steam-valve. The boilers are of the vertical water-tube type, with the
+tubes above the furnaces, and are supplied with fresh water by tubular
+surface-condensers, which, together with the air-pumps, are placed
+opposite the cylinders.
+
+While the vessels ordered by the Admiralty were on the stocks, it was
+suggested by Mr. Lloyd that the model of their after-bodies was not that
+most favorable to speed,--that they were too "full," and that a "finer
+run" would be preferable. To settle this question, the Dwarf, a vessel
+of fine run, was taken into dock, and her after-body filled out by three
+separate layers of planking, so as to give it the form and proportions
+of the vessels then building. These layers of planking could be removed
+in succession, and the effects of a fuller or finer run upon the speed
+of the vessel easily ascertained. A trial was then made, and the result
+proved the correctness of Mr. Lloyd's opinion; the removal of the
+different layers of planking increasing the speed from 3.75 to 5.75,
+to 9, and finally to 11 knots. A trial between the Rifleman and the
+Sharpshooter, vessels of four hundred and eighty tons and two hundred
+horse-power, and the Minx and Teaser, of three hundred tons and one
+hundred horse-power, gave similar results,--the speed in each trial
+being twenty-four per cent. in favor of the finer run.
+
+Although great efficiency and economy had now been attained, there was
+still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to
+speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller;
+which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into
+which the propeller can be raised at pleasure; and there is no longer
+anything to prevent the construction of a screw-frigate which shall be
+fit to accompany, under canvas only, a fleet of fast sailers, with the
+assurance that she may arrive at the point of destination in company
+with her consorts, having in reserve all her steam-power.
+
+The mechanism by which the emersion of the screw is effected is as
+follows:--There are two stern-posts; between these, and connecting them
+with each other and with the keel, is a massive metallic frame, in which
+rests another frame, or _châssis_, in which the screw is suspended; near
+the water-line, the deck and wales are extended to the after stern-post,
+and through an opening or trunk in this overhanging stern the frame
+suspending the screw is raised by worms, working in a rack secured to
+the frame, and operated from the deck, as shown in the accompanying
+drawing,--or by a tackle, as is now most common. In the British ship
+Agamemnon, of ninety guns, the propeller is raised by a hydrostatic
+pump,--a neat arrangement, but liable to get out of order. When it is
+desirable to raise the propeller, the blades are first placed in a
+vertical position, and the operation of lifting is performed in a few
+minutes.
+
+The relative advantages of the propeller fitted to lift, and that which
+is permanently fixed, have long been the subject of much discussion.
+
+For merchant steamers, having an established route to perform, on which
+the aid of steam is in constant demand, it is generally conceded that
+the position of the screw should be permanent. The construction of the
+ship is then less costly, while greater strength is preserved; and as
+these vessels are out of port but for short intervals, should repairs be
+needed, they have access to the docks. But for men-of-war the case is
+widely different. Having frequently to keep the sea for long periods,
+much under canvas, and often far distant from a dock-yard, they should
+be provided with the means of lifting the screw to repair or to clear
+it, or to be relieved from the impediment it offers to sailing and to
+evolution, and also from the injurious "shake" occasioned by a dragging
+propeller.
+
+[Illustration: MODE OF LIFTING SCREW.]
+
+On the other hand, the construction of a trunk or well impairs the
+solidity of the stern, renders it much more vulnerable, and weakens its
+defences, while it opposes to speed the very considerable resistance of
+the after stern-post.[*] Nevertheless, no modern ship of the British
+navy is without the means of raising her propeller, and the best opinion
+of commanders and engineers of that service, of longest experience in
+screw-ships, goes to establish the conviction, that, for men-of-war, the
+advantages of being able to lift the propeller far more than outweigh
+the objections urged against lifting. In this connection we mention the
+fact, that all screw-ships "by the wind" have a strong tendency to
+gripe. Would not this be obviated by having a gate or slide to fill out
+the dead-wood when the screw is lifted?
+
+[Footnote *: Might not a metallic stern-post, combining strength,
+lightness, and little resistance, be introduced?]
+
+The best illustration of the effects of a dragging propeller was
+afforded on the departure of a Russian squadron from Cronstadt, bound to
+the Amoor, in 1857-'58, consisting of three sloops of war bark-rigged,
+and three three-masted schooners, under the flag of Commodore
+Kouznetsoff. The vessels of each class were built from the same
+moulds, and at the time of the experiment were of the same draft and
+displacement. On clearing the land, signal was made to lift screws and
+make sail. Soon after, all the squadron reported the execution of the
+order, except the Voyerada sloop, which had the misfortune to break a
+key in the couplings, and therefore could not lift her screw. Every
+effort was tried to get out the key, and meanwhile a very instructive
+example was presented to the squadron of the effect of a dragging
+propeller on the speed of the vessel. The circumstances were as
+follows:--The wind, a gentle breeze, right aft; the Voyerada carrying
+all sail but the main course; the other two sloops holding way with
+her with their topsails on the cap, and the schooners with their peaks
+dropped. Under these conditions, the Voyerada, having her screw-blades
+fixed horizontally, could scarcely keep her position, running two and a
+half and three knots. The Voyerada next succeeded in getting her screw
+vertical, when, without any change in the wind, the speed increased to
+four and a half knots. The other sloops then mastheaded their topsails,
+and the schooners peaked their gaffs. At length the Voyerada succeeded
+in lifting her screw, when immediately all the sloops under the same
+canvas continued their course, making six to six and a half knots. A
+better example of the obstruction offered by a dragging propeller could
+not have been afforded.[1]
+
+The "shake," to which reference has been made, is the tremulous or
+vibratory motion communicated to the after-body of the ship, and
+particularly to the stern, by the revolution of the propeller, often
+opening the seams, and in old ships sometimes starting the butts and
+causing dangerous leaks. This movement arises from two causes,--one
+inherent in the screw, the other due to its position in the deadwood.
+The first cause is the difference in the propelling efficiency of the
+upper and lower blades when in any other position than horizontal. The
+centre of pressure of the lower blade, being at a greater depth below
+the surface than the centre of pressure of the upper blade, acts upon a
+medium of greater resistance to displacement, and the differential of
+the pressures of the two blades produces inevitably a vibratory motion
+in the stern of the vessel. This effect is greatly increased when the
+clearance given to the screw in the dead-wood is too small; for the
+reduction of the hydrostatic pressure at the stern-post, and the
+increase of it at the rudder-post, on each passage of the blades, must
+be followed by concussion. Therefore, if the "well," or distance between
+the posts, be made sufficiently long in proportion to the screw, the
+"shake" due to the latter cause can be almost entirely obviated.
+
+In 1851, the British Admiralty selected three auxiliary screw-ships, of
+different classes and qualities, for an experimental cruise, namely:--
+
+[Footnote 1: _Russian Nautical Magazine_, No. XLI., December, 1857.]
+
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  | Guns. | Horse  | Screw. | Speed. | Day's |    Sail
+  |       | Power. |        |        | Fuel. |  Equipment
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |   9    |   8   |
+  Arrogant  |  46   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship full rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    |  11    |  11   |
+  Dauntless |  24   |  580   | blades | knots  | days  | Ship light rig
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+  The       |       |        |   2    | 10-1/2 |   6   |
+  Encounter |  14   |  360   | blades | knots  | days  | Barque
+  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+They were ordered to pass round the Azores, each ship holding
+her course, and using sail or steam, or both, as was deemed most
+advantageous. An officer was sent on board each ship to keep a record of
+her performance, and to note the time when and the position where, the
+coal being entirely consumed, the contest ended. In this trial, the
+Arrogant was found superior to the Dauntless, and both of them far
+excelled the Encounter; indeed, no very different result was expected,
+the object of the trial being to ascertain their relative as well as
+positive value. These ships afterwards formed a part of the experimental
+squadron stationed at Lisbon in the same year, which was composed of the
+finest ships in the British navy.
+
+It was believed by many officers, that a fast-sailing frigate, in a
+reefed-topsail breeze, would be able to get away from any screw-ship;
+but in a trial that took place between the Arethusa and the Encounter,
+and the Phaëton and Arrogant, under circumstances the most favorable to
+the sail-ships, it was found that the screw-ships, using both steam and
+sail, had decidedly the superiority,--and that in fresh gales, with one,
+two, or three reefs in the topsails, either "by the wind," or "going
+free," the Phaëton and the Arethusa, the fastest sail-frigates in
+the navy, were always beaten by the Arrogant. This result operated
+powerfully in removing the repugnance to steam existing among all
+classes of seamen; and the vast superiority of well-organized
+screw-ships for the purposes of war is now so apparent, as to render
+them the most important and indispensable part of every navy.
+
+While the English were engaged in the trials here related, their rivals
+on the opposite coast were not indifferent spectators. The French
+were nearly as soon in the field of modern screw experiment as their
+neighbors; and did the limits of this paper permit, it would be
+instructive, as well as interesting, to trace the ingenious and
+persevering steps by which they also approached the solution of that
+difficult problem, the construction of a screw-man-of-war.
+
+The first result of their efforts, La Pomone, screw-frigate, was shown
+to the world in 1844, and after careful inspection, (in 1853,) it is
+affirmed, such was the perfection of her general organization, that she
+has hardly been excelled by any of her younger sisters.
+
+The most complete course of experiments ever made, perhaps, with the
+new motor, was that carried out by MM. Bourgois and Moll, of the French
+navy, in 1847 and '48, which they verified by a second series in 1849.
+These experiments were instituted to ascertain the relative efficiency
+of all varieties of the screw-propeller, upon vessels of different
+models and dimensions, and under all the varying conditions of wind and
+sea, in order to determine the propeller best adapted to each particular
+description of ship.[*]
+
+Necessarily brief as is the notice of Gallic ingenuity and skill, the
+acknowledgment must be made, that, for the invention of the trunk or
+well, with its attendant advantages, navigation is indebted to Commander
+Labrousse, of the French navy; and for a novel arrangement of the screw-
+propeller, which has not attracted all the notice it deserves,
+obligations are due to M. Allix, a distinguished engineer of that
+service; and the propeller more recently introduced by M. Mangin, of the
+same corps, if it performs all that is claimed for it, namely, that it
+does away with the "shake," will be of great value.
+
+[Footnote *: For a most interesting and instructive memoir upon these
+experiments, the reader is referred to that admirable work, by Captain
+E. Paris, of the French navy, _L'Hélice Propulsive_.]
+
+In concluding this recognition of the contributions by France to
+screw-propulsion, it is desired to submit a few general observations on
+the French navy; for, although upon every sea the tri-color waves
+over ships proudly comparing with those under any other flag, it is
+nevertheless too commonly believed that the docks of France are crowded
+and her navy-list swollen with hulks which are but the mouldering
+mementos of the vast armaments hastily created during the Consulate and
+the Empire; an illusion most hazardous to our interests abroad and our
+security at home.
+
+At the period of _the coup d'état_ of 1851, a Committee of Inquiry,
+composed of the most experienced and intelligent officers and
+distinguished legislators, had visited all departments of the navy, and
+made the most careful investigations into every branch of the service.
+Upon the evidence thus obtained, a report was submitted, providing for
+the improvement of the condition of the officers and seamen, and the
+increase, renewal, and remodelling of the _matériel_,--in fine, for the
+correction of every abuse, the remedy of every evil, and the development
+of all good existing in the navy. This report, stamped on every page
+with patriotism and intelligence, commanded, even in the midst of
+revolution, the support of all parties, the adhesion of every faction;
+and has since, through all changes in the Ministry of the Marine, formed
+the basis of the action of that department.
+
+Under these auspices, France has in the last seven years organized the
+means of promptly putting to sea a numerous fleet, composed of the most
+modern and most powerful steamers, manned by efficient crews, commanded
+by skilful officers; and now worthily maintains a position as a naval
+power second only to that of Great Britain. At this moment, whilst
+the British fleet includes but thirty-six screw line-of-battle ships,
+mounting 3,400 guns, and propelled by 19,759 horse-power, that of France
+may boast of forty such ships, mounting 3,700 guns, propelled by 27,500
+horse-power; and while England has but thirty-eight screw-frigates,
+France has forty-two.
+
+In thus briefly summing up the forces of our ocean rivals, we cannot
+avoid making some reflections suggested by the unpreparedness of this
+country to meet any sudden burst of hostility. This not only involves
+the risk of national humiliation, but paralyzes our diplomacy; since it
+deprives us of that influence among the nations, which otherwise--from
+the breadth of our territory, the value of our products, the activity
+of our industry, the importance of our commerce, and the extent of our
+maritime resources--we of right should hold.
+
+No country is more interested than the United States in the maintenance
+of peace; yet, even on the principle of economy, we may argue in favor
+of a degree of preparation for war; for that calamity may best be
+averted by taking from foreign powers the temptation to interfere with
+us: all history showing that the justice and friendship of military
+states are but slender guaranties for the peace of a nation unprepared
+for attack.
+
+It is vain to talk of husbanding financial resources for war, without
+other preparation. When once embarked in hostilities, and in a position
+to maintain our ground, large finances, judiciously used, will
+ultimately command success; but no accumulation of funds can provide a
+timely remedy for that weakness which cannot resist the first blow.
+
+The national safety should no longer be left to chance, but be
+established on a basis of certainty. A navy cannot be manufactured nor a
+fortress built to meet an emergency, but should be kept ready-made.
+
+In considering the auxiliary screw-frigate under the views already
+offered, and in determining the canvas with which she should be
+supplied, it will be well to refer, as the best guide, to the fastest
+sail-ships,--the class which presents the greatest similarity in form to
+that demanded in screw-ships. In these ships the great length of deck
+offers every facility for the most advantageous spread of canvas;
+consequently the centre of effort may he kept low, and the requisite
+power and stability combined.
+
+Intimately connected with her sailing-power is another branch of the
+equipment of a screw-ship, which requires the most earnest, patient, and
+intelligent consideration. Prepared to endure all the wear and tear of a
+sail-ship, she should at the same time be ready for transmutation into
+a steam-ship; namely, when, for any urgent service, her best powers of
+steaming are required, she should be able to divest herself speedily of
+yards and top-masts, and, the special service completed, resume all her
+perfection as a sail-ship.
+
+It would be out of place here to enter into details of equipment. In
+naval affairs nothing is improvised, and a satisfactory conclusion upon
+these points can be arrived at only through long experiment, and perhaps
+frequent disappointment. Yet it is not doubted that the same ship may
+exhibit a handy and efficient rig, develop a high velocity canvas, and,
+without great power, a sufficient speed under steam.
+
+In our navy, away from our own coast, sail must of necessity be the
+rule, and steam the reserve or special power; and without abandonment of
+our anti-colonial policy--with the depots of our rivals upon every sea,
+yet not a ton of coal upon which we can rely--we should not dare to send
+abroad a single ship which, whenever she gets up her anchor, must needs
+also get up her steam.
+
+Fortunately, in the creation of a steam-fleet, the United States will
+not have to encounter tedious and costly experiments, nor to incur the
+risk of failure.[1] The best form of hull, model of propeller, and plan
+of engine are already so well established, that it is not easy to fall
+into error; that which is most to be guarded against is the popular
+demand, the prevailing mania for high speed,--for which single advantage
+there is such a proneness to sacrifice every other warlike quality. That
+measure of speed or power which will enable a ship to stem the currents
+of rivers, to enter or leave a port in the face of a moderate gale, or
+to meet the dangers of a lee-shore, should, it is conceived by many, be
+sufficient; and for these exigencies a ship, which, with four months
+supplies on board, can in calm weather and smooth water make nine to ten
+knots under steam, has ample power. This moderate rate is far below the
+popular mark; but, in considering this important question, it should not
+be forgotten, that, unlike the paddle, the screw will always coöperate
+with sail,--and that, if a ship would go far under steam, she must be
+content to go gently. The natural law regulating the speed of a ship
+is, that the power requisite to propel her varies as the cube of the
+velocity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The constructors and engineers of the navy are unsurpassed
+in professional art or science, and when conjoined with naval
+officers--who should always determine the war-like essentials of
+ships--they are capable of producing a steam-fleet that would meet the
+requirements of all reasonable conditions. We venture to say, that
+the failures with which they have been charged would be found,
+on investigation, to be solely attributable to undue extraneous
+influences.]
+
+Let it be distinctly understood what power is here meant. As the power
+applied to the propulsion of a vessel is only that which acts upon her
+in the direction of the keel,--and as, of the gross indicated power
+developed by her engine, one portion is absorbed in working the organs
+of its mechanism, another in overcoming the friction of the load, while
+still other proportions are expended in the slip of the propeller and
+in the friction of its surfaces on the water,--only that portion of
+the gross power which remains is applied to propulsion; and it is this
+remainder which varies in the ratio of the cube of the speed.
+
+Hence a steamer, that with five hundred horse-power can make eight knots
+per hour, will require rather more than one thousand horse-power to
+drive her at the speed of ten knots,--the law being thus modified by the
+increased resistance consequent upon the greater weight of the large
+engines; and thus a limit to speed is imposed, depending upon the weight
+of machinery which, relative to her dimensions, a ship can carry. A
+ship, that at the rate of ten knots under steam may run twelve hundred
+miles, can, at the speed of eight knots, and with the expenditure of
+rather less fuel, run the distance of eighteen hundred miles; and
+therefore it is, many contend, that a man-of-war for distant service
+should not be laden with large engines, whose full power can rarely be
+wanted, and which monopolize so great a space and displacement as to
+render it impossible to carry fuel for their proper development.
+
+It is true, that, with large power of engine, the vessel may command,
+so long as her coals last, the advantage of high speed, and her large
+cylinders will enable her, by working the steam very expansively, to use
+her fuel with great economy; but there still remains the disadvantage of
+the increased first cost of the machinery, and its greater weight and
+bulk, to be permanently carried, whether used or not, and which, by
+increasing the displacement of the vessel, proportionally diminishes her
+speed.
+
+The last great improvement in connection with the screw remains to
+be noticed, namely, lining the "bushings" and "bearings" with
+lignum-vitae,--the invention of Mr. Penn, of Greenwich, near London.
+
+The lignum-vitae is introduced in the manner shown in the drawing. In
+connection therewith, it must be said, that the length and diameter of
+bearings has been increased far beyond the proportions of former years.
+The "brasses" are bored out about three-sixteenths of an inch larger
+than the shaft; then the recesses are slotted out for the reception of
+the wooden strips. If care be taken with this part of the operation, any
+number of strips can be supplied ready fitted, and to put in a set of
+spare strips becomes a short and simple operation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Strange as it appears, these wooden bearings are far more durable than
+those of metal, and in some ships they have endured for years without
+any perceptible wear in those parts which, previously to this invention,
+had occasioned so much trouble and expense. But for this important
+discovery, it is thought by some of the most competent engineers that
+they would have been compelled to abandon the use of the screw in heavy
+ships.
+
+The Napoléon, the type of the new steam-ships of the line in the French
+navy, is a good illustration of a first-class, full-powered steamer.
+
+  Her dimensions are as follows:--
+
+  FT.  IN.
+  Length extreme.                          262 6.40
+  Length at load-line.                     234 0.94
+  Beam.                                     53 8.38
+  Height between decks.                      6 8.72
+  Height of lower port sill.                 7 2.63
+  Depth of hold.                            26 9.34
+  Deep-load draft.                          25 3
+  Immersed cross section, sq. ft. 1063.48
+  Displacement.                tons. 6050
+  Diameter of cylinders.                     8 2.45
+  Length of stroke.                          5 3.06
+  Diameter of propeller. (4 bladed)         19 0.70
+  Pitch    "     "            mean)         37 11
+
+She has eight boilers, each having five furnaces, consuming, at full
+speed, (12.14 knots,) 143 tons of coal per day, for which she stows five
+days' supply. The boilers and engines occupy eighty-two feet in the
+length of the ship.
+
+The trial of this ship has established the practicability of adapting a
+propeller to a ship of the largest class, so as to insure great speed,
+and constitute a most effective man-of-war for certain purposes and
+in certain situations; but when the great weight of the engines is
+considered, and the large space they occupy in the vessel,--thereby
+diminishing the stowage of supplies,--and further, that, after the coal
+is exhausted, the ninety-gun ship has but the sail of a sixty-gun ship
+to rely upon, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion, that, however
+useful such a vessel may be for short passages,[1] and in those seas in
+which her supplies of coal and provisions may be constantly replenished,
+her sphere of action must be very limited, and she could not be relied
+upon for the long cruises and various services on which an ordinary
+line-of-battle ship is employed.
+
+[Footnote 1: For debarking a regiment or two of Zouaves on the shores of
+the Adriatic or upon the coast of Ireland.]
+
+A ship constructed on the plan of the Napoléon, for the sake of gaining
+a speed of twelve knots per hour for the distance of about two thousand
+two hundred miles, is compelled to sacrifice a great part of her
+efficiency in several most important particulars.
+
+In time of war, at short distances from port, for the defence of bays or
+harbors or the Florida channel, for the speedy transport of troops to an
+adjacent coast, or to force a blockade, such a vessel would undoubtedly
+be a most valuable addition to our navy: but her employment must
+necessarily be confined to such circumstances and such situations; for
+should she unluckily fall in with an enemy's squadron, with her coal
+expended, or her machinery rendered useless by any of the numerous
+accidents to which steam-machinery is so constantly exposed, with her
+comparatively light rig, and want of stability in consequence of losing
+so great a weight of coals, she would hardly prove a very formidable
+opponent.
+
+Therefore, while admitting the importance and necessity of providing
+for special service a small class of fast, full-power steamers, it is
+submitted that the auxiliary screw-steamer is the description of ship to
+which the largest and best consideration should be devoted; for to the
+nation possessing the most efficient fleet of such vessels must belong
+the dominion of the sea. And while their cost is counted, let it at the
+same time be remembered that their value can be estimated only by the
+character of the service they may render, and that their capacity for
+aggression abroad makes them the best defence at home.
+
+Having briefly referred to the various views entertained in regard to
+the steam-power with which the navy should be furnished, it will be
+seen that a difference of opinion on this important subject may most
+reasonably be entertained.
+
+None can doubt the advantages of celerity to a man-of-war, yet many
+believe it would be too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of space to
+such an extent as would require supplies to be often replenished; as
+this necessity would in war confine the operations of the navy to our
+own shores.
+
+On the other hand, it is admitted, that, without high speed, a ship of
+war cannot exercise many of her most important functions,--that she can
+neither choose an engagement, protect a convoy, nor enforce a blockade.
+
+The best experience affirms the policy of giving to our cruisers as
+large steampower as is consistent with a due development of all other
+warlike qualities; for what would avail the superior armament of a ship,
+if the option of fighting or flying remain with her adversary, which
+must be the case when the latter commands higher speed? The introduction
+of improved ordnance, throwing heavy shells with great precision at
+long ranges, gives increased importance to celerity; for in any future
+fleet-fight, victory should belong to that flag having at command a
+steam-squadron of superior speed, which may thereby be concentrated upon
+any point without having been long under fire.
+
+May not the command of a maximum speed of thirteen knots be obtained
+from the machinery now employed for a maximum speed of ten knots? It
+evidently may, and with great economy, too, by the simple introduction
+of artificial draft, and the use of steam of higher pressure, when
+requiring the highest speed. At present, in our men-of-war, the boilers
+are proportioned for natural draft, burning about twelve pounds of coal
+per square foot of grate per hour, and for a steam-pressure of fifteen
+pounds per square inch. If, then, the boilers be proportioned to burn at
+the maximum, with blowers, say twenty-two pounds of coal to the square
+foot of grate, and to generate steam of forty pounds to the square inch,
+we shall double the power developed by the machinery, and consequently
+derive from it the same speed that could be attained without blowers
+from double the machinery; while the natural draft and the usual
+pressure of fifteen pounds would give sufficient speed for ordinary
+service. The inconvenience of the higher pressure with blowers could
+well be endured for the short and occasional periods during which they
+would be required.
+
+To create a perfect screw-frigate, a ship with sail-power complete, and
+efficient for any service that may be required, the endeavor should be
+made--by getting rid of every dispensable article of weight or bulk, and
+without reducing supplies below three months' provisions and six weeks'
+water--to find space and displacement for an engine of sufficient force
+to drive her thirteen knots an hour, together with at least ten
+days' full consumption of fuel; and this, it is believed, might be
+successfully accomplished in ships of the dimensions of the Wabash,
+beginning with a judicious reduction of spare spars, spare sails, and
+spare gear, and by the addition of blowers to their present machinery: a
+subject which should immediately receive the earnest consideration of a
+commission of the most intelligent officers.
+
+Having fixed upon the proportions of hull and spars, the form of
+propeller, and the plan of engine, a cautious discrimination should be
+exercised in multiplying the types of either. Besides economy, many
+other advantages would flow from a judicious regard to similarity in
+build; as it would permit us to relieve our ships of many of the spare
+spars with which they are incumbered, and we should probably not again
+hear of suspending the operations of a frigate thousands of miles away,
+until a crank or rod could be sent to her; because, when ships of the
+same class are cruising together, by a careful distribution of spare
+spars and machinery among them, it is hardly probable that damage would
+be sustained, or loss of spars or "break down" occur, which might not be
+remedied by the resources of the squadron.
+
+On the other hand, this system not be carried to a Chinese extreme, lest
+we follow too long a false direction,--thus losing the advantage of
+improvements constantly being made. For such is the change in all things
+pertaining to maritime war, that neither model of hull, plan of engine,
+nor mould of ordnance is best, unless of the latest creation. True
+progress will be most judiciously sought in not departing too suddenly
+and widely from the established order.
+
+
+
+
+WHITE MICE.
+
+
+A great many circumstances led me to decide on leaving the convenient
+boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail: a house correctly described as
+containing several "modern improvements": improperly, as being "in the
+immediate vicinity of all the places of public amusement." For, as the
+Central Park of New York is a place of public amusement, so likewise is
+Barnum's Museum; and these two places being at a distance of about five
+miles from each other, how could any one house be in the immediate
+vicinity of both? But it was not upon this incompatibility that any of
+my objections were founded.
+
+If I have a prejudice, it is against being talked _at_ instead of _to_.
+Now Mrs. Silvernail, who, like the katydid of the poplar-tree, if small,
+was shrill, had a way of conveying instructions to her boarders by
+means of parables ostensibly directed at Catharine, the tall Irish
+serving-maid, but in reality meant for the ear of the obnoxious boarder
+who had lately transgressed some important statute of the house, made
+and provided to meet a case or cases.
+
+A landing-place on the stairs was usually the platform selected for the
+delivery of a monologue, in which Catharine was always assumed to be
+the person addressed; although I have known instances in which that
+"excellent wench" was, at the time of being so conferred with, in the
+grocery at the corner, about half a block distant, as I could see from
+the window where I sat and viewed her protracting her doorway dalliance
+with Jeremiah Tomaters, the grocer's efficient young man.
+
+"Catharine," my landlady would say in a loudish whisper, close by a
+malefactor's chamber-door, and probably when Catharine was yet far down
+the street,--"Catharine, who let the water in the bathroom run over just
+now? If the slippers he left behind him a'n't Mr. Jennings's, I declare!
+Boarders must be warned an' watched, elseways we shall hev all in the
+house afloat, 'cepting the stoves an' flat-irons, by-'n'-by. Somebody at
+Mrs. Moyler's acted so, and the house was like a roarin' sea, with the
+baby adrift in his little cradle, and the roaches a-swimmin' round. Oh,
+dear!"
+
+Now Mr. Jennings was the serious boarder, who lodged in the room just
+over mine: a man who, from general indications, had never had a bath in
+his life; certainly he had never troubled the waters in that house. I
+was the supposed delinquent, and at me the parable was levelled.
+
+"Catharine, whose pass-key was that you found in the door? It's a mussy
+we wasn't all a-murdered and a-plundered in cold blood, by the light
+o' the moon! Mr. Jennings's night-key it must have been, to be sure!
+Boarders must be warned and watched. When Mrs. Toyler's nephew's
+night-key was found in the door of Number Forty-Seven, the boarders all
+went off at daylight in an omnibus, takin' away custom and character
+from the house forever."
+
+Now Mr. Jennings, the serious boarder, was always in bed and asleep long
+before latch-key time came round; and even supposing he ever _had_ let
+himself in by means of that mischievous little convenience, he would as
+soon have thought of taking the door up to bed with him as of leaving
+the key in it. The parable was intended for the hearing of a young man
+who occupied the room opposite mine, and who, being connected with
+clubs, came home nobody ever knew when or in what condition, but had red
+eyes o' mornings and a general odor of the convivial kind.
+
+Then, again, Mrs. Silvernail had a way of being always about the doors
+of the rooms, and a faculty, as I thought, of hovering near several of
+them at one and the same moment. There are men who will turn the least
+promising circumstance to advantage,--even that of being listened at
+through a keyhole, while they discourse to themselves about affairs
+connected with their most cherished and secret designs. One Captain
+Dunnitt, who lived in the house before I came, adroitly made his account
+of this eavesdropping propensity of the landlady, by settling his weekly
+bill with a silver-mounted pistol, instead of the dollars justly due.
+He had been a tragedian as well as a captain, and was saturated with
+Shakspeare and other bards to a far greater amount than with money; and
+when his week came round, he used to stride up and down his room with
+much gnashing of teeth and other stage indications of distress, finally
+settling down into a chair before the table, on which he would place and
+replace a packet of letters and a wisp of unromantic-looking hair. Then
+he would take the little silver pistol from his breast, and, after the
+usual soliloquy of "To be or not to be," or something equally to the
+purpose, would point it at his temples just as the landlady came
+bursting into the room, begging him for all sakes not to "ruin the
+character of her second-best room, and the walls newly painted at that!"
+Remorse would then double up the manly form of Captain Dunnitt, who
+would fall on his knees before the landlady,--"his benefactress! his
+better angel!"--and then arrangements would be entered into by which he
+was not to commit suicide for the present, but could avail himself of
+the landlady's indulgence and wait for "that remittance," which was
+always coming, but which never came.
+
+But there were more serious objections, even than a landlady of shrill
+parables and an inquiring turn of mind, to my prolonging the delights of
+a residence at the first-class boarding-house of Mrs. Silvernail. Not
+the least of these was the fact of its _being_ a boarding-house,--a
+community. In such communities, from the inevitable intercourse over
+the social board, your circle of acquaintance is always liable to be
+extended rather than improved. In them there is no escape from the
+disinterested offers of those who would be your perpetual friends. I am
+still under lasting obligations to a man who, at a boarding-house in
+which I sojourned for but three days, forced on me a pipeful of an
+extremely choice and luxurious kind of tobacco, to dilate on the
+properties of which he came and smoked about a quarter of a pound of it
+in my room that very evening, and far on into the morning light. His
+goodness is the more impressed upon my memory, because, on the same
+occasion, he drank the greater part of the contents of a large
+willow-bound bottle of old St. Croix rum, which I had just received
+from a friend who had imported it direct. Then, in boarding-house
+communities, one's magnetism is as much at fault as that of a ship
+sailing up a river whose rock-bound shores are impregnated with iron
+elements. I knew a man who was over-magnetized to the extent of
+matrimony by the lady of the house,--a widow, and a shrew. He hated, or
+at least professed to hate her, and had ridiculous stories about her to
+no end; but she married him, and he still lives. Another, of a
+rather unsociable turn, rejected the proffered civilities of all his
+fellow-boarders who ever came to offer him rations of curious
+tobacco or to assist him in performing a libation of old and valuable
+Hollands. The only one of the party to whom he ever "cottoned" was the
+latest comer, a smoothed-out, blandulose kind of man, who smoked up all
+his cunning cigars, made sad havoc among his Hollanders of gin, departed
+from that house in an unexpected manner and his friend's best trousers,
+in the pockets of which he had bestowed that friend's rarest gems and
+gold, and is now serving out a term allotted to him in the State Prison,
+in recognition of the remarkable abilities displayed by him in the
+character of what the police call a "confidence man."
+
+And yet there are more objectionable boarding-house acquaintances than
+people who insist upon sharing with you their friendship, be they
+"confidence men" or not. I suppose we may allow, in these advanced
+times, that it is something like magnetism which decides the question of
+affinity and its reverse. But, in granting this, I will take the liberty
+of observing that external and palpable facts have a considerable effect
+in directing the currents of magnetism. For example, and to adopt the
+language of scientific men, the insignificant circumstance of a person
+habituating himself to the partial deglutition of his knife, while
+partaking of food, may produce antipathetic emotions on the part of
+others, whom prejudice or superstition has led to regard the knife as
+an article designed for cutting only. This kind of outrage I allude
+to merely for the purpose of illustrating a case. In first-class
+boarding-houses, like that of Mrs. Silvernail, such rusticities have
+long since become traditional, and of the things that have passed away;
+and, indeed, so particular was that lady with regard to her knives,
+that, had a boarder swallowed even a part of one, he would undoubtedly
+have heard the deed alluded to through the keyhole of his chamber-door
+on the following day, in the form of a parable having for its hero the
+justified Mr. Jennings, our serious young man.
+
+If external and palpable circumstances, then, are admitted to have a
+decided effect upon streams of magnetism, I suppose we may assume that
+they have also a certain power of determining impressions by themselves,
+without the intervention of any of the more subtile agencies whatever.
+The granting of this postulate will put me on quite easy terms with
+regard to the very positive objection entertained by me towards
+a certain Mr. Désolé Arcubus, who, by provision of an immutable
+Medo-Persic edict promulgated by Mrs. Silvernail, occupied the
+chair next mine at the first-rate table of that rigid expounder of
+boarding-house law.
+
+Mr. Désolé Arcubus, a young man of some three or four and twenty, had no
+special nationality about him from which one could guess how he came by
+his rather uncommon names. He was reputed to be learned, particularly
+in the modern languages; had a profusion of long, wild hair of a
+greenish-drab hue, which matched his complexion exactly,--this prevalent
+tint being infused also into the _cornea_ or "white" of his eye,--and,
+in physical proportions, was of weedy and unwholesome growth. He was not
+a young man of cheerful disposition. On the contrary, his deportment at
+table, where alone his fellow-boarders had any opportunity of observing
+him, was such as to induce a very general belief that his mind must have
+been affected by some terrible calamity; and his presence, indeed, was
+looked upon as undesirable by many of the guests, whose health had begun
+to suffer seriously from the manner in which Arcubus used to groan
+between his instalments of food. Sometimes, in the interval between
+the soup and the solids, he would lean his elbows upon the table, and,
+burying his face in his hands, so that his long, sad hair swept the
+board, would abandon himself for a brief space to private despondency,
+until the boiled leg of mutton brought with it a necessity for renewed
+action.
+
+Nor was the social feeling of distrust of this unhappy young man allayed
+when the party learned, through a boarder of detective instincts, that
+Mr. Désolé Arcubus was an enthusiast in scientific pursuits, and that
+the "romance of a poor young man," as shadowed out by him, was no
+romance at all, but an unpleasant reality. Toxicology was the branch of
+science to which Mr. Arcubus had for some time past been devoting his
+mind. For fourteen hours a day he worked assiduously in the laboratory
+of an eminent analytical chemist, whose practice in connection with the
+coroner was of a flourishing and increasing kind, owing to the growing
+taste for suicide, and the preference given to poisons over any other
+means for accomplishing that irrevocable wrong. In this chamber of
+horrors,--a court of which the tests were the stern, incorruptible
+ordinances of Nature,--he had already gone steadily through a course
+which gave him a mastery over the secrets of the relative poisons, with
+which he laughed secretly now, and played as securely as a child might
+with a dog-rose of whose thorns he had been made aware. But of late, his
+haggard features, and the start with which he would wake into life when
+a guest haply plucked a flower from the bouquets on the table, or when
+the handmaiden came round to him with a dish of leguminous vegetables,
+could readily have been traced by a clairvoyant to associations
+connected with the ghastly belladonna and with the deadly bean of
+St. Ignatius the Martyr. For Mr. Arcubus had now arrived at the
+investigation of the positive poisons,--a fact which might have revealed
+itself to the man of science by the general narcotico-acrid expression
+into which he had settled down bodily; while the most casual observer
+might have gathered from his incoherent contributions to the table-talk
+that some noxious drug was envenoming the cup of his life.
+
+He had a way of thinking aloud, and, as his thoughts always ran on the
+subject of his studies, the expression of them sometimes dovetailed
+curiously with the general conversation.
+
+"Miss Rocket will not come down to dinner, poor thing!" said Mrs.
+Silvernail, in her choicest table-manner. "She has lost her beautiful
+Angola kitten. It slipped into the glass globe, this morning, among the
+gold-fishes, and was drowned."
+
+"Digested in water, several of its constituents are dissolved," said Mr.
+Arcubus, in a husky voice, looking wildly at the picture on his plate.
+
+"You have a _spécialité_ for puddings, I perceive, Madam," remarked a
+smiling old gentleman, a new-comer, addressing himself to the hostess;
+"may I ask now of what this very excellent one is composed?"
+
+"Sulphate of lime, potash, oil, resin, extractive matter, gluten, _et
+cetera, et cetera_," put in Mr. Arcubus, still following out his train
+of thought.
+
+"During the process of evaporation, a black substance is precipitated,"
+continued he; and at that very moment, the small colored boy, running
+to pour out some water for the wild boarder, who had just arrived in an
+excited condition from a rowing match, caught his foot in the carpet,
+and came to the floor with a crash.
+
+"Black oxide of Mercury, called _Ethiops per se_," pursued Mr. Arcubus,
+grappling with his tangled hair.
+
+"Do just try a drop or two of this Hollands of mine in that iced water;
+it is positively dangerous to drink it so," said an attentive boarder to
+Mrs. Silvernail, who certainly _did_ look warm.
+
+"Absorbs oxygen readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus,
+abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints
+crack.
+
+"Who is the tall lady who dined here yesterday with Miss Rocket, and
+talked so enthusiastically about woman's rights?" inquired the serious
+boarder of Mrs. Silvernail.
+
+"Prepared by deflagration in a crucible, one part of nitre with two of
+powdered tartar," proceeded Mr. Arcubus.
+
+"What do you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?"
+asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of
+with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of
+a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably
+affecting the nose and eyes."
+
+"I hope you are not going to bring another dog into the house, Mr.
+Puglock," remonstrated Mrs. Silvernail, addressing the wild boarder, to
+whose conversation she had been lending a sharp ear. "Re'lly now, I must
+restrict the number of dogs; we have three here already, I believe."
+
+"There is a strong analogy between the virus injected into wounds made
+by the teeth of a rabid dog and that found in the poison-apparatus of
+venomous snakes," brought in Mr. Arcubus, diving his fork truculently
+into a ripe tomato.
+
+This last observation of Mr. Arcubus, together with the fact that the
+blade of his knife had manifestly turned black, while all the other
+blades at table were as bright as silver, decided me. I packed up my
+portmanteau and writing-case that evening, and, having settled with
+my wondering landlady, to whom I accounted for my sudden departure
+by pleading expediency as to important affairs, took leave of that
+estimable widow, and drove away to a distant hotel, from which I sallied
+forth early next morning to look for lodgings,--furnished lodgings for
+single gentlemen, without board,--for against boarding-houses I had set
+my face forever.
+
+A peculiar feature of life in lodgings in New York, as in other large
+cities, is the incomparable solitude attainable in that blessed state of
+deliverance from promiscuous "board." One may dwell for a twelvemonth
+in lodgings for single gentlemen, without incurring the obligation of
+knowing by sight, or even by name, the lodger who occupies the very
+room opposite to his, on the same landing. Fifty lodgers may have
+successively lived in those "apartments" during the twelve months, on
+the same terms of perfect isolation from one who would rather mind his
+own business than make any inquiries regarding theirs. And so it is,
+that, of all the stage-pieces which have achieved popularity in our day,
+none is more faithful to the facts than the often-repeated one of "Box
+and Cox"; yet, but for the exigencies of the drama, which, of course,
+has for its principal object the development of a plot, there would have
+been no necessity whatever for bringing Box on a footing of acquaintance
+with Cox,--still less for attributing to either of them an idea of his
+landlady's name.
+
+For several months I lived contentedly in the house selected by me, up
+one pair of stairs, in a room looking out into a busy street,--a street
+so narrow, that the trees at one side of it, whenever a reviving breeze
+brought with it a subject for greeting and congratulation, shook hands
+in quite a friendly manner with those at the other. To illustrate the
+isolation of a residence in these lodgings, I may as well state,
+that, during all the time of my sojourn there, I never arrived at the
+knowledge of my landlady's name. It was not graven upon the house-door,
+and, as a knowledge of it was of no immediate consequence to any of my
+occupations, nor likely to be, I never asked about it from the old woman
+who kept the rooms in order, and to whom I seldom spoke, except upon the
+weekly occasion of handing to her the amount due to the landlady, with
+whom I never had any interview after the day I agreed with her for the
+lodgings. I believe there was a landlord,--if that be the proper term to
+apply to a man who is the husband of a landlady, and nothing else. From
+my window I once observed a man who might have been the landlord, a man
+of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church.
+Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the
+same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a
+cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative
+manner with one word, the only one I ever heard him utter,--
+
+"Owasyerelthbin?"
+
+To which, as I supposed him to be a foreigner, unacquainted with the
+English tongue, I replied at random in the only word of German of which
+I happen to be master,--
+
+"Yaw!"
+
+And this was the only communication I ever had with people of the house,
+excepting occasional conversations with the dust-colored old woman who
+cleaned the windows and swept the floors; while, with regard to a dozen
+or two of lodgers who succeeded each other from time to time in the
+other disposable rooms of the house, I never saw one of them, nor was
+acquainted with them otherwise than by footstep,--and that rather
+infelicitously at one time, in the case of something which went either
+upon crutches or wooden legs, and which occupied the room immediately
+over mine. This was in charming contrast with life at Mrs. Silvernail's,
+in its freedom from parables, and from the uncared-for society of Miss
+Rocket's guests; likewise from that of the serious and vicious boarders,
+and above all of the poisonous young man.
+
+A day came for cleaning my windows, and, as it rained heavily, I could
+not give the old woman a clear stage by going out for a couple of hours,
+but told her to clean away and be as lively as she could, while I
+sat there and wrote. Lodgers, she told me, as she polished up the
+brightening panes, came and went week after week, so fast that she
+forgot one when another came, and never knew any of their names. She had
+an eye for character, though, and told me the peculiarities of some of
+them in a quaint way, nailing her sentences, now and then, with odd,
+hard words, put in independently of the general text.
+
+"And who lives in the room just under mine? Somebody who raises plants,
+I see,--unless the green things on the balcony belong to the house."
+
+"A gentleman as keeps emself quite _to_ emself. Lonesome and friendless,
+I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all
+the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder
+tea of 'em, or root-drink. Decoctifies."
+
+"And who in the room opposite, on this floor?"
+
+"Empty now. Two dark-featured little gentlemen had it for a fortnight,--
+Jews, I reckon,--and as like one another as two spots of dirt on
+this 'ere pane of glass. Spoke a hard-biled kind of tongue, and was
+furriners, I guess. Polyanders."
+
+The vacant room would just suit De Vonville, who had arrived a few days
+before from abroad. I told him of it, and he came in the next day, bag
+and baggage, a portion of which latter was curious and uncommon.
+
+De Vonville, with whom I had lived in lodgings two or three years
+previously, was a Belgian and a _savant_, and a man of rare
+companionable qualities besides. Professionally, I believe, he called
+himself a naturalist. He had already roamed over the greater part
+of America, North and South, investigating the mysteries of Nature,
+especially of the animal kingdom, and contributing, as he went, many
+specimens of rare animals to the principal collections of Europe. His
+latest adventures took him through Africa and the East, whence he
+brought to New York a number of living creatures of many species, all
+of which, however, he had shipped for Havre before I met him, with the
+exception of two or three of the least disreputable kinds, which he
+meant to keep about him as pets. The most valued of these treasures were
+a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of
+white mice.
+
+These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the
+rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of
+a perfect jet black. They were quite tame and familiar; but, on the
+approach of a cat, or any other cause for alarm, the whole family would
+concentrate their energies in a very remarkable way into one piercing
+squeak.
+
+The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly
+allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and
+active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog
+to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes
+for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner
+of the room. There were personal reminiscences connected with Mungo
+which rendered him particularly valuable to De Vonville, whom he had
+often saved from the stings of the noxious vermin to be encountered by
+those who dwell in tents. His instinct was for creeping things, though
+he looked as if he could have dined contentedly on a brace of white
+mice. One piece of mischief he committed, during the few days he was
+allowed to run about the rooms: he gnawed holes at the bottom of all the
+doors, through which he could let himself in and out. He used to lie in
+the sun, on my table, as I sat reading; and was generally companionable
+and trustworthy, notwithstanding his insidious look.
+
+Seeing the interest I took in his small menagerie, De Vonville begged me
+to undertake the superintendence of it, on his being called away for a
+brief tour to Baltimore and elsewhere, in pursuance of an engagement to
+deliver a course of traveller's tales. Numerous were the directions I
+had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to
+the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence
+expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly
+confined to his cage. There were parrots to be looked after, also,
+including an extremely vituperative old macaw, any verbal communication
+with whom laid the advancing party open to all manner of insult and
+objurgation.
+
+The very first day of my menagerial experience, the Mangouste got out of
+his cage while I was feeding him, and glided away into dark nooks and
+garrets unknown. I failed of recovering him by a stalking process among
+the giddy passes of the upper stairs; nor did he return that day to my
+often-repeated call; for I vociferated at intervals throughout the
+day the word "Mungo!" in a manner that must have led the mysterious
+inhabitants of that silent house to the conclusion that I was a
+spiritual medium, inviting revelations from the shade of the mighty
+Park.
+
+A hot, clammy night. No balmy essences arise from the kennels of this
+hollow street in which I live; whatever comes from that quarter must be
+malarious, if anything. The windows are thrown open as far as they were
+made to be thrown, and I get as far out of one of them as I safely can,
+by tilting my chair back, and extending my legs out into that undefined
+everywhere called the wide, wide world. The only newspaper within reach
+of my hand is one I have already looked over, but I glance at it again,
+reading backwards from the end an account of a terrible poisoning case
+lately brought to light in England, which I had already read forwards
+from the beginning. Throwing it away from me in disgust, I reach out
+my other hand for a book. The one I lay hold of is "Laurel-Water,"
+the melancholy drama of Sir Theodosius Boughton by insidious poisoner
+killed. I dashed it away, backwards, over my head, and, turning off the
+gas, abandoned myself to the strange influences that breathed hotly upon
+me from the clammy vegetation festering in the ropy night-air.
+
+Why do civic wood-rangers choose the ailantus-tree for a bouquet-holder
+to the close-pent inhabitants of towns? Nothing can be more graceful,
+certainly, than the ellipses arched by the boughs from its taper stem.
+Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long,
+feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are
+times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but
+a diluted upas-antiar of Macassar, tainting, albeit with no deadly
+essence, the muggy air that rocks its slumbering branches and rolls
+away thence along the parapets and in at the windows of the sleepers.
+Dead-horse chestnut it might reasonably be called, because of its heavy,
+carrion smell, which, under the influences of a July night, is but too
+perceptible to the dwellers of streets where it abides. The tree at
+my window was an ailantus, of stately dimensions, and bounteous in a
+proportionate enormity of smell; yet it had never before affected me so
+much as on this night, when I lay dozing in the ghastly gloom. Sleep
+must have overcome me, for I had a troublous dream or vision of which
+Poison was the predominant nightmare,--a dream and slumber broken by the
+convulsive sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination
+to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of
+half-and-half--half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane--handed
+to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in
+the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly
+be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony
+beneath,--the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter
+sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, with a weird watering-pot
+held forth in a fawn-colored hand?
+
+In a particular condition of the nerves,--say, when a man feels
+"shaky,"--it takes but little to convince him that anything which may
+possibly not be all right is to a moral certainty all wrong. To sleep
+another night in that room, with the windows open,--and who would shut
+his windows in July?--directly exposed to the exhalations of a rising
+forest of upas-antiars of Macassar, nurtured by the unwholesome hand
+of a mysterious vegetarian for purposes unavowed, was no longer to be
+thought of. De Vonville's room, which was at the back of the house, and
+had no fuming ailantus by its windows on which to browse nightmares
+of skunkish flavor, afforded a better climate for a night's rest,
+notwithstanding the singular ideas which these travelled men, especially
+naturalists, have of comfort, in a civilized sense. He invariably slept
+on the floor, converting his room, indeed, into the general semblance
+of a tent, by divesting it of all the appliances dear to a Christian
+gentleman, and one who loves to repose as such. Yet there was
+comparative freshness in that tent-like apartment, as I entered it that
+night, shutting the door of mine after me, to prevent ailantus and
+upas-antiar from following in my wake. The little beasts were all
+sleeping tranquilly in their cages, and the birds on their perches
+rested quietly, too,--excepting the old macaw, who cursed me in his
+sleep, as I lit up the gas. But the Mangouste had not returned, nor did
+I quite regret his absence for the present; because, although highly
+approving of the culture of four-footed beasts, be they large or small,
+I have a prejudice against having my jugular vein breathed, at midnight,
+by small animals of the weasel tribe,--an act of which Mungo, probably,
+would have been incapable. His relations _will_ do such things, however,
+and newspapers recording appalling instances of it may be found.
+
+Shutting the door, I turned the gas down to a mere spark, and stretched
+my weary limbs on the mat which served the travelled man for a bed,
+drawing over me a gauze-like fabric, which, I suppose, answers in
+tropical countries all the purposes of the more voluminous "bed-clothes"
+of ours. Sleep soon came upon me,--a heavy, but unquiet sleep, in which
+the same influences haunted me as those I felt when slumbering at the
+window. The malaria from the trees was there, and the planter of the
+balcony watering henbane and hellebore with boiling aquafortis; likewise
+the demon-waiter, with his leaden salver and poisoned tankard, wearing
+an ophidian smile on his features and a fresh sprig of hemlock in his
+third buttonhole.
+
+How long I slept thus I know not. Once I had a vague sense of the
+Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was
+still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a
+piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood
+upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.
+
+The sound which followed this was one which the man is not likely to
+forget who has once heard it,--whether beneath his foot, as he steps
+upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand,
+when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is
+clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and
+hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke up the obedient
+gas, which flashed tremulously on the scales of an enormous rattlesnake
+coiled round the mice's cage, tightening his folds as he whizzed his
+infernal warning, and darting out his lightning tongue with baffled fury
+at the trembling group in the middle of the cage. This I saw by the
+first flash. Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the
+walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the
+Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the
+serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing,
+headless mass.
+
+In the heavy dreams which haunted me during the sleep from which I had
+just been roused, I had a vision of the planter of the balcony with
+a snake coiled round his naked arm. Who so dull as to require an
+interpreter for such plain speakings? Rushing down-stairs, I burst open
+the door of that person's room with one kick, and there, in the middle
+of the floor, half-dressed and bending over a censer of red-hot
+charcoal, knelt Mr. Désolé Arcubus, the poison-man of Mrs. Silvernails
+boarding-house. His features were collapsed and livid, and he held his
+left arm, which was much swollen and discolored, close over the red-hot
+coals, basting it wildly, the while, with ladlefuls of some hot liquid,
+while he crammed into his mouth, at intervals, a handful of herb-fodder
+of some kind from a salad-bowl on the floor beside him. He was rapidly
+growing faint and sinking, but indicated his wishes by signs, and one
+of several strangers who now entered the room continued the fomenting
+treatment, while another ran for medical assistance.
+
+There was an open letter on the table, which I had no hesitation in
+reading, when I saw at a glance that it threw light on the matter. The
+following is an exact copy of it:--
+
+"Hollow Rock----County. N. Y. 17 Jewly. 18--
+
+MR. HARKABUS dear Sir.
+
+a cording to promis i send the sneak by Xpress. He is the Largest and
+wust Sneak we have ketched In these parts. Bit a cow wich died in 2.40
+likeways her calf of fright. Hope the sneak weed growed up strong and
+harty. By eting and drinking of that wede the greatest sneak has no
+power. Smeling of it a loan will cure a small sneak ader or the like. I
+go in upon the dens tomorough and if we find any Pufing Aders will Xpres
+them to you per Xpress.
+
+Yr. oblgd. servt. SILENUS CLUCK."
+
+Here was the whole story in a nutshell. For his experiments in septic
+poisons, Mr. Arcubus had hired this apartment, with its convenient
+balcony for the cultivation of his antidotes. Having prepared his
+decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake,
+which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed
+with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the
+animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste
+underneath the doors. A cold shudder seized me when I guessed the
+reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The
+hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice,
+whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had
+fortunately roused me from my lethargy,--for the rattle of the snake is
+but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste
+came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might
+have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I
+missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room
+was lumbered.
+
+And these were the delights of lodgings,--of lodgings without board!
+And who could see the end of it all?--for, if snake-poison lurked on the
+stairs, probably hydrophobia was tied up in the cupboard. Brief time
+I expended in making my arrangements to quit, having first seen Mr.
+Arcubus carted away to a hospital, where by skilful treatment he
+slowly recovered. For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and
+the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a
+bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that
+I had departed from lodgings forever,--lodgings for single gentlemen,
+without board.
+
+But, on leaving the house, I did not forget the dust-colored old
+woman, whose last words to me, as I tipped her with a gratuity, were
+oracular:--"Forty long years and more have I lived in lodgin'-houses and
+never before seen a sarpint. It behooves all on us, now, to be watchful
+for what may be coming next, and wakeful. Circumspectangular."
+
+I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But
+what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar
+idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic
+ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the
+style and title of St. Mungo; and if ever surplus funds are discovered
+to my credit in any solvent bank, at present unknown to me, I will
+certainly devote a moiety of them to the foundation of a neat row of
+alms-cages, for the reception of decayed members of the family of White
+Mice.
+
+
+
+
+FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE.
+
+  Upon us falls the shadow of night,
+  And darkened is our day:
+  My love will greet the morning light
+  Four hundred miles away.
+  God love her, torn so swift and far
+  From hearts so like to break!
+  And God love all who are good to her,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  I know, whatever spot of ground
+  In any land we tread,
+  I know the Eternal Arms are round,
+  That heaven is overhead;
+  And faith the mourning heart will heal,
+  But many fears will make
+  Our spirits faint, our fond hearts kneel,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Good bye, dear! be they kind to you,
+  As though you were their ain!
+  My daisy opens to the dew,
+  But shuts against the rain.
+  Never will new moon glad our eyes
+  But offerings we shall make
+  To old God Wish, and prayers will rise
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Four years ago we struck our tent;
+  O'er homeless babes we yearned;
+  Our all--three darlings--with us went,
+  But only two returned!
+  While life yet bleeds into her grave,
+  Love ventures one more stake;
+  Hush, hush, poor hearts! if big, be brave,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  Like crown to most ambitious brows
+  Was Christie to us given,
+  To make our home a holy house
+  And nursery of heaven.
+  Oh, softer was her bed of rest
+  Than lily's on the lake!
+  Peace filled so deep each billowy breast,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  To music played by harps and hands
+  Invisible were we drawn
+  O'er charmèd seas, through faëry lands,
+  Under a clearer dawn:
+  We entered our new world of love
+  With blessings in our wake,
+  While prospering heavens smiled above,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  We gazed with proud eyes luminous
+  On such a gift of grace,--
+  All heaven narrowed down to us
+  In one dear little face!
+  And many a pang we felt, dear wife,
+  With hurt of heart and ache
+  All shut within like clasping knife,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  I would no tears might e'er run down
+  Her patient face, beside
+  Such happy pearls of heart as crown
+  Young mother, new-made bride!
+  For 'tis a face that, looking up
+  To passing heaven, might make
+  An angel stop, a blessing drop,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  If Love in that child's heart of hers
+  Should breathe and break its calm,
+  With trouble sweet as that which stirs
+  The brooding buds of balm,--
+  Listening at ear of peeping pearl,
+  Glistening in eyes that shake
+  Their sweet dew down,--God bless our girl,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  But, Father, if our babe must mourn,
+  Be merciful and kind!
+  And if our gentle lamb be shorn,
+  Attemper thou the wind!
+  Across the Deluge guide our Dove,
+  And to thy bosom take
+  With arm of love, and shield above,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  We have had sorrows many and strange:
+  Poor Christie I when I'm gone,
+  Some of my words will weirdly change,
+  If she read sadly on!
+  Lightnings, from what was dark of old,
+  With meanings strange will break
+  Of sorrows hid or dimly told,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  Wife, we should still try hard to win
+  The best for our dear child,
+  And keep a resting-place within,
+  When all without grows wild:
+  As on the winter graves the snow
+  Falls softly, flake by flake,
+  Our love should whitely clothe our woe,
+  For Christie's sake.
+
+  For one will wake at midnight drear
+  From out a dream of death,
+  And find no dear head pillowed near,
+  No sound of peaceful breath!
+  May no weak wailing words arise,
+  No bitter thoughts awake
+  To see the tears in Memory's eyes:
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+  And There, where many crownless kings
+  Of earth a crown shall wear,
+  The martyrs who have borne the pangs
+  Their palm at last shall bear,--
+  When with our lily pure of sin
+  Our heavenward way we take,
+  There may we walk with welcome in,
+  For Christie's sake!
+
+
+
+
+THE NURSERY BLARNEY-STONE.
+
+
+Where is it kept? We have often longed for a sight of that precious bit
+of aërolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to
+which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must be religiously
+pressed.
+
+In vain have we searched in the closet, where the headless dolls and
+tailless horses, the collapsed drum and the torn primer, are put away.
+We have privately climbed to the summit of the clothes-press, we have
+surreptitiously invaded the nurse's own private work-basket, lured by
+disappointing lumps of wax and fragments of rhubarb-root; but we did
+not find it. We believe in its existence none the less. Real as the
+coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the
+Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad
+was wrecked, as the meteor which fell into the State of Connecticut and
+the volcanic island which rose out of the Straits of Messina, as the
+rock of Plymouth, or the philosopher's stone,--yet we have sought in
+vain for it, and only know of it as of the Great Carbuncle, by the light
+it sheds.
+
+"Pray, my good Sir," ask legions of fond parents, "what do you mean? Is
+it Dalby's Carminative, Daffy's Elixir, Brown's Syrup of Squills, or
+White's Magnetic Mixture? Is it of the soothing or the coercing system?
+a substitute for lollipops or for birch? rock candy or rock the cradle?"
+
+"Look" not "into your heart," responds our Muse, but into your nursery,
+and write!
+
+We invite a general review of all infantry divisions. We may be, for
+aught you know, Mrs. Ellis _incog_., warning the mothers of America, as
+of yore the Cornelias of England. What is the Nursery Blarney-Stone?
+You have none in your own airy and southern-exposed first-pair-back,
+(_Nov-Anglicè>_, "the keeping-room chamber,") where you daily water
+and rake your young olive-sprouts? upon your word of honor, Madam, you
+have not? You never tell nursery-tales of ghosts or fairies; you have
+conscientiously stripped from the dark closet every vestige of a legend;
+you have permitted juvenile inspection of the chimney, to prove that
+Santa Claus could not descend its sooty flue without grievous nigritude
+of the anticipated doll's frock, and have logically appealed to Miss
+Bran Beeswax's satin silveriness in proof of the non-existence of
+the saint beloved of Christmas-tide. Nay, more, you tell us you have
+actually invited inspection of the overnight process of filling the
+stockings, (you brute!) and you appropriately label each gift, "From
+Papa," "From Uncle Edward," "From Sister Kate," "From dear Mamma," lest
+a figment of the supernatural untruth should linger in the infantile
+brain. The "Arabian Nights'" (and "Arabian Days'") "Entertainments" are
+on your _Index Expurgatorius_. You have banned Bluebeard, and treated
+Red Ridinghood as no better than the Bonnet Rouge of domestic
+Jacobinism.
+
+You are a model mother, with whom even the late Mr. Gradgrind might be
+satisfied. "Truth, crushed to earth" by the whole race of nurses of the
+good old time, rises again triumphant at your hearth-stone. Then answer
+us,--Why did you tell your little ones to-night, as the sparrows were
+making an unusually loquacious preparation for their dormitories,
+that the little birds were singing their evening hymns, and exhort,
+thereupon, your unwilling nestlings to a rival performance of the verses
+of Dr. Watts? You ought to be prepared to explain, also, for the benefit
+of any sucking Socrates, why it is that these feathered choristers
+have their "revival seasons," and are terrible backsliders during the
+moulting period. When you looked out of the nursery-window, into the
+poultry-yard, and heard the noisy confabulation of the motherly hens
+and pert pullets, you should be prepared to state upon what theological
+principles it is that psalmody is not the wont of the Gallinacae. Are
+the Biddies given over to a reprobate mind, because you don't happen to
+like their vocalization? Is it only the Piccolomini and Linds of the
+feathered kingdom who have a right to practise sacred music?
+
+And how about that other stupendous fiction of the harvest-moon? Tell
+us, since you are voluntarily in the confessional, tell us why you
+kept back that explanation of its dependence on the Precession of the
+Equinoxes, which, at Professor Cram's finishing examination, in your
+school-girl days, you so glibly recited before your admiring papa and
+mamma? Do you really believe that the solar and stellar system was
+arranged to accommodate "the reapers reaping early" of the little island
+of Great Britain?
+
+We think you said angels! When little Isabel Montgomery, with her long,
+sunny curls, and sweet, blue eyes, was taken away, you made a very
+touching application of her decease, to illustrate what all good people
+were to become in the unknown world. How did you get out of the scrape
+which followed the remark of your downright eldest, remembering also the
+departure of a good-natured, obese, elderly neighbor,--"Then I thpothe
+Mithter Thimmonth ith a big angel"? So he probably is; but Simmons's two
+hundred pounds of earthliness did not suit your sentimentality quite as
+readily as the little fairy who always wore such clean pantalets and
+never tore her pretty white frocks in a game of romps. Is beatification
+dependent upon the platform-balance? and what amount of flesh will turn
+the scale in favor of the _Avvocato del Diavolo?_
+
+Once upon a time, a little boy was allowed to ramble in the woods. Being
+an adventurous little boy, he saw and coveted, and also conquered, (in
+the good old English sense of the word,) a pretty bird's-nest and its
+contents, to wit, several shiny, speckled eggs. He brought them home for
+triumphant display. He set them out upon the drawing-room table, and
+called a family conclave to admire and exult. What was the surprise
+and grief of the infant Catiline, to find himself received, not with
+applause, but horror! He was accused of robbery, was threatened with
+Solomonic penalties, was finally condemned to penance at a side-table
+upon dry bread and water, while his innocent brothers and sisters were
+regaling upon chickens and custards. He was edified over his scanty meal
+by melting descriptions of the mother-bird returning to the desolated
+home, of her positive sorrow and her probable pining to death. And
+the same little boy, looking out through the prison-bars of the
+nursery-window, saw his mother take by the hand his weeping sister (much
+cast down by the fraternal wickedness) and lead her to the nest of
+another mother-bird, and then and there encourage her to perform the
+same act of spoliation. True, the eggs were not speckled and small, but
+of a very pretty white, and quite a handful for the juvenile fingers.
+But the bereaved "parient" was not slender and active,--in fact, was
+rather a tame, confiding, dumpy and dull, pepper-and-salt-colored dame.
+Her complaints were not touching, but rather ludicrous,--so much so,
+indeed, as to suggest to the human hen-bird that "Biddy was laughing to
+think what a nice breakfast little Carrie would have off her nice eggs!"
+The young Trenck, from aloft beholding, could not but stumble upon
+certain "glittering generalities," as, that "eggs was eggs," and that
+the return of them on the fowl's part, in consideration of an advance of
+corn, was not altogether a voluntary barter,--quite, in short, after the
+pattern of Coolie apprenticeship. And thus the high moral lesson of the
+morning was sadly shaken. Of course this boy did not belong to any of
+the model mammas, for whom we are writing.
+
+A large fragment of the Nursery Blarney-Stone has been made over, to
+have and to hold, to the writers of the Children's Astor-Place
+Library. We yawn over poetical justice in novels, and only tolerate it
+as an amusing absurdity in genteel comedy, for the sake of getting
+the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the
+virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very
+different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the
+heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain
+to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical
+domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as
+for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and if we did
+not know it to be so, and if we did not know that they know that we know
+it, we should perhaps feel very differently.
+
+Why must we, then, be conscientiously constrained to mark out such a
+very different plan for our children at home? Why is the life of little
+boys and girls in books always pictured on the foot-lights pattern? We
+remember that we were of those good little boys and girls,--quite as
+good as that one who saved his pennies for the missionary-box, or that
+other who hemmed a tiny pocket-handkerchief against the nasal needs of a
+forlorn infant in Burmah; but we don't remember ever (then or since) to
+have encountered any of those delightful (and strong-minded) mothers or
+those sensible and always well-informed fathers of whom we read. Neither
+in our own particularly pleasant home, nor in any where we went, (at
+three, P.M., to take an early tea with preparatory barmecidal rehearsals
+on doll's china,) did we ever meet them. Perhaps they were the
+progenitors of the authors of the books. Mr. Thackeray has introduced us
+to sundry gentlemen and ladies bearing a faint likeness to them; but
+he also permitted us to behold Lady Beckie Crawley _née_ Sharpe boxing
+little Rawdon's ears, and to meet Mrs. Hobson Newcome at one of her
+delightful "at homes," where Runmun Loll, of East Indian origin, was the
+lion of the evening.
+
+We couldn't get through five pages of Hannah More, on a wet day, at the
+dreariest railway-station, when the expected train was telegraphed as
+"not due under two hours." What have the innocent heirs of our name
+done, that Hannah should continue under numberless _noms-de-plume_ to
+cater for them?
+
+We know there must have been a large lump of the Blarney-Stone,
+conglomerate probably, kept in the desk of our reverend instructor in
+the ways of syntax and the dismal paths of numbers. We have a lively
+recollection of the countless tables of foreign coins which we committed
+to memory, and of the provoking additions and subtractions we underwent
+to reduce to dollars and cents of the Federal denomination the
+fortunes of a score of Rothschilds. But when, under the shadow of the
+Drachenfels, we attempted to reimburse the Teutonic waiter for a cup of
+_café noir_, we were ignominiously constrained to hold forth a handful
+of coin and to await the white-jacketed and bearded one's pleasure, as
+he helped himself.
+
+We have a strong impression that we should never have attained to our
+present proud position of being allowed to write for (and be printed
+in) the "Atlantic Monthly," without much previous polish, through the
+companionship of the fairer sex. Why was it made a crime worthy of
+Draconian sternness to address our she-comrades in the pleasant paths of
+learning? Why did we behold the severe Magister Morum himself, in utter
+forgetfulness of his own rule, mingle in the mazy dance on an evening
+occasion, at which we were allowed to sit up? Did the girls of a larger
+growth lose their dangerous qualities on arriving at belle-hood? Why were
+our primary _billets-doux_ confiscated, and our offending palms, like
+Cranmer's, visited with the first penalty, though we had been obliged to
+walk blushingly the gauntlet of fifty pairs of maiden eyes and deliver
+to the "female principal" of the girls' school across the entry notes
+which we have since but too much reason to conclude bore no reference
+to the affairs of the school-realm? There is a bit of the Blarney-Stone
+(always of the nursery formation) which we are sure is discoverable to
+the true geologic eye in the underpinning of the Fifth Congregational
+Society's house of worship,--then called a meeting-house, now, we
+believe, styled a church. For all sermons therein delivered were
+supposed to be for our personal edification; albeit we were not, by
+reason of our tender years, specifically exposed to the heresies of
+Origen or Pelagius. It must have been on some afternoon when we were
+absent, then, that Dr. Baxter delivered the discourse of which we
+found a commentary written on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book in our
+pew,--"Terribly tedious this P.M., isn't he?" We have always felt that
+a great opportunity was lost to us. We should doubtless have been
+permitted to indulge unchecked in the solution of that lost mystery of
+our boyhood, as to the exact number of little brass rods in the front of
+the gallery, to scratch our initials with a pin upon the pew-side, or,
+propped by the paternal arm, to sweetly slumber till nineteenthly's
+close. No such sermon was ever pronounced in our hearing. Oh, golden
+time of youth! precious season thus lost! We intend yet revisiting that
+ancient and time-worn edifice, and, borrowing the keys of the sexton,
+we mean to revel in all and sundry those delights of "boyhood's breezy
+hour" from which we were debarred by that untimely absence. Like the
+old gentleman who visited nightly Van Amburg's exhibition of the
+head-in-the-lion's-mouth feat, in the moral certainty that a single
+absence would fall inevitably upon the one night when Leo would vary the
+programme by decapitation,--so we lost the one afternoon when that
+dull discourse diversified the pious eloquence of Jotham Baxter, D.D.,
+disciple of Dr. Hopkins and believer in Cotton Mather. Many a refreshing
+slumber has sealed our eyes under subsequent outpourings of divinity,
+but never with that entire sense of permissible indulgence which
+then would certainly have been ours. Why was it--except for the
+Blarney-Stone--that we were always checked in any Sabba'day notes and
+queries of what we had noticed in the sanctuary? Why was it wicked and
+deserving of a double infliction of catechism (Assembly's) for us to
+have seen that Bob Jones had a new jacket, and that he took five marbles
+and a jack-knife (in aggravating display) out of its pockets, while our
+mother and sisters were enabled, without let or hindrance to the most
+absorbing devotion, to chronicle every bonnet and ribbon within the
+walls of the temple?
+
+Certainly, the family-physician carried--as well he might--a bit of the
+precious rock in his waistcoat-pocket; for all our subsequent experience
+of _materia medica_ has never revealed to us the then patent fact, that
+all our bodily ailments were the consequence of those particular sports
+which damaged clothes and disturbed the quiet of the household. Surely,
+the connection between the measles and sailing on the millpond was about
+as obvious as that between Macedon and Monmouth; and whooping-cough must
+have had a very long road to travel, if it originated in our nutting
+frolic, when we returned home with a ghastly gash in our trousers-knee.
+
+The Blarney-Stone got into our "Manual of History"; for either it or
+the "Boston Centinel" must have made some egregious mistakes as to the
+character of some famous men who nursed our country's fortunes. So, too,
+did the author of "Familiar Letters on Public Characters"; for he was
+anything but an indorser of the History-Book, with its wood-cuts (after
+Trumbull and West) of the death of General Wolfe, exclaiming, "They
+run who run the French then I die happy," and of General Warren at the
+Battle of Bunker's Hill, with its amazing portraits of the first six
+Presidents, and the death of Tecumseh. Nay, we have found hard work to
+reconcile our faith, as per History-Book, in the loveliness of those
+gentlemen whom stress of weather and a treacherous pilot put ashore upon
+Plymouth beach, (where they luckily found a rock to step upon,) with a
+certain sweet pastoral called "Evangeline." We found ourselves, just
+after reading the proceedings of the Plymouth Monument Association, the
+other day, pondering over the possible fate of the Dutch colony of the
+Mannahattoes, supposing that the Mayflower had made (as was purposed)
+the Highlands of Neversink instead of Shankpainter Hill at the end of
+Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in
+Plutarch's Lives, the Charter Oak, and the existence of the Maelström
+all sliding away from under us. "Think," we said, "if New York had been
+Boston, how it would have fared with the good Knickerbockers!"
+
+Who was our geographer? Why did he insist upon our believing that all
+French men and women passed their time in mutual bows and "curchies,"
+and that all Italians were on their knees to fat priests, clean and
+rosy-looking? Why did he palm upon us that outrageous fiction of three
+kings (like those of Cologne) sitting in full ermine robes, with gold
+crowns on their heads, all alone in a sort of summer-parlor, where the
+heat, must have been at 80° in the shade, engaged in disparting Poland?
+We have seen, say, a million of Frenchmen, and nearly the same of
+Italians, since then, with a dozen or so of kings and emperors,--but
+never the faintest likeness to those deluding pictures. We learned
+at the same time, by painful rote, the population of various capital
+cities; but we cannot find in any statistic-book gazetteer, neither in
+McCulloch nor in Worcester, any of the old, familiar numbers. Also in
+that same Wonder-Book of Malte-Brun, edited by Pietro il Parlatore, we
+recall a sketch of a boy running for life down a slope of at least 45°,
+just before a snowball some five hundred times as big as the one our
+school-boys unitedly rolled up in the back-yard. It was a snowball,
+round, symmetrical, just such a magnified copy of the backyard one as
+might be expected to follow a boy in dreams after too much Johnny-cake
+for supper. And that was an avalanche. We have stood since then under
+the shadow of the Jungfrau, on the Wengern Alp, at the selfsame spot
+where Byron beheld the fall of so many. We had the noble lord's luck,
+(as most people have.) and saw dozens, but not one big snowball.
+
+We believe there has been reform since that day. Thanks to the London
+"Illustrated News" and the "Penny Magazine," juster ideas visit the
+ingenious youth of the present age. But we solemnly declare that we
+grew up in the belief that the President of the United States was
+daily ushered to his carriage by a long array of bareheaded and bowing
+menials, and that his official dress was a cocked hat and knee-breeches.
+We furthermore make affidavit that we supposed all the nobility of
+Europe to be in the habit of driving four-in-hand over wooden-legged
+beggars. And we also depose and say, that we had no other idea of
+royalty than as continually clad in coronation-robes, with six peers in
+the same, with huge wigs, as attendants. All this upon the faith of
+that same Malte-Brun, _à la_ P.P. Wasn't this a pretty dish to set
+before--not a king-but a young republican, who fancied himself the
+equal of kings? And lastly, upon the same authority, we held that "the
+horrible custom of eating human flesh does not belong exclusively to any
+nation." We have seen, we repeat, men and cities. We have dined at
+the Rocher de Cancale, the Maison Dorée, at Delmonico's, at German
+Gasthauses, at Italian Trattorias, at "Joe's" in London, the Trosachs
+Inn in the Highlands, and upon all peculiar and national dishes, from
+the _sardines au gratin_ of Naples to the _sauer kraut_ of Berlin, from
+the "one fish-ball" of Boston to the hog and hominy of Virginia,--but
+never yet upon any _carte_ did we encounter "Cold Missionary" or
+"_Enfans en potage Fijien_."
+
+Where, we repeat, is the Nursery Blarney-Stone? or rather, where is it
+not?
+
+The gentle reader (prepared to corroborate with many a juvenile
+reminiscence) must by this time be prepared for our moral; and it is
+very briefly this:--Is it not time to consider the budding brain as
+entitled to fair play? We, the dear middle-aged people, must surely
+remember that it has taken us much toil and trouble to unlearn many
+things. We know, that, when we pen anything for our coevals, it is with
+due attention to such facts as we can command,--that we have a wholesome
+fear of criticism,--that, if we make blunders in our seamanship, even
+though professedly land-lubbers, some awful Knickerbocker stands by with
+the Marine Dictionary in hand to pounce upon us. But for the poor little
+innocents at home any cast-off rags of knowledge are good enough. We
+hand down to them the worn-out platitudes of history which we have
+carefully eschewed. We humbug their inexperience with the same nursery
+fables beneath whose leonine hide our matured vision detects the ass's
+ears.
+
+We have been writing lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as
+may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many
+other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising
+generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There
+is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave
+our pupils to disavow it when they can. History is still taught in our
+public and private schools, seasoned with all the exploded blunders of
+the past. Men grow up to full manhood with ideas of foreign lands as
+ridiculous and unfounded as the pictures over which we have been amusing
+ourselves just now in our old Geography. Young America is ignorant
+enough, Heaven knows, of a great deal he ought to learn; but what shall
+we say of our persistently cramming him with what he ought not to learn?
+No exploding process is strong enough, it would seem, to blow away the
+countless pretty stories with which juvenile histories are embroidered.
+Niebuhr and Arnold have forever finished Romulus and Remus and the
+Livian legends, for maturer beliefs; but childhood goes on in the same
+track. Lord Macaulay's Romance of English History has been riddled by
+the acute reviewers; but he will be abridged for the use of schools, and
+not a fiction about William Penn, or John of Marlborough, or Grahame of
+Claverhouse, be left out.
+
+Can you plant a garden with weeds and then pull them up again in secure
+trust that no lurking burdocks and Canada thistle shall remain? Dear
+model mothers and prudent papas, be not afraid of wholesome fiction,
+as such, duly labelled and left uncorked. It will be far better to
+administer plenty of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" and "Arabian
+Nights," good ringing old ballads with a healthy sentiment at bottom of
+manly honor and womanly affection, fairy stories and ancient legends,
+than all the mince-meat histories and biographies that nurse-wise have
+been chewed soft for the use of tender gums. Let us all, for the benefit
+of ourselves, keep clear of cant; but if cant we must, why let it be for
+those who will cant back again, laughing in their sleeves the while, and
+not for the dear little faces so solemnly upturned to ours, whose
+honest blue eyes (black or green, if you please, as you take your tea)
+confidingly meet ours.
+
+American education, especially home education, is wanting not in
+quantity so much as quality; in that it _is_ fearfully lacking, and we,
+the educators, are the ones to blame for it.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER.
+
+It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with
+residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some
+breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with
+two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome agitation.
+Rockland was such a place.
+
+Some of the natural features of the town have been described already.
+The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed
+it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary
+country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which
+belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it
+dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it brooded
+than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate by
+cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat like a
+garden-wall. Peach-trees, which, on the northern side of the mountain,
+hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in Rockland.
+
+But there was still another relation between the mountain and the town
+at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and
+which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. Those
+high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would have
+called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, had
+always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as
+if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe over the bare,
+precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide
+like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest chance-support, and, so
+sliding, crush the village out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled
+over on the valley of Goldau.
+
+Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short
+residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the thought
+of this awful green wall piled up into the air over their heads. They
+would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the muffled snapping of
+roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side were tugging to break
+away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees were
+clinging with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel
+away and crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by
+one of those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human
+nature, there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or
+forty years after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening
+mountain-side, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls.
+The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the
+mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they ought
+to be there. It was a fascination like that which the rattlesnake is
+said to exert.
+
+This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other source
+of danger which was an element in the everyday life of the Rockland
+people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a joke against
+them, that a Rocklander couldn't hear a bean-pod rattle without saying,
+"The Lord have mercy on us!" It is very true, that many a nervous old
+lady has had a terrible start, caused by some mischievous young rogue's
+giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy vegetable products in her
+immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons missed the
+excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite in other regions, where
+there were nothing but black and green and striped snakes, mean
+ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent without his venom,--
+poor crawling creatures, whom Nature would not trust with a poison-bag.
+Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably experience a certain
+gratification in this infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that
+the old people retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some
+said it was the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to
+the habit of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through
+the grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is
+often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their _crème de noyau_ with a
+peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that it
+may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case they
+will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into the earth
+through their brain and marrow.
+
+But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special
+character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its chief
+glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its elms made
+a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its extent. No
+natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that formed by two
+American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot across each
+other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of green.
+When one looks through a long double row of these, as in that lovely
+avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well,--
+
+  "Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear
+  As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!"--
+
+he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, with
+all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone.
+
+Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of its
+elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other vegetable
+creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is modest and
+patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in everywhere and
+makes arrangements for coming up by-and-by. So, in spring, one finds a
+crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very weak and small
+compared to those, succulent vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of
+them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, as meekly as
+Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has
+established a kind of right to stay. Three generations of carrot and
+parsnip-consumers have passed away, yourself among them, and now let
+your great-grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean
+girth, three hundred and sixty feet in the line that bounds its leafy
+circle, it covers the boy with such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed
+oak nor insect-haunted linden ever lifted into the summer skies.
+
+Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its
+Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, or
+"mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this street,
+also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were chiefly
+congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland dignitary to have a
+house in Elm Street.
+
+A New England "mansion-house" is naturally square, with dormer windows
+projecting from the roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round
+it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner
+shows a respectable expanse of clean shirt-front. It has a lateral
+margin beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white
+wrist-bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can
+properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate.
+Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of
+any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to button itself up
+tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin, will be advertising
+for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the New England
+mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas Abney's
+place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the family, and
+wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into consciousness in
+our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single verses, between the
+momenta of wandering and of stupor, when we lie dying, and sound over
+us when we can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears to the hot,
+aching eyes beneath the thick, black veils, and carrying the holy calm
+with them which filled the good man's heart, as he prayed and sung under
+the shelter of the old English mansion-house.
+
+Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story, trim, white-painted,
+"genteel" houses, which, being more gossipy and less nicely bred,
+crowded close up to the street, instead of standing back from it with
+arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. Their little front-yards were very
+commonly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, which were allowed
+to smother the lower story almost to the exclusion of light and air, so
+that, what with small windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness
+made by these choking growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of
+these houses were the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be
+found anywhere among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt
+to assist this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look
+discontented in little rooms, hair-cloth furniture, black and shiny as
+beetles' wing-cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the
+kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,--these
+things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged the
+current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance Documents,
+unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines with worn-out
+steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a
+distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to mention, a volume
+of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according to the tastes of the
+family, and the Good Book, which is always Itself in the cheapest and
+commonest company. The father of the family with his hand in the breast
+of his coat, the mother of the same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a
+print of the Last Supper, by no means Morghen's, or the Father of his
+Country, or the old General, or the Defender of the Constitution, or an
+unknown clergyman with an open book before him,--these were the usual
+ornaments of the walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the others
+according to politics and other tendencies.
+
+This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New
+England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They
+have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the
+farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The
+mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open
+to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a good
+warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with the
+rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These lesser
+country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent
+subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. The
+chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the
+warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, happy, and
+cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, plenty of it,
+and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't afford this, don't
+try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to the ways of the honest
+farm-house.
+
+There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about Rockland.
+The best of them were something of the following pattern, which is too
+often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but infinitely less
+pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back from the road,
+seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden building, two
+stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to within a few
+feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is copied from an
+old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be seen in Lancashire,
+for instance, always with the same honest, homely look, as if their
+roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil out of which they
+sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by the slow action of sun
+and air and rain to a quiet dove- or slate-color. An old broken mill-
+stone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing like a finger to the heavens,
+which the shining round of water beneath looked up at like a dark
+unsleeping eye,--a single large elm a little at one side,--a barn twice
+as big as the house,--a cattle-yard, with
+
+        "The white horns tossing above the wall,"--
+
+some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round them,--a
+row of beehives,--a garden-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and
+many-hued holly-hocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, seedling
+onions, and marigolds, and flower-de-luces, and lady's-delights, and
+peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the borders,
+and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they got a
+chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born children
+remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. Such are the
+recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling
+yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape;
+and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born
+merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm
+with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises,
+as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
+
+Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and
+looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in
+the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and crow
+out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's glass eyes
+with their sharp-pointed weathercocks.
+
+The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England
+meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square
+tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs,
+out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at
+its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery
+running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the
+pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached
+the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D.D., successor, after a number of
+generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus
+Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged
+heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and occasionally
+delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard-headed
+theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter fully and
+finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid down for
+the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform of his
+demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of preaching
+plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and showing his
+Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It was noticed by
+some few of his flock, not without comment, that the great majority of
+his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and more as he became
+interested in various benevolent enterprises which brought him into
+relations with ministers and kind-hearted laymen of other denominations.
+The truth is, that he was a man of a very warm, open, and exceedingly
+_human_ disposition, and, although bred by a clerical father, whose
+motto was "_Sit anima mea cum Puritanis_," he exercised his human
+faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such freedom that
+the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere greatly with the
+circulation of the warm blood through his system. Once in a while he
+seemed to think it necessary to come out with a grand doctrinal sermon,
+and then he would lapse away for while into preaching on men's duties to
+each other and to society, and hit hard, perhaps, at some of the actual
+vices of the time and place, and insist with such tenderness and
+eloquence on the great depth and breadth of true Christian love and
+charity, that his oldest deacon shook his head, and wished he had
+shown as much interest when he was preaching, three Sabbaths back, on
+Predestination, or in his discourse against the Sabellians. But he was
+sound in the faith; no doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council
+held in the town of Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which
+expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding
+officer, he did not vote, to be sure, but there was no doubt that he was
+all right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't
+very well let him go wrong.
+
+The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more modern
+style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New England
+model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to pull down its
+old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a hundred years or so,
+and put up one of these more elegant edifices. The new building was in
+what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic manner. Its pinnacles and
+crockets and other ornaments were, like the body of the building, all of
+pine wood,--an admirable material, as it is very soft and easily worked,
+and can be painted of any color desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed
+in imitation of stone,--first a dark-brown square, then two light-brown
+squares, then another dark-brown square, and so on, to represent the
+accidental differences of shade always noticeable in the real stones of
+which walls are built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting
+his party-colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those
+of a chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and
+serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural clumps
+know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and
+symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of
+throwing up into the air a peck of potatoes and sticking in a tree
+wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were
+the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together with a ledge
+before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to occasional
+contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, and a
+place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be
+deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by boots
+or crickets.
+
+In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a
+divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at that
+famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years ago, to
+have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms of heresy.
+His ministrations were attended with decency, but not followed with
+enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old story at last.
+"The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite a thrill of
+satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to be a dull
+business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, while he
+knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards and
+empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that the
+drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the statistics
+and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, however,
+the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against his
+neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; but it was a
+languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away from meeting in
+the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening services. The
+minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the way, was a
+down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching as he had been
+taught to preach, but he bad misgivings at times. There was a little
+Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill where his own was placed,
+which he always had to pass on Sundays. He could never look on the
+thronging multitudes that crowded its pews and aisles or knelt
+bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to get in among them and
+go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of devotional contact which
+makes a worshipping throng as different from the same numbers praying
+apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of scattered cinders.
+
+"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and
+working-women!" he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that
+atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies,
+and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead of
+droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congregation!"
+The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon him; for, of all the
+terrible things to natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to a
+minority. No person that looked at his thin and sallow cheek, his sunken
+and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who heard
+his querulous, though not unmusical voice, could fail to see that his
+life was an uneasy one, that he was engaged in some inward conflict. His
+dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed,
+and was all the more striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a
+belief which made him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was
+yet a most good-humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on
+week-days did one as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever
+delivered on a Sunday.
+
+A few miles from Rockland was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a
+roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained window, and
+a trained rector, who read the service with such ventral depth of
+utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant letter, that his own
+mother would not have known him for her son, if the good woman had not
+ironed his surplice and put it on with her own hands.
+
+There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name
+of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city-people in the summer
+months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct
+ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a _table d'hôte_ of some
+pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a
+two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a
+great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored
+elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the
+bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and
+coffee,--where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early
+passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and
+coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere,
+and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the
+neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the
+news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which
+the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the
+Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related
+by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and
+story-telling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was when there
+were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a hissing vessel
+of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four _loggerheads_ (long
+irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold
+season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of
+flip,---a goodly compound, speaking according to the flesh, made with
+beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a
+little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed to
+sizzle, there results a peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as
+a warning to remove themselves at once out of the reach of temptation.
+
+But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old
+attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. In
+place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they were
+commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a few
+lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long exposure,
+but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the whole ornamented
+by festoons of yellow and blue cut fly-paper. On the front shelf of the
+bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, and scattered about
+were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that always wanted picking, which
+burned red and smoked a good deal, and were apt to go out without any
+obvious cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the
+circumambient air.
+
+The common school-houses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of the
+Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk he was
+taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at the rows of
+desks and recalled his late experiences. He could not help laughing, as
+he thought how neatly he had knocked the young butcher off his pins.
+
+            "'A little _science_ is a dangerous thing.'
+
+as well as a little 'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's
+dangerous to the fellow you try it on." And he cut him a good stick and
+began climbing the side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous
+Rattlesnake Ledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
+the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
+one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
+their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
+not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
+indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
+you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
+A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
+Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to
+get good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management,
+he recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere
+among the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at
+the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual
+authority, the sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear
+answers to the pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the
+force without the form of a command, and the young man could not doubt
+that the good genius of the school stood before him in the person of
+Helen Darley.
+
+It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies and leaves a widow
+and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
+bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep
+a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
+herself the _prima donna_ in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas
+Peckham's educational establishment.
+
+What a miserable thing it is to be poor! She was dependent, frail,
+sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping,
+thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared
+for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have
+his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's
+worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain English,
+overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,--sadder a
+great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much more fertile
+in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of
+headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera
+into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with half her brain while
+the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,--sometimes tightening
+round the brows as if her cap-band were Luke's iron crown,--and then her
+neuralgias, and her back-aches, and her fits of depression, in which she
+thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which
+men speak slightingly of as hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only
+not commonly fatal ones,--so many trials which belong to her fine and
+mobile structure,--that she is always entitled to pity, when she is
+placed in conditions which develop her nervous tendencies. The poor
+teacher's work had, of course, been doubled since the departure of Mr.
+Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the weariness of instruction
+is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin to be overtasked, but those
+who have tried it. The _relays_ of fresh pupils, each new set with its
+exhausting powers in full action, coming one after another, take out
+all the reserved forces and faculties of resistance from the subject of
+their draining process.
+
+The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she
+sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or
+compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the
+pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill
+stair of labor she was daily climbing.
+
+How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She
+was conscientious in her duties and would insist on reading every
+sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar or
+bad spelling. There might but have been twenty or thirty of these themes
+in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the leading
+sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the accidents
+of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence uncertain; that
+virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like the dew-drop
+from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; that life was
+o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue instilled by our
+beloved teachers were to be our guides through all our future career.
+The imagery employed consisted principally of roses, lilies, birds,
+clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated comparison of wayward genius to
+a meteor. Who does not know the small, slanted, Italian hand of these
+girls'-compositions,--their stringing together of the good old
+traditional copy-book phrases, their occasional gushes of sentiment, the
+profound estimates of the world, sounding to the old folks that read
+them as the experience of a bantam-pullet's last-hatched young one
+with the chips of its shell on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's
+chicken, who knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes?
+Yet every now and then one is liable to be surprised with strange
+clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, except by the
+mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a young girl and
+exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the
+sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and the
+Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. In the
+midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read over so
+carefully were two or three that had something of individual flavor
+about them, and here and there there was an image or an epithet which
+showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a fallen scarlet feather
+marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden.
+
+The young lady teacher read them with a certain indifference of manner,
+as one reads proofs,--noting defects of detail, but not commonly
+arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann Wood's poem,
+beginning
+
+  "How sweet at evening's balmy hour,"
+
+did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney and
+Yankee beginners, _morn_ and _dawn_, and tossed the verses on the pile
+of those she had finished. She was looking over some of the last of them
+in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was getting sleepy in
+spite of herself,--when she came to one which seemed to rouse her
+attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She looked at it a moment
+before she would touch it. Then she took hold of it by one corner and
+slid it off from the rest. One would have said she was afraid of it,
+or had some undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her. Such odd
+fancies are common enough in young persons in her nervous state. Many of
+these young people will jump up twenty times a day and run to dabble
+the tips of their fingers in water, after touching the most inoffensive
+objects.
+
+This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long,
+slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something
+strangely suggestive about the look of it,--but exactly of what, Miss
+Darley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the
+paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive
+rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage
+scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have
+threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as
+well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind
+of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this strange
+paper she did not know what to make of. There was something in its
+descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not say
+what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not help
+reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her that the
+tired and overwearied girl's self-control left her entirely. She sobbed
+once or twice, then laughed convulsively, and flung herself on the bed,
+where she worked out a set hysteric spasm as she best might, without
+anybody to rub her hands and see that she did not hurt herself.
+By-and-by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a
+volume of Coleridge and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep and
+wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams.
+
+Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition
+which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a state
+that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the attack, and
+it was the accident of her transient excitability, very probably, which
+made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much disturbance.
+The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, _E.
+Venner_, and was, of course, written by that wild-looking girl who had
+excited the master's curiosity and prompted his question, as before
+mentioned.
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher looked pale and wearied, naturally
+enough, but she was in her place at the usual hour, and Master Langdon
+in his own. The girls had not yet entered the schoolroom.
+
+"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard.
+
+"I was not well yesterday," she answered. "I had a worry and a kind of
+fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young souls
+and bodies! Every young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm in arm,
+between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with the thought
+of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and wants--Tell me,
+are there not natures born so out of parallel with the lines of natural
+law that nothing short of a miracle can bring them right?"
+
+Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his
+profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with which
+individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, therefore, with
+a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very familiar class of
+facts.
+
+"Why, of course. Each of us is only footing-up of a double column of
+figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells,--and some of
+them are _plus_, and some _minus_. If the columns don't add up right, it
+is commonly because we can't make out all the figures. I don't mean to
+say that something may not be added by Nature to make up for losses and
+keep the race to its average, but we are mainly nothing but the answer
+to a long sum in addition and subtraction. No doubt there are people
+born with impulses at every possible angle to the parallels of Nature,
+as you call them. If they happen to cut these at right angles, of course
+they are beyond the reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are
+what we have most to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane
+asylums take care of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have
+put it too much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know.
+Pray, what set you--"
+
+The next morning the lady-teacher took to asking me this? "Any strange
+cases among the scholars?"
+
+The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with the
+question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that that she
+was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated stock, never
+rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A thousand decencies,
+amenities, reticences, graces, which no one thinks of until he misses
+them, are the traditional right of those who spring from such families.
+And when two persons of this exceptional breeding meet in the midst of
+the common multitude, they seek each other's company at once by the
+natural law of elective affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know
+their peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of two ship-wrecked
+vessels, were cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once
+address the other as "Our Royal Sister."
+
+Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering
+with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as those
+foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she look into
+them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm,
+steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, as she read his
+expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but exhausting glance.
+"A lady," he said to himself, as he met her questioning look,--so brief,
+so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had taught to read
+faces quickly without offence, as children read the faces of parents,
+as wives read the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was but a few
+seconds' work, and yet the main point was settled. If there had been any
+vulgar curiosity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression,
+she would have detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face
+so softly and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly,
+he would not have said to himself, "She is a _lady_," for that word
+meant a good deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the
+scholarly Langdons.
+
+"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I
+don't think our school-room is an exception. I am glad you believe in
+the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I did
+not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything but
+God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my negligence or
+incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and sins of those I have
+charge of. Yet there, are mysteries I do not know how to account for."
+She looked all round the school-room, and then said, in a whisper, "Mr.
+Langdon, we had a girl that _stole_, in the school, not long ago. Worse
+than that, we had a girl that tried to set us on fire. Children of good
+people, both of them. And we have a girl now that frightens me so"----
+
+The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three
+types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not have
+been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in
+the school.--_Hannah Martin_. Fourteen years and three months old.
+Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead,
+large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression.
+Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking her
+provisions in school-hours.--_Rosa Milburn_. Sixteen. Brunette, with
+a rare ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes
+wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be passionate,
+if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back and
+walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, with a slight rocking
+movement, being one of the wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless,--a
+hard girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, which she means to
+read in school-time.--_Charlotte Ann Wood_. Fifteen. The poetess before
+mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate
+child, half unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go
+much with the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry,
+underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very fast,
+not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, expressed in the
+accustomed phrases. Undervitalized. Sensibilities not covered with their
+normal integuments. A negative condition, often confounded with genius,
+and sometimes running into it. Young people that _fall_ out of line
+through weakness of the active faculties are often confounded with those
+that _step_ out of it through strength of the intellectual ones.
+
+The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups,
+until the school-room was nearly full. Then there was a little pause,
+and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes
+turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same
+direction.
+
+A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but
+rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one sometimes
+sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the queen of
+graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection with the
+very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained society. She was a
+splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a flash of white teeth that
+was always like a surprise when her lips parted. She wore a checkered
+dress, of a curious pattern, and a camel's-hair scarf twisted a little
+fantastically about her. She went to her seat, which she had moved a
+short distance apart from the rest, and, sitting down, began playing
+listlessly with her gold chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling
+it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her
+long, delicate fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes,
+not large,--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley
+bust,--black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not
+help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from
+for something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes.
+They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own away,
+and let them wander over the other scholars. But they could not help
+coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. The diamond
+eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books,
+as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought she had waited
+long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look at the dark girl.
+The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her kerchief to her
+forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed once, almost
+shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill-defined impulse,
+which she could not resist, she left her place and went to the young
+girl's desk.
+
+_"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?_" It was a strange question to
+put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come
+to her.
+
+"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke
+in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her
+articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect.
+
+"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a rare
+alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks of The
+Mountain.
+
+"Where it grew," said Elsie Venner. "Take it." The teacher could not
+refuse her. The girl's finger-tips touched hers as she took it. How cold
+they were for a girl of such an organization!
+
+The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting the
+school-room soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling the
+flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second was to
+wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. A
+poor, overtasked, nervous creature,--we must not think too much of her
+fancies.
+
+After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which had
+been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which may
+prove interesting by-and-by, but there are other matters we must first
+attend to. IS THE RELIGIOUS WANT OF THE AGE MET?
+
+
+To answer this question intelligently, we must first glance at the
+characteristics of the age. It is an age of remarkable activity. There
+have been industrious men in other days; there have been nations of whom
+it might be truly said, They were an industrious people, they lost no
+time in idleness: but their rate of speed was low. Such a people could
+hardly be deemed enterprising. They might continue uncomplainingly in
+their accustomed round of labors, but would lack impulse to attempt
+anything new. Circumstances did not compel them to unwonted efforts,
+and their capabilities lay dormant. The world was wide, the population
+comparatively sparse, and the means of subsistence not difficult of
+attainment.
+
+Our age is very unlike to that. People begin to crowd one another. There
+is competition. The more active and ingenious will have the advantage;
+they do have the advantage; and this fact is a constant stimulus. It has
+been operating for thirty years past with ever-increasing power. We seem
+to be approaching a climax,--a point beyond which flesh and blood cannot
+go. The enterprise of the more active spirits of our day is astounding;
+we begin to ask, "Will they stop at anything? What will they not
+undertake?" There are a great many unsuccessful attempts; but these are
+not necessarily observed, they pass quietly into obscurity, while we
+hasten to observe the successes, which are wonderful, and so numerous
+as to keep us ever on tiptoe, looking for new wonders. Having seen the
+railways, the magnetic telegraph, and Hoe's press, in full operation,
+and having been brought to accept these as a common measure of time and
+motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older usages. We find our
+age an age of daring and of doing. We are ready to discard the word
+_impossible_; from our vocabulary; we deny that anything is the less
+probable because of being unprecedented. For doing new things we look
+about for new means,--being full charged with the belief that for all
+worthy or desirable ends there must be adequate and available means.
+In this regard, it is an age of unprecedented faith, of expectation of
+success; and we all know the natural and necessary influence of such
+an expectation. Sanguine expectation lights up the fires of genius;
+invention is quickened for the attainment of the highest speed and the
+greatest momentum. In no former age has there been anything to compare
+in rapidity and power of movement with the every-day achievements of
+this age. The relation of books to men, and the sphere assigned to
+books, are materially modified by the characteristics of the age. Books,
+as books, are no longer a charm to conjure with. The few really superior
+books have a wider and greater influence than ever before; while
+the great mass of common books have less, and pass more easily into
+oblivion. Good books may and must help us; but books cannot make us men
+of the nineteenth century, and a power in it. A thorough knowledge of
+the world within us, as it stands related to the world without us, is
+something quite different from mere book-knowledge. This is an element
+of influence not only not confined to the bookmen, but often possessed
+in a transcendent degree by those whose devotion to books is altogether
+subordinate to other avocations. Our common-school education may be said
+to bring the entire people upon a common plane. We are no longer the
+esoteric and the exoteric; we understand our rights in the common fund
+of sense and truth very well. We are not very patient with those who
+affect to know better than ourselves what we want and what we ought to
+desire. Most men are exceedingly in earnest, and determined to be heard
+in their own cause, and well able to make themselves understood. Scribes
+and Pharisees compassing sea and land to make one proselyte are
+a good and bad type of our activity in the pursuit of our own ends.
+Innumerable and infinitely varied are the shifts employed to secure
+attention, to effect the sale of merchandise, and to increase income.
+Nor are the learned professions much behind the men of merchandise. The
+contest of life thickens. Competition for the fruits of labor waxes
+continually more fierce. Mother Earth is too moderate in her labors; the
+ranks of the producers suffer from desertion; the plough is forsaken;
+the patient ox is contemned; silence, seclusion, and meditation are a
+memory of the past. The world's axis is changed; there is more heat in
+the North. The world has advanced, in our age, from a speed of five
+miles an hour, to twenty or thirty, or more.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the advantages and disadvantages accruing
+from these movements, there can be no question of the fact, that they
+have greatly affected the position and the relations of speakers and
+hearers. The million have been driven to do so much for themselves, that
+they are in no little danger of jumping to the conclusion, that they no
+longer need teachers of religion. A conclusion so fraught with mischief
+to the race will not be arrested by a pertinacious adhesion to modes of
+preaching which men under the old-time training could be made to endure,
+but which latter-day contrasts have rendered intolerable.
+
+It is just here, if anywhere, that a special backwardness on the part of
+the clergy to meet the religious wants of the age may, without injustice
+or unkindness, be alleged. It comes about very naturally; the training
+of the clergy is not in harmony with the exigencies of the position they
+are intended to occupy. The endeavors of the preparatory schools are
+not to be depreciated. It is scarcely possible to say too much of the
+fundamental importance of thoroughness and of minute accuracy in the
+rudiments of learning. But that extreme zeal in this behalf has produced
+an unnatural divorce of the practical from the critical, it is vain
+to deny. The devotion to the latter, which is inaugurated in the
+preparatory school, is by the college inflamed to the utmost, and
+the young man reaches his climax when he receives the appointment of
+valedictorian; that is his end; he reaches it, and we may say it is
+the death of him. He may, indeed, enter the theological seminary,
+industriously resolved on more of the same supremacy; but, in most
+instances, the great practical ends of a Christ-like life of doing good
+have been already lost from his view, and the ways and means by which
+alone such ends can be reached have become offensive to him. The
+student, as he delights in calling himself, has become greatly more
+interested in knowledge than in the people for whom he is to use his
+knowledge. A certain unknown God, an idol, in short, quite unsuspected,
+whose name is _Critical Dignity_, is installed in his heart, in
+the place of the Son of God. And the man endures the trials of his
+ministerial life under the mistaken impression that he is a martyr for
+Christ. He compels himself to be satisfied with a measure of attention
+to his utterances, which would content no sane and sensible man in any
+other department of teaching. He will tell you that it is one of the
+inevitable infelicities of his vocation, that to nothing are men such
+unwilling listeners as to religious truth; than which nothing can
+be more untrue; for to nothing are men so prepared to listen as to
+religious truth, properly presented.
+
+In order to a more generally happy and successful prosecution of the
+duties of a minister of Christ, a preliminary fact requires to be
+considered. That a man is found or finds himself in any calling is no
+evidence whatever that he is fitted for that calling. This is just as
+true of the ministry as of any other vocation. Every man-of-business
+knows this. The clergy seem to us behind the age in being astonishingly
+blind to it. Men-of-business know that only a very small fraction of
+their number can ever attain eminent success. They know, that, in a term
+of twenty years, ninety-seven men in a hundred _fail_. Here and there
+one develops a remarkable talent for the specific business in which he
+is engaged. The ninety-and-nine discover that they have a weary contest
+to maintain with manifold contingencies and combinations which no
+foresight can preclude.
+
+The application of this general truth to their profession the clergy are
+backward to perceive. The consequences of this backwardness are very
+hurtful to their interests. Because of this, we have an indefinite
+amount of puerile and undignified complaint from disappointed men, of
+disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered
+upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake
+their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and
+they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of
+incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their
+flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural
+splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for
+something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have
+been put forward, as a screen, by many an unsuccessful preacher, who
+failed,--simply failed,--not in selling horns or hides, shirtings or
+sugars,--but failed to recommend Christ and his gospel,--failed for want
+of head, or heart, or industry, or all three.
+
+The man who embarks his all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk
+of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster,
+work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might
+suffice for both. This unalterable fact every business-man accepts.
+
+Do you inquire, To what good purpose do you thrust the possibility of
+failure upon the attention of the candidate for the ministry? Would you
+utterly discourage those who are already more alive to the perils of
+their undertaking than we could wish them?
+
+We answer, It is no kindness to encourage men to enter a ministry whose
+inexorable requirements and whose incidental possibilities they may
+not look in the face. It is no kindness to represent to them that the
+qualities which they possess _ought_ to engage attention; and that
+their talents will command respect, or else it will be the fault of the
+people.
+
+Men go into business in the face of a possibility of failure through
+uncontrollable circumstances; not in defiance of an ascertainable,
+insufferable incompetency. They toil on, accepting adversity with such
+equanimity as God gives them, so long as they are permitted to believe
+that their misfortunes are not chargeable upon their incapacity or
+self-indulgence. But when it is made apparent that they are not in their
+proper sphere, they think it no shame to say so, to withdraw, and
+to apply their energies to something suited to their tastes and
+capabilities. And it should be with the ministry; but as things now are,
+with the conceptions of the ministry now entertained, pride interposes
+to forbid the rectification of the most serious mistakes. It is a
+question of dignity and of scholarship; whereas it should be a question
+of love to God and man, and of real ability and conscious power to bring
+them together,--to reconcile man to God.
+
+Our age is an age of great devotion to secular affairs,--of men who are
+great in the conduct of such affairs,--in every department in life. To
+counterbalance this, our ministry must be filled with an equally earnest
+devotion to God and salvation. In real ability our ministers ought to be
+not a whit behind. But ability is not necessarily scholarship; though it
+may, and as far as possible should, include that, and a great deal more.
+Let it be fully understood, once for all, that we have no disparaging
+remark to make of scholarship; a man must be foolish beyond expression,
+who pretends to argue that the highest scholarship is less than a most
+important and almost indispensable auxiliary to the minister of Christ.
+All our concern in the matter, just here, is, that it shall be fully
+understood that piety and real ability make the minister of Christ,
+and not scholarship; in the words of Augustine, "the heart makes the
+minister";--but we may safely assume that he meant the heart of a really
+able man; otherwise we can accord but a qualified respect to this
+remark.
+
+The prevailing impression among the ministry appears to be, that the man
+who cannot write "an able doctrinal discourse" is but an inferior man,
+fit only to preach in an inferior place; and that it would be a great
+gain to the Church, if scholarship were only so general that the
+standard of the universities could be applied, and only Phi-Beta-Kappa
+men allowed to enter the ministry. No doubt, those who incline to this
+view are quite honest, and not unkindly in it. But those who think this
+grievously misunderstand the necessities of the age in which we live.
+Reading men know where to find better reading than can possibly be
+furnished by any man who is bound to write two sermons weekly, or
+even one sermon a week; and to train any corps of young men in the
+expectation that any considerable fraction of them will be able to win
+and to maintain a commanding influence in their parishes mainly by the
+weekly production of learned discourses is to do them the greatest
+injury, by cherishing expectations which never can be realized. Why
+do our educated men of other professions so seldom and so reluctantly
+contribute to the addresses in our religious assemblies? Precisely
+because they understand the difficulty of meeting the popular
+expectation which is created by the prevailing theory; a theory which
+demands that sermons, and not only that sermons, but also that all
+religious addresses, should be chiefly characterized as learned, acute,
+scholastic even. An Irish preacher is reported in an Edinburgh paper as
+saying lately, that "he had been led to think of his own preaching and
+of that of his brethren. He saw very few sermons in the New Testament
+shaped after the forms and fashion in which they had been accustomed to
+shape theirs. He was not aware of a sermon there, in which they had
+a little motto selected, upon which a disquisition upon a particular
+subject was hung. The sort of sermons which the people in his locality
+were desirous to hear were sermons delivered on a large portion of the
+Word of God, carrying through the ideas as the Spirit of God had done."
+And it is, in part at least, because of the prevailing disregard of this
+most reasonable desire, that parishes so soon weary of their ministers.
+
+It need not discourage ministers to accept the fact that there will be
+failures in the ministry,--and a great many failures among those who
+rely for their success mainly upon the weekly production of learned
+disquisitions. Discouragement is not in accepting a fact that accords
+with all just theories of truth, but in adopting a theory which is sure
+to be invalidated by the almost universal experience of men in, as well
+as out of, the ministry. A right-minded minister _may_ have many falls
+in struggling up his Hill of Difficulty; but the Lord will lift him
+up, and will save him from adding to the temperate grief proper to any
+measure of short-coming the intolerable poignancy that comes of cheating
+by false pretences,--of assuming to do what he knows or should know that
+he cannot do, namely, produce any considerable number of great sermons.
+
+Let it, then, be frankly owned, that men, very good men, very capable
+men, have failed in the ministry. A. failed, because he did not study;
+B., because he did not visit his people; C., because he could not talk;
+D., because he was too grave; E., because he was too frivolous; F. could
+not, or would not, control his temper; G. alienated by exacting more
+than he received; and all of them because of not having what Scougal
+calls "the life of God in the soul of man."
+
+It is not worth while for any man to go into the ministry who cannot
+relish the Apostle's invitation, running thus:--"I beseech you,
+therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
+bodies _a living sacrifice_, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
+reasonable service." If that seem not reasonable, ay, and exceedingly
+inviting too, better let it alone. All men cannot do all things. Better
+raise extraordinary potatoes than hammer out insignificant ideas. You do
+not see the connection? you were a Phi-Beta-Kappa man in college, and
+know that you can write better than many a man in a metropolitan pulpit?
+Very likely; but we of the few go to church to be made better men, and
+not by fine writing, but by significant ideas, which may come in a
+homely garb, so they be only pervaded with affectionate piety, but which
+can come to us only from one who has laid all ambitious self-seeking on
+the altar of God. There is a power of persuasion in every minister who
+follows God as a dear child, and who walks in love, as Christ loved
+us, which the hardest heart cannot long resist,--which will win the
+congregation, however an individual here and there may be able to harden
+himself against it. You think that the great power of the pulpit is in
+high doctrine, presented with metaphysical precision and acuteness. We
+have no disparagement to offer of your doctrinal knowledge, nor of your
+ability to state it with metaphysical precision and hair-splitting
+acuteness. But we know, from much experience, that there is a divine
+truth, and a fervor and power in imparting it, with which God inspires
+the man who is wholly devoted to Him, in comparison with which the
+higher achievements of the man who lacks these are trumpery and rubbish.
+Many, _many_ men have failed in the ministry, are failing in the
+ministry every day, because their principal reliance has been upon what
+they deem their thorough mastery of the soundest theories of doctrine
+and of duty. They were confident they could administer to minds and
+hearts diseased the certain specific laid down in the book, admeasured
+to the twentieth part of a scruple. Confident in their theoretical
+acquisitions, they could not comprehend the indispensable necessity of a
+large experience in actual cases of mental malady. And for the want of
+such experience, it was absolutely impossible that they should be _en
+rapport_ with the souls they honestly desired to benefit. Can you heal a
+heart-ache with a syllogism? There is no dispensing with the precept and
+prescription,--"Weep with those that weep!" "Be of the same mind one
+toward another!"
+
+Theories of doctrine and of practice are not without their value; but
+the minister who is merely or chiefly a theorist, whether in doctrines
+or in measures, is an adventurer; and the chances against him are as
+many as the chances against the precise similarity of any two cases
+presented to his attention,--as many as the chances against the
+education of any two men of fifty years being precisely alike, in every
+particular and in all their results. The soul's problems are not to be
+solved by theories. Such was not the practice of the Great Physician;
+"_surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows._" Theories
+shirk that. "_In all their affliction, He was afflicted; in His love and
+in His pity, He redeemed them._" And precisely in this way his ministers
+are now to follow up his practice. Our age is growing less and less
+tolerant of formality,--less and less willing to accept metaphysical
+disquisition in place of a warm-hearted, loving, fervent expansion of
+the Word of God, recommended to the understanding and to the sensibility
+by lively illustrations of spiritual truth, derived from all the
+experience of life, from all observation, from all analogies in the
+natural world,--in short, from every manner of illumination, from the
+heavens above, from the earth beneath, and from the waters which are
+under the earth. God is surely everywhere, and hath made all things, and
+all to testify of Him; and the innumerable voices all agree together.
+
+And when this is both understood and felt, what rules shall be given to
+guide and control the construction and the delivery of discourses? Shall
+we say, The people must be brought back to the old-time endurance--ay,
+_endurance_, that is the word--of long-drawn, laborious ratiocinations,
+wherein the truth is diligently pursued for its own sake, with an
+ultimate reference, indeed, to the needs and uses of the hearer, but so
+remote as rarely to be noticed, except by that very small fraction of
+any customary congregation who may chance to have an interest in
+such doings,--some of whom watch the clergyman as they would the
+entomologist, running down a truth that he may impale it, and add one
+more specimen to his well-ordered collection of common and of uncommon
+bugs? Our neighbors in the South do better than this; for they hunt with
+the lasso, and never throw the noose except to capture something which
+can be harnessed to the wheels of common life.
+
+No, the people are not going back to the endurance of any such misery.
+They have found out that still-born rhetoric is by no means the one
+thing needful, and care far less for the _art_ of speech than for the
+_nature_ of a holy heart. They want a man to speak less of what he
+believes and more of what he feels. The expectation of bringing the
+people again to endure prolonged metaphysical discriminations, spun out
+of commonplace minds, cobwebs to cloak their own nakedness and universal
+inaptitude, if indulged, is absurdly indulged. The whole Church is sick
+of such trifling. She knows well that it has made her most unsavory to
+those who might have found their way into the temples of God, or kept
+their places there, but for the memory of an immense amount of wearisome
+readings from the pulpit,--too often a vocabulary of words seldom or
+never found out of sermons,--a manner of speech which, when tried by the
+sure test of natural, animated conversation, must be pronounced absurd
+and abominable. It is a wonder of wonders, that, in spite of such
+drawbacks, an individual here and there has been reclaimed from
+worldliness to the love and service of God.
+
+The student-habits of the clergy most naturally lead them to prefer the
+formal statement, the studied elaboration of ideas, which their own
+training cannot but render facile and dear to them. And there is here
+and there a man who, in virtue of extraordinary genius, can infuse new
+life into worn-out phrases,--a man or two who can for a moment or for an
+hour, by the very weight and excellence of their thoughts, and because
+they truly and deeply feel them, arrest the age, and challenge and
+secure attention, in spite of all the infelicities of an antiquated
+style and an unearthly delivery. But in this age, more than ever before,
+we are summoned to surrender our scholastic preferences and esoteric
+honors to the exigencies of the million. And the men of this generation
+have, without much conference, come with great unanimity to the
+determination that they will not long endure, either in or out of the
+pulpit, speakers who are dull and unaffecting, whether from want of
+words, ideas, or method and wisdom in the arrangement of them, or
+lack of sympathies,--and especially that they will not endure dull
+declamation from the pulpit.
+
+If any man really wish to know how he is preaching, let him imagine
+himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted,
+but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger
+children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an
+eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused
+sensibilities of his hearers?
+
+How long ought a sermon to be? As long as you can read in the eye of
+seven-eighths of your audience, _Pray, go on_. If you cannot read that,
+you have mistaken your vocation; you were never called to the ministry.
+The secret of the persuasive power of our favorite orators is in their
+constant recognition of the ebb and flow of the sensibilities they are
+acting upon. Their speech is, in effect, an actual conversation,
+in which they are speaking for as well as to the audience; and the
+interlocutors are made almost as palpably such as at the "Breakfast-
+Table" of our dramatic "Autocrat" In contrast with this, the dull
+preacher, falling below the dignity and the privilege of his office,
+addresses himself, not to living men, but to an imaginary sensibility
+to abstract truth. The effect of this is obvious and inevitable; it
+converts hearers into doubters as to whether in fact there be any such
+thing as a religion worth recommending or possessing, and preachers into
+complainers of the people as indifferent and insensible to the truth,--a
+libel which ought to render them liable to fine and punishment. God's
+truth, _fairly presented_, is never a matter of indifference or of
+insensibility to an intelligent, nor even to an unintelligent audience.
+However an individual here and there may contrive to withdraw himself
+from the sphere of its influence, truth can no more lose her power than
+the sun can lose his heat.
+
+The people, under the quickening influences characteristic of our age,
+are awaking to the consciousness, that, on the day which should be the
+best of all the week, they have been defrauded of their right, in having
+solemn dulness palmed upon them, in place of living, earnest, animated
+truth. Let not ministers, unwisely overlooking this undeniable fact,
+defame the people, by alleging a growing facility in dissolving the
+pastoral relation,--a disregard of solemn contracts,--a willingness to
+dismiss excellent, godly, and devoted men, without other reason than the
+indisposition to retain them. Be it known to all such, that capable men
+very department of life were never in such request as at this very hour;
+and never, since the world began, was there an audience so large and so
+attentive to truth, well wrought and fitted to its purpose, as now.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph
+Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339.
+
+
+FIRST NOTICE.
+
+
+Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any
+satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried,
+(1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by
+Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often
+of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical
+publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of
+information respecting the great master, and the history of his works,
+available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen"
+are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's
+"Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed
+to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or
+in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal
+knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,--perhaps
+has given sufficient occasion for it,--but we must bear this testimony
+to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries
+give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some
+twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always
+careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written
+anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but
+have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are
+constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we
+find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New
+American," published by the Appletons.
+
+A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers,
+combined with the materials scattered through other publications,--even
+though no original researches were made,--was still a desideratum,
+when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander
+Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German
+musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven
+into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that
+now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something
+worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and
+articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's
+history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.
+
+Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two
+works,--"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg,
+1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A
+very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works--in
+French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,--consists principally of
+an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are
+indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has
+plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the
+critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took
+only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique,
+chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great
+industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the
+principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the
+pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the
+"Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."
+
+The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben
+des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the
+"Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a
+biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much
+original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected;
+but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which
+he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a
+logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is
+not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;--at
+all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him
+and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,--apropos of
+nothing,--has called--out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical
+journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation.
+In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his
+"Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single
+work.
+
+Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against
+Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title,
+"Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig,
+1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions
+to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's
+life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of
+Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,--not in real life,--as
+to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction
+is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first
+twenty-five years of the present century,--a supplement to his famous
+view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of
+Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled,
+save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer
+Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy.
+Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. _We_ can
+forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in
+seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.
+
+But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the
+public--at all events, our public--demands. We wish his biography,--the
+history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite.
+We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored,
+and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers
+above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their
+publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when
+he shall appear.
+
+It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we
+saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the
+head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very
+careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice,
+granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in
+any German publication which has come under our notice, because out
+of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at
+home,--whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without
+honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.
+
+Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving
+that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in
+a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from
+Schilling's "Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft,"
+Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,--a work which deserves to be better known in
+our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart
+fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and
+a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and
+a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.
+
+Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many
+of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He
+studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his
+profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,--the
+well-known contrapuntist, Türk, being his instructor in musical theory
+and composition. "He [Türk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told
+Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."[1]
+
+Soon after finishing his legal studies, Marx removed to Berlin, as the
+place where he could best enjoy the means of artistic culture. "For one
+quite without fortune, merely to live in a strange city demands great
+strength of character; but to go farther and fit one's self for a career
+and for a position in the future, which even under the best auspices
+is of very difficult attainment, and, beside all this, to have others
+dependent upon him for the necessaries of life,--what a burden to bear!
+..... By a very intellectual system of instruction in singing and in
+composition, and, at a later period, (1824-81,) by editing the 'Berliner
+Allgemeine Musikzeitung,' and several theoretical and practical musical
+works, he earned the means of subsistence. Never was a periodical more
+conscientiously edited. It was for Marx like an official station, and
+his seven years upon that paper were in fact a preparation for the
+position of Public Teacher, to which in 1830 he was appointed, in the
+University at Berlin, after having declined a judicial position offered
+to him, with a fair salary, in one of the provinces. Honorably has he
+since that period filled his station, however great the pains which
+have been taken in various quarters that it should not be said of him,
+'Virtus post nummos!'"[2]
+
+"The diploma of Doctor of Music Marx received from the University at
+Marburg; and thereupon (?) obtained the greatest applause for a course
+of lectures, in part strictly scientific for the musician, and in part
+upon the history of music, its philosophy, etc.; also, as Music-Director
+of the University, he has brought (1841,) the academic choir into such
+a flourishing state, both as to numbers and skill, as to be adequate to
+the most difficult music."[3]
+
+Again we read,--"We remember, that, some time since, Fetis, at Paris,
+pointed out Marx as the one who had introduced the philosophy of Kant
+into music." Were this so, so much the more credit to Marx, who, at that
+time, we are informed, had never studied the works of the philosopher
+of Königsberg, and his basing music upon the Kantian philosophy is
+therefore but a proof of the profundity of his genius.
+
+From the same article we extract the following list of his
+productions:--1. A work on Singing, in three parts; the second and third
+of which "contain throughout admirable and novel remarks." 2. "Maigruss"
+(Maygreeting). "This pamphlet, humorous and delicate, yet powerfully
+written," calls attention to certain novel views of its author in regard
+to music. 3. Articles in the "Cäcilia," a musical periodical. 4. Essay
+on Handel's works. 5. A work on Composition. 6. Several biographies and
+other articles in Schilling's Encyclopædia,--"indeed, all the articles
+signed A. B. M." 7. Editions of several of Bach's and Handel's works.
+To these we may now add his extensive treatise upon Musical Science, in
+four volumes, his "Music in the Nineteenth Century," and the work which
+is now before us.
+
+Of musical compositions we find the
+
+[Footnote 1: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 2: Article in Schilling]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.] following noticed:--1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und
+Bätely,"--which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly _damned_;--but
+then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische
+Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of
+revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance
+waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at
+the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was
+the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture
+and _entr'actes_, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and
+profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given
+in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the
+work _did not succeed_." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouqué, with
+a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present
+Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,--but then, it was badly
+executed! 4. Symphony,--"The Fall of Warsaw,"--still manuscript. "The
+music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character
+of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their
+terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange
+soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to
+add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,--preferring
+Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,--"one of Marx's
+most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"--a series of songs, the music of
+which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the
+Baptist," an oratorio,--twice performed by the University choir in one
+of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar
+sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos
+and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,--the
+music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed
+vigorously after the sense of the text,--are distinguished from those
+in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public
+preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer,
+Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the
+list of his works at that time.
+
+"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an
+oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in
+its profound conception of character will have but few equals."
+
+The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several
+places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares
+no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.
+
+We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in
+Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the
+basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England
+and the United States;--for, singular as the fact may appear, we are
+unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and
+gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach,
+whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from
+the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna
+and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,--a
+writer upon music.
+
+There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article
+from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of
+Marx,--modesty, the ornament of true greatness,--may (or may not) add
+weight to the extracts we have made from it,--namely, that the article
+was written for Schilling by Marx himself.
+
+We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood
+fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician
+by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and
+musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path
+of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for
+thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor
+of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both
+social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of
+information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical
+libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven
+papers are preserved,--a city, moreover, in which more than in any
+other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly
+performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so
+much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.
+
+We have no extravagant ideas of the value of the so-called
+Conversation-Books of Beethoven. We are aware that they seldom contain
+anything from the hand of the master himself,--being made up, of course,
+of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such
+books--though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled
+together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his
+brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper,
+upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists,
+poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases even from
+England, and in one from America--must contain a great mass of matter,
+which places one amidst those by whom the master was surrounded, makes
+one to "know his goings-out and his comings-in," and occasionally facts
+of high importance in the study of his character, and the circumstances
+in which he spent his last years. For some twelve years these books
+have been in Berlin and at the disposal of Marx. The numerous files of
+musical periodicals and the mass of musical biography and recent musical
+history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to
+the writer on Beethoven,--a value which Marx must fully appreciate,
+both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as
+contributor of biographical articles to Schilling's Encyclopedia.
+
+As we take up this new life of Beethoven, then, the measure of our
+expectations is the reputation of the author, plus the means, the
+materials, at his command. And certainly the first impression made
+by these two goodly volumes is a very favorable one; for, making due
+allowance for the music scattered through them with not too lavish a
+hand, by way of examples, we have still some six hundred solid pages of
+reading matter,--space enough in which to answer many a vexed question,
+clear up many a dark point, give us the results of widely extended
+researches, and place Beethoven the Man and the Composer before us in
+"Leben und Schaffen,"--in his life and his labors.
+
+In the first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an
+apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have
+taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion
+really exists. We find that in the first volume, four works,--the First,
+Second, and Third Symphonies and the opera "Leonore" or "Fidelio" occupy
+136 of the 875 pages; in the second, that the other five Symphonies and
+the "Missa Solemnis" fill out 123 of the 330 pages. Bearing in mind that
+the works of Beethoven which have _Opus_ numbers--not to speak of the
+others--amount to 137, and that, in some cases, three and even six
+compositions, so important as the Rasoumowsky Quartetts, for instance,
+are included in a single _Opus_, the disproportion really appears
+very great. We notice, moreover, that just those works which are most
+familiar to the public, which have for thirty years or more been
+subjects of never-ending discussion, and which one would naturally
+suppose might be dismissed in fewest words,--that these are the works
+which occupy so much space. What is there so new to be said of the
+"Heroic Symphony" that fifty pages should be allotted to it, while the
+ballet "Prometheus," still strange to nearly every reader, should be
+dismissed in three?
+
+We find it also somewhat remarkable that Marx thinks it necessary to
+give his own notions of musical form to the extent of nineteen pages,
+(Vol. I. pp. 79 _et seq_.,) preparatory to his discussion of the
+greater works of the master, and yet is able to condense the history of
+Beethoven's first twenty-two years--the period, in our view, the most
+important in making him what he was--in sixteen! We have not space to
+follow this out farther, and only add, that, were this work a mere
+catch-penny affair by an unknown writer, we should suspect him of
+"drawing out the thread of his verbosity" on topics where materials are
+plenty and talk is easy, in preference to the labor of original research
+on points less known.
+
+In reading the work carefully, two points strike us in relation to his
+printed authorities: first, that the list of those quoted by Lenz in his
+"Catalogue" and "Leben des Meisters" comprises nearly all those cited by
+Marx; the principal additions being the works of Lenz, Oulibichef, and
+A. B. Marx,--the latter of which he exhibits great skill in finding
+and making opportunities to advertise;--and secondly, that, where the
+Russian writer, through haste, carelessness, or the want of means
+to verify facts and correct errors, falls into mistakes, the Berlin
+Professor generally agrees with him. As it is impossible to suppose that
+a gentleman who for nearly thirty years "writes himself, in any bill,
+warrant, quittance, or obligation," Extraordinary Professor of a great
+German University, should simply adopt the labors of an obscure Russian
+writer without acknowledgment, we can only suppose these resemblances to
+be coincidences. These coincidences are, nevertheless, so numerous,
+that we may say in general, what Lenz knew of the history of the man
+Beethoven and his works is known to Marx,--what was unknown to the
+former is equally unknown to the latter. Marx, however, occasionally
+quotes passages from Schindler, Wegeler, and Ries at length, to which
+Lenz only gives references. We will note a few of the coincidences
+between the two writers.
+
+Here is the first sentence of the biography:--
+
+"Ludwig van Beethoven was born to his father, a singer in the chapel of
+the _Elector Max Franz_, Archbishop of Cologne, Dec. 17, 1770." (Marx,
+Vol. I. p. 4.) Beethoven was fourteen years old when this Elector
+came to Bonn. Max Franz is confounded with Max Friedrich,--a singular
+mistake, since Wegeler writes the name in full. It may, however, be a
+typographical error, or a _lapsus pennae_ on the part of Marx. We give
+him all the benefit of the doubt; but, unluckily, we read on p. 12, that
+the Archbishop, "brother of Joseph II.," called the Protestant Neefe
+from the theatre to the organ-loft of the Electoral Chapel,--this
+appointment having in fact been made four years before the "brother of
+Joseph II." had aught to do with appointments in that part of the world.
+Lenz confounds the two Electors in precisely the same manner.
+
+Both Lenz and Marx (p. 9) relate the old exploded story of the child
+Beethoven and the spider. The former found it in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," and probably had not authorities
+at hand to correct it. Had Marx sent to the Library for Disjouval's
+"Arachnologie," the work which he gives as _his_ authority, he would
+have found, that, not Beethoven, but the French violinist Berthaume, was
+the hero of the anecdote,--as, indeed, is also related in Schilling's
+Encyclopaedia, not many pages after Marx's own article on Beethoven in
+that work.
+
+That Lenz should misdate Beethoven's visit to Berlin is not strange;
+that Marx, a Berliner, should, is. Nor is it remarkable that Lenz knows
+nothing of Beethoven's years of service as member of the Electoral
+orchestra at Bonn; but how Marx should have overlooked it, in case he
+has made _any_ researches into the composer's early history, is beyond
+our comprehension.
+
+Schindler has mistaken the date of certain letters written by Beethoven
+long before he had any personal intercourse with him,--the notes to
+Julia Guicciardi,--which he dates 1806. Both Lenz and Marx follow him
+in the date; both quote Beethoven's words, that the lady in question
+married Count Gallenberg before the departure of the latter to Italy;
+both coincide in overlooking the circumstance related in the "Leipziger
+Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," that, _before_ June, 1806, a grand
+performance of music, composed and directed by Gallenberg, took place at
+Naples in honor of Joseph Bonaparte;--proof sufficient that Beethoven
+could not in July of that year have addressed the lady in these terms:
+"Mein Engel, mein Alles, mein Ich!"
+
+Both Marx and Lenz relate the following anecdote. Haydn, meeting
+Beethoven, praised the Septett of the latter; upon which the young man
+exclaimed, deprecatingly, "Ah, it is far from being a 'Creation'!" To
+which Haydn replied, "_That_ you could not have written, for you are an
+atheist!"
+
+That the absurdity of making Beethoven, then a man of thirty and
+supposed to be possessed of common sense, hint at any comparison of a
+piece of chamber-music with one of the grandest of oratorios, and that,
+too, to the author himself, should not have struck Marx, is strange; nor
+is it less so, that, in the course of his researches, he has not met
+with the correction of the story, by the late Alois Fuchs of Vienna.
+
+In fact, the ballet "Prometheus," in which the progress of man from a
+state of rude nature to the highest culture and refinement is depicted,
+and the "Creation," were both given for the first time within a few
+weeks of each other. The affinity of the subjects is clear, and the
+remark of the young man, "Ah, dear papa, it is far from being a
+'Creation'!" is only natural. "No," said Haydn, "it is indeed not a
+'Creation,' nor do I think its author will ever reach that!"
+
+In the dates given by Marx to Beethoven's compositions he generally
+coincides with Lenz, in his "Catalogue," particularly when the latter is
+wrong,--and when he differs from him, he is as apt to be wrong as right.
+Any person who has both works at command may easily verify this remark.
+
+But we cannot dwell longer on this point.
+
+
+
+_Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, The Great American Advocate_. By EDWARD
+G. PARKER. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.
+
+
+We think it our duty to state our judgment of this book, because it
+professes to give personal reminiscences, by a familiar friend, of a
+remarkable and distinguished man of our own time and country, has been
+much read and discussed, and has gained a good deal of popularity of a
+certain sort; it therefore belongs _somewhere_ in the literature of the
+day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if
+we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign
+justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary
+and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to
+some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman
+among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the
+extraordinary alacrity with which this book was produced the author got
+a little the start of criticism, perhaps; but we should fail in our duty
+as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound,
+for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has
+exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate,
+the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task.
+
+For the purposes of the bookseller, nothing could have been happier than
+the publication, within a few months after the death of Mr. Choate, of
+such a book as this promised to be. Throughout the country his name had
+been generally accounted the synonyme of all that was most original,
+mysterious, and fascinating, in the arts of the advocate and the
+scholar. Perhaps we have none of us ever known a man in regard to whom
+a greater degree of _curiosity_ existed among his countrymen. Those
+who saw him every day never ventured to believe that they quite ever
+understood him, so various and so peculiar were the aspects he exhibited
+even here at home. Those who attempted to study him were as much
+perplexed as charmed. The avidity with which a cheap book, easily read,
+professing to give personal recollections of such a man, would be seized
+upon by the mass of reading people, was not overestimated.
+
+It is not the purpose of this notice to discuss Mr. Choate,--his
+eloquence, his wit, his scholarship, or his personal characteristics.
+Our office is simply to examine the manner of Mr. Parker's performing
+what he set out to perform. Our business is with the book, not with the
+subject of it. And, in our judgment, the book is the very worst that
+could well be written on such a subject. It is done with bad taste, bad
+judgment, bad style, It is precisely the book to mortify and disgust Mr.
+Choate's admirers, and to fix more firmly than ever such unfavorable
+notions of him as may have existed in the minds of others.
+
+Mr. Parker does not appear to have considered what he undertook, when he
+stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man.
+We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating
+account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of
+perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of
+scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that
+he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his
+enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been _said_, as well as
+how little was _known_ about Mr. Choate; what wonderfully loose and idle
+notions of him had got abroad; how the most essential and notable points
+of his character and genius had been so clumsily handled by flippant or
+careless critics, that the popular impression of him was, to a great
+degree, extravagant and absurd. Remembering all this, and properly
+_respecting_ the subject in which he appears to have interested himself
+so ardently, Mr. Parker should have applied to his task a somewhat
+gentle hand; gratifying, if that must be done, the curiosity of his
+readers as far as he safely could, but refraining altogether from those
+aspects of Mr. Choate's mind and character which he must have known
+could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly
+executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled
+off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called
+indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected.
+We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious
+talk about Mr. Choate,--and that is the whole of it. For our own
+part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little
+amusement it has afforded us was probably not exactly designed by the
+author.
+
+We would fain be excused from the duty of remarking upon the merely
+literary character of the book, but that may not be. As we said before,
+the book is somewhere in the literature of the day, and its place must
+be ascertained. The following gems of rhetoric it will be useful, for
+that end, to notice:--"With me, as with every young man of a taste
+that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh
+topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains";
+"newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor";
+"severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the
+maiden-mother,"--alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a
+mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, _facile
+princeps_"; not to forget an extraordinary quotation from the title,
+which the author says he found at the head of one of Mr. Choate's
+manuscript plans for daily study, in these words, "_faciundo ad munus
+nuper impositum_." Now it must really in justice be said that to write
+a biography of Mr. Choate in such a lingo as this is an insult to the
+subject. We believe we are fair with Mr. Parker's style. Indeed, where
+it is not relieved by such barbarisms as we have quoted, it purls along
+with a certain weak smartness which is inexpressibly tiresome.
+
+A much more tolerable book, however, would be spoiled by such arrant
+egotism as our author displays on every page. We are never rid of _Mr.
+Parker_ for a moment. Wherever Mr. Choate is visible, Mr. Parker is
+strutting by his side. He exhibits, indeed, all the intrusiveness of
+Boswell, without any of that honest, self-forgetting, simple-hearted
+admiration of his distinguished friend which makes Boswell positively
+respectable. A single illustration of this weakness is so apt that we
+quote it. "Mr. Choate said, 'Some one should write a History of the
+Ancient Orators. There is no book in all my library where I can find
+all there is extant about any ancient orator.' He earnestly advised
+the author to undertake it. In pursuance of the idea, an article
+on 'Hortensius' appeared in a Review as a beginning. He spoke with
+enthusiasm of the satisfaction it gave him; saying it was a new
+revelation to him, for he never _knew_ Hortensius before."
+
+Again, Mr. Parker is continually assuring us, in more or less direct
+terms, of the intimacy which existed between himself and Mr. Choate. In
+a matter of this sort, once telling is enough; and then it should
+be done with modesty, and so as simply to assure the reader of the
+genuineness of the reminiscences. All beyond that is vulgar. One more
+remark upon Mr. Parker's _behavior_ as an author. He permits himself to
+speak of individuals of decided personal and public dignity with quite
+too much familiarity. This is, of course, nothing more than an offence
+against good taste. But it is so prevalent in his pages that we cannot
+omit it from anything like a summary of the faults which they display.
+And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere
+else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one
+can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice.
+
+We have yet to notice Mr. Parker's book in respect to its success as an
+attempt at biography. We suppose he intended to draw the portrait of
+a man of wit, eloquence, and scholarship. He constantly assures us in
+terms that Mr. Choate _was_ such a man; an assurance which certainly
+was not necessary to so extensive and brilliant a reputation. If he
+had stopped there, he would at least have done no harm. But the
+illustrations which he gives us are so very far from satisfactory, that,
+unless Mr. Choate's reputation in these particulars be surrendered, for
+which we are not quite prepared, it must be upon the ground that his
+biographer has failed entirely to appreciate him. That Mr. Choate was,
+for instance, a man of singularly keen and delicate wit, everybody
+knows. But we believe that any brother advocate who ever sat at the same
+courtroom table with him for three days, or any cultivated person who
+ever passed an evening in his company, was likely to hear from his lips,
+in that space of time, more real wit than Mr. Parker repeats in his
+whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in
+the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which
+Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert
+a sullen juror,--such turns of speech as _he_ certainly never thought
+were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,--to which
+he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the
+business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire
+to have forgotten,--make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's
+illustrations in the matter of wit. One faculty which Mr. Choate
+possessed in a remarkable degree, that of ready, elegant, and telling
+quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every
+one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have
+furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions.
+As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would
+seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up
+and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon
+these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as
+mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which they
+were charmed with his graceful and truly vigorous speech, his biographer
+loves to dwell. He has much to say of the length and complexity of
+the sentences, but nothing of the often exquisite elegance of their
+structure; much of the number and size of the words of which they
+consisted,--nothing of the extreme delicacy and dexterity of their use,
+the wonderful completeness with which they were made to express every
+particle of the orator's meaning. As to Mr. Choate's scholarship, we
+certainly learn nothing satisfactory from this unfortunate book. In the
+conversations which the author, clumsily, indeed, but, we are bound to
+believe, faithfully, details, we should expect to find something of
+the rich fruitage of a life-long cultivation in letters. But so poor a
+result does Mr. Parker show in this part of his work, that he drives us
+to the dilemma either of placing Mr. Choate in quite an unworthy rank as
+a scholar, or of concluding, that, in the case of these conversations,
+he bestowed upon his listener very little of any particular
+preciousness, or that what else was bestowed was not understood or
+remembered so as to be recorded.
+
+We cannot dismiss this book without noticing the extremely unhappy
+treatment which the personal and professional character of Mr. Choate
+has received at the author's hands. That he should have introduced into
+it, as he has done, such stories, or jokes, or anecdotes, or whatever
+else they may be called, as the commonest good taste or good sense
+should have told him to exclude, we suppose ought in charity to be
+attributed to mere uncontrollable garrulity. But he has also completely
+missed some of the most obvious and familiar characteristics of Mr.
+Choate, and his description of others which he professes to have
+perceived he spoils by unseemly and unintelligent illustration. We have
+not the patience to follow him through this part of his performance. It
+is enough to say that none who knew Mr. Choate would ever recognize the
+portrait.
+
+We regret extremely that Mr. Parker felt himself called upon to write
+and print his "Reminiscences." He has done himself no credit whatever;
+but that is comparatively a small matter. The book is in every way an
+injurious and indecorous one. And if he really respects the fame of the
+distinguished man whom he has attempted to describe, he must agree with
+us in the hope that his own work may be forgotten as soon as possible.
+
+
+
+
+_A History of the Whig Party_. By R. Mc KINLEY ORMSBY. Boston: Crosby
+Nichols, & Co.
+
+
+The duties of an historian, always difficult, are peculiarly so when he
+attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose
+mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him
+utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of
+judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid
+and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr.
+Ormsby, we propose to inquire.
+
+We are at first favorably impressed. Mr. Ormsby's Preface is most
+striking,--uniting not only touching candor, but innocence absolutely
+refreshing. The duties of historian, which we just now called so
+weighty, rest lightly upon his conscious strength. The historian
+remarks, that "he is aware that his outlines are very imperfect, and
+in many things may be erroneous. He has had no access to libraries or
+public documents; and his statistics are sometimes given from general
+recollection, and are but approximations to accuracy. But, feeling
+that some history of the parties of this country is needed, he has the
+temerity to offer this, till its place shall be supplied by one more
+reliable and satisfactory."
+
+Any man's apology for deficiencies in his book may be accepted, provided
+he be able to make good the suppressed premise upon which, after all,
+the whole depends, namely,--that there was need of his writing at all.
+Mr. Ormsby seems to think there was, but gives no reasons in support of
+his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated
+whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over
+the man so unlucky as not to possess it.
+
+We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
+scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
+nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
+smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
+is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
+these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
+introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
+description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
+rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.
+
+The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
+is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
+institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
+warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
+the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
+mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
+ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
+in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
+etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
+philanthropy,"--etc., etc.
+
+Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
+legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
+distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
+in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
+given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
+States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
+but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
+to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
+is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
+incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.
+
+We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
+pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
+instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
+Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
+their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
+Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
+acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
+March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
+not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
+anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
+Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
+South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
+principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
+did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
+is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
+evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
+by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
+disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
+If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
+leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
+of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
+was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
+has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
+refunding the pay.
+
+Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
+many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
+he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
+1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
+gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
+Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
+Democracy.
+
+It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
+from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
+swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
+and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
+alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
+other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
+party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
+North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
+that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
+Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
+assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
+carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
+slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
+Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
+endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
+thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
+admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
+gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
+denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
+the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
+that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
+blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.
+
+On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
+to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
+do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
+the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
+not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
+a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
+is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
+two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
+servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
+bondage" and "negro servitude!"
+
+Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
+assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
+arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
+refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
+have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
+irrelevant.
+
+"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
+them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
+ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
+He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
+necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
+of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
+_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
+they think?
+
+Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
+efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
+been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
+been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
+increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
+decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
+in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
+consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
+would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
+showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
+of Providence!
+
+"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
+the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
+best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
+based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
+any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.
+
+There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
+champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
+dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
+slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
+is the good of being opposed to it?
+
+The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
+to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
+Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
+Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
+the surviving Whigs?
+
+"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
+party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
+national party." p. 355.
+
+"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
+condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
+ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
+the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
+if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
+party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
+sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
+a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
+be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
+small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
+existence_." pp. 363-4.
+
+This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
+resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
+beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
+Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
+to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
+so obliging as to supply!
+
+After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
+books?
+
+
+
+_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
+"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
+8vo. pp. 395.
+
+This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
+England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
+of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
+taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
+style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
+shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
+Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
+and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
+much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
+real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
+and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
+he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
+him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
+Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
+gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
+varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
+the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
+but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
+merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
+parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
+has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
+conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
+he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
+may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
+to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.
+
+The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
+present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
+questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
+1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
+being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
+great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
+exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
+both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
+comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
+If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
+disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
+then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
+done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
+be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
+devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
+will have proved injurious.
+
+As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
+accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
+differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
+aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
+towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
+may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
+observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
+partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
+main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
+shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
+was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
+I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
+emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
+nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
+for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
+such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
+condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
+to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
+was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
+of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
+expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
+commencement of a struggle."
+
+This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
+suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
+satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
+the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
+from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
+temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
+to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
+regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
+in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
+little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
+work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
+is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
+Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
+and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
+causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
+especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
+the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
+a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
+expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
+full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
+work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
+labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
+means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.
+
+A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
+but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
+drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
+recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
+seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
+the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
+but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
+hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
+very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
+blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
+idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
+in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
+a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.
+
+But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
+neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
+and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
+its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
+occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
+of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
+as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
+mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
+thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
+thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
+degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
+still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
+sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
+equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
+their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
+There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
+sentence.
+
+But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
+to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
+has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preëxisting
+slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
+emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
+"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
+the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
+this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
+has now fallen back into wilderness?"
+
+Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
+disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
+in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
+there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
+work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
+a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
+negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
+laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
+of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
+1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
+Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]
+
+Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
+and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
+in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
+the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
+Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
+demand for labor.
+
+In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
+brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
+depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
+freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
+ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
+India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
+prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
+so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
+immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
+Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
+the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
+of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
+of the immigration by yearly instalments.
+
+[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
+were and are_.]
+
+They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
+reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
+hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
+salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
+Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
+end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
+and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
+home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
+learned to husband their means, and put money together."
+
+We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
+animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
+part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
+which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
+negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
+to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
+population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
+or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
+himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
+to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
+the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
+but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
+improvement in the race.
+
+How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
+blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
+them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
+obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
+which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
+the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
+solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
+reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
+reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
+giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.
+
+There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
+other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
+readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
+country far more thorough and not less entertaining.
+
+Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
+transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
+Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
+must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
+venture over the same ground.
+
+
+
+
+_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
+Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.
+
+
+It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
+has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
+responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
+"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
+viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
+narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
+as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
+shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
+admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.
+
+There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
+one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
+to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
+thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
+newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
+his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
+him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
+a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
+excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
+in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
+him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
+of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
+biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
+most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
+entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
+its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
+of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
+and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
+and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
+have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
+would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
+Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
+pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
+previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
+partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
+statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
+continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
+his materials.
+
+The truth is, that a life of Brown was not now needed for those who
+already admired the stalwart nature of the man, even though they might
+deplore his course,--for those who had had their hearts touched and
+stirred by his manliness, his truth, his courage, and his unwavering
+fidelity to conscience and faith in God; but it was greatly needed for
+that much larger class,--the mass of the Northern community,-whose
+timidity had been startled at his rash attempt, whose sympathy had been
+more or less awakened by his bearing and his death, but who were and are
+in a painful state of perplexity, in the endeavor to reconcile their
+abhorrence, or at least their disapproval, of his attack on Virginia,
+with their sense of the admirable nature of the qualities he displayed.
+It was needed also for the very large class who received from the
+newspapers but a confused and imperfect account of the events which took
+place in Virginia from October to December, and who, according to their
+political predilections, condemn or applaud the course of Captain Brown.
+And, above all, it was needed for the men who have disgraced themselves
+by denying to Brown the possession of any virtues, and who have
+outstripped his Southern enemies in applying to him the most opprobrious
+and the falsest epithets. Now, none of these classes will Mr. Redpath's
+book reach with effect. Its tone is such, it is so violent, so
+extravagant, that it will offend all right-thinking men. Even those who
+have known how to hold a steady and clear opinion, in the midst of the
+confusion of the popular mind,--who have not applauded Brown's acts of
+violence, and have condemned his judgment, but who have, nevertheless,
+honored what was noble in him, and sympathized with him in his strong
+love of liberty,--who, while acknowledging him guilty under the law,
+mourned that the law should not be tempered with mercy,--and who
+have recognized in him at once the excellences and the errors of an
+enthusiast,--those who have most faithfully endeavored to find the truth
+concerning him, though they will obtain some interesting information
+from Mr. Redpath's book, will be the most dissatisfied with it.
+
+It has always been among the offences of the out-and-out Abolitionists,
+to abuse the force of words, and to make exclusive pretensions to virtue
+and the love of liberty. This book is written in the spirit and style
+of an Abolition tract. In representing John Brown as little more than a
+mere hero of the Abolitionists, the author has done essential disservice
+to the cause of freedom, and to the memory of a man who was as free from
+party-ties as he was from personal ambitions.
+
+Although John Brown's character was a simple one, a long time must pass
+before it will be generally understood, and justice be done to it. The
+passion and the prejudice which the later acts of his life have excited
+cannot die away for years. Mr. Redpath has done his best to perpetuate
+them. In seasons of excitement, and amid the struggles of political
+contention, the men who use the most extravagant and the most violent
+words have, for a time, the advantage; but, in the long run, they damage
+whatever cause they may adopt; and the truth, which their declamations
+have obscured or their falsehoods have violated, finally asserts itself.
+In our country, the worth and the strength of temperance and moderation
+of speech seem to be peculiarly forgotten. Words, which should stand
+for things, are too commonly used with no respect to their essential
+meaning. Political debates are embittered, personal feeling wounded,
+the tone of manners lowered, and national character degraded, by this
+disregard of words as the symbol and expression of truth. Moderation is
+brought into disrepute, and justice, fairness, and honesty of opinion
+tendered as rare as they are difficult of attainment. The manner in
+which John Brown has been spoken of affords the plainest illustration
+of these facts. Extravagance in condemnation has been answered by
+extravagance in praise of his life and deeds.
+
+The most interesting and the most novel part of Mr. Redpath's book is
+the letter written by John Brown in 1857, giving some account of his
+early life. It is, in all respects, a remarkable composition. It
+exhibits the main influences by which his character was formed; it
+affords a key to the history of his life; it illustrates the nature of
+the social institutions under which such a man could grow up; and it
+shows his natural traits, before they had become hardened and trained
+under the discipline of later experience and circumstance. Nothing has
+been more marked in the various exhibitions of his character, as they
+have come successively to view, than their complete consistency. This
+letter, this account of his youth, squares perfectly with what we
+know of his manhood. The whole of it should be read by all who would
+understand the man, with his native faculty of command, with his mingled
+sternness and tenderness, with his large heart, his steadfast will. The
+base of his soul was truth; and the motive power of his life, faith in
+the justice of God.
+
+He was a man of a rare type,--so rare in our times as to seem like a
+man of another age. He belonged to the same class with the Scottish
+Covenanters and the English Regicides. He belonged to the great company
+of those who have followed the footsteps of Gideon, and forgot that the
+armory of the Lord contained other weapons than the sword. He belonged
+to those who from time to time have adopted some cause,--the good old
+cause,--and have shrunk from no sacrifice which it required at their
+hands. "I have now been confined over a month," wrote John Brown to
+his children, in one of that most affecting series of letters from his
+prison, "with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as fair in the
+face as I am capable of doing, and I now feel most grateful that I am
+counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth."
+"Suffering is a gift not given to every one," wrote one of the
+Covenanters, who was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, in
+1684,--"and I desire to bless God's name with my whole heart and soul,
+that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of
+suffering."
+
+That John Brown was wrong in his attempt to break up slavery by
+violence, few will deny. But it was a wrong committed by a good
+man,--by one who dreaded the vengeance of the Almighty and forgot His
+long-suffering. His errors were the result of want of patience and want
+of imagination, and he paid the penalty for them. He had faith in the
+Divine ordering of the affairs of this world; but he forgot that
+the processes by which evils like that of slavery are done away are
+thousand-year-long,--that, to be effectual, they must be slow,--that
+wrong is no remedy for wrong. He was an anachronism, and met the fate of
+all anachronisms that strive to stem and divert the present current by
+modes which the world has outgrown. But now that he and those dearest
+to him have so bitterly expiated his faults, both charity and justice
+demand that his virtues should be honored, and he himself mourned. It
+will be a gloomy indication of the poor, low spirit of our days, if fear
+and falsehood, if passion or indifference, should cause the lesson of
+John Brown's life to be neglected, or should check a natural sympathy
+with the noble heart of the old man. That lesson is not for any one part
+of the country more than another; that sympathy may be given by the
+South as well as by the North. It is not sympathy for his acts, but
+for the spirit of his life and the heroism of his death. The lesson of
+manliness, uprightness, and courage, which his life teaches, is to be
+learned by us, not merely as lovers of liberty, not as opponents of
+slavery, but as men who need more manliness, more uprightness, more
+courage and simplicity in our common lives.
+
+All that is possible of apology for John Brown is to be found in his
+letters and in his speech to the court before his sentence. It is,
+perhaps, too soon to hope that these letters and this speech will be
+read with candor and a feeling of human brotherhood by those who now
+look with abhorrence or with indifference on his memory. But the time
+will come when they will be held at their true worth by all, as the
+expressions of a large, tender soul,--when they will be read with
+sympathetic pity, even by those who still find it difficult to forgive
+their author for his offence against society. These letters appeal to
+the better nature of every man and woman in America; and it will be a
+sad thing, if their appeal be disregarded.
+
+We trust, that, before long, a fairer and fuller biography than that by
+Mr. Redpath will remove the obstacle which this book now presents to the
+general appreciation of the character and life of John Brown.
+
+
+
+
+_Poems_. By SYDNEY DOBELL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
+
+
+Many of Mr. Dobell's poems have passages which are musical, vigorous,
+and peculiar, and hardly in any part can he be justly charged with
+prolonging an echo. He is not one of the many mocking-birds that infest
+the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be
+wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a
+heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep
+the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of
+that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity
+of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate
+master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping,
+and turn away from colors, however exquisite, that are strewn, as it
+were, on a palette, rather than wrought into picture and harmonized
+to the tone of life. The truth is, that the grandly designing hand is
+nowhere completely visible in the poetry of Young England. Many of her
+more youthful poets show a mass of rich materials, but they appear to
+have been upheaved by convulsions, half-blinding us with their splendor,
+while, like lava pouring from a volcano's crater, they take no
+prescribed channel, they flow into no immortal mould. It is this fiery
+gleam on the surface of matter hot from chaos, which the multitude honor
+as the highest manifestation of genius. But this is to desecrate a word
+which implies constructive power of the first order. Form is its highest
+expression. Without the shaping faculty, which artistically rounds
+to perfection, no glitter of decoration, nor even force and fire of
+expression, can keep the work from falling into ruins. If the beautiful,
+as Goethe said, includes in it the good, then perfect beauty alone is
+everlasting. This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made,
+but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is
+not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in
+"The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt
+out of the memory.
+
+
+
+
+_A Good Fight, and other Tales_. By CHARLES KEADE. New York: Harper &
+Brothers. 1859.
+
+About the middle of the fifteenth century, a youth named Gerard, a
+native of Tergou, in Holland, loved Margaret, the daughter of Peter,
+a learned man of the neighboring village of Zevenbergen. Expecting
+immediate marriage, their intimacy was restrained by no limits. The
+interference of Gerard's relations, however, separated them for a time,
+during which the young man visited Rome, and gained some distinction as
+a transcriber of ancient manuscripts. Learning, after a while, that he
+was about to return, his kindred caused a false report of Margaret's
+death to be conveyed to him, and, by thus crushing all the hopes of
+his young life, had the final satisfaction of seeing him take priestly
+orders, which threw his patrimony into their hands. Having broken two
+hearts, and brought a world of shame upon an innocent girl to get it, it
+is only fair to suppose they enjoyed it with tranquillity.
+
+Margaret, left alone, gave birth to a child, the greatness of whose
+manhood might have softened the remembrance of her earlier sorrows, had
+she lived to witness it. But she died when he was thirteen years old.
+Gerard, her true husband, who had never rejoined her while living, also
+died within a brief space. The son they left was the famous Erasmus.
+
+Mr. Reade has taken this little record, which would never have become
+historical but for the accidental consequence of the loves of Gerard and
+Margaret, and wrought it into a story of exquisite grace and delicacy.
+A dead and half-forgotten fact, he has warmed it into fresh life, and
+given it all the beauties with which his brilliant imagination could
+endow it. Though shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly inferior
+to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit.
+The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest
+books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is
+for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its
+power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents
+follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the
+interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the
+entire story. On the contrary, it follows pretty closely the old formula
+of troubled true-love until the closing chapter, when triumphant virtue
+sets in. But this takes nothing from the effect. All is so clear and
+vivid in description, so glittering with gleams of wit, relieved by soft
+shadows of purest pathos, so full of the spirit of tender humanity,
+that the reader finds no reason to complain, except that the end is so
+speedily reached.
+
+The author has sacrificed history, in his conclusion, to satisfy a
+natural feeling. No one will object because the "Good Fight" terminates
+victoriously in the right direction. The parents of Erasmus suffered;
+but it would be a pity, if readers, after the lapse of four hundred
+years, must mourn their woes to the extent that would inevitably be
+necessary, if Mr. Reade had not arranged it otherwise. And his object,
+which was to prove--if proof were needed--that all human lives, however
+obscure, have their own share of romance, is not disturbed by this
+variation from the severity of the chronicle.
+
+
+
+
+_The Undergraduate_. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and
+Professional Students in the United States and Europe. [Greek:_'Ekasto
+onmachoi pantos_]; January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New
+Haven, Conn.
+
+We are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have
+commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two
+or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes,
+a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a
+few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and
+jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would
+he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the
+opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A
+freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its
+promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not
+something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect the youth, and
+be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining
+the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three
+or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that
+many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will
+hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased,
+therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest
+pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and
+dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.
+
+But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor
+than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has
+almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that,
+promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and
+apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College,
+and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions.
+Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and
+Introduction. They are briefly these:--"To record the history, promote
+the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize
+the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and
+Professional Students, and their Institutions."
+
+The name, "Undergraduate," shows by whom it is to be managed; but its
+contributors are, and will doubtless continue to he, in part, of a more
+advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we
+have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they
+were contributed to a students' journal. The first paper, for instance,
+"German Student-Life and Travel," is not only well written, but full of
+excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of
+good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. "A Student's
+Voyage to Labrador" is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new
+to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account
+of the two ancient societies of Yale College, "Brothers in Unity" and
+"Linonia," rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their
+protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will
+interest all students, and many outside of the student-world, "The
+Undergraduate" would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them
+somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful
+character. Perhaps it might be safe to lay it down as a law, that, the
+tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the
+older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of
+discussion. It is safe to say that a young man's essay is most likely
+to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or
+experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions
+on "Virtue," "Honesty," "Shakspeare," "Human Nature," and such large
+subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.
+
+On the whole, "The Undergraduate" is most creditable to the enterprise
+that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If
+we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be,
+that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism
+should not be spelt Calv_a_nism, Thackeray Thack_a_ray, nor Courvoisier
+_Corvosier_,--neither should traveller be spelt _traveler_, nor theatre
+_theater_. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a
+place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking
+world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in
+the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring
+University, it should be a condition that the English standard of
+spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.
+
+With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical
+which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our
+educational institutions.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year
+1860. Boston, Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 399. $1.00.
+
+The New American Cyclopedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge.
+Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. VIII. Fugger-Haynau.
+New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 788, vii. $3.00.
+
+Life Without and Life Within: or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
+Poems. By Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth
+Century," "At Home and Abroad," etc. Edited by her Brother, Arthur B.
+Fuller. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & Chase. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.00.
+
+Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. With Narrative
+Illustrations. By Robert Dale Owen, formerly Member of Congress, and
+American Minister to Naples. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp.
+528. $1.25.
+
+Title-Hunting. By E. L. Llewellyn. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.
+pp. 357. $1.00.
+
+The Rivals. A Tale of the Times of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
+By Hon. Jere. Clemens, Author of "Bernard Lite" and "Mustang Gray."
+Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 286. 75 cts.
+
+Poems. By Sydney Dobell. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. 544. 75
+cts. An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco, in the Summer
+of 1859. By Horace Greeley. New York. Saxton, Barker, & Co. 12mo. pp.
+386. $1.00.
+
+Morphy's Games: a Selection of the Best Games played by the
+Distinguished Champion in Europe and America. With Analytical and
+Critical Notes by J Löwenthal. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp.
+xviii., 473. $1.25.
+
+Compensation: or, Always a Future. By Anne M. H. Brewster. Philadelphia.
+Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 297. 75 cts.
+
+The Eighteen Christian Centuries. By the Rev. James White, Author of a
+"History of France." With a Copious Index. From the Second Edinburgh
+Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 538. $1.25.
+
+An Appeal to the People in Behalf of their Rights as Authorized
+Interpreters of the Bible. By Catherine E. Beecher, Author of "Common
+Sense Applied to Religion," "Domestic Economy," etc. New York. Harper &
+Brothers. 12mo. pp. x., 380. $1.00.
+
+On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The
+Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles
+Darwin, M. A., Fellow of the Royal Geological, Linnæan, etc., Societies;
+Author of "Journal of Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round
+the World." New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.25.
+
+Life in Spain, Past and Present. By Walter Thornbury, Author of "Every
+Man his own Trumpeter," "Art and Nature," etc. With Illustrations. New
+York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 383. $1.00.
+
+Poems. By the Author of "A Life for a Life," "John Halifax, Gentleman,"
+etc. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp.270. 75 cts.
+
+The Female Skeptic: or, Faith Triumphant, New York. R. M. DeWitt. 12mo.
+pp. 449. $1.00.
+
+Report on Weights and Measures, read before the Pharmaceutical
+Association, at their Eighth Annual Session, held in Boston, September
+15, 1859. By Alfred B. Taylor, of Philadelphia, Chairman of the
+Committee of Weights and Measures. Boston. Press of Rand & Avery. 8vo.
+pamphlet, pp. 104. 50 cts.
+
+The Adopted Heir. By Miss Pardoe, Author of "The Confessions of a Pretty
+Woman," "Life of Maria de Medicis." etc. Complete and unabridged.
+Philadelphia. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.25.
+
+A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and
+his Companions, by Captain M'Clintock, R. N., LL.D. With Maps and
+Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 375. $1.50.
+
+The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By Peter
+H. Burnett. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xiv., 741. $2.50.
+
+Sermons on St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. Delivered at Trinity
+Chapel, Brighton. By the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, M.A., the Incumbent.
+Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. xii., 425. $1.00.
+
+Trinitarianism not the Doctrine of the New Testament. Two Lectures,
+delivered, partly in Review of Rev. Dr. Huntington's Discourse on the
+Trinity, in the Hollis Street Church, January 7 and 14,1860. By T. S.
+King. Printed by Request. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 8vo. pamphlet,
+pp. 48. 25 cts.
+
+Lyrics and other Poems. By S. J. Donaldson, Jr. Philadelphia. Lindsay &
+Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 208. 75 cts.
+
+Twenty Years Ago, and Now. By T. S. Arthur. Philadelphia. G. G. Evans.
+12mo. pp. 307. $1.00.
+
+The Water Witch: or, The Skimmer of the Seas. A Tale. By J. Fenimore
+Cooper. Illustrated from Designs by F. 0. C. Darley. New York. Townsend
+& Co. 12mo. pp. 462. $1.50.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number
+29, March, 1860, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. V, NO. 29 ***
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